Some bands try for crossover hits, and some throw Hail Marys from 60 yards out. Purple Popcorn would fall into the latter category. The Miami-based hard-rock/rap act is headed up by Danny “Styles” Schofield and Winston “Blackout” Thomas, the same pair who produced 10 of the songs on Shawn Mims’s…
If the drum ‘n’ bass genre were ever to eat itself, Ed Rush wouldn’t be to blame. In the early Nineties, Rush was just another way-too-serious breakdancer searching for meaning beyond his electro/hip-hop universe. As it happened, the key to his artistic salvation was the rave scene, or one aspect…
Give Orlando-based DJ/producer Baby Anne a gold star on two counts. One, for still carrying a torch for Florida breaks, our state’s woozy, psyched-out spin on electro that reached its heyday in the late Nineties. Two, for being one of the few females to do so in a scene ruled…
Apparently some talented people can literally make art just by taking a dump. Wait, don’t go yet. “I’ve written several songs on the toilet,” Latin superstar Marco Antonio Solis reveals. “One of them is ‘La Venia Bendita,’ which came about while I was traveling from Mexico City to Cancun.” The…
Wherever his musical endeavors take him from this point forward, Marco Antonio Solis will forever be credited for greatly influencing norteno and tejano music all over Mexico and southwestern parts of the United States. Just 12 years old when he started improvising on an array of instruments and developing a…
Rachel Brown Jazziz Lounge August 15, 2007 Better Than: Listening to pillow-talk R&B on the radio Last Wednesday night, sultry singer, Rachel Brown showcased her long awaited debut CD, Love, Life & Relationships at Jazziz Lounge in front of a packed audience of fans and industry-types. The locally based R&B…
Peter Frampton And The Doobie Brothers Hard Rock Live August 19, 2007 Better Than: The usual recycled vintage radio rock acts. In a night that gave classic rock fans a double shot of live and loud, the question hovered over the crowd like a waft of pot smoke. Should Peter…
Argentine-born artist Diego Jinkus knows his way around his axe. Seriously — even when he’s rocking out, his fingers are fluttering up and down his guitar’s neck with hummingbird speed. His chops have even garnered him coveted sponsorships from both Godin and ESP guitars. But Jinkus is no long-haired metal…
The fresh-faced quartet Down to Earth Approach might look barely old enough to legally enter Studio A, where the band plays Thursday. But really, the guys have been at it now for the better part of a decade. Forming first in their native New York state, they decamped to California…
Rarely does a band’s name fit its music as decorously as with the Birthday Massacre. Similarly the Toronto-based quintet’s sound is color-coordinated with its black-and-purple art scheme. It is Eighties big-rock balladry reupholstered for the goth-rock vampire patrol, like Missing Persons lost in the House of Frankenstein, armed with only…
Joey Tiger doesn’t mince words. He shoves them into your ears in raw chunks. “We get the best crowd response out of all the bands we play with,” brags Tiger, lead guitarist of Hialeah-based hard rock act Dead Beat Dad. Together for a year, the bandmates have been writing songs…
The Projekt Revolution Tour, featuring Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Placebo, H.I.M., and others Sound Advice Ampitheatre August 10, 2007 View a slideshow of photos from the concert here. Gerard Way of My Chemical RomancePhoto by Jeffrey Delannoy Better Than: If you like rock and don’t mind…
Second Annual Ozone Awards James L. Knight Center, Downtown Miami August 13, 2007 Better Than: The over-hyped, over-rehearsed and just plain ol’ boring MTV Music Video Awards. OK, the Second Annual Ozone Awards are meant to honor the very best that Southern hip-hop has to offer, but judging by Monday’s…
Macy Gray Hard Rock Live, Hollywood August 14, 2007 Better Than: A Sideshow Give Macy Gray her due. The woman’s not just a one hit wonder even though it’s her song “I Try” that brought most of the crowd out to the Hard Rock to see her. Part chanteuse, part…
DJ Slip 187 Lucy Orozco Masters of Mayhem Thunderbird Beach Resort August 11, 2007 Better Than: Getting locked inside a tanning booth and blistering up to the sound of “Diamond Girl,” on your brand new iPod headphones. The review: The usual darkness and crowding of nightclubs can only do Miami…
Gilberto Santa Rosa Hard Rock Live August 9, 2007 A stunning – and obviously health conscious – woman sensually swayed her hips and caressed her long black hair from the second level railing for most of Gilberto Santa Rosa’s performance last night at the Hard Rock Live. Despite going relatively…
Local group Aboriginal holds the distinction of being one of the very few bands — if not the only one — that can boast of having opened for both Black Sheep and L.A. Guns. Few acts could, but true to its name, the quintet’s sound is raw and fresh. The…
More than 30 years ago, a lanky Dominican kid with a deep but piercing voice could do no better than third place on El Festival de la Voz (“The Festival of the Voice”). The talent search show, à la American Idol, had been organized by a local artists’ association in…
This time of year most superstar DJs are reclaiming their residencies off the coast of Spain, entertaining the beautiful people summering in Ibiza. Fortunately for Miami, Austin Leeds is a travel junkie, and his tireless schedule brings him to Studio A for a set before he heads off to the…
The deliciously sinister beats of Dom & Roland have been fueling the drum ‘n’ bass scene ever since there was a drum ‘n’ bass scene. Recording for seminal genre labels like No-U-Turn and Moving Shadow (and latterly DRP, for Dom & Roland Productions, home to top artists like Klute and…
If it’s Tuesday, there’s another hidden local gem playing at Churchill’s; this time it’s Self Run Will. These four guys are masters of MySpace self-deprecation, littering their page with admissions that they’re “white trash” and that they sound like “the same old shit.” That would be all well and good…
Hippiefest The Turtles featuring Flo and Eddi, Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals, Mitch Ryder, The Zombies featuring Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent (Time of the Season), Country Joe McDonald, Mountain featuring Leslie West & Corky Laing, and Badfinger featuring Joey Molland Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino August 2, 2007 Better Than::…
