If you plan on becoming a rock star one day, you need a few things: tattoos, a drug history, and whatever happens, get rid of the clarinet. Northern Cali quartet Papa Roach did all of the above, and the outcome was a multiplatinum career. Roach clips will be plentiful when…
The 60th anniversary of Bob Marley’s birthday February 6 led people around the world to think about the influence the reggae legend has had on world culture. Here in South Florida, that legacy is most visibly represented by the venerable festival held in his name. Now in its twelfth year,…
Hernán Cattáneo’s second mix CD, 2004’s Renaissance: The Masters Series, was a sublime progressive house effort that catapulted the Argentine DJ to international stardom. For the most part, his sequel offers more of the same. The first disc maintains a strong, even keel between the two styles, balancing light yet…
What can you learn about John Legend in fifteen minutes? In a short interview with the R&B star, not much. But there’s a lot to be gleaned from the first fifteen minutes of Legend’s Get Lifted, which is currently lodged in the Billboard Top 10 albums chart. In classic soul…
As of this writing, Nocturnal doesn’t resemble the lushly opulent and high-tech superclub that is scheduled to debut on March 19, two days before this year’s Winter Music Conference begins. Just weeks before the grand opening, construction crews are still working around the clock. On a recent weekday, they were…
Looking for something different? Sample some of the 70 bands appearing at this year’s International Noise Conference. Organized by local iconoclast Rat Bastard, the annual conflagration of extraordinary, entertaining, and just plain annoying experimental acts ranges from the vaguely familiar (Otto von Schirach, Alex Diaz/Xela Zaid) to the provocatively mysterious…
Thanks to consistently head-nodding beats and an inspired performance by Opio, the Oakland rapper’s Triangulation Station is a solid debut. His themes range from protesting gun violence (“Viva Main Vein!!!”) to eschewing drug abuse (“Roxxxana”). Like most indie hip-hop albums, the music sounds too busy and frenetic at times as…
It was probably the only time I’ve ever seen break dancers spontaneously rock out in a big South Beach nightclub. Sometime after midnight on Friday, January 21, you could find Angelo and Sito pulling backflips and headspins as the crowd formed a circle around them, oohing and aahing and clapping…
As far as new-school remixers go, Dutch-born, New York-based producer the Scumfrog is one of the best. His tracks, typified by standout work for David Bowie (“Loving the Alien”), Missy Elliott (“Pass That Dutch”), and Kylie Minogue (“Love At First Sight”), and collected on 2003’s Extended Engagement, are sharp enough…
“I’m mistaken for the next Kool Keith/Because I interbreed indie-rap acts and groom them at the pet boutique,” rhymes Busdriver on “Sphinx’s Coonery.” As far as tangents go, Fear of a Black Tangent is an elliptically ferocious one, riddled with trenchant commentary on the state of black art and intellectualism…
Most rappers couldn’t put on a good show if their lives depended on it. But Garcia, a member of Crazy Hood Productions, knows how to rock the mike without relying on hoary traditions and making the crowd “say ho!” Whether freestyling over instrumentals of radio jams or ripping through “Anti-Social,”…
Sage Francis is from the Sean Daley school of underground hip-hop, full of tempered anger and frontier spirit. Kicking off with “Buzz Kill,” the first track on A Healthy Distrust, Francis exhibits true grit through sarcasm, spitting, “I used to think that rappers had it figured out/Brass Monkey, St. Ides,…
Some have claimed that Big Pooh is Phife to Phonte’s Q-Tip in Little Brother. But that compliment is slightly inaccurate, if Sleepers is any indication. Phife had a knack for punch lines such as “Bust a nut inside your eye,” but Big Pooh is strictly about beats and rhymes, churning…
New Times is currently holding a DJ contest to coincide with the imminent arrival of this year’s Winter Music Conference and the Ultra Music Festival. The winner, to be chosen by yours truly and Jonathan Zwickel, my counterpart at New Times Broward-Palm Beach, gets to spin at Ultra. But fret…
Tony Kelly doesn’t look like the king of the dancehall. A soft-spoken man in his late thirties, he could be anybody enjoying an early-afternoon lunch at Segafredo’s on South Beach’s Lincoln Road, casually watching the tourists and other pedestrians stroll by. Save for the large, expensive Cartier Roadster watch on…
In my most recent column (“Bits and Pieces,” January 20), I wrote about Richard Larralde’s efforts to revive The Alley, a rock club in Little Havana. After closing the place in October, he brought in Jason Lobel and Leo Valencia, and subsequently threw a handful of shows in anticipation of…
Fridays and Saturdays, Soho Lounge Ryan Evans is one of the signature personalities in the downtown/Design District club circuit, a DJ/scenester spreading the rock-dance gospel. Starting out at Revolver, he has spun New Wave hits at Vice, landed a few gigs at Rokbar last year, and has journeyed out to…
For a city weaned on ultrahard and percussive club music, the soft, earthy productions of Andy Caldwell can sound as if they’re from another planet. And they are — San Francisco, to be exact, where deep house never died and locals pride themselves on nurturing a positive and supportive dance…
John Frusciante’s year-long string of six solo albums, an interesting if odd enterprise, ends with Curtains. The music on it is relentlessly depressing, and his lyrics consist of the self-conscious poesy one might find in a high schooler’s chapbook; it’s less self-contained works than processes with which he can unleash…
Ed Harcourt is another sleepy-voiced, tastefully appointed singer-songwriter from Britain. But unlike the more ambitious Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Badly Drawn Boy, Harcourt shuns lugubrious concepts in favor of melodically direct and sonically rich music. On Strangers, Harcourt’s third and best album, he teases with the rangy shoegazer frission that…
Broken verse, glam rock, miscellaneous Brit-pop sounds, and a thin voice that wavers in and out of tune: a recipe for disaster, right? And yet, Michigan’s Cass McCombs somehow combines these elements into PREfection, one of the most unique albums of this fledgling year. Backed by keyboardist Natalie Conn, drummer…
Mondays, The District The Brass King is virtually synonymous with the Miami soul scene. Best known as the resident DJ at the Funk Jazz Lounge, Bekay has defected to Mello Mondays, the hot new spoken-word event at The District. He has also been spreading his collection of exclusive tracks, rare…
