In just a little more than a year since its inception, See Venus has generated more buzz than most local bands do in their entire careers — and thanks to the Internet, the group has done it without performing a single live show. Thirty-year-old founder and guitarist Christopher Moll has…
The three musicians that compose the jazz-rock hybrid Swivel Stick face each other in a dark corner of South Miami’s Space Cadette Studios. Behind them a wall lined with compact discs pasted onto multicolored squares reflects the faint light from an overhead lamp. Christopher Cline hunches over his simple drum…
Ed Matus has been performing as part of Miami’s music scene long enough to have seen plenty of live-music venues rise and fall. Mostly fall. The 25-year-old guitarist started playing out with his ornate hardcore band, Subliminal Criminal, in 1991. The trio found a home at spots such as Washington…
After almost two years in hiding, Eric Knight, ex-leader of Vandal, has returned with a solo CD and a new backup band. Fans of Vandal’s pop-tinged hard-rock sound should enjoy Near Life Experience. Knight himself is simply happy to have released the disc. Not long ago he figured his days…
Wendy & Lisa Girl Bros. (Girl Bros. Inc.) Seekers of a poignant, modern-day music saga need look no further than Wendy & Lisa. As members of Prince’s Purple Rain-era band, multi-instrumentalists Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman broke from their Napoleonic mentor in the mid-Eighties and recorded three auspicious albums, including…
Al Galvez, the singer/guitarist/songwriter of A Kite Is a Victim, sits at a candlelit table in a bar on Coconut Grove’s Miami Marina just as night has fallen. A breeze stirs up the waves and rocks the boats docked in the distance. Across a patch of grass and under a…
Lyle Lovett Step Inside This House (Curb) Texas singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett has indulged himself in musical styles as diverse as gospel-soul and brass-driven pop, but he leaves no doubt where his heart lies on Step Inside This House. The 21-song, two-CD set is rich with the rugged, lyrical storytelling that…
Marshall Crenshaw The 9 Volt Years: Battery Powered Home Demos & Curios 1970-198?) (Razor & Tie) Marshall Crenshaw is one of rock and roll’s unsung heroes; he first beautified the airwaves in 1982 with his modest hit “Someday Someway.” Amid the postpunk new-wave pop of Joe Jackson and Split Enz,…
Bauhaus Crackle (Beggars Banquet) Bauhaus’s revered position in the world of gothic music has an auspicious origin. Their debut single from 1979 was a nine-minute, tongue-in-cheek horror-fest homage to Bela Lugosi, the actor best known for his 1931 portrayal of Count Dracula. Although lead vocalist Peter Murphy has admitted his…
Looking for a new Luke Skywalker with Blast Shield Helmet Star Wars action figure? Maybe that rare 1955 Roberto Clemente rookie card? How about a 1953 placard advertising Coca-Cola? Then poke around the event that bills itself as South Florida’s Largest Collectibles Show. An alternative to the tiny hotel conference…
Jeff Buckley Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (Columbia) Late singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley was a rarity in this cynical age, an artist who wasn’t too cool to be himself. He had a yearning, confessional style and an uncommon amount of humility and passion. The quavering vocals, bold musical colors, and…
The Specials Guilty ‘Til Proved Innocent! (MCA) Go figure: After returning to the revivalist ska scene in 1996 with the listless Today’s Specials, the reunited Specials — the Coventry outfit that started the whole ska-punk thing back in 1979 — have rebounded with an album that recaptures much of the…
The Mavericks Trampoline (MCA) Trampoline, the fourth record by the Mavericks, wasn’t recorded in Miami. It doesn’t have any songs about Miami. And yet it has Miami in its blood. Once upon a time the Mavs were Miami’s brightest, newest musicians, a country-rock foursome whose powerful live shows packed in…
Marthin Chan, rhythm guitarist for Miami’s Volumen Cero, sits in the driver’s seat of his Dodge Caravan, parked in front of the Kendall townhouse where vocalist-bassist Luis Tamblay lives. With his left knee drawn up to his chest, Chan contemplates how his band — himself, Tamblay, lead guitarist Christian Escuti,…
The Box is a cramped art gallery located in a jumble of warehouses off the Palmetto Expressway in South Miami. Jorge Elbrecht and Justin Gracer, the progressive pop duo known as J.E. & Justin G., are waiting here, as patiently as they can, for a bigger crowd. Their scheduled 9:00…
The five members of Al’s Not Well are no strangers to misfortune. The Hialeah-bred glitter-punk outfit has suffered the death of a beloved band member and numerous soured record deals. This past spring its luck seemed to have changed. Having spent two years building a local following, the band released…
Down a row of dark warehouses off Biscayne Boulevard, a solitary pair of green floodlights illuminates the entrance to Alex Diaz’s North Miami Beach apartment. Inside, Diaz, the founder of ethereal folk rockers Ho Chi Minh, has perched himself atop a monitor at the center of the cavernous warehouse space…
“Ninety-nine percent of the songs are born here,” says 24-year-old Jeff Rollason, mastermind of the whimsical pop collective known as the Curious Hair. He lifts and drops his arms to indicate the organized chaos that pervades his bedroom in his parents’ sprawling Mediterranean-style home on a quiet street off Old…
Just as a child has no intention of creating high art when dabbling with finger paints, South Miami’s avant-punk quintet Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa has little intention of creating proper music when playing their instruments. And even though the band members are all well into their twenties, they have no desire…
