Last September, more than 12,000 trance fans filed into the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. That night, Above & Beyond’s Paavo Siljamäki randomly selected Ciarán Smyth, a cop from Belfast, and Xenia Lee, a graduate student from New York, to take the stage and ceremoniously “press the button.” The group’s Jono…
By many standards, Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival is a resounding success. Since its inaugural edition in 2016, the South Florida festival has sold out twice — no easy feat for a fest without a reputation to precede it. Besides being financially solvent, Okeechobee has garnered acclaim from critics and audiences. It also has a well-populated subreddit and a cute shortened name that fits comfortably alongside that of ‘Roo and Lolla: Chobee.
World music often gets shafted in popular music discourse. Despite encompassing, well, the breadth of what the world offers musically, it often isn’t treated with the same reverence and passion Americans reserve for today’s electronic and rock acts. But if that fact bothers Simrit Kaur, known simply as Simrit, it…
Brace yourself. Winter is coming. Like all pop culture phenomena, Game of Thrones will not allow itself to be bound to one medium. What began as A Song of Ice and Fire — a series of fantasy books written by George R.R. Martin — Game of Thrones was unleashed onto…
On January 20, a misogynist Cheeto took the oath of the president of the United States. Just as important, the next day, millions of women took to the streets to protest his plans. Around the world, women marched to show their strength and made their voices heard. A trio of…
Folk music and punk rock don’t seem to go hand in hand. One is slow; the other is fast. One conjures images of flowing dresses and acoustic guitars; the other makes you think of ripped jeans and safety-pin piercings. But because both genres stem from protest, they often find a…
When DMX takes the stage at the 9 Mile Music Festival this Saturday, some audience members might experience a little cognitive dissonance. 9 Mile is historically a peace-and-love-friendly affair, a festival that requires attendees to donate canned goods to charity just to get through the gates. Meanwhile, DMX doesn’t exactly…
As underground personalities go, Damian Lazarus qualifies as royalty. He’s a DJ, a producer, a label boss, and frontman for the Ancient Moons. But during Miami Music Week, his most important skill is that of epic party planner.
At times, Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival felt like the tale of two worlds. You had your relatively-clean VIP and artists, and then you had your smelly, dirt-rotting GA camping hoards. You had your shoe gazing, indie darling, folk music hipsters, and then you had your rebel rousing, totem-touting professional…
For 24 years, the 9 Mile Music Festival has been the premier reggae event in Miami. Since its inception in 1993, the event, better known by its unofficial title, Marley Fest, is a yearly party with the Marley family. It honors their patriarch’s legacy.
Dirty ankles, warm beer, tank-top sunburns, and never-ending groove. Yes, Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival is in full swing. Once again, the quiet community of Sunshine Grove is filled with tens of thousands of hip-hop heads, beat freaks, rock jocks, and all manner of folks looking for a good time.
When Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal perform at the North Beach Bandshell this Sunday, they’ll be doing so under the cover of a shadow of nativism and xenophobia that has engulfed the United States. The celebrated world music duo will be performing as the first featured artists in The Rhythm…
When singer Dan Lotti and guitarist Mike Sivilli first gigged around Charleston, South Carolina, in 2005, they didn’t want to take themselves too seriously. So they chose a name that made them laugh: Dangermuffin. But something unexpected has happened over the past decade.
Florida’s status as a metal-music mecca relies on a perfect storm of time and location — those being the late ’80s and Tampa. Broward County has had some acts, but Miami’s scene has been overshadowed by more popular forms of danceable stuff.
With their DJ battle live at Sidebar this Saturday, March 4, DJ Premier and Pete Rock will match the hype of the recent Swizz Beats and Just Blaze battle.
Miami Music Week, Winter Music Conference, and Ultra Music Festival will attract DJs, electronic musicians, and producers from all over the world. There will be everything from easily digestible EDM to heady techno. If Art Basel is the art world’s cultural apex in the Americas, then MMW is Mecca for dance…
If football is life, the New England Patriots give breath to every living Bostonian. And Ken Casey, the raspy voice behind the Celtic punk-rock band Dropkick Murphys, is no exception. “I feel so great about the Pats winning the Super Bowl,” Casey brags of the Patriots’ victory over the Atlanta…
Describing David Grisman means figuring out how to explain how he combines bluegrass, klezmer, jam bands, and jazz. But that’s what the virtuoso mandolin player has done in a 50-year career during which he has played with, among others, fiddler Vassar Clements, French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, klezmer clarinetist Andy Statman, and close friend Jerry Garcia — the legendary Grateful Dead guitarist.
Cuban singer Danay Suarez was born a poet. She doesn’t speak in sound bites, as many singers in the digital age do in interviews. Instead, she answers questions about her music and message with all the thoughtfulness and seriousness of someone giving a speech at the United Nations, occasionally sprinkling…
For the past two years, Steve Aoki and the Dim Mak crew have held an epic Miami Music Week bash at Nikki Beach. Last year was a particularly huge milestone for Aoki’s label. It celebrated its 20th anniversary with a mega-lineup that performed for 17 hours.
The past 12 months have been tragic for Parliament Funkadelic. The grandmasters of funk have seen two members of their collective fall. Last June, keyboardist extraordinaire Bernie Worrell died of cancer, and just this past January, their former musical director, Junie Morrison, passed away. But those expecting the group’s show…
With only days to go, general-admission three-day passes to the 2017 Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival are sold out. Still available, though, are the four-day Portal Passes for $279. It’s a bargain compared to Florida’s other mammoth festival, Ultra, whose tickets normally retail for about 400 bucks apiece. So what…
