After sorting the mail, painstakingly assessing the applications, arguing viciously about their merits, getting drunk, sleeping it off, and then agonizing over the decision for weeks, we here at New Times are finally set to announce our 2011 MasterMind Awards finalists. In the sound category, we’ve got Harvard-educated hip-hopper Black…
“Techno is a music that uses imagination to develop the fantasy of what the future can be,” says Carl Craig, waxing poetic. But his sound is just as informed by the past as it is by the future. Part of Craig’s unique contribution to Detroit techno are his forays into…
Early this morning, Ultra Music Festival organizers announced Phase Two of its lineup. Added to the 2011 bill are Duran Duran, Underworld, Kaskade, will.i.am, Erick Morillo (Live), Sasha (Vortek Live), Fedde Le Grand, Avicii, and The Disco Biscuits.Also confirmed is our previous announcement that Moby would also make an appearance.Ticket…
This past Saturday, punks from around Florida gathered in Downtown Miami to commemorate the final show at the Firefly. Since 2006, the space has been a locus of the radical, activist-oriented South Florida punk scene, and it’s demise is the product of an all-too-fitting corporate enemy: demolition at the hands…
Dear Fleet Foxes, Thanks for letting us download “Helplessness Blues,” the title track off your upcoming album dropping on May 3, for free. If the song is any indication as to how the rest of the record’s going to sound, the almost three-year gap between your self-titled debut and Helplessness…
One month, a week, and three days ago, Crossfade dropped the awesome bomb that Swedish House Mafia would be bringing Masquerade Motel back to Miami for an Ultra week explosion of overindulgence and excess. At the time, we only had a date, March 26. There wasn’t (and still isn’t) a…
Maybe you lost your virginity in a tree house. Maybe you used to steal your pop’s old Playboys and flip through them with a flashlight. Maybe it’s where you drank your first 40-ouncer and smoked your first cigarette. Fast forward a decade or so, and now you’ve got Treehouse Miami…
Few artists had a greater impact on the transtlantic EDM scene in 2010 than DJ-producer Lee Foss. Both with his solo work and Hot Natured side project with Jamie Jones, Foss’s singular brand of moody, bass-driven electro-funk dominated the charts and international dancefloors all year, while spawning more than a…
Mr. OizoSaturday, January 29, 2011Grand Central, MiamiBetter than: Standing in the hot sun at a certain electronic music festival.If you missed Mr. Oizo’s appearance at Grand Central Saturday night, don’t worry, he’ll be back. He’s scheduled to appear at Ultra Music Festival next month. Problem is, if you are a…
In 1983, French composer Yann Tiersen was a newborn post-punk convert on the cusp of adolescence. He had been studying classical violin for six years and he was finally fed up. So he destroyed his instrument, smashing it to bits. “It was really personal. I never wanted to be an…
Fillmore Miami BeachSaturday, January 29, 2011Better than: Having your temporomandibular joint examined. Oscar-winning musician and former otolaryngologist Jorge Drexler may as well have been performing in a small, candle-lit taberna for all the warm little jokes and idiosyncratic anecdotes he tossed off during his performance at the Fillmore Miami Beach…
With Billygoat Electric Pickle Friday, January 28, 2011 Better than: Getting fucked by an extraterrestrial? (See paragraph 16.) How does Little Dragon travel from gig to gig? Well, if you’ve spent the last few hours prepping for the Swedish band’s live show by soaking the contents of your skull in…
What are you doing tonight? Wanna go scream about stuff like anger, aggression, and fratricide? Well, ditto local punk crew Nobodys Hero. So here’s a tip: Drag your wild ass up I-95 to Fort Lauderdale’s Revolution Live ’cause there’s gonna be a pit party and these 305-ers will be ratcheting…
It’s been a while since the Phase One acts for Ultra Music Festival 2011 were announced. So, what’s taking so long? Well, the wait will soon be over, as our sources tell us to expect something next week. We aren’t entirely sure who will be on the Phase Two lineup…
Now preparing its third annual WMC installment, Brit label-cum-artist collective Air London will be landing in Miami on March 22 with another stellar international lineup. Last year’s sold-out showcase at the Electric Pickle boasted a hefty array of international talent, and this time Air London will be returning to the…
Straight outta the 305, J Nics has spent the last few years honing his style in semi-private while constantly rising through the MC ranks. Back in September, he dropped his debut slab, The Stimulus Package, one of Crossfade’s favorite albums of 2010. And now, he’s about to unleash the follow-up,…
Myrna Kincaid anxiously shifts her weight from foot to foot, hands clasped under her chin as she monitors Johnny and Billy, her five- and nine-year-old sons, playing together. These two boys aren’t into touch football or in-line skating, but strumming acoustic guitars, playing harmonica, and singing classic country and rock…
Easily one of the most multitasking players in the contemporary jazz field, Joseph “Jowee” Omicil returns to South Florida, this time to delight art patrons at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. Multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, producer, and educator, it’s easy to lose focus that he is primarily one…
To Be Hated, Fortitude, ENOUGH!, Gorilla Pussy, and The 707’s: These South Florida hardcore punk rock bands play hard, fast, and because they love it.If you want to enjoy the sound and the fury of America’s fastest form of rock’n’roll, then go to Churchill’s Pub next Friday when all those…
As an Iranian-American teen caught up in Washington, D.C.’s 1980s music scene, Ali Shirazinia became a fan of hardcore and New Wave. But when that decade died out, the kid switched, like a lot of ex-punks, to electronic noise. He learned to DJ, eventually adopted the stage name Dubfire, and…
Unfortunately, the rabidly anticipated Ultra week edition of Swedish House Mafia’s Masquerade Motel is still 59 days away. So all you overeager party people need to just chill and figure out a positive way to spend those megawatts of pent-up energy. Sure, you could set the Stockholm trio’s certified crossover…
In 2010, deep house was the sound of the electronic dance music zeitgeist, and German DJ-producer Nick Curly played no small role in bringing that sound back to the forefront of the transatlantic scene. In just a handful of years, Curly has helped put his hometown of Mannheim, Germany, on…
