This Sunday a galaxy of merengue stars will bring to Miami a music rich in history and noisy in sound. The problem is that to catch them all, you’d have to be cloned, because with the Dominican Community Association’s Festival del Merengue, and with Radio El Zol’s counteroffer, Merengue Zol,…
Nice girls don’t listen to death metal. Not one of my friends listens to it. Music for deviants by deviants, I thought. The last stop before your parents’ Blue Cross starts paying your way to the deprogramming center. That was before Sepultura. Death (or thrash) metal has a nasty reputation…
Does anyone remember the summer of ’89? It was exactly two years ago that Miami rappers the 2 Live Crew released As Nasty as They Wanna Be, the group’s third album and biggest hit, and also America’s most controversial musical recording. It’s old news now, the way censors, cops, and…
Michael Kennedy – the tough-looking, soft-talking Rooster Head singer – has lost it, gone completely bonkers, out of his mind, deranged. The incident was captured on an audio tape recently obtained by New Times: Kennedy: “They mock me. I know they mock me.” Unidentified voice: “No one’s mocking you, Mr…
Rockers rant about social injustice, reggae stars call for world order, industrial acts urge anarchy, folk singers still peddle peace, too. But jazz singer Sylvia Bennett operates in different surroundings, a place that doesn’t invite torn jeans or dread locks, but does welcome diamond earrings and fine tuxedos. Upscale and…
EMF’s “Unbelievable” probably won’t outsell “From a Distance” or “Rush Rush,” but it has done far more to clarify the future. As musical distinctions blur further and once-rigid genres liquefy at the speed of sound, as rap swallows jazz instrumentals and gospel vocals sneak into speed-metal, EMF’s heady fusion of…
The future of rock and roll – in stereo, double vision, twice over. They aren’t coming to town, they aren’t media darlings, they aren’t being hyped as anything more than a couple of maidens looking for their first win. But they should be all of those things. Not since the…
Chances are, it’ll rain on the Fourth of July this year. That would be just perfect. In August of 1969 a young woman with long hair, a pug nose, beaming grin, and acoustic guitar stood in the stormy weather at Yasgur’s Farm in upstate New York, alone with a half-million…
