Against All Authority Against All Authority has just returned from a two-month tour across the States on which it shared the bill with the Code and the Suicide Machines. On Friday the decade-old, ska-tinged sociopolitical activists will take to the stage in Kendall, in order to bring the road’s energy…
Several years ago, U2 singer Bono told Rolling Stone magazine about a visit he and bassist Adam Clayton once made to the home of fellow devout Christians Johnny and June Carter Cash. As they sat down to eat dinner, Bono recalled, “John spoke this beautiful, poetic grace, and we were…
The New Year makes the kind of indie-rock that was supposed to go out of style once indietronica and electroclash took over — that is, depressive, ironic, poetic, introverted, and overtly influenced by the Velvet Underground. Clocking in at nine songs and 33 minutes, The End Is Near weaves its…
Sneaking onto the scene with their instruments like the children in The School of Rock with a dreamy mix of class and expansive romance, the French Kicks are not of this cynical rock world. But while their 2002 debut, the gorgeous, semioverlooked One Time Bells, gushed freely with cherished tears…
Roni Size and Goldie may have the celebrity market cornered, but it is Dieselboy who has the hardcore following. On his eighth mixed CD, The Dungeonmaster’s Guide, the jungle master pursues a fantasy theme with an adventure narrated by Peter Cullen, the voice behind Venger from the animated series Dungeons…
Arrive at the party after midnight, and the dancers look dull and bored. Same old music. Slip hostess The Venezuelan Zinga Son, Vol. 1. Suddenly everyone is as beautiful as the girl from Ipanema, as ba-a-ad as Superfly, and as fab as a shirtless boy shimmying at Paradise Garage. Primal…
As many as 200,000 visitors, mostly black hip-hop fans, flock to Miami Beach each year during Memorial Day weekend. And even though the overwhelming majority of them are responsible tourists who inject tens of millions of their hard-earned dollars into South Beach’s economy, they still get a bad rap. That’s…
Urban Beach Week … is the ultimate Beach Party … You arrive on Thursday … You check into your hotel … and you begin to see people already mingling … The road blocks, police, and traffic signs are all over the place letting you know that … this is gonna…
Remember the Eighties? If you lived in South Florida during that magical decade, you swam through a sea of spring breakers in your new Celica. You might have been an extra in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, you lucky dog. It was filmed in various locations along…
It took only four months for a five-person group led by business owners Gil Terem and Poplife’s Aramis Lorie to transform Piccadilly Garden into the District Restaurant and Lounge. Since Piccadilly Hearth was renamed and reopened by then-new owner Mary Klein in 1994, the restaurant had earned a reputation among…
18 Wheelers If the notion of a revved-up rockabilly band specializing in pure Southern honky-tonk seems somewhat out of sync with South Florida’s tropical leanings, then perhaps we ought to remind you that this isn’t the first country combo molded in Miami. The Mavericks were regulars on the local circuit,…
The early word on RJD2’s Since We Last Spoke is that it’s something of a disappointment, especially coming on the heels of the robust, near-heroic Dead Ringer. True, it is willfully introspective and less frenetic than that auspicious debut; there are no headline-grabbing raps by his old crew, MHz, or…
No British rapper has a bigger hurdle to overcome than the Streets’ Mike Skinner. His second full-length, A Grand Don’t Come for Free, comes two years after the critical and fan favorite Original Pirate Material, an album the “British Eminem” used to turn the world on its collective ear, with…
With Infame (Infamous), Babasonicos — the proud holder of six 2004 Gardel Awards, the Argentine equivalent of the Grammy — establishes itself as one of the top performers in that country and takes the crown as Argentina’s most innovative export. It is funny, though, that the altrock sextet, obsessed with…
Electroclash was just a fifteen-minute cocaine high on the pop timeline, so Miss Kittin is deservedly cranky on her solo debut-cum-comedown, I Com. She kicks off a liturgy of her sub-A-list duties (adding people to the guest lists, kissing cheeks) on the opening track, “Professional Distortion,” before reminding us that…
You used to find bastions of bohemia on South Beach; cozy, East Village-style hangouts where original art adorned earth-toned walls and a wobbly stage held a platter of local musicians. At the time, studios and the starving artists who lived in them were located up and down Lincoln Road. That…
On the tenth floor of an anonymous building that stands among high-ranked law firms and accounting offices in the financial mecca known as the Brickell district, there lies a small room that looks like a college dorm unit, decorated with random pictures of graffiti on the wall and a boom…
No birthday could be bitterer than the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence last January 1. Soon after then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide flew the nation’s flag to mark the occasion, thousands of demonstrators marched in front of the National Palace demanding his removal. Security forces responded with gunfire. It wasn’t the place for…
The past few months have delivered a dramatic sequence of events in the life of Beenie Man, whose 24-year career has experienced vertiginous peaks and abysmal valleys. Following the tepid response from dancehall fans to his 2002 “crossover” collaboration with Janet Jackson and the Neptunes, “Feel It Boy” (which nevertheless…
Oly In the past year, electronic waif Oly has been quietly passing out her demo CD-Rs to a handful of lucky clubgoers. On them she plays charming music, accompanying her vocals with keyboards, adopting the sort of whimsical singer-songwriter persona familiar to fans of Solex and Money Mark. This is…
While Eightball and MJG are Living Legends to Southern rap fans, they’ve yet to receive their due recognition from mainstream listeners. With their seventh full-length release, they’ve teamed up with the shiny suit man himself, P. Diddy, as the first artist on Bad Boy South, presumably in an attempt to…
Lil’ Flip is a new champion of Southern hip-hop. The Houston native’s style is as laconic as Too $hort and as unapologetically hook-heavy as MC Hammer. This isn’t an innovation — Memphis’s Three 6 Mafia has been perfecting this blueprint for years. Like that notorious group, Flip, first introduced to…
