We ‘R’ Us is a better album than its self-serving title might imply — in fact, it might be one of the best recent South Florida rock releases, period. Chock full of effusive grooves, resilient melodies, and supple hooks, it finds the New Planets in a unique orbit, spinning rings…
The third installment in Crammed Discs’ awesome series of “Congotronics” releases continues in the praiseworthy path of its predecessors, delivering yet another defiantly nonacademic album of African music. Just like the first “Congotronics” album, the unfuckwithably mind-blowing Konono N°1 disc that gave the series its title, this set from the…
Since rising to international fame in 2002 with the rowdy, inventive Original Pirate Material, British MC Mike Skinner — a.k.a. The Streets — has released a series of increasingly sincere albums. Beginning with his 2004 narrative-heavy masterpiece A Grand Don’t Come for Free, he has turned his attention to simple,…
This is fact: Cash Money Records, the Southern rap juggernaut that is famously home to Lil Wayne, has never signed a white artist — until now. And that’s just fine with 25-year-old Kevin Rudolf, the label’s latest official act. Not only is he light on melanin, but he’s a guitar…
New York-based singer Manze Dayila is no stranger to overcoming the odds. She arrived in Miami from Haiti at the age of 19 in a rickety boat while 8 months pregnant. Here in Miami, she faced all type of obstacles, (many of which are worth reading about) but trying to…
Even in 2008, Tommy Lee embraces the road warrior lifestyle with an energy that would make rockers half his age collapse, panting. About a year ago, he hit the road with DJ Aero to spread the word of their electro-sleaze DJ/production project. They criss-crossed the country, hit the Winter Music…
Here are some more bands whose live shows were among the highlights of this year’s CMJ Music Marathon. The Bronx: This confusingly named L.A. band is hardly new, having played a major stage on the length of this past summer’s Warped Tour. But they continue to retain the obsessive devotion…
This year’s CMJ Music Marathon, held last week in New York, delivered yet again another onslaught of new, now bands trying to be next year’s big thing. This year’s edition of the marathon, featured no, as it has in recent years past, real megawatt reunions or U.S. debuts. Much of…
Gloria Estefan Friday, October 24, 2008 Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Hollywood Better Than: The Santiago de Cuba Carnival Who can pack a crowd of Gringos and Latinos equally in one South Florida concert arena? If you guessed Gloria Estefan, you are right. Step to the head of the…
M.A.N.D.Y. bringing ze German electro-house to Circa 28. We are skipping are usual weekend On the List party planner, because everything this weekend is sort of, eh, not so interesting. Maybe everyone is resting up for the Halloween blowout next week. But if you do have to crawl out of…
DJ Behrouz, the San Francisco native and now Miami Beach transplant, will be spinning live tomorrow night at Mansion to celebrate the release party of his two-disc mix CD Pure Behrouz. We sat down to talk with him about how the album came about, as well about his new label…
The biggest concert to hit Nassau, Bahamas all year is right around the corner and anticipation is building up for it. The Millennium Concert 2008 is scheduled for Oct 30-Nov 2nd and features three nights of top notch music acts plus a night of fashion and partying. The line up…
I just got the good word that Cape Verdean singer Anané and her husband, New York house legend, Louie Vega, are playing a show together in Miami two weeks from now. The show is set for November 6 at the Florida Room inside of the Delano Hotel, and sounds like…
It’s Chrome-o-o-o-o-oh! Oh Chromeo. We remember seeing you play at Circa 28 during Winter Music Conference 2007. Back then, you had released your debut album She’s In Control, which was filled with syrupy synthetic beats and Prince-like melodies — in other words, it was sex on a platter served via…
Named for the sacred, otherworldly power of the jaguar in Mayan lore, this Mexican four-piece inadvertently proves that commercial forces have completely co-opted indie-rock vocabulary. After years of indie bands flirting with pop here in the States, it was only a matter of time before someone took it to another…
Cut Copy and Hercules & Love Affair have been burning up dorm-room dance floors. Then there’s the rise of the more richly histrionic LCD Soundsystem, not to mention the textured Burial and grotesquely distorted Justice. It all makes Omaha quintet The Faint’s simpler mind-meld of angst and beats seem more…
Although this 78-year-old Chicago transplant has not made many recordings under his own name for more than a decade, eclectic multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan needs little introduction. A legendary figure in his hometown up North, he made a name for himself there in the mid-Fifties as he performed with the likes…
No jam band worth its salt ever repeats a set list, and this is a rule that these Georgia Music Hall of Famers take close to their hearts. Never in the 22 years since Widespread Panic’s inception have the bandmates performed a duplicate concert, painstakingly going through their canon of…
Efforts to persuade young Spanish national Lorena Villar to accompany New Times on a modern Cuban music adventure are met with some resistance. She listens to indie pop, not salsa, and she has always preferred mop tops to dreadlocks. But on a recent evening at Little Havana’s KimbaraCumbara nightclub, the…
Even when Deejay Smeejay is sitting, it’s not at all difficult to imagine him being a go-go boy, despite the fact that he has probably not, er, bar-topped for a decade or so. I mean, the cat literally dances in his seat. And in the rare instance when his body…
Legend has it that during Ronald Reagan’s first run for president, his wife Nancy suggested he use Bruce Springsteen’s popular anthem “Born in the U.S.A.” as a campaign song, maybe to siphon off the youth vote. So Nancy arranged for a backstage visit following one of Springsteen’s shows. As they…
The good-natured 53-year-old Bruce Hornsby is a musician who wears many hats. Only last year, he teamed up with mandolinist Ricky Scaggs to record what became a much-acclaimed bluegrass disc, Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby. That CD included several traditional tunes, a handful of original compositions, and a surprising cover…
