Evanescence October 23, 2007 BankUnited Center Better Than: Entering a bat cave with an angel by your side. It seems only natural that Amy Lee is perfectly at home in arenas. After all, her voice is the size of the sky. Even at a coo, it rises from the horizon;…
Photo by Jeffrey Delannoy Cat Power October 22, 2007 Studio A Better Than: Finding out Syd Barrett still sings in honky tonks. The Review: The last time I caught Cat Power at Studio A, it was just her, her pain, her anger and her keyboard – and a crowd of…
Poco/Firefall October 20, 2007 Gulfstream Park Before Uncle Tupelo, before Son Volt, before Steve Earle, before the other champions of roots rock and insurgent Americana, there were bands like Buffalo Springfield, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Poco, groups that helped etch a well defined link between rock ‘n’ roll and…
James Blood Ulmer October 20, 2007 The Colony Theatre, Miami Beach Better Than: A back alley brawl between jazz and blues. The Review: Back when I first moved in New York, one of the greatest musical pleasures I had was catching James Blood Ulmer get all “avant-gutbucket” at a dingy…
Hot Hot Heat October 19, 2007 Culture Room Better Than: A B12 shot of mid-‘80s nostalgia. The Review: I hate beginning with a negative (there’s too much bad in the world already), but I will say this: if I never had to stand through another song by Bedouin Soundclash, my…
Hot Hot Heat October 19, 2007 Culture Room It’s exactly 8 p.m. when I pull up to the parking lot of Culture Room. The night air is surprisingly cool and comforting as I freak out about not being able to find parking. A few maze-like trips through the lot yield…
The Skatalites: Many Rivers to Cross. More Jamaican Artists that you can shake a stick at. Bergeron Rodeo Grounds October 20, 2007 Better Than: Watching the Miami Dolphins lose to the New England Patriots in the ‘Manhandle South of the Panhandle.’ Jamaica as a nation has an incredibly rich musical…
Kid Rock The Fillmore Theater Miami Beach October 18, 2007 Better than: A Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread sandwich Love him or hate him, Kid Rock makes an impression. From the moment the house lights went down at Miami’s Fillmore Theater Thursday night, the air in the room was electrified…
Miami may be in the south but it’s about as far from the Blues as you can get. Thankfully, you can break out the bourbon and revisit the hard times this Saturday when James Blood Ulmer, a high-powered, sharp-picking blues guitarist, blows into town. The Village Voice has called Ulmer…
Photo by Jeffrey Delannoy Al Jarreau and George Benson Hard Rock Live October 17, 2007 View the concert slidehow. A good friend of mine recently said to me, “I know you like photographing old people.” Well, in response to that, I have to say that when I have the chance…
Rumor has it the new Spank Rock and Benny Blanco CD, Bangers and Cash got pulled from the shelves of Best Buy this week because management just noticed its x-rated cover art. Apparently, this is all about the back cover where a partially obscured dildo can be seen in the…
In this month’s Penthouse magazine, 36-year-old Bob Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock, is asked about the title of his latest album, Rock and Roll Jesus. His response: “I believe in Jesus; I think it’s great to promote his name.” It’s the kind of working-class, well-what-did-you-expect, is-he-or-isn’t-he-serious answer that has…
The Miami Beach-based trio Jacob’s Ladder knows that hard, relentless work is the backbone of an, errr, ascent to success. This Thursday marks the beginning of the young band’s fourth recent monthlong East Coast tour, bringing the band’s career performance count close to 300. Seriously these guys have played everywhere,…
Once considered by saxophonist Stan Getz as the natural successor to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, the Tacoma, Washington-born singer Diane Schuur is now in the fourth decade of her award-studded career. To celebrate, in June she released a live CD, Diane Schuur: Live in London, captured at that city’s…
Since 1994, the B-Side Players have stirred the world music melting pot with remarkable vigor. Fusing the sounds of Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, and Brazil with American funk, rock, jazz, and hip-hop, the nine-man San Diego-based outfit has delivered some memorable results. Colin Hay of Men at Work joined by a…
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that the dark side of the Eighties still shadows our soundscape. All it takes is a radio or a healthy addiction to a blog aggregator. Popular acts such as She Wants Revenge, Blaqk Audio, and even Interpol mine those fabled depths for…
If there’s one thing Asheville, North Carolina, is good at exporting, it’s sure-fire music talent — especially of the Afro-hippie variety. That town’s got more dub, Afrobeat, and West African percussion acts fronted by Anglos than you can imagine. Interestingly, most of them are pretty good, but one Asheville group…
Witness Sigur Ros talking to Luke Burbank, in advance of its upcoming release, Hvarf / Heima. Or, rather, witness Sigur Ros really not sure what to say to Burbank’s line of questioning — a phrase I use loosely. The video is linked here. Now, commenters have been lashing out at…
If you stumble onto your favorite familiar, well-trodden path of earth tonight, you won’t find your weekly drum circle bros. Nay, hand-percussion instruments and less portable toking tools will also be abandoned for the next 48 hours in honor of the two-day stint by jam-band-powerhouse Medeski, Martin & Wood. The…
Guster October 14, 2007 The Culture Room Better Than: And egghead keg party 10 years after graduating college. Thank Zeus for huge favors: Last night Guster did not open for Barenaked Ladies or Toad the Wet Sprocket or Modest Mouse (as they have in the past), nor did they play…
Octopus Project, Humbert, Zombies! Organize!!, Electric Pizza Party City Limits October 9 We rolled up to City Limits just as Humbert, the second band of the night (Emergency Pizza Party had the early slot), was about to play. The lights dropped as the boys were settling in near their instruments…
Photo by Michelle F. Solomon Ricky Martin The Fillmore Miami Beach at The Jackie Gleason Theater October 10, 2007 The Review: The words Fillmore and Ricky Martin somehow just didn’t seem to go together. Ricky Martin opening the Fillmore Miami Beach, the namesake of the Fillmore San Francisco where Jerry…
