They arrive at the New Times music-department office every day, flocks of them. Not pigeons. Press releases. Band bios, newsletters, cover letters, itineraries, unspoken quotes, anything and everything record company publicists can conceive of to sell their bands to the press, who in turn will sell same to the public…
Somehow I don’t think the gentleman with the stocking over his head waving the .38 in my face as he herded my wife and me into the back of our video store and demanded the day’s cash receipts would have appreciated the urgency of my making it to Uncle Sam’s…
My lover stood before me coldly emanating disgust, our relationship hanging on a thread of fear and a memory of passion. Dignified in my pain, I sat in stony silence. Inhaling hatred, I closed my eyes and envisioned my frozen heart. I was beyond feeling. Scorned, I walked numbly to…
So a little trip to Lollapalooza ’92 is in order, is it? Miami wasn’t blessed with the presence of the first Lolla tour, so we have no idea what to expect. But we do know that when you pack tons of live music, art, food, propaganda, and other diversions into…
In 1973 the DEA reclassified methaqualone to Schedule I, pretty much banning it from medical use in the United States. Sold as Quaalude, Sopor, and Mandrax, the sedative-hypnotic at one time had been the sixth-most prescribed drug in the nation. In 1975, 16.9 percent of high school seniors surveyed said…
The obvious and easy argument raised by those dinosaurs tenaciously and fruitlessly attempting to make it worthwhile to own a turntable in the 1990s is the Hip-Hop Equation. Rap-music makers have continued the practice of releasing their material on vinyl, usually one song remixed several ways on the twelve-inch, album-size…
It’s difficult to write about Tori Amos without acknowledging her prodigious talent, and harder still to sanction that talent without serious reservations. Classically trained from an early age to tickle the ivories, the North Carolina-born Amos struggled for years to find her place in the musical food chain. While still…
Some forms of creative expression never receive the respect they deserve. In humor, it’s the clever pun or play on words that, however ingenious its construction, seldom earns more than a begrudging groan of acknowledgment. In the world of pictorial art, it is the caricature that, however penetrating its perception…
There’s a marketing strategy currently faddish among manufacturers of pop detritus that advocates slipping to an unsuspecting public something new, odd, or unexpected during the slow, sweat-drenched summer months, when the brain cells are less alert but more susceptible to manipulation. And while this tactic is usually reserved for debut…
Who’s the hippest DJ in South Beach? Hard to say. What is certain is that whatever your tastes, there is but a handful. A distinct breed apart among record breakers who balance instinct and acumen to make a good night great. A select group who spin at all the right…
No doubt the biggest challenge of Elvis Presley’s remarkable career has been his recent effort to help Bill Clinton get elected president. Whose idea did you think it was to don the shades and jam with the band on Arsenio? Did you think the selection of “Heartbreak Hotel” was a…
Yes, Henry Rollins, former singer for Black Flag and present leader of the Rollins Band, does come off as an angry young man. It’s a description that sounds trite and calculated, doesn’t it? Consider some of the events in Rollins’s life, which he freely reveals: He remembers a man in…
The owners of The Stephen Talkhouse say they will sell their new club to denizens of the heart of the Art Deco district by providing nothing more than “a bar with music.” Good luck. But the music this joint displays won’t come from a jukebox or a going-nowhere bar band…
If working jazz musicians had to depend on audiences consisting of only intensely serious record collectors and historians, professional critics, and other musicians eager to cop their stuff, sit in, and perhaps nail the job for themselves, no one would be able to pay the rent. So it was that,…
So much confusion, so much hype, so much of it old hat to those of us in this hotbed of censorship called Miami. It’s not something that would normally be addressed in this space, but when Florida’s largest retailer of recorded music bowed to a very small minority and joined…
First, there were the Crusades. Then, missionaries tried to spread the Lord’s word to savages in the South Pacific. Two Thursdays ago, a new addition was made to the list of Admirable Yet Thankless Endeavors: Jim Hayward presented the Slammy Awards to South Florida’s untamed hordes. The Slammies — as…
Due to the ugly business of politics, that is the politics of clubdom, where competition — and its inherent strains of dish, dis, and deceive — is the order of the night, this item almost didn’t see print. No one’s to blame; everyone’s guilty. That’s just the way it is…
The two current members of London Exchange have the “western disease” and they’ve got it bad. You can hear symptoms cutting through every dance-tech-pop driven track — this music for the Nineties. “The police came only for a reason,” says Alex Zaitsev, who is Christopher Phipps’s latest partner in the…
If the nightcrawlers of South Beach were to appoint a DJ King, they would most likely crown David Padilla. Sure, some spinners may be better off the cuff, in other modes, and others may be more famous, by virtue of seniority and hustle. But it’s Padilla who’s got just the…
We’re still up to our sweaty little ears in recorded music from around here, so cut on the a/c and find patience. If you’re waiting for reviews of other area projects, hang in there and stay tuned in. Everyone knows how much more time must be allotted to laundering clothes…
If you can’t wait to get your eyes on some newsletters from local bands, try writing to the addresses below. While newsletters are free, remember that struggling bands must come up with the scratch to finance photocopying and postage. A small contribution might not hurt. The Goods Box 64-0209 Miami,…
The way Homeboy DC (who I must note immediately is not a “black” person) tells it rings true to anyone who’s been wrung out in this town for more than a day or two. Three years ago cops stopped him on a DUI, took him to the station, where he…
