In the inaugural issue of No Depression — a fanzine out of Seattle that has somehow grown to embody the genre of “insurgent country” — the editors wrote: “We claim Gram Parsons as our unholy ghost, minister of the shotgun wedding of country and rock ‘n’ roll long before the…
Take four people from widely varying ethnic and personal backgrounds, put them in a potentially intense situation, then wait for the sparks to fly. It may sound like the formula for some “real life” MTV show or the premise of the next “Must-See TV” program, but it’s actually the secret…
Pete Ham 7 Park Avenue (Rykodisc) The mere fact that Badfinger was originally signed to the Beatles’ Apple label unfairly stigmatized the British popsters as a surrogate Fab Four. But unlike their labelmates, Badfinger’s story did not include highlights like soldout shows at Shea Stadium. That story, chronicled in Dan…
Oh, sure, nowadays everyone likes Black Sabbath. You know, there used to be rules for this sort of thing. Black Sabbath at one time was viewed as a joke by most folks. The only people who liked them were kids so completely stoned all the time they were mesmerized for…
For someone who considers himself an expressionist, Khadir frontman Lino de la Guardia has had a hard time expressing himself — or rather, he’s found it difficult to get the sounds in his head captured on tape. His frustration is evident when the 32-year-old Miami native talks about all the…
Guy Clark Keepers: A Live Recording (Sugar Hill) Keepers is exactly right. The title of Guy Clark’s latest disc suggests that what we have is a collection of a legendary songwriter’s best songs, recorded live. And we do. But what makes this one of the year’s best albums is that…
The party brigade takes charge with yet another benefit as The Undercover Ball rolls into Salvation (1771 West Ave., Miami Beach, 538-4137) tonight (Thursday) for some serious dancing and drinking. It’s all for a good cause, though, as the proceeds go to help the Health Crisis Network. A champagne reception…
Jay Farrar writes songs from the tangled backwoods of the soul, in a dimly lit recess where what little light shines only illuminates the despair that dogs him. In the seven years since he introduced the first of those songs as one-third of the seminal neo-country band Uncle Tupelo, Farrar,…
It’s good to be known as the queen of something — especially something widely and wildly influential — even if that something is long gone. Donna Summer doesn’t mind being called the Queen of Disco, but she wants to be known for more than her classic dance-floor anthems of the…
It’s not easy selling Miami on avant-garde music. Sometimes you even have to give the stuff away. Gustavo Matamoros knows this. The artistic director of the South Florida Composers Alliance’s annual Subtropics 9 New Music Festival — and a respected avant-garde composer in his own right — has over the…
Buick MacKane The Pawn Shop Years (Rykodisc) The best way to distinguish the solo work of Austin singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo from his side-band excursions with Buick MacKane is to cue up the first cut on The Pawn Shop Years, the MacKane unit’s debut album. Anyone who’s been swimming through Escovedo’s…
Beginning Sunday, May 18, South Beach music venue Stella Blue (1661 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach, 532-4788) adds a Latin rock night to its already varied agenda. The cozy club gets down and dirty as party bands Khadir and El Duende bring on the rhythm. Next Sunday (May 25) Peruvian rock…
The most interesting thing about ZZ Top is that on the surface there doesn’t seem to be anything at all interesting about them. They’ve sold millions of records, lasted into their third decade, and continue to draw loyal herds no matter how their new album performs in the marketplace. Don’t…
Zen (1203 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 673-2817) expands its party parade with two new/newish one-nighters. Tomorrow night (Friday) party promoters Jeff Hubert and Carlos Gonzalez catch the crowds with Pump, a deep-house dance party where DJ Eddie X is king of his own turntable throne. A large dance floor will…
NuYorican Soul NuYorican Soul (Giant Step/Blue Thumb) Never underestimate Puerto Rico. True, the island’s treasured salsa has been eclipsed by Dominican merengue and other rhythms. But the sonic highway that brought so much great music from Puerto Rico to New York in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies has been well…
The music of southern Louisiana has been described in many ways, but “progressive” isn’t a word you often see thrown in the direction of the myriad zydeco and Cajun bands that set the region’s culture and mores to music that ranges from reeling to rocking, from swaying to smoldering. Of…
Robert Price is not a happy man. At least not now. It’s the day before his band Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa is set to embark on a monthlong club tour that will take them through the South, across Texas, and up and down the West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle…
If you will, indulge me in these two recollections: (1) Sometime in the hot summer of 1993, three friends and I were sucking down beers at the local punk club in Memphis, Tennessee, a scummy little stinkpit called the Antenna. Between band sets an acquaintance of ours — a hustler…
As grunge teeters on the brink of extinction, with Soundgarden hanging up its flannel, Nirvana but a lingering memory, and Pearl Jam a hermitish ensemble that will most likely call it quits, Australia’s teenage power trio Silverchair is hoping to fight the odds and carry its head-pounding rock into the…
Those of you who love to complain about Miami the cultural wasteland now have no excuse for missing the scene at Backstage (12202 NW Seventh Ave., North Miami, 688-1898), an artist-friendly place hosting live performances Wednesday through Sunday. Tonight (Thursday) Jomo, South Florida’s master of the African thumb piano (the…
The Notorious B.I.G. Life After Death (Bad Boy) Though the Notorious B.I.G.’s debut offered a portrait of rich potential snuffed by despair, Life After Death fights such despair hard, from beginning to end. This epic of an album begins with a horrific death scene (a father repeatedly plugged in the…
Jim Lauderdale calls them “recording-artist horror stories,” and he can reel off a litany of them based on his own experiences as a singer/songwriter who’s steeped in raw honky-tonk as well as blues, rock, soul, bluegrass, and R&B. “The longer I’m in the business, the more I realize there are…
