When Sammy Figueroa smiles, it’s one of those mile-wide smiles that starts at the bottom of his feet and spreads to his entire face, then fills up the room. It’s a grin that Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria used to flash and Francisco Aguabella still does. There’s something about congueros…
On a recent Friday night Snowhite, working mother and one of Miami’s most enduring and popular turntablists (she’s this year’s Miami New Times Readers’ Choice for Best Club DJ), is feeding her maternal recipe for a balanced aural diet to an urbane crowd during an afterparty at Kiss Steakhouse and…
Singer/songwriter Frankie J was one of the more rico members of the very suave A.B. Quintanilla y Los Kumbia Kings, a group put together by Quintanilla in 1999 as a sort of Latin Backstreet Boys (all eight members were between ages sixteen and twenty-four). If you don’t recognize the name…
Following a long-held (and arguably outdated) Cuban recording tradition, Cuban flute player Orlando “Maraca” Valle and his orchestra’s previous albums have included a potpourri of styles from free-flowing Afro-jazz to traditional danzón as well as the energetic dance club son that is the band’s true domain. Maraca may be partial…
The Cramps debuted in 1978 with the album Lucky 13, and 25 years later their rockabilly-fed and horror movie-suckled swamp circus continues through a thirteenth studio album. Few peers can rival the Cramps for sheer dedication to a singular audio-visual aesthetic with themes and content (aliens, babes, drugs) that may…
If you can imagine being straitjacketed and locked for a few days in a tiny white room illuminated by the harshest of fluorescent lighting while being deprived of your schizophrenia medication, then you’re on your way to understanding the Ex Models’ second album, Zoo Psychology. Like the Jesus Lizard but…
Though they’re named after a Smiths song (which in turn was named after a quote from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums), Pretty Girls Make Graves has precious little to do with English fop-pop. The loud-rawkin’, female-fronted, energetic Seattle quintet is well-versed with life on the road, though, having toured incessantly…
It’s a sweltering poolside afternoon in Miami Beach at the Ramada Inn. The tiki bar with its dry, weathered, and sunburned wood speaks subtly of days gone by. Its hardened, discolored fissures, once witness to an ethnic and cultural evolution on South Beach, now give shelter from the heat to…
In Dead Prez’s world, politics and activism usually take precedence over the music or, to be more precise, motivate the music and give it a reason for being. Every song is another opportunity to talk about issues, whether it’s the gentrification of “Hip-Hop,” the transformation of urban America into a…
Some of the best bands in the Seventies were the ugliest-looking dudes,” says Dave Gimenez, lead singer and songwriter for the North Carolinian band Mae. “It used to be if your music was killer, that’s all that mattered … I was looking through Boston’s CD — if these guys looked…
The Miami Beach Convention Center parking lot is an odd place to film a video. Certainly, walking along Meridian Avenue, you would never notice that amid an encirclement of big rig trucks and mobile homes sit iced-out rappers, dressed down in jeans shorts and sports jerseys, and scantily clad models…
Texas-born Roy Hargrove, part of the second wave of Young Lions to emerge in recent years, has made his name as a reliable trumpeter, a distinctive player, and imaginative soloist. He has released a dozen albums since 1989, including a pair of notable concept discs: He teamed with Christian McBride…
Over a decade ago, Ishmael Butler was Butterfly in Digable Planets, the fleetingly famous, jazz-influenced, sampladelic softie trio who released two albums and one breakout single, 1992’s “Rebirth of Slick (cool like dat).” Now he adopts a starkly different persona as Cherrywine, a parody of pimp culture, the polar opposite…
Justin “J. Boogie” Boland first gained fame as a co-founder of Beatsauce, the weekly underground hip-hop radio show broadcast on San Francisco college station KUSF-FM, so it’s no surprise that his first full-length effort as J. Boogie’s Dubtronic Science is a cool, sensual trip that mixes beat elements with various…
The last time Anthony Rother was here, during this year’s WMC, he had a packed Soho Lounge lit to the gills from his low-frequency bass riffs and synthesized vocals. While the atmosphere was more back-in-the-day — all hand-raising reminiscent of rock concerts — the electro-funk Rother threw down on his…
Everyone knows Chaka Khan from her “glory days,” an era that, by most standards, began in 1973 with a hit-laden five-year run as the frontwoman for Rufus and slowly faded away after her vital 1984 cover of Prince’s “I Feel For You.” She’s had an unassuming career ever since while…
SERGIO SIGALA CASA TUA, 1700 James Avenue, Miami Beach, 305-673-1010 In the few months it’s been operating, Casa Tua in Miami Beach has cultivated a mystique that has made a weekend dinner reservation the most sought-after ticket in town. The understated refinement of its home (a former private residence) and…
“It was a blessing in the sky,” says Felix Sama, co-host and DJ for Mun2’s hot property, the daily live TV show The Roof. He’s carrying bags full of records he just mixed live out of the Telemundo studios in Hialeah. The Roof’s audience probably missed all the albums that…
There will be a lot at stake when D-Zine takes the stage at the fifth annual Compas Festival. For starters, it will be a test for new lead singer Edresse “Pipo” Stanis, who will be playing in front of his biggest crowd since joining the band last November. There is…
If you’re skeptical that a superstar DJ such as Hanover, Germany’s Timo Maas can’t produce solid dance music on his own, you may well be right — but at least Maas (unlike some of his peers) has the good sense to freely admit that he doesn’t work alone. While he…
Baby Anne’s emergence from underneath the wing of funky breaks assembler DJ Icey has not tamed her knack for spinning persistent, pounding, hard, and heavy bass. On her fourth CD, Mixed Live, the latest in the Moonshine series, she lives up to her billing as the “Bass Queen,” a self-proclaimed…
The bubbly sound experimentalist collective called Stereolab has made a profound mark on alternative music. Over its thirteen years in existence, the group has touched on bubblegum pop, space-age bachelor pad music, Krautrock, garage rock, acid jazz, and electronica — often blending three or more of these diametrically opposed styles…
