All music is local to somewhere. Here at New Times Music Central, we’ve always believed, and tried to express, that music should be judged by its merits, not its geographic point of origin. The recordings reviewed below are examined using the same criteria we’d use for any other release, be…
One night in September, after a jumping set with his band at Churchill’s Hideaway in Little Haiti, sweat-soaked singer-guitarist Hank Milne could be found on the sidewalk out front, pressing flesh and nodding off compliments. Everyone, it seemed, had something nice to say about the Volunteers’ debut concert. Except one…
You never know. To some the circus is raw-sawdust, peanut-shell memories of great hilarity and pure awe. To others it is an inexcusable example of how animals are tortured and individuals humiliated for the sake of entertainment. That’s the subjective. Objectively, a circus is chaotic, three rings of activity, acrobats…
You people are too damn good to me. I mean, I spend about 30 hours per day seeking out the creamo music and ways to turn you on to it, and what do you do? You call me and thank me, tell me you actually went out and bought the…
Jungle Fever. Spike Lee. Boyz N the Hood. Juice. Ice Cube. New Jack City. Oh, really? “Black” films have been around for decades, and they’ve always been skewed by the life fact that tellin’ it isn’t the same as livin’ it. Shaft and Superfly were just as real as the…
If you read anything (besides “Program Notes”) this year, it should be the new Musicians Guide to Touring & Promotion, especially if you’re a musician. (Duh.) The 132-page package includes label contacts, publishing companies, tape and CD manufacturers, radio, press, and publicity outlets, clubs, and more, such as advice from…
Every time I hear Luther R. “Luke” Campbell’s name, I consider entering law school. If I got good at it, he could make me rich, or at least keep me very busy. Campbell drafts so many attorneys he ought to just buy a law firm. Set up a cot at…
My good friend Zap is on the phone, telling me the monkeys are gonna whistle tonight. Naturally I believe him. I take inventory: A T-shirt, two sweatshirts, a sleeveless exercise jacket with hood, a London Fog with hood. Bandanna, hat, two pairs of socks, sneakers. Plenty of smokes. A Thermos…
I’m not only older than critic Suzan Colon, I’m bigger, and besides, I’m prepared to deal with any allegations of smarminess when I say that ballads rule. Sure, many are wet – sappy sales ploys filled with all the wit and imagination of a Coors can. Many are cloying junk…
They aren’t on MTV yet, at least not that I know of, and maybe they never will be, but the mighty Mavericks played for all America on Friday as guests of the Today show, broadcast from the Rusty Pelican on Key Biscayne. Pretty cool, man, even if it was a…
I don’t actually talk to these people, you know, but the buzz back in November was that Bruce Springsteen’s handlers were extremely bemused by that little Parking Free hoax me and Ben Greenman pulled. (In fact, Greenman, allegedly the target of New Jersey hit men, is currently in hiding somewhere…
If “credibility” isn’t already a buzz word, you can bet it’s becoming one. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with the big C. So I’ve never really worried about it. Lately my nonchalance has presented a couple of interesting test cases. First there was Greg Brown. I had the audacity…
The relatively new and still evolving retail used-CD business is sending a capitalist shiver through the old-style marketeers, sparking debate, not to mention outrage, in the boardrooms of major record labels, distributors, and retailers. A used compact disc often costs less off the shelf than a new one costs wholesale…
In fictionland, the investigator from the medical examiner’s office might be Quincy and the cop, perhaps, Columbo. Then there’s the requisite nosy, bothersome “close friend” of the “victim.” But you can’t make up reality, where the M.E.’s office is up to its gills and the homicide cop is busy looking…
On the night of March 17, 1990, the previous and only time Esta Hill and her band, Lava Love, played Miami, they destroyed me. Ripped my brain out and shot hoops with it. Hill’s stage frantics make that leaping toad Axl Rose look like a paraplegic. Or, as William Blake…
It was one of the most captivating and affecting songs released in 1991. It’s so profound Greil Marcus felt the need to discuss it in his new book Dead Elvis. It could have been the cut to launch the career of a band called the Odds. But “Wendy Under the…
We don’t recommend who you should vote for in elections the way other publications do, but vote for Al Goldstein for Broward sheriff. In his famous magazine, Screw, Goldstein recently ran a fake ad picturing Clarabell the Clown with Nick Navarro’s face pasted over. It’s making fun of Navarro’s comment…
On the Wednesday in April 1988 that Kenneth E. Moore walked into his video store and asked to buy five kilos of cocaine, proprietor Sam Ferguson wasn’t hurting for cash. Ferguson had met the Delray businessman through mutual acquaintances, and for the Liberty City shop owner it was no big…
The big guy was selling futon furniture and the little guy was a customer. They got to talking, the big guy said something about how the little guy looked like he was involved in music. Maybe it was the hair. “I’m a producer,” the little guy finally admitted. Yeah, right,…
It makes perfect sense. Out there you are different, the world is different, there’s no deep-sea mystery of throwing bait in water and waiting for the tug. Fly fishing is straight-up honest, in a creek where the fish know you’re there, know you want to hook them. And so you…
If “The Will” isn’t one of the big hit records of 1992, there is no justice, and even if it is, there’s still no justice, but that’s another story. Right there in the first ten seconds of the new Nuclear Valdez album Dream Another Dream lies the clue, the key,…
Our continuing coverage of censorship in America recently included the anti-music-video rantings of Sen. Robert Byrdbrain, who says MTV and the others are bad, bad. From Lydia Lunch to Rap’s Most Wanted, I’ve seen a few “controversial” videos in my day (as few as possible, but what the hell). I’ve…
