Based on looks, I think they failed. Cute Is What We Aim For is likely the perfect 21st-century pop band. Almost purpose built for short-attention-span marketing campaigns, the four gents in CIWWAF focus so heavily on pop sheen, hooks, and scenester touchstones that it’s often difficult to figure out just…
Gravy Train!!!! I was debating whether to start this post with “All aboard the Gravy Train!!!!” But, er, I resisted the temptation. But don’t resist on checking out the California quartet Gravy Train!!!! (yes, the exclamation points are part of the name, I suppose to express utter joy) at White…
Ernest Barteldes Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil performs at the Fillmore Miami Beach Saturday night. Gilberto Gil Saturday, July 5, 2008 The Fillmore Jackie Gleason Theatre, Miami Beach Playing to an audience mostly formed by his many Brazilian fans, Gilberto Gil closed his six-city U.S. tour with a two-hour set designed…
Lee Zimmerman Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band July 3, 2008 Seminole Hard Rock, Hollywood By now, the traveling nostalgia show that tours annually under the banner of Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band has been honed to a tee. Ringo offers up his best-known Beatles songs and…
John Hood Tom Waits performs before a sold-out crowd at the Times-Union Center in Jacksonville, Fla. Tom Waits July 1, 2008 The Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, Jacksonville Better than: Having a hobo in your home for supper – and having him sing murder songs for it. (Dateline: Jacksonville)…
Jamie Lidell Genre-bending musician Jamie Lidell will be stopping by Heathrow Lounge, a new UK-inspired club on South Beach, July 18. Who else could be behind this booking except the people from Poplife, which will be celebrating 9 years of bringing indie music to the masses that very weekend. The…
Gameboy/Gamegirl sans fourth member and beat producer Miami Horror. Here was what I can’t figure out about Australian quartet Gameboy/Gamegirl, are they embracing hipster culture or are they making an absolute mockery of it? With lyrics like “Vodka and cranberry/Shake it like it’s February/Gin and tonic/The shit is ironic,” it…
Joan Jett never seemed overly concerned with glass ceilings. A very tough girl in a very male-centric industry, Jett simply showed up, rocked her ass off, and returned the next night to do it again, never referencing her gender to benefit her career. She was not a girl who played…
“I have a hard time with modern technology,” Brazilian icon Gilberto Gil says, describing the theme of his latest CD, Banda Larga Cordel. “I admit that I use it with moderation, but I am nevertheless fascinated by it.” This awe was the inspiration for his first disc of original material…
The pale, delicately boned wraith known as Peter Murphy gained his seat as an anointed dark king in the Seventies and Eighties as frontman of the legendary Bauhaus. Channeling the glam theatrics of David Bowie by way of the morgue, he was drama incarnate, a Count Vlad look-alike who sometimes…
Ewun, hailing from Rochester, New York, has made a lot of drum ‘n’ bass hay out of his love for hip-hop, distortion, and glitchy breakbeats. Unbeknownst to d’n’b scenesters, though, a set of Justice-like electro grooves has been lurking in his hard drive, waiting for the right time to make…
We have come a long way since July 4, 1776. A real long way. But pseudo-commentary on the Bush administration aside, one thing a bunch of dead, crusty white dudes will not deny is that at least nowadays we have a whole bunch of options at our disposal! This coming…
Jose El Rey If you haven’t seen local artist Jose El Rey perform live yet, you are missing one of the best spectacles out there. He easily won my heart over when I saw him perform at White Room earlier this year. And when he gave his cousin (niece?) Yarisleydi…
Bryan Falla Wisin Y Yandel Saturday, June 28, 2008 American Airlines Arena Better Than: Watching your mom and dad grind inappropriately to “Noche de Sexo” at last year’s New Year’s party. By 8:45 p.m., the arena had filled up almost entirely and the crowd was antsy. With every cadence, every…
Sayre Berman Keyshia Cole Lil’ Wayne, Keyshia Cole, Akon and more at SummerFest 2008 Saturday, June 28, 2008 BankAtlantic Center, Sunrise Better Than: Throwback hip-hop fest Power House from the ‘90s with a side of Pop Rocks and OE. For South Florida hip-hop enthusiasts, Saturday night’s South Florida SummerFest 2008…
If you’re not familiar with local avant jazz guru Kenny Millions, then you’ve got some catching up to do. The man is a saxophone virtuoso and if you listen to his music, without knowing anything about his storied past as a musician in other cities, you get the sense that…
Nic Fanciulli In a sort of last minute booking, British DJ extraordinaire Nic Fanciulli is stopping by the Vagabond Saturday night for its Back Door Bamby party. Don’t know who Fanciulli is? Well let me expand your musical knowledge. He’s a British house DJ that is associated with acts like…
They’ve got perhaps the best DJ collective name of all time, and that alone is reason to pay these guys some attention. And when you think about it, if you’re an audiophile, what else turns you on more than good music? Based out of England, Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron…
At the heart of Negroni’s trio are father José Negroni and son Nomar, both hailing from Puerto Rico, plus a rotating pool of guest bassists. They’ve been making strides in the international jazz community since the release of their first CD, Naturaleza/Nature, in 2003. A music professor and classically trained…
The 32-year-old house producer and DJ known as Laidback Luke first got his kicks in his native Holland as a graffiti artist. When the thrill of the physical and legal danger wore off around the mid-Nineties, he turned to music. Still, he preserved the sly cunning of the graffiti writer…
Rock geeks across the county have already shuffled (real rockers don’t run or flock) to check out MoCA’s superhip summer exhibition, “Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967.” But the whiz-bang opening, featuring bands in a soundproof box, and free “What Would Neil Young Do?” was…
Logan Fazio Modest Mouse with The Dirty Dozen Brass Band Friday, June 23, 2008 The Fillmore, Miami Beach Better Than: The mental meltdown scribbling in your seventh-grade diary. Modest Mouse and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band kicked off their North American tour together last night to a packed, enthusiastic audience…
