Ultra Music Festival: Santigold, The Ting TingsFriday, March 27, 2009Bicentennial Park, MiamiBetter Than: The best pop you’ve never heard.Hard to say the best way to tell when I’m most thrilled by a band. Is it when I’m so giddy with excitement that can’t stop shooting the show? Or is it…
Ultra Music Festival: Black Eyed ThievesFriday, March 27, 2009Bicentennial Park, MiamiBetter Than: Having My Wallet StolenCall me a snob, but besides stage-front, my favorite place to hang at Ultra is the VIP/Press Lounge. And this year, was no exception. Put together by my ol’ colleague Michael Sheehan, ex of the…
You know her as lead singer and all-around knockout for “Brechtian punk cabaret act” The Dresden Dolls. But now you’re gonna to get to know her even better. See, she’s got a new record out, her own, a new producer twiddling the nobs, and a nifty tie-in with one of…
Anybody with keen ears, common sense, and good taste buds digs the Dresden Dolls. Why? Because they’re the most exciting thing to sound off since Marlene Dietrich sang for Josef von Sternberg, that’s why. And to think otherwise would be to miss out on music itself. And if you dig…
The first time I caught DJ Sandman, it was a Sunday afternoon outside by the pool at the ever-swinging Shore Club. TAI Entertainment was throwing another one of its long-running blowouts, and the joint was jumping with more models and bottles per square foot than Hefner’s dream house. Even better…
Dutch DJ Joris Voorn has gotta be one of the headiest head-spinners working the decks these days. In fact, his double-disc Balance 014 mix CD seems to spring straight from an ether all its own. So New Times decided to give the celebrated dance man a chance to bring it…
So you wanna be a hotshot DJ with your own hip record label? It’s not as easy as you might think. But it can be done. And if you’re Nick Catchdubs of Fool’s Gold, it can be dynamite! New Times caught up with the ever-explosive head-spinner on the eve of…
Two years ago, during Winter Music Conference, the now-defunct Snatch almost burned to the ground. Oh, there wasn’t a fire. But there was a hell of a lot of heat. And it all sprang from a gang of ragtag head spinners that ride sunder the name Crooklyn Clan. The core…
For three years, the folks at NYC’s Made Event have brought to Miami their all-star amalgam of underground overlords. And for each of those three years, their closing party, Sunday School for Degenerates, has proven the ultimate way to close WMC. In 2009, year four promises to be an even…
In 1906, an American inventor named Lee De Forest was tinkering in his Council Bluffs, Iowa workshop when he accidentally created an electronic amplification device that could detect radio signals. De Forest wasn’t exactly sure what he had come up with; in fact, he had to have others explain to…
Trash” might not be the first title that springs to mind when you consider a great pop song. But believe it or not, it happens to be the title of four of the greatest pop songs in history. Really. The first “Trash” came way back in 1973, on the New…
Five hundred people. That’s how many bodies it takes to get Miami’s massive Ultra Music Festival off the ground and running. Five hundred people. From promoters in nearly every major city in the country, to a production staff that ranks among the world’s finest. Five hundred people. All on the…
Thank goodness the Martinez Brothers in question here are not the same-named Austin taxidermist siblings who come up eventually on a Google search. Really, who wants to concern themselves with the “Deer Season Special”? But just because our brothers hail from the Bronx rather than Texas, and spin for a…
Every Winter Music Conference, every attendee and his brother claims to have been to the best party of the year. Some of them are close to correct; most of them have no clue. Unless, that is, they were at White Room in 2008 for the first Poplife-sponsored Fool’s Gold annual…
Of all the kickass DJs represented by DJ Irie’s Artist Related agency (and there are many ass-kickers on the roster), those who cite both Kings of Leon and Lil Jon on their hit lists have gotta be few and far between. Add The Ting Tings to the genre mixup, and…
Yes, Ultra Music Festival was born of and remains true to the best and the brightest in DJ culture. But the fest’s preeminence goes well above and beyond two turntables and Serato. According to UMF codirector Russell Faibisch, this year’s lineup numbers nearly 260 artists and runs from the Satellite…
Girl Talk and Deerhunter Sunday, March 8, 2009 Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale Better Than: Throwing your own party. To even try to guess which songs Girl Talk was mashing-up at any given time last night would’ve been an exercise in utter futility. I mean, before I figured out one another…
King Khan and the Shrines Saturday, March 7, 2009 The Vagabond, Miami Better Than: Listenin’ to Nuggets while munchin’ on peyote. Until I read Chris Toenes’ preview piece in this very paper, I had no idea that King Khan was a de facto protégé of Raunch Hands’ Mike Mariconda. I…
DJ A-Train’s name alone will tell you where this cat’s coming from. Like the Big Bad Apple’s most fabled locomotive, his sound slips straight outta far-east Brooklyn, roars through the downtown underground, and finds light uptown, at the foot of Harlem’s ever-shaking Sugar Hill. And like the Strayhorn standard that…
If there’s a future for popular music, that future belongs to Gregg Gillis, AKA Girl Talk. Think about it. First off, he’s a stand-alone. The proverbial man (or woman) against the world. A lone wolf with a laptop, braying mightily against the dying of our collective inner light. And as…
DJ Cee Pee, the reining head-spinner at America’s Backyard in Fort Lauderdale, is as likely to limit his spins as the cow is to jump over the moon. See, Cee Pee provides the soundtrack in a place where the cross section of our nation truly gets good and crossed: a…
Forget TV commercials (not that there’s anything wrong with them); for that matter forget TV shows too (ditto; sometimes). I mean, they’re all so 20th century. And you may as well also forget movie soundtracks. Because despite their potential enormity, few truly do go huge, let alone get big enough…
