For the unsuspecting yuppies who regularly overrun downtown Fort Lauderdale, a Sunday-night trip to Tavern 213 can be a scary proposition. For starters, patrons must battle for a place at the bar with the legion of drunken punks who make a habit of 213’s free shows. Then they need to…
“If anyone can come up with a name…,” struggles Turbonegro bassist/mastermind Happy Tom, attempting — via cell phone from an Oslo taxicab, no less — to hang a handle on the Norwegian death-punk band’s upcoming excursion to the U.S. Bible belt. Perhaps he’s trying to top last summer’s “Res-Erection” festival…
The last half of 2000 was a bittersweet purgatory for “Big” Chad Neptune. The year-in-the-making full-length debut, The Moon Is Down, of his band, Further Seems Forever, was finally completed. To celebrate, the Pompano Beach outfit took a month-long jaunt through the Midwest and Southeast to preview the material. But…
With a setting Sun, a dead King, a reformed Killer, and empty Stax, Memphis has spent the past few decades coasting on the fumes of its musical reputation. After making the world suffer through countless garage bands rehashing the same old, same old, Memphis has come up with Lost Sounds:…
If there’s one thing Miami is full of, it’s sleeping giants. After suffering through three years of rock deprivation, University of Miami Ph.D. candidate in English lit and former Alternative Press editor in chief David Earle could no longer stand idly by and listen to jokers claim that the Strokes…
Ever since Tommy Iommi invented doom rock, drugged-out bands all over the world have done their best to outsludge one another. Outfits like Godflesh, Eyehategod, and Sleep ruled the Nineties doom scene with drop-tuned guitars, shrieked vocals, and plodding tempos, leaving burnouts, metalheads, and ex-punkers drooling happily in their wake…
Heatseekers drummer Chuck Loose pounds away at Churchill’s on this Saturday night. Lurching into the beat, he threatens to bounce over his kit every time he hits the crash cymbal. Loose’s crazed energy washes over his bandmates and into the mishmash of punk kids and jaded scenesters crowding the stage…
Be forewarned, America: Fashionable guys in skinny ties are once again running amuck in the musical landscape. “I wish I had an explanation for it,” shrugs mop-topped Steve Bays. In just three years, the Hot Hot Heat frontman/pianist and his bandmates have transformed from obscure British Columbian synth-punkers to the…
What happens when Santa Claus lands his sleigh in North Miami? A whole lotta elves ditching the North Pole for the Dirty South. Either that or it’s time for Quick Hit Records’ annual hip-hop holiday. Although the Quick Hitters might be better known for rattling windshields with the thug threat…
For such an effective purveyor of paranoia, Your Enemies Friends singer/guitarist Ronnie Washburn is a sunny-side-of-the-street kinda guy. “It’s amazing that we’ve managed to accomplish everything we have on just a six-song EP,” he beams. Sure enough, critics have lauded generous praise upon Your Enemies Friends’ brand of quirky-yet-accessible, muscular-yet-danceable…
This business carbonation/Less pop — more fizz/Coming over the radio station/It’s killing us kids. Enon frontman John Schmersal knows of what he speaks. While the rest of the music world desperately tries to cram into pigeonholes for mass consumption, Enon’s goal is to spray fire over every genre possible. Postpunk,…
Think back to what you missed.” That question, asked on “It’s All the Same” from Quit’s landmark 1990 LP Earlier Thoughts, has haunted the Miami pop-punk trailblazers since the summer of 1993, when Quit singer/guitarist Addison Burns fell off a rooftop and pulverized his wrist — suspending the career of…
Since creating Electric Frankenstein in 1991, bassist/mad scientist Sal Canzonieri has taught his rock and roll monster well. Balls-out, AC/DC-influenced punk rock: good. Wimpy alternative rock: bad. After 11 years, 10 LPs, 10 EPs, and countless singles, Electric Frankenstein has perfected its Misfits-meets-Kiss-meets-Jerry Lee Lewis “New Rock” just in time…
Like Godzilla and Mothra, Bogdan Raczynski was transformed in Tokyo. The Polish-American expat/sonic terrorist had no intention of overturning the world of electronica while a foreign-exchange student in Nagoya, Japan, skipping classes to make music. “It was just a bit of fun,” Raczynski shrugs. “It was kind of a joke…
When the black-clad members of Cadillac Blindside walk onstage and light enough candelabras to stock a horror movie set, it’s clear this is no run-of-the-mill emo-punk band. By the time the band’s frenetic antics and sonic boom blow enough wind to snuff the candles, the skin of the exhausted backpack…
The “Do It Yourself” ethic often espoused by rock-ready kids is too rarely put into practice. When given the choice between putting out their own music or hoping an A&R guy will eventually come around with contracts and cigars, 99 percent choose to wait. After waiting two years to arrive…
It’s a Friday-night hardcore show at Club Q in Davie, and the inevitable pit standoff is in full swing. Some newbie has taken exception to the teenage skinheads’ penchant for Tae-Bo high kicks and is doing his best to start a brawl. “Enough!” yells Trust No One singer Chris Coach…
From 1985 through 1989, guitarist/shouter Jesse Alvare and his band FWA! ruled the roost of the Miami punk-rock scene, playing every legal (and some not-so-legal) venue at the time — including four legendary shows at the Cameo Theatre. In 1987 FWA! released a self-titled LP of raging hardcore salvos with…
Everything is overlabeled now,” Against All Authority guitarist Joe Koontz asserts during some rare downtime at a chiropractor’s office where he works as a masseur. “In the Eighties bands like the Circle Jerks and Bad Brains would play together — bands with totally different sounds — and no one would…
We do this because we love it,” the Crumbs guitarist Johnny B declares over a pint of Guinness in singer-guitarist Raf Classic’s Spartan South Miami apartment. “There sure isn’t any money in it.” In this statement are enough grains of truth to brew a keg of stout. After eight years…
The needle on my record player is wearing thin./This record has been playing since the day you’ve been with him.” If you’re in the lucrative 12-to-24-year-old pop-music target market, you’ve heard this refrain from New Found Glory’s “Hit or Miss.” Rock radio is playing it ad nauseam. It’s being put…
Like a bad habit, long-time local promoter Tom Bowker is back on the scene with a show featuring his favorite virus, Antiseen. In true South Florida do-it-yourself fashion, Bowker is flying his own personal “punk-rock gods” down from the Carolinas as a 30th birthday present to himself. It is bad…
