When two-time Tony Award nominee Christine Andreas last came to Miami, it was to help christen the Carnival Center while taking a turn Margaret Johnson in a production of The Light in the Piazza. “Opening a venue is always exciting. Mine was the first foot or limb to step on…
Italian-born DJ John Acquaviva has called Ontario, Canada, his home for most of his life, but as one of the most elite and in-demand techno DJs, he calls the world his stage. He cofounded the seminal techno labels Plus 8 and Definitive with cohort Richie Hawtin, and the two have…
Led by singer/guitarist Mike Montero, OSO exhibits a great knack for spacey, jammy prog-rock reminiscent of Particle. The band’s full-length LP, You Know, was released independently on its own Polyphonic Studio label last July. Like many local musicians, Montero finds the Miami rock scene a challenge, but he does detect…
Here are Kenny Garrett’s credentials: At the gentle age of 18, he was part of Duke Ellington’s orchestra (then led by son Mercer Ellington). At age 21, he was gigging with Mel Lewis’s orchestra, and by age 24, he had produced his first solo recorded effort. A talented and accomplished…
Pittsburgh might not be known as a hotbed of hip, but native Gregg Gillis, a DJ turned remix artist, serves up white-hot mashups that perfectly reflect the genre-bending preferences of downtown types. Like similar DJs/remix artists such as Flosstradamus and The Rub, Girl Talk spins sets that traverse hip-hop, crunk,…
On tap at Shine this Saturday is a friendly reminder that Winter Music Conference is on its way. A bit early, yes, since WMC doesn’t officially kick off until March 24, but any excuse to get two of Saw Recordings’ standout acts to South Beach will work. First and foremost,…
Not just a local hero anymore, Markus Schulz rides a wave of adulation for his second artist album, Progression, into Mansion on Saturday. These days the German-born DJ and producer lives in and operates out of Miami as well as Berlin. And from wherever he calls home at the moment,…
Just when you thought Snoop Dogg didn’t have any creativity left. I don’t know why this song gets stuck in your head so easily. Even though Snoop’s T-Pain approach gets annoying after a while, the video makes it all worth it. — Jonathan Cunningham…
I don’t care about his feathered hair. I don’t care about his unfortunate fascination, in the Seventies and Eighties, with puff sleeves. Or his continuing fascination with white suits. Or the fact that, with some teenage parenting, he could technically be old enough to be my grandfather. I love Rod…
So if you’ve ever visited the ice-cold city of Toronto, you’ll know that when it comes to music and culture, it’s one of the biggest melting pots North America has to offer. With relaxed immigration and a stronger currency than the U.S. (ahem), Toronto isn’t a bad city in which…
Arsis, in classical music parlance, most commonly refers to the up-beat, or unstressed parts of a measure. The term seems an odd choice of name for a technical death metal outfit whose lyrics focus on death, defilement, and the destruction of the sacred, and whose pummeling assault leaves no room…
Well, technically it’s now the “15th Annual Caribbean Fest,” but everybody knows it’s all about the Marleys. And this year, it looks like they’re getting it together musically. While the first few years were mostly reggae, and mostly Marley, things got a little scattered in the meantime. This led to…
David Allan Coe Saturday, January 26 Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale Better Than: An awkward car trip with the ghost of a country legend. Saturday was the first time I’d seen David Allan Coe since a show he did in Fort Worth, at Billy Bob’s Texas. It was his first gig…
Hate Eternal, 3 Inches of Blood, and the Black Dahlia Murder Wednesday, January 23, 2008 The Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale Better Than:Oh, making offerings to false metal gods? The Review:It’s always a reassuring sign when, after driving almost an hour in torrential rain, one is greeted at a venue’s entrance…
It’s not really album sales that propel a band into the annals of jazz history. No, it’s usually a steady fan base, good recordings, and a solid live show. It doesn’t really matter what kind of jazz is played, as long as it is honest and on the money. Spyro…
Ladies and gentlemen, this local trio is floating in space. Its tripped-out sound is a rare, galactic union of Pavement-style power-chord grit, hooky postpunk, and cerebral, swirly shoegaze. Although the band formed in 2005, the members each boast a Miami rock pedigree. Vocalist/guitarist Ivan Marchena and drummer Ed Artigas previously…
Bobby “Blue” Bland is anything but. He doesn’t play soul-rending slide guitar; he doesn’t wail away on the blues harp; he doesn’t even play an instrument. All he has is his voice, but that voice is one to make the ladies swoon and the men falter. The excitement offered up…
The frenetic pace of hardcore, the combination of outrage and adrenaline, isn’t conducive to longevity. Fact is, most punkers mellow as they age. They take “real” jobs, get married, have kids — in other words, they become the people they hated when they were young and raging. This didn’t happen…
Joe Nice’s, well, niceness has helped put him and the dubstep genre he loves on the American electronic dance music map. It’s a bass-driven, dub-reggae-influenced mutation of the mostly London-outskirts-produced style of dance music known as garage (rhymes with carriage). The prototypical herky-jerky dubstep beat sounds like an early hip-hop…
Sofia January 19, 2008 Harold Golen Gallery Better Than:Tiesto’s faux “progressive” electronic beats Nowadays a lot of electronic music has very little to do with the genre’s original theories of sound experimentation. During its initial stages, weird, non-melodic tonalities ruled the day. For instance, Fifties artists such as Louis and…
Marilyn Manson January 20, 2008 The Fillmore Miami Beach Better Than: You can imagine. Only a dingbat or a dolt doesn’t dig Marilyn Manson. Really. I mean, unless you’ve absolutely no sense of humor, let alone sense of the absurd, or you believe rock shouldn’t come from a loud place,…
The Audition PacTour: The Audition, Envy On the Coast, Danger Radio, Another Day Late Saturday, January 19, 2008 Culture Room Better Than: Dealing with the sweat and rain of an outdoor summer punk festival. I’m pretty certain that anybody who’s anybody at a South Florida high school was at the…
