While attending Palmetto High School, singer-guitarist Jeff Rollason played in a band called Strangelove, which recorded in some long-forgotten local studio. His next band, the underappreciated Mr. Tasty and the Breadhealers, recorded at Who Brought the Dog? studio. Then they broke up. Two years ago he formed Curious Hair and…
For the past decade her uplifting artistry could be found all about: at an Irish pub in the Gables, a coffeehouse in North Miami, a bookstore in Kendall, an upscale restaurant in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, a legendary bar in downtown Miami, a park in North Miami-Dade. At venues…
With little local fanfare, the soft-spoken Seven has made an international name for himself and his record label, releasing joyously skewed takes on premillennium DJ culture. Artists as disparate as Germany’s drum-and-bass deconstructionists Funkstörung and Miami’s down-tempo mixologist Push Button Objects have graced the label with twelve-inch vinyl; a single…
In real life Sean “Birdman” Gould is a Southern boy who came to Miami Beach to make rock and roll and pick up chicks. In this exuberant clip, the Clambake singer-guitarist portrays a Southern boy who comes to Miami Beach to make rock and roll and pick up chicks. In…
Willy Chirino’s feel-good nostalgia album showcases the chops of local Latin talents such as Arturo Sandoval, Albita Rodriguez, Jon Secada, and Roberto Torres. With a little help from his friends, Chirino departs from his formulaic pop-salsa format to shine on a merry mix of Cuban classics, including “Guantanamera,” “Son de…
Only months ago Al’s Not Well was on top of the local rock hill. The exotically coiffed and coutured crew’s blend of pulsing rhythms, psychedelic meanderings, and solid New Wave sounds had landed them a deal with Tommy Boy’s Beyond Music imprint, touring gigs, recording sessions. The queen goddess of…
While her drummer Derek Murphy remained in New York working on other (read: well-paying) gigs, and bassist Matthew Sabatella concentrated on his own impressive musical projects, everybody’s favorite silly little girl-genius kept a hand in by performing solo. During one such highly charged sho, in April at Power Studios in…
We like ’em young. Especially when a gang of whippersnappers exudes so much raw talent that within months of their band’s formation, they are being booked to record at Criteria under the aegis of local supermanager Rich Ulloa, releasing a subsequent EP produced by Rose Guilot, playing showcases at top…
A coffeehouse without a screeching espresso machine? Sans cigarette smoke and incessant chatter? Could it be? It is, in a suburban Kendall neighborhood where a house doubles as Temple Beth Or, the main sanctuary of which is transformed every other month into the concert venue Sacred Grounds Coffeehouse. Launched in…
A boisterous crowd gathered outside the Miami Beach Convention Center in August to protest a performance by Cuban musicians invited to the MIDEM music conference. Inside a more joyful noise was heard as the show went on right in the face of bomb threats. Since April acts from the island…
Some years ago Magnum Band was part of a spirited Little Haiti scene, when there were clubs and cafés dotting the neighborhood and attracting dancers and partiers of the most festive sort. Now the lights in Little Haiti have dimmed, and some local musicians have forlornly returned to their homeland…
Is it really the end? We fear it is. On a Saturday in February, guitarist Rob Coe and producer Jeremy DuBois are in the upstairs room of North Miami’s Tapeworm studio, mixing songs for a new Fay Wray album. The following Thursday the fiery, clever, and (this description is becoming…
With song titles such as “1 Horse Town” and “Cowboy Ways,” the Holy Rollin’ Hellfires are a little bit country, but a bootload of rock. After a series of rhythm-section changes, the Beach-based Hellfires solidified, released an eponymous CD, and can now be found detonating their yee-haw ya-yas from Fort…
After five years of kicking it locally and fathering some considerable buzz, The Artist Formerly Known as Trick Daddy Dollars has ridden his easy-swinging beats and hard rhymes into the Billboard Top 10. His first LP, Based on a True Story, cracked the R&B Top 100; his followup, www.thug.com, has…
Some local musicians pitch a fit about the lack of a live music scene. After arriving from Los Angeles last year, pianist Arthur Hanlon set out to create a scene. Hanlon’s monthly gig at The Globe in Coral Gables, where he jams with a quintet of outstanding local Latin players,…
It’s after midnight and, three songs in, the ButterClub has mesmerized the outdoor crowd at a local music festival. Before the next selection, singer Rhett O’Neil asks the technical crew to turn off the stage lights. “We’re all friends here,” he says. For the next 90 minutes a couple of…
Rob Elba has distinguished himself as an incisive songwriter and riveting performer both with his former group the Holy Terrors and as a solo artist. This outfit, which also includes members of Radio Baghdad, is something else altogether. In typically ferocious style, Elba and company tear up classic (ahem) tunes…
“The tyranny of the beat” is an apt description of Miami’s club culture, a world where creativity, envelope pushing, and soulfulness are increasingly being shoved aside in favor of generic four-on-the-floorisms. Phoenecia stands as one of a handful of local electronic acts bucking that trend, and Odd Job is an…
The reggae cover bands of Miami probably don’t like getting up there and grinding out “No Woman No Cry” for the eight-millionth time. Alas, that’s what the mainstream market demands. This is a tough town for an original reggae band, particularly one with a political consciousness, but Benaiah continues to…
Decades before the sampling-based, cut-and-paste genre of hip-hop took hold, Jamaican dub was recycling recorded riffs like crazy. And “crazy” is the appropriate word. Extrapolating from reggae’s repetitious, hypnotic intensity, beginning in the early Seventies the Jamaican granddaddy of dub, King Tubby, was not only assembling the most psychedelic pop…
Miami’s beat-maestro extraordinaire DJ Craze is everywhere these days, winning the International Turntablist Federation’s scratching competition in Amsterdam, jetting off to Calgary, Canada, for a club date, and receiving accolades from the New York Times. His full-length debut Crazeë Musick is set for release later this month on San Francisco’s…
It’s fascinating to watch a high-quality band mature, especially when it’s fronted by a talent like Demetrius Brown. As Manchild’s singer-lyricist-guitarist, Brown has proved himself a prolific artist, penning more than 100 songs and performing countless gigs since 1992. Because he is best known for his phenomenal guitar incantations, his…
