So if you didn’t attend any of the art fairs this past weekend, you missed out on plenty of visual stimulation. This year, Scope definitely was my favorite fair, not only because the work for sale was superb, but their commitment to inviting local artists and musicians to take part…
Prefuse 73 with Eliot Lipp and PG 13Sunday, December 7, 2008Heathrow Lounge, Miami BeachBetter Than: Any of the usual Sunday night mainstream hip-hop club nights. One of the many cool things about Art Basel is all the cool music acts that it brings down to our sandy shores. Case in…
MSTRKRFT with Pauly Crush and Jessica Who?Saturday, December 6, 2008Heathrow Lounge, Miami BeachBetter Than: Ninety percent of the other Basel parties during the week.Art Basel brought plenty of musical performances during the week. Unfortunately, most of them were invite-only or secret parties no one knew about. But Saturday night, Heathrow…
Art Damage with Panda Bear and No Age Friday, December 5Karu & Y, Downtown Miami Better Than: Everything happening that night on the planet Earth if you happen to take Pitchfork or College radio charts as the gospel. The Review: The rumors of a No Age/Panda Bear double bill during…
Billboard unveiled this morning the very first phase of the lineup for the 2009 Ultra Music Festival, and it’s actually time to get excited. As the festival has expanded in size, its organizers have made laudable stabs at taking the lineup into the new dance-music frontiers of the 21st century…
If you are into dazzling, disjointed hip-hop beats, then you have probably heard of a whiz kid and producer that goes by the name of Prefuse 73. Born in Miami, but raised in Atlanta, Prefuse 73 (born Scott Herren) also records under various monikers like Savath & Savalas and Delarosa…
This past spring’s Taste of Chaos tour arrived in South Florida smack in the middle of Winter Music Conference, on a weekday, and at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater in downtown Miami, no less — awkward timing and location all around. (Not that the WMC/Taste of Chaos tours overlap, haha, just…
Matt & KimNodzz and Matt & KimThe Converse/Kill Your Idols space at the Marcy Building, the Design District, MiamiThe Gossip After DarkO.H.W.O.W., MiamiThursday, Dec. 4Better Than: Anything else you could have been doing for free, without a guest list hassle, last night.The Review:Well, as Basel’s getting on, and my brain…
Andy LaPlegua, the mastermind behind the twisted industrial / EBM / whatever juggernauts that are Combichrist and Icon of Coil, has a lot of pals in South Florida. So he seems to always be around, but not always in the way his most diehard fans would really like. A planned…
If it seems like Mötley Crüe was just here, well, it’s because they were, in July, headlining their Crüefest tour at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. They’re coming baaaaa-aaaaack, though, as part of their Saints of Los Angeles Tour, and diehard fans will be happy it’s a relatively…
YelleWednesday, December 3, 2008Art Loves Music, Miami BeachBetter Than: I’m going to skip this.Let me start out by saying: Worst. Crowd. Ever.I’m going to keep this short since we already reviewed Yelle not too long ago. Way to castrate an energetic performer and have her beg you to wake up…
Separating visual arts from music is artificial, if not impossible. Organizers of Art Basel Miami Beach recognized this from the beginning with the Scissor Sisters concert. The free concert tradition has continued each year, with the fair’s official opening followed by its Art Loves Music party on the sand. But…
What’s hotter than seeing two pretty girls on the decks wearing their heels and bringing out banging, bumping-filled music?” Hmm, DJ-wise? I’d say not much. Not much I can think of offhand, anyway. Then again, when DJ Heather Holiday asks me the question, I get a bit flummoxed. Not because…
“Brooklyn,” as the current day manager of The Vagabond downtown is known, has done and seen it all around the South Florida music scene since arriving here from his native New York some 12 years ago. Younger types flitting around hipster nightlife know him as the improbably, heavily tattooed guy…
Kevin Barnes is a centaur. Or at least he plays one for a few minutes onstage each night with his polymorphic pop sextet Of Montreal. Dressing as a partly nude stallion is just one way Barnes and his hallucinatory Athens, Georgia-based troupe visually accompany the tour for their ninth album,…
To haters, this Mechanicsville, Virginia native is a purveyor of Top 40 schlock, just another pretty boy with a sincere face and a soul as deep as a wading pool. To fans, he is a pretty face, yes, but also endearingly vulnerable. Fans know Mraz is open about singing of…
The sky is the limit for this eclectic Dominican-born pianist. A member of his native country’s symphony orchestra while still in his teens, Michel Camilo made the decision to leave that position in 1979, when he went to New York to study at Juilliard. At the same time, he hit…
For 30 years the Misfits have been spreading their colloidal mix of punk, rockabilly, and horror-flick themes to ravenous “fiends” around the globe. Formed in 1977 by Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only in Lodi, New Jersey, the Misfits were punk rock’s answer to the B movie. With a DIY ethos…
Dance fiends still drool over the mere thought of veteran DJ Dean Ramirez’s remix of “Yeah Yeah,” the woozy-cheesy electro-house Bodyrox track from 2006. In the song’s heyday, Nic Fanciulli and Paul Woolford described it as one of the biggest tunes at Winter Music Conference. And so Ramirez’s star went…
You need to understand the physics of a speaker, which work the same from the headphones to the club,” DJ/producer titan Paul van Dyk says from his home in Berlin. In the promotional club-date storm following the release of his recent remix album, Mirror’s Edge, he reflects on the science…
Only a week after wrapping up the U.S. version of her Sweet and Sticky tour here in Miami, Madonna is now making headlines in Latin America. But this time, it’s not just about her closeted romance with slugger Alex Rodriguez.Yesterday afternoon, Madonna, who is currently in Argentina on tour, met…
Friday night’s No Age/Panda Bear show at Karu & Y, sponsored by Nike and ANP Quarterly, is still, as we reported, invite-only. But the nice folks at Nike have given us a number of free passes to give away to our readers.So here’s a little contest. Answer the following question,…
