Various Artists Sweet Relief II — Gravity of the Situation: Songs of Vic Chesnutt (Columbia) The second of what is sure to be a series, this star-studded, politically correct benefit/tribute album showcases the music of Athens-based songwriter Vic Chesnutt. Using a wheelchair as a result of a car accident, Chesnutt…
Albita Rodriguez, the Cuban singer best known for her androgynous persona and an affinity for tuxedos, is wearing a low-cut leopard-print gown. Her short hair glows platinum blond, and her face is made up in the shades of this season’s palette. Lounging on a curved sofa next to a chiseled…
If you’re a long-suffering songwriter pondering how to get yourself one of them fancy-schmancy MTV concert specials, you might consider the Steve Earle plan. This plan consists of the following elements: 1. Write a whole shitload of killer songs 2. Take them to Nashville 3. Toil in undeserved obscurity long…
We celebrate the not-so-old and the very new this week. On Thursday, September 19, mega music chain Spec’s marks the first anniversary of its South Beach location — its largest store, incidentally — in true SoBe style, with plenty of musical panache. The store teeters on the brink of being…
It’s no small coincidence that bandleader Lino de la Guardia chose New Orleans rather than his hometown of Miami as the place to premiere his new band Khadir. The former, he exclaims, is a thriving live-music mecca jam-packed with dives, clubs, and concert halls. The latter? “Miami is all about…
Scenic Acquatica (Independent Project/World Domination) Like Ennio Morricone on peyote, or Dick Dale after a couple of bong loads, Scenic makes dreamy, hypnotic instrumental music of operatic scope but minimal construction. The quartet — fronted by ex-Savage Republic mastermind Bruce Licher — build their evocative soundscapes around slinky twang-guitars and…
In recent interviews plugging his band’s new album, Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness has been talking a lot about punk rock. It’s a subject in which he is well versed: His group debuted back in the very early Eighties with a snot-slinging sound that stood in stark contrast to the…
Patti Smith Gone Again (Arista) The most important artists don’t try to reach for universal truths. Instead, they bare their very individual souls, and we hear ourselves reflected in their voices. After removing herself from the musical limelight for more than fifteen years, surfacing only once for the 1988 offering…
The long hot haul is almost over, and one-nighter debuts and oh-so-trendy parties are popping up everywhere. Hopping on the season’s first party bandwagon is 821, with a new night called Crash! The funky new arrival debuts on Friday, September 13, with various and sundry party kids and an equally…
“Toodaaay is gonna be the day that they throw all back ta yewwww …” “Wonderwall,” the latest hit from Britain’s Oasis, appears to be spewing out of every radio on just about every rock, Top 40, and adult contemporary station in the known universe. The band is seemingly everywhere: Liam…
Reunited and it feels so good — at least for a couple of years and a few million bucks. The pyrotechnics, the blood spitting and fire breathing, and the hyperbole churned out by that one-man, one-note press whore Gene Simmons leave no doubt KISS is back. And they’re hotter than…
When he first heard about it, Jorge Moreno thought the Premios Rock Latino festival would be “a great opportunity” for Latin rockers from Miami and beyond to gain some always-needed exposure. Days before the August 18 festival was to be held at the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Moreno began wondering if…
Churchill’s Hideaway, an institution among even — ahem — more mature clubgoers, is about to turn the big five-oh. That’s a lot of shepherd’s pie, and for the last quarter century at least, a lot of live music. The monthlong silver-anniversary celebration kicks off this weekend with a full lineup…
Mana has all the makings of a traditional rock and roll band: four serious guys with a sound, a look, and a message that’s accessible, likable, and genuine. The only difference is that Mana’s lyrics are in Spanish. Among the most popular purveyors of rock en espanol, these musicians don’t…
Newcomers to Miami might expect that a large city that is home to thousands of Cuban immigrants would be a good place to hear Cuban music. They might even picture Little Havana as Miami’s Cuban equivalent to Chicago’s South Side, where the blues dives that the Windy City is famous…
Richard Thompson You? Me? Us? (Capitol) Linda Thompson Dreams Fly Away (Hannibal) This is certainly the first Richard Thompson album to carry a title that might fit a Meg Ryan movie, but don’t expect You? Me? Us? to do anywhere near the business that a celluloid puffball by America’s Sweetheart…
A few years back, a pair of brothers, both in their late teens, lit out from Miami to attend art school. One brother, Alfredo Galvez, wound up at the San Francisco Art Institute; the other, Raphael, enrolled at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Both pursued various visual-arts…
The road has assumed an almost mythological role in the work of many of America’s greatest songwriters who have found emotional solace and metaphorical significance in the highways and back roads that cut through cities, towns, and map-dot whistle stops. In 1929 Mississippi bluesman Charley Patton wandered to worlds unknown…
Labor Day, a particularly long wallow for club kids, with party promoters and club owners working overtime to jump start the season. On Thursday, August 29, get Liphtid into Pyramic Descent with a dance party full of the purely positive fusings of some of the phattest tunes in town. The…
The Yips Bonfire in a Dixie Cup (Siltbreeze) On the Yips’ 1995 single “1000% Fox,” pinched-voice vocalist/bulldozer guitarist Gilmore Tamny kept her anger in check, and throughout the assaulting gem she made a point of bragging about it: “The rage in my cage stays mainly on the page.” On the…
Suppose you’re Jeff Lemlich, the senior news writer at WFOR-TV (Channel 4), a station where you started working seventeen years ago as a graphics operator and where you’ve won three Florida Emmys as a producer. Your 40th birthday falls on May 11, a Saturday and your day off. Family and…
A member of the local alternative band the Honeysticks is passing out flyers advertising the band’s self-titled CD after a recent show at Cheers. The slip of green paper features the recipe for a Honeysticks drink: a quarter-ounce each of vodka, Midori, Chambord, and amaretto, with equal parts sour mix…
