In the mid ’90s, noise band and performance art collective Forcefield were spawned from the damaged sounds of a Providence, Rhode Island scene revolving around Load Records and the collective’s base of operations, the prolific Fort Thunder. The group donned psychedelically fetishistic full-body knit suits, pumping out videos and performances…
Try, if you can, to imagine a grosser Burning Man. Not that the annual, drug-fueled New Age neverland orgy isn’t gross. It is. But in addition to the week-long, middle-of-nowhere mass discharge of bodily fluids onto crystals, Burning Man also has mind-boggling works of art and provides a unique, thoroughly…
Is anything truly weird anymore? In 2011, headlines read like a Best of The Onion calendar and everyone is fucking through their cell phone. So what’s got the power to grab you by the nose hairs, wipe your brain, and make your eyes turn into bloodshot question marks? When Crossfade contacted…
You gotta hand it to the internet … It is a consistently — no, dependably — weird place. The internet is society’s Id. It’s the only place where the minutia of our droll everydays — what we ate, where we’re going, what we’re thinking — are filed right next to secret…
There’s only six months until the next round of apocalyptic hysteria, when the clock will strike midnight on January 1, 2012, and everyone will piss their pantaloons in transcendental excitement. Nothing will happen, another 11 months and 21 days will pass, and then it’ll be time for the serious 2012…
Eminem’s new video for “Space Bound” has been generating quite a bit of internet chatter. While the video’s intense finale (which depicts the rapper committing suicide) has garnered a little attention, most of the buzz has revolved around the video’s leading lady, porn star Sasha Grey. MTV reported mixed reactions…
Animal Tropical and Ice CreamWith Slashpine, People, Shiboleth, and New Theory Villa 221Thursday, June 30 Villa 221 is a rambling Old Florida estate converted into a labyrinthine nightlife compound capable of functioning as: (1) a club via thumping music and dance floors; (2) a bar with multiple depots on both floors…
Yesterday afternoon, we reported on the looming protests over the announcement that swag-style rap group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All would be performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival. The controversy greatly recalls the Eminem Dialogue of the early 2000s in which the platinum certified rapper came under fire…
We are less than a week away from the inaugural Crossfade-sponsored The Local at the Stage concert series, and New Times HQ is buzzing with preparation. To prepare, we figured it would be a good idea to give you, faithful Crossfade readers and The Local attendees, a preview of the…
Jose Castello, the brainy, loquacious vocalist, keyboardist, and chief songwriter of Miami-based indie fusion act Animal Tropical, knows the ins and outs of prolific obscurity. “This is our tenth release — that nobody will hear — in nine years,” he quips, referring to his band’s new Just Between Us Girls…
The swag-hop absurdists of rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them are once again being called out for what critics decry as misogyny and homophobia in their lyrics. A few months ago, Sara, from Tegan and Sara, wrote a blog attacking Tyler The Creator, as well as his music…
Early this morning, gossip website TMZ published a scandal involving South Florida-based rapper Rick Ross that is certain to rock the respective foundations of Miami, hip-hop, and the infinitely reverberating reblogging axis. The story was published in the early a.m., a clear strategic attempt to maximize coverage by inspiring a…
The BET Awards were held this past Sunday and some really confusing, awkward shit went down in the middle of granting the Viewer’s Choice Award. Some fans were invited onstage to announce this year’s winner, which at first was Chris Brown. But only a few seconds after Brown received the…
Last week, the New York Post reported that Lady Gaga’s been hanging out with Slovenian Marxist critic Slavoj Zizek. Even though the pairing — an American pop megastar and a commie philosopher — seemed a little strange at first, it made sense the more we thought about it. Gaga tries…
There’s been a lot of excitement around New Times HQ in the lead up to the first edition of Crossfade presents The Local at The Stage scheduled for this Thursday, June 30 at 9 p.m.. We’ve spent countless hours picking the perfect party dress. We’ve blown our rent on “party favors.”…
We are less than a week away from the inaugural Crossfade-sponsored The Local at The Stage concert series, and New Times HQ is buzzing with preparation. To prepare, we figured it would be a good idea to give you, faithful Crossfade readers and The Local attendees, a preview of the…
Crossfade was doing some casual afternoon lurking when the Events section of the Nightdrive blog slapped us in the face with some pretty cool news. According to the Miami promoters-slash-bloggers, math-rock mutant-pop ensemble Battles will be making its return to South Florida. The listing offers little information aside that the…
At approximately 1 p.m. last Tuesday, Crossfade was stuck in traffic and listening to WVUM to pass the time. When we poked the 90.5 preset on our dashboard, the station’s call numbers appeared, confirming that we had in fact selected the intended station. But the sounds coming out of our…
We don’t have enough room to print a full history lesson. But since the early 2000s, singer-pianist Jose Castello and a crew of musicians buddies — including guitarists Kris Pabon and Max Johnston, drummer Jorge Rubiera, bassist Jarret Hahn, and vocalist Edward Adames — have been swarming around the Miami…
No one in music today can express complicated ideas through simple means with as much raw eloquence as Bill Orcutt. The Miami expatriate (Orcutt has resided in the Bay Area for years now) and former guitarist for cult South Florida noise rock trio Harry Pussy has been on a tear…
Ice Cream falls somewhere between punk and psychedelia, DWNTWN and the suburbs, children’s lullabies and real rock. This young quartet plays curious, kooky music that pairs moaning, Jim Morrison-like incantations with eerie-but-poppy compositions. The band has been a fixture of the local, undergrad-aged indie rock scene for three years, and…
Comedian Daniel Reskin is celebrating his 26th birthday with a ukulele-wielding lesbian singing a little ditty about joining the Christian right to piss off her ex-girlfriend. This display does not disrupt his celebration. In fact, it’s very much a part of it. Reskin is in the midst of hosting the…
