Forward motion drives Chocolate Industries. “Because people were so attached to the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, no one got to do anything new,” complains Seven, the owner-operator of the Chicago-based label, as he looks back on the past decade. “When bands like Oasis come out, the first thing people say…
What’s it like to listen to a piano solo by musician John Hicks? “Taking a five-minute compressed course in piano history,” once said a writer for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. While one is more likely to hear something closer to Duke Ellington than to Chopin when he plays, the depiction…
The San Francisco-based quintet Vue, a band in touch with the purest of rock and roll’s primordial ooze, is regularly hit with observations regarding its similarities to other seminal stalwarts. Guitarist Jonah Buffa puts up with the volleys of comparisons but defies anyone who would try to pigeonhole Vue as…
The French Kicks are from New York City, have scruffy-but-chic looks, and play a neo-art-rockish sort of pop. This means that when the band’s first full-length recording comes out in May we should all prepare for comparisons with the Strokes, as well as lengthy editorials on the “New New York…
Madam, my name is unimportant, and this is my wife, whose name is unimportant, and our two lovely children, whose names are unimportant. Robert Ashley does not exist. He is a character William S. Burroughs invented in Tangier in 1955, the throb of a raw nerve in the fever dream…
Nelly Furtado doesn’t speak in words, phrases, or sentences. She speaks in salvos, cluster bombs. How does this fit in with her self-professed fear of coming across as shallow? Not that you could ever accuse of shallowness a Grammy-Award-winning singer/songwriter who effortlessly fuses hip-hop, world music, rock, and dance. But…
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…
Miami may be a noisy place, but it’s not noisy enough for some. So our own beloved Rat Bastard is importing noise acts from abroad. The Flying Luttenbachers come in from Chicago on little cat feet, or more likely in a big dilapidated van, to dump a big heap of…
If the folkie soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ romp O Brother, Where Art Thou? has given you a hankering for American roots music, Rounder Records’ Roots Music four-disc set might seem like the logical box to buy. But hold your horses. Don’t confuse this mislabeled anthology with the just-released American…
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a love-hate relationship as intense as the one I’ve been enjoying-despising with Fermin Muguruza’s Brigadistak Sound System. How could I not love an album with Euskera-language lead vocals, Cuban horns, a reggae dub aesthetic, and a Toots and the Maytals cover? How…
Peter Rauhofer is navigating traffic in New York City. His cell phone call is cut through by car horns and incomprehensible static, which only makes his thick Austrian accent that much more difficult to decipher. But for the 2000 Grammy winner (remixer of the year, non-classical), it’s what he does…
Friday, March 8 • Peter Rauhofer takes to the decks for Tropical Fever at Level, 1235 Washington Ave. Doors open at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $60 in advance; $70 at the door. Call 305-532-1525. Saturday, March 9 • Fire Island favorite Susan Morabito wakes up the early morning with Revelation…
“Hi … ,” says the gritty voice on the other end of the line. Before I answer, I say to myself, I’m a liberated woman, a feminist, a big girl. I can do this. “Hi, Bitch,” I say, trying to sound cheery and nonchalant. Bitch is half of the New…
Not everybody can say that they once had their pizza delivered by an acclaimed saxophonist. But then again the folks who populate the exclusive confines of California’s Beverly Hills aren’t your average customers. “I don’t know the most famous person I delivered to,” says smooth jazzer Boney James, who doubled…
After slowing down to croon a few tunes with producer Kike Santander, Gisselle is back to merengue and has thrown a little bachata, ballad, and even ranchera in the mix. But this former choreographer — who first grabbed the mike when one of the singers in the Puerto Rican girl…
There is no conflict between tradition and modernity for Danzón by Six. With remarkable skill this new Miami ensemble has shown it can approach musical forms and concepts established long ago with an effective blend of respect and modern vigor. That, in fact, is the great promise that Danzón by…
“Play that piano!” is the sentiment provoked by listening to Cuban musician Tony Perez perform dance compositions by the Boricua Eddie Palmieri, the super-Cuban Arsenio Rodriguez, and well-known founding member of the Fania All-Stars, Willie Colon. In his second release as a soloist, Full Force Jazz, recorded in Mexico in…
Edgar V. seems taken aback. Amid the quiet hum of the AC unit at the offices of Billboardlive, he’s obviously surprised by the question of whether he’s chosen not to pursue a more visible career as a global-circuit DJ. “I want to,” he says emphatically. “The opportunities just haven’t been…
Like a good neighbor, the slogan goes, State Farm is there. And so is Isis, the manager of a team of claims reps here in the insurance company’s South Florida offices. But after hours, the Cuban-American chanteuse offers a different kind of consolation — the kind that fills a smoky…
In its ideal form, reggae is life-affirming, self-aware, and socially conscious. Yet all too often, the genre finds itself in a state of slack. Who better to tighten it up than the all-purpose Screwdriver? Dalton Lindo accepts growth and change but won’t allow anything to overshadow the religious fervor at…
Tabloid gossip, not music, ruled her life: She impulsively married a gringo (and months later divorced him) in Miami. Her ex-husband’s conviction for drug dealing further damaged the reputation of a star who had had her own drug problems (she swore off them in 1997). An attempt to kidnap her…
Marcelo “Bambam” Coelho was asking for a favor, but he never expected such a big return. When the saxophonist asked Ney Rosauro, director of the percussion department at the University of Miami, if he knew of any good drummers looking to play Brazilian music, the UM graduate never dreamed he’d…
