The weekend is about to start in a few hours, and what better way to get it started than with a DJ mix courtesy of Tom Laroc? Laroc released his State of the Union mixtape yesterday via the Rakontur blog. The mix features tracks by Ludacris, Bob Marley, Jay-Z and…
In this week’s issue of the Miami New Times, I talk to DJ I-Dee about his debut full-length original album, Solitude. It’s a solid album, but one of its best tracks didn’t make it onto the CD, thanks to sample clearance issues. It’s called “The Right,” and features one of…
We are seriously sorry for the previously omitted “On the List,” but last weekend in our book qualified as a bust — there was absolutely nothing worth doing. If you were smart, you picked up a book or something of educational value. There was also that darn Ike. Everyone was…
I’m labeling this post as Bossip because thus far, news of a new Kanye album is still a rumor. But according to various retailers (Amazon and Target.com specifically) who must be trying to drum up anticipation for the holiday shopping sprees already, rapper Kanye West may have a new album…
The corner strip of clubs between Park West and Wynwood has long been the scene of some of Miami’s best DJ action, at venues such as White Room, PS14, and The Vagabond. But of the many DJs to have dropped beats where North Miami Avenue meets 14th Street, perhaps no…
In 1989, Lloyd Dobler held an obnoxiously large boombox over his head outside Diane Court’s window and blasted “In Your Eyes” to prove how much he loved her. Somehow this was viewed as romantic by an entire generation of women who now expect equally grandiose gestures from their trench-coat-wearing boyfriends…
Baby Calendar Gingerbread Dog (Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records) www.myspace.com/babycalendar Here’s another sunshine gem that slipped through the fried-chicken-greasy fingers of your local hipster sheriffs. The band has, of course, broken up since this 11-track CD came out, with Tom Gorrio (guitar, keys, vox) marrying bandmate Jackie Biver (bass,…
Though this local Afro-Cuban ensemble doesn’t have much recorded history to make for much copy, one look at the names on the group’s roster shows the music is pretty serious. Among the notable members is Venezuelan-born saxophonist Ed Calle, who boasts a long history both as a leader and a…
The DJ/producer duo known as L.A. Riots is definitely a product of 2k8 — an amped-up style of French house and new electro mashed through the hyperspeed of the blogosphere. Making music together for just less than two years, Daniel LeDisko and Jo B quickly garnered massive downloads of their…
The Buzzcocks and the Ramones may have laid the groundwork for pop-punk, but the Queers helped make sure the genre would never grow up. After 25 years, Joe Queer still pines for that girl in third period, still appreciates a good party, and still sings about his subjects in a…
On Saturday, Shine reprises last year’s successful Bliss party reunion for the pleasure of progressive-house fans, both old-school and new. For three years until 2000, the last Friday of the month was penciled in on the calendars of the hip (and not necessarily rich) with the reminder to get to…
Enough with the polls already. First, there are all of those Obama and McCain commercials. And then there are the “Vote for Me!” DJ magazine year-end poll links on every house/trance/whatever DJ’s web page. It’s enough to give a regular joe a false sense of significance. Local guy (by way…
For a band that has been together for only a little more than a year, local multicultural act Bachaco has accomplished quite a lot. In this short time, the musicians scored a coveted weekly residence at Jazid while also sharing the stage with Locos por Juana. The group, which is…
In 1993, John Joseph Cullen, the local MC known as Butta Verses, left the grimy streets of his native Bronx to surf and attend classes in sunny South Florida. But instead of catching that perfect wave, the now-33-year-old b-boy ended up frequenting spots such as the Sugar Shack and Club…
Almost everything you need to know about horny, go-getting Malibu newcomer Shwayze can be gleaned from this line in “Polaroid” on his self-titled debut: “Woke up with a semihard dick/In a fat chick/Three this week, call that a hat trick/But everybody know hockey ain’t for black kids.” Yeah, it’s that…
Rachid Taha’s music treads a distinct line between two worlds, rooted in his experiences as an Algerian immigrant living in France. For those unfamiliar with the 49-year-old foreign star, he’s been rocking out with a punk sensibility since the early Eighties. Themes of dual identity, racial discrimination, and the realities…
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, released in 1981 (and recently reissued), was an attempt by David Byrne and Brian Eno to forge new territory via found sounds, samples, and assorted Africanisms that foreshadowed a good many musical trends. In contrast, Everything That Happens represents a retrenchment, albeit an…
As the continued existence of the Warped Tour proves, I get older and the kids stay the same age. And as long as the latter is true, there will also be room for one more three-chord song based on a one-note joke. Hence the seventh full-length of pop-punk covers by…
If you saw the full-length version of the Kim Kardashian sex-tape, for some ladies, this is a no brainer. But VH1 is in the process of starting a new television show called, So You Want to Date Ray J? One can only suspect that it’s all about lining up eligible…
Miramar-based rapper Rahsaan is quickly showing himself to be one of the hardest working MCs in South Florida. The Georgetown, Guyana-born, Brooklyn/Kendall raised lyricist has been on a tear lately, first hopping on the Rock the Bells tour with his crew, the Outfit, then linking up with Scheme Magazine to…
For such a relatively short existence, few bands have excited such extreme reactions in the heavy music world as the Orlando-based quartet Trivium. Formed in the earlier part of this decade while the members were still teenagers, the band’s 2003 full-length debut, Ember to Inferno, messed with the metal heterodoxy…
Karu & Y hopes for better luck second time around. Karu & Y (71 NW 14th Street, Miami), the biggest failure in Miami’s nightlife/culinary scene since, well, ever, is asking for a second chance. According to the press release, the “new leadership” presumes Miami still wants an upscale lounge and…
