Miami is home to some of the best dance clubs and art galleries in the nation, but there still aren’t enough places where 305 artists can freely and boundlessly express themselves. That void is what inspired Alicia Apfel to launch Space Mountain Miami, a gathering point for the Magic City’s…
Henry Stone first met James Brown in about 1954, when King Records founder Syd Nathan told both him and Ralph Bass to race to Macon, Georgia, to sign the R&B singer to a record deal. Bass got there a day before Stone and inked the contract with James Brown for…
It wasn’t long ago that DJ Drastic X turned his “It’s All Gravy” show on FIU’s WRGP Radiate FM into the vehicle by which artists like Pitbull, Rick Ross, Flo Rida, and DJ Khaled saw some of their first college radio airplay. And today, he continues to break new ground…
Churchill’s the Movie is currently in production, and there’s a Kickstarter campaign raising funds to help complete Little Haiti Rock City. The dude responsible is Franco Parente, a freelance filmmaker born and raised in Miami. He has won numerous film festival awards. He has a French television series development deal…
Some know him as Roach. But the Miami Beach Police Department prefers the name Glenn Thor Larsen. Once a Miami punk rocker who played drums in hardcore bands like U.F.C. and Sound4Sound, Larsen also served as a sound guy at Churchill’s Pub during the 2000s. But yesterday, the 34-year-old man…
The 305’s nightlife scene is notoriously fickle. Since last year, more clubs than ever before, specifically in Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road and downtown’s Brickell neighborhoods, have relocated to other parts of town or closed their doors. Places like Score, the Van Dyke Café, and now Mova Lounge have all moved…
Blood. Shit. Spilled beer. “And a girl,” as Churchill’s Pub enforcer Nicky Bowe recalls, “pissing into a saucepan.” Only a few examples of the weird, wild, and occasionally disgusting stuff that can happen in the course of a trip to Our Beloved Shithole at 5501 NE Second Avenue on any…
Bizerk was a 13-year-old kid when he started fetching water for rappers at Circle House, the North Miami studio where artists from Pitbull to Rick Ross have laid down some of their first major verses. At the time, Trick Daddy was smashing the world with hit after hit, iTunes didn’t…
It’s been said that Churchill’s Pub just might hold the world’s record for having the most live acts in a single venue. But while the massive mission (and accompanying pint-drinking campaign) to complete that count rages on, we here at Crossfade can say it’s no doubt been the home to…
It is Miami’s embassy of punk, rock, metal, noise, and pints. After 35 years under the ownership of beloved founder Dave Daniels, the cultural landmark otherwise known as Churchill’s Pub has been sold. Some are worried about drastic changes. Others expect the place to see another million mosh pits. In…
Party people looking to keep the weekend going with good tunes and cheap drinks have a new Monday night hangout. Local DJ and producer Niko Javan, who recently dropped an EP via Vice Magazine’s Thump, has linked up with the Mondaze weekly at downtown dance club The Nest. “Basically, my…
“I actually wanted to do a mixtape called Iced Coffee back when I was 19,” says QuESt as he drinks an Iced White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks. “Terrible idea. Terrible idea.” The coffee chain’s stores have become temples of freshly brewed ideas for the 22-year-old Miami rapper, who sometimes spends…
For over a century, Tobacco Road has made its home at 626 S. Miami Avenue, surviving 13 years of prohibition, Miami’s lawless Cocaine Cowboys days, even the destruction of Hurricane Andrew. But Miami’s oldest speakeasy turned gambling hall turned nudie bar turned drinking den will soon be sold. And it…
“From the hippest hipster to the loudest fratboy, we’ll all be cheering together.” That’s the tag line for Benchwarmers, a new sports bar from Wood Tavern owner Cesar Morales. This latest nightlife venture from the “Wood Tavern Family of Companies” is slated to begin doing business “just in time for…
Music venues in South Florida have always come and gone with an alarming casualness. Over the last 30-odd years, only one place, Churchill’s Pub, has held the torch for Miami’s savvy underground rock fans. Now that new owners have taken control, an era is coming to an end. And that’s…
South Beach is ’bout to be mobbed. It’s almost Memorial Day weekend in the 305 (otherwise known as Urban Beach Week), the annual four-day span during which the beach (as well as mainland Miami) gets swarmed by famous rappers, celebrity strippers, and 250,000 party people from all over the Dirty…
What does Miami’s favorite power couple do after they’ve dominated the Latin music charts, snagged more Grammys than you can ever fit onto one shelf, and created an empire of Cuban restaurants? Take their talents to Broadway, of course. Gloria and Emilio Estefan have teamed up with the Nederlander Organization…
Everyone loves Miami. Our food, our people, our beaches. But we here at Crossfade would argue that it’s our music that puts us above the competition. We’ve never tried to steal anyone else’s sound. We keep it 100 with grooves and style of our own. We are leaders in the…
We could hardly belieb our eyes. Could it be true? Has the world’s most popular singer-dancer-badboy been approved to attend the prom festivities at Miami Senior High School? Is some lucky girl (and teen model) from Little Havana named Yovanna Ventura actually dating the Biebz? Are they so super-cereal that…
In the early ’80s, Pepsi had begun seriously encroaching on sales of Coca-Cola, even outselling the latter in supermarkets. In an effort to rejuvenate sales, Coke outright replaced its formula with what would be known as “New Coke” — an “improved” version of the formula that would replace the original…
It’s amazing how much the 305 has had its hands in the perpetuation of established underground genres.
Two years isn’t forever. But in clubland, it might as well be a lifetime. Most weekly nightlife ventures are lucky to last six months. A full 24 means that you’ve built something special. Miami’s Slap & Tickle is the Tuesday party with a reputation for wild nights and unique sets…
