In a full-spectrum festival that screens films as short as three minutes, documentaries from first-time directors, and experimental videos from San Francisco-based artist Tony Labat, you would naturally expect to find a full-length feature of the highest order. Which is exactly what you get in director Orlando Rojas’s thoroughly entertaining…
Quick, name one of the longest-running bands in the known universe of Jamaican music. A band that started out when calypso still dominated the island; was there when the bright beat of a guitar first cried “ska”; helped slow ska down to rock steady, and then reggae; and today pumps…
Modern-day Miami Beach, where condo canyons stretch skyward, slick shops expand along Lincoln Road Mall (emphasis on “mall”), and overstuffed SUVs jockey for position on overcrowded causeways. Not an ideal milieu for going small and artsy. But bucking the trend for the ever bigger and, uh, bigger, is the newly…
If you’re going to a new school this year, like me, you want to make a good impression. Even if you’re not new, you still need to make a good impression after not seeing your friends all summer. You don’t want people to think that you don’t care about your…
The three members of Proyecto Uno — Nelson Zapata, Juan Salgado, and José “Spagga” Medina — are calling Miami from their home in New York as the sounds of the city streets play in the background. It’s a fitting soundtrack to the conversation since the Big Apple has always had…
Saturday August 23 With 51 of the most beautiful black women coming to town to compete in the Miss Black USA Pageant, we thought we would ask a typical black man for some thoughts about the competition. New Times caught Liberty City’s own Comedian Slo-Motion on his dinner break during…
Saturday August 23 Gearheads, unite! If it’s destruction you like, especially between two cleverly built machines, er, robots, then you surely know all about Battlebots. That’s when one team of geeks, dressed in matching Trekkie-ish shirts, pits its motorized metal creation against the robot of another team of geeks in…
Thursday August 21 Ever witness one of those “only in Miami” kind of scenes and think: “Someone should write a book about this place”? Like the other night, when the angry homeless man chased the glamorous supermodel down a South Beach street, and she was saved by a machete-wielding Haitian…
Richard Blair put his trust in the beats and the rewards are self-evident in Sidestepper, his collaboration with Colombian musician/producer Iván Benavides, and their recent album 3 a.m. (In Beats We Trust). But these aren’t just formulaic, bass line-driven downbeats thumping along at 130 beats per minute, club style. They…
It’s another Wednesday night at Tobacco Road in downtown Miami, and another lineup of local acts is waiting to perform at Danny Jessup’s curiously named International Musico showcase. Jessup explains that tonight’s theme will feature performers who have something vaguely international about them … or not. Which is why singer/songwriter…
Tie-dye nation, hear thy call: The Dead are coming to town. And while they’re no longer “Grateful,” they are still alive and performing after all those long, strange trips. Sharing the bill (and for a set, the stage, too) with the group for the first time since 1987 is old…
With a tone as clear and strong as a Dexter Gordon saxophone solo — bell-like and vibrant — a virtuoso vocal range, and formidable control of pitch and timbre, Kurt Elling has managed in his short eight-year career to revive the moribund state of male jazz singing while pushing the…
By now most of us are familiar with DJ Le Spam and the Spam Allstars, one of Miami’s hardest-working and most celebrated music ensembles. Headed by Andrew Yeomanson, the cast includes percussionist Tomas Diaz, alto saxophonist A.J. Hill, guitarist Adam Zimmon, and trombonist John Speck. And now, we have the…
Singer/songwriter Frankie J was one of the more rico members of the very suave A.B. Quintanilla y Los Kumbia Kings, a group put together by Quintanilla in 1999 as a sort of Latin Backstreet Boys (all eight members were between ages sixteen and twenty-four). If you don’t recognize the name…
When Sammy Figueroa smiles, it’s one of those mile-wide smiles that starts at the bottom of his feet and spreads to his entire face, then fills up the room. It’s a grin that Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria used to flash and Francisco Aguabella still does. There’s something about congueros…
There will be a lot at stake when D-Zine takes the stage at the fifth annual Compas Festival. For starters, it will be a test for new lead singer Edresse “Pipo” Stanis, who will be playing in front of his biggest crowd since joining the band last November. There is…
With its cool pan-global sounds, tailored suits, Washington, D.C. home base, and shadowy moniker, the Thievery Corporation is the James Bond of the turntable set. Its image calls forth double agents and secret Interpol plots. Never mind that Rob Garza, one-half of the electronic duo along with partner Eric Hilton,…
March is a busy month for music fans in South Florida. There’s the Calliope Fest at the end of the month, and the brand-new Langerado Music Festival at the beginning. And of course there’s that little gathering of DJs called the Winter Music Conference in the middle. Then there’s the…
Okay, so your depraved decadent lifestyle just hit a low point last night on New Year’s Eve, and now you’re nursing a mean hangover and you’re sure your soul is beyond salvation. Take heart and set the New Year straight with some soul-cleansing chants from the monks of Drepung Loseling…
Showtime at Mango’s on Ocean Drive. A few moments before six on a Thursday evening, the reggae band once known as Innasense is milling about the postage-stamp stage — checking gear, tweaking instruments, scanning the small happy-hour crowd for babes. 4:20 singer/keyboardist Jimi Dred sits on the side of the…
“Hi! This is Amtrak. I’m Julie! I invite you –” “Agent!” I yell into the phone. “–to visit our Website www.amtrak.com for –” “AGENT!!!” I strain a jaw muscle; she ignores me. “–online reservations and service information. Okay, to –” “AGENT!!!!” I see stars. It’s because of Julie, the perky…
Ah, to be young and over it already. It’s an old story: Talented local musician makes a serious stab at success in the biz, only to play his heart out in a mostly indifferent South Florida music scene. He records, he tours, he practices his balls off. He does all…
