In their live sets, the Coffin Caddies incorporate the technical underpinnings of punk and innovative twists. Singer/songwriter Rei Horror believes that real life is too difficult to write about and that fictional subjects are more entertaining. As a result, the band’s lyrics are based on videogames, comic books, and movies…
If Tobacco Road were a person, it would be pinching the nurses at Shady Pines and talking smack about Eliot Ness while it cackled its dentures off. The city’s oldest bar/restaurant/café turns 94 on November 17, an occasion that will be marked by an eight-band Miamipalooza on three stages. “The…
Variations on jazz come particularly from the Caribbean and most notably Cuba. Miami-based duo Pan con Bistec melds Latin jazz with original arrangements influenced by the rhythms and musical stylings from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, including Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, candombe, swing, bebop, R&B, and funk. Comprising Uruguayan…
Though few luminaries from jazz’s golden era are still alive, and though performances from that small group become increasingly rare, the question remains: Why should you see one of them today? Well you could reason that you probably won’t get another chance because they’re getting old. But you have to…
By his own admission, John Taylor lives a charmed existence. Deliriously wealthy, strikingly good-looking, happily married to a successful entrepreneur, and a founding member of Duran Duran, one of the most successful British groups of the past two decades, he can claim the quintessential rock star existence. After reuniting with…
South Florida’s thriving dance music scene affords the opportunity to tire of Paul Van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, and even Tisto because they are in town so often. But live appearances by French electronic duo Daft Punk have been precious and rare. Sadly, after Saturday’s performance at the Bang Music Festival,…
Gnarls Barkley’s debut single “Crazy” hit the Internet in late 2005 and was officially released this past spring in the UK, where it reigned at number one for nine weeks. The song — a honeyed, high-strung vamp on mental illness luxuriated in spaghetti-western strings — quickly gained a crossover market…
In light of Los Amigos Invisibles’ obvious allegiance to shaking butts and getting audiences lathered up into a licentious Latin dance frenzy via adolescent-minded songs like “Disco Anal” and “Ponte en Quatro,” the thought of highbrow David Byrne taking interest in them seems comical. But as anyone who has seen…
These days everything punk comes in Sam’s Club sizes — numbers of bands at shows, for instance — and at count-em-27 songs, drummer Marky Ramone’s Start of the Century two-CD set includes Ramones covers and pretty much everything the Intruders ever put on tape in the Nineties. Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen…
The members of Big Bang Radio sweat hard during their energetic performances and just as profusely behind the scenes, making their dream a reality. In only its second year, BBR makes its second appearance at the infamous Bang Music Festival. Big Bang Radio’s musical influences include timeless rock legends such…
Like the Teddybears, Whitey carries a beer-bar-danceable message from Europe, but where Teddybears want (and do, in fact, own) the TV-commercial airwaves, these guys have scummier things up their collective raincoat sleeve, namely alt-disco sleaze tricked out with Euro-dance beats, an odd way of reinterpreting Donovan Leitch’s deal and a…
Don’t think there is a power failure when you suddenly find yourself sitting in pitch darkness inside the theater. This just happens to be the beginning of Universo Particular, the heavily produced show that Brazilian-born Marisa Monte — in her first U.S. tour in five years — organized to promote…
As autumn has slowly descended on Greater Miami, so have a number of world-renowned senior musicians. The season has already brought piano maestro Bebo Valdés, master percussionist Candido Camero, and Candido’s Conga Kings cohort Carlos “Patato” Valdés — all of them in their eighties. Now Lou Donaldson, the great alto…
There’s something to be said for straight-ahead, unpretentious, wholly exhilarating rock and roll without the woes or hand-wringing that seems to underscore the petulance afflicting so much of today’s music. The Format provides the antithesis to that approach, as evidenced by its latest outing, the ironically dubbed Dog Problems. An…
Although most saxophonists could be called one-dimensional — their playing being that single dimension — saxophonist Ed Calle is a polyphonic layer of talent. Not only does Calle have masterful control over the saxophone, but also he’s an accomplished composer, arranger, flutist, clarinetist, and MIDI wind player. Over the past…
Irony of ironies, Al is a well-established entertainment brand himself, fat and tough-looking nowadays, so when he gives “Dontcha,” “Float On,” and Weezer’s “Beverly Hills” a simultaneous Sledge-O-Matic-ing from his accordion in one oh-the-humanity medley (“Polkarama!”), you sort of have to picture Kip from Napoleon Dynamite doing an Al imitation…
In space no one can hear you be hip, thus it’s probably a blessing that the Low Frequency cultured its sound in Haugesund, Norway, likely as close to space as it gets. Despite the muffled, Unwound-like vocal production, the group can’t hide its bubble-radio training wheels. There’s fighting Norse blood…
Anders Trentemøller’s The Last Resort vacillates between sleepy, downtempo suites and soft, minimalist shuffle beats. “Take Me into Your Skin” builds up to a rush of sensations, like a longed-for physical touch, while the hauntingly quiet “Evil Dub” earns its name via distorted bass and guitar tremors. Despite those highlights,…
In May 2006, distinctive West Coast producer Daedelus served another brilliant dish of organic and electronic intricacies called Denies the Days Demise. On the brief Throw a Fit EP, Daedelus offers more vocals than he did on Denies, and although the emphasis on bossa nova percussion isn’t as evident here,…
No new hamster-wheel-metal earth scorched here, but the mixture is high-octane if anyone is still living and dying by this genre. Unleashed is a black-metal band in a death-metal body, singing like pirate-oafs and pretending to admire Mastodon’s riffing here and there but forever falling back to Bathory-style three- and…
With the a-for-anarchy branding still legible on their pocked backsides after 30 years, the grandmammies of chick-punk return to recite the dub lessons that reggae producer Dennis Bovell beat into them during their brief fling with Island, which ended after their angry round-filing of the label’s highly round-filable memo about…
Some treasures are better left unearthed, lest the cold light of day reveal them to be something less than life-changing and invaluable. Originally released in a 300-count, LP-only batch in 2002, Hollinndagain scrapbooks selected live performances in Jersey City, Austin, Nashville, and NYC that same year by a pre-Pazz-and-Jop-charting Animal…
