Jesus Alemany Cubanismo! (Hannibal/Rykodisc) Various Artists The Montuno Sessions — Live from Studio “A” (Mr. Bongo) There is little in life that can top the excitement and exhilaration of hearing a group of musicians taking off on an impassioned flight of inspired innovation, soaring atop wandering chord progressions, navigating solos…
Brother J.T. and Vibrolux Music for the Other Head (Siltbreeze) John “J.T.” Terlesky has more extracurricular music projects than anyone this side of George Clinton. In addition to his regular gig as frontman for garage rockers Original Sins, Terlesky has released a slew of savagely bent albums and singles over…
The Grifters Ain’t My Lookout (Sub Pop) For the past six years, the Grifters have made some beautifully fractured and schizophrenic music — loose yet deceptively complex, chaotic and noisy but susceptible to moments of majestic pop splendor. Over the course of three albums, an EP, and a slew of…
Aimee Mann I’m With Stupid (DGC) Aimee Mann has been hauling her dented and dinged heart around for more than a decade now, pulling it out of a box for show-and-tell on three albums by her old band ‘Til Tuesday, and on two solo records, 1993’s remarkable Whatever and now…
As the Derek Cintron Band hits the final note of its deceptively buoyant “Song for Nothing,” most excellent squeals and screams and whoops erupt from the dozen or so votaries, more than half of them young women, sitting at the large table directly in front of the Churchill’s Hideaway stage…
Gaunt Yeah, Me Too (Amphetamine Reptile) If you’re looking to point a finger at the most fertile patch of American punk-rock soil, aim it north to Columbus, Ohio, the home base for an abundance of noise-making underground visionaries, from old-timers such as Mike “Rep” Hummel and Ron House to Monster…
Just the other day, from out of nowhere, quite unbidden, drifted thoughts of the U.S. Army’s Christmastime siege of the Papal Nunciature in Panama City six years ago. You remember: Guys in combat fatigues bombarding the Vatican’s outpost with cranked-to-the-max classic rock songs in an effort to drive out pock-faced…
Kristin Hersh The Holy Single (Ryko) On this four-song EP, Throwing Muses singer/songwriter/guitarist Kristin Hersh goes solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar with little additional instrumentation, much as she did on her fine — and overlooked — 1994 album Hips and Makers. Here she applies her clear, unaffected voice to…
Blood, Sweat & Tears The Best of Blood, Sweat & Tears: What Goes Up! (Legacy/Columbia) First, the history. When New York City-based avant-rockers the Blues Project broke up in 1967, the band’s guitarist, Steve Katz, hooked up with jazz drummer Bobby Colomby, and the pair set about welding jazzy big-band…
And you thought Harry Pussy couldn’t get booked on Miami Beach. Ha! The majordomos of the local noise band scene have agreed to play a gig on Thursday, November 16, at Black Box, the multimedia performance space that opened last weekend in the South Florida Art Center’s Ground Level gallery…
“I guess it would be nice to say it’s a sequel, but it’s not,” Jodi Horovitz says as she emits a big laugh. “Subconsciously, I’m sure, Freedy was spinning around in my head.” Singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston, that is, whose fine 1994 album This Perfect World contains an affecting song about…
Michael Kennedy, a respected member of the local music scene, died of an apparent overdose of the muscle relaxant Soma on October 1. He was 37 years old. As primary songwriter for the critically acclaimed Broward-based band Rooster Head, vocalist-guitarist-keyboardist Kennedy penned many of the often humorous songs that showed…
Local singer-songwriter Diane Ward doesn’t usually leave her guitar amplifier in her car overnight between gigs, but she did so a few weeks ago in a bout of self-described laziness. The lapse may have saved her life. While driving onto the Palmetto Expressway, Ward lost control of her Toyota Tercel…
They came. They recorded an album. They left. Well, while here they also attended a Marlins game, went to the dog races and jai alai, and ate Italian a lot. They = Air Miami, composed of Mark Robinson, Bridget Cross, and Gabriel Stout, the former two refugees from indie-pop uber…
You’re at your neighborhood music megastore in search of the latest release by your new favorite group, Seguridad Social. “How ya spell that?” asks a perplexed clerk in the Latin music department. He then walks off to scan the computer (“How did ya say ya spell that again?”), leaving you…
Almost nine years ago at Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theater, a grand, ancient vaudeville house, British synth-rock quartet Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark — by then generally known as O.M.D. — stood on-stage beaming and looking somewhat bewildered at a house full of enthusiastic fans. At one point, bassist-principal singer Andy…
Tom Smith, major mullah of local noise band To Live and Shave in L.A., which also includes bassist Rat Bastard and oscillator-theremin player Ben Wolcott, calls to engage in a little P.R., shifting into self-promo overdrive at the sound of the beep. To paraphrase Bette Davis in All About Eve,…
A reporter has just informed Buffalo Tom bassist Chris Colbourne that his name appears under the image of the band’s drummer, Tom Maginnis — and vice versa — in Buffalo Tom’s brand-new record company photo. “Ohmygod!” Colbourne exclaims. “I hadn’t heard that before. That’s hilarious. That’s great. Poor Tom! He’ll…
The Goods may want to add another step to their getting-signed strategy. “I’m Not Average,” a perennial audience favorite, is included in a CD and home video release from Playboy entitiled The Girls of Radio: Talk, Rock, and Shock. The package showcases up-and-coming bands from around the natiom, as well…
The technology gremlins have been playing hob with Lycia. During a show in Philadelphia two and half weeks ago, the band’s keyboards, a critical ingredient in its dark, ethereal sound, winked in and out. Then, during the same set, without any apparent provocation, the drum machine, another critical ingredient, shifted…
Up on stage, John Tenaglia looks satisfied. The boxy WSHE owner holds a microphone in one hand, shields his eyes against the glare of the spotlights with the other as he beams out at the crowd of about 200 — station personnel, advertisers, local ad agency reps, and sundry listeners…
Toadies Rubberneck (Interscope) One month ago in Austin, Texas, during the annual South by Southwest Music & Media Conference, Toadies singer-songwriter-guitarist Todd Lewis tested the working order of a peculiar-looking two-microphone setup prior to the band’s 40-minute show at the cavernous Liberty Lunch club. As he did so, moving his…
