Mr. Lif

Lots of rappers boast about surviving trials by fire. Mr. Lif knows whereof he boasts. Late last year, a tour bus carrying him, the Coup, DJ Big Wiz, Metro, and others flipped over and burst into flames. Everyone survived, and as a rebirth of sorts, Lif has undertaken this “New…

Stevie Nicks

Forget for a moment the obligatory roll call of hits — we’ll get to that in due time. Focus instead on the fact that few artists have established an image as durable as Stevie Nicks has. True, she can come off as a bit precious — spinning like a dervish,…

Miguel Migs

Owing to the particular ambiance of his chilled-down sound, one pictures Miguel Migs doing most of his studio prep work poolside, surrounded by friends. The San Francisco DJ makes midtempo house music that glides and slithers. Nothing too bassy, nothing too chirpy. “Personally I’d rather hear great music all night…

Jamie Foxx

A few short years ago, Jamie Foxx was the opposite of an award magnet — but that was before he won a Best Actor Oscar for the 2004 Ray Charles biopic, Ray. Since then, he’s been nominated for five Grammys, including three this year: one for his contributions to “Georgia,”…

Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gnarls Barkley

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been bragging about their wild-style freakitude for decades, but little speaks to the Peppers’ belief in their own out-thereness like their current choice in opener: Gnarls Barkley, the eccentric electro-soul duo featuring DJ/producer Danger Mouse and former Goodie Mob frontman Cee-Lo. No record in…

Cage with C-Chan and the Govone

Critics have taken to calling the music of New York MC Cage “horrorcore.” And the guy does kinda have a thing about death. His recent breakout album, Hell’s Winter, features the following upbeat ditties: “Teen Age Death,” “Gimme Some Death,” and “The Death of Chris Palko.” (Hint: Chris Palko is…

Sheila Witkin Memorial Reunion Concert

So now we find out just how cool Johnny Depp really is. Way back, young girls would pack local clubs to see a band called the Kids, fronted by a scraggly young man named Johnny. Now the Kids, along with other bands upon whose shoulders South Florida’s original rock scene…

The Queers

Veteran Boston-area punk rockers the Queers aren’t just another melodic, Ramones-like speed-punk band looking to scrape up a few new fans; they’ve been a punk institution since the early Eighties. Frontman Joe King has been the sole constant of the group since its inception, and, moshers, beware: He’s never been…

Bill Frisell

The model of a patient player, Bill Frisell has for decades kept his jazz, country, and fusion guitar work to a minimum. You’ll hear plenty of riffs, swirls, swells, and slides, but nary a moment of noodling. In 1989, Frisell teamed with fellow guitarist Arto Lindsay, drummer Joey Baron, saxophonist…

The Fray

This Denver quartet performs straight-ahead pop, heavy on the sing-alongs, with plenty of sweeping guitar riffs and intense piano ballads. Its debut, How to Save a Life, went platinum and led to opening gigs for big names like Ben Folds and the Rolling Stones. The Fray has since graduated to…

Indigo Girls

In 1987 the folk-rock Indigo Girls released their first full-length album, Strange Fire, without major-label assistance. It was a work of stripped-down melodies and raw emotions. The duo’s signature sound was the melding of Emily Saliers’s lullaby voice with Amy Ray’s harder edge; together they composed a honeycomb of sweet…

Juan’s Birthday Bash

Juan’s Birthday Bash A perfect storm of birthdays takes place this Friday and Saturday at Laundry Bar. Not only will owner Juan (a.k.a. Burn, a.k.a. the brain behind Basshead Productions) be lying about his age to the babes, but also DJ fixtures Karakter, Burn, and Nicky Dee will face the…

David Sanchez

It’s interesting how entire lives are often shaped by coincidence. For tenor sax player David Sanchez, chance brought him to his current station among Latin Grammy winners and jazz pros. At age fifteen, the native of Puerto Rico stumbled upon his sister’s Miles Davis music. Later, at Escuela Libre de…

Ramhaus Records Presents

This past week, Miami’s Peasants with Feathers abruptly announced (all in lowercase on their MySpace page, mind you) their intention to abandon the music business. That’s probably a huge bummer to the folks at Churchill’s, because PWF appears to have been eighty-sixed from Ramhaus Records’ January 19 mini band-a-thon. Fortunately…

Gaelic Storm

The times they are a-changin’ for Irish music enthusiasts — and their feet too. When the Pogues emerged from the early-Eighties postpunk landscape, most of their fans wore Doc Martens. Some two decades later, though, California’s Gaelic Storm dropped its latest album, 2006’s Bring Yer Wellies, offering a spirited mix…

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

Despite the fact that his latest album, the optimistically dubbed Face the Promise, represents his first new set of songs in nearly a dozen years, Bob Seger is, to borrow the title of one of his most resilient oldies, still the same when it comes to his blue-collar brand of…

Big 10-4

The Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, and Mandy Moore are undoubtedly Orlando’s leading claims to pop fame. But a newcomer is threatening to add its name to the roster. The rock quartet Big 10-4 makes what might kindly be called bubblegum-flavor crack disguised as music. After getting their start from a…

Rock Star Supernova

“I’m sick of being haunted by every cliché that I know,” moans Rock Star Supernova victor Lukas Rossi in “Be Yourself (and 5 Other Clichés).” What a way to sum up this as-seen-on-TV abomination — which couldn’t come up with a less obvious name for its opening track than “It’s…

Agent Orange

Punk and metal bands don’t die like they used to. These days they just keep coming back. In the case of seminal SoCal surf/skate trio Agent Orange, they come back again and again and again — like punk-rock zombies. This time around, the band promises to play its 25-year-old songs…

Treehouse Rock

Getting a record label established, up and running, and respected is often a long, arduous process involving a lot of hours, capital, exposure, and perseverance. But Andy Clavijo, guitarist for the Miami reggae-rock fusion band Jacuzzi Fuzz, has put together what could be deemed a little self-promotion for his new…

Between the Trees

They’re a group of young men not far from boyhood, but don’t lump this Orlando-based quintet in with the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, or any other processed cheese band to pop up from the world of Disney. Between the Trees, considered an indie band with branches slowly stretching into popdom,…

Linda Eder

In 2006 can a child see a musical film and say to herself, That’s what I want to do. I’m going to be a singer, and say it with any conviction? The master manipulators at Disney would surely cite their recent Cheetah Girls series as an affirmative example. But the…