The Courier Cinnamon (Island/Soap) The Cardigans are the obvious frame of reference for this Swedish outfit’s blend of indie and lounge pop. The guitar-driven Courier also has some of the charm of the Sundays and Altered Images, though without the former’s amused resignation or the latter’s occasional sense of utter…
Straight Outta Boone County Various Artists (Bloodshot Records) Straight Outta Boone County is Bloodshot Records’ fourth anthology of artists playing insurgent country (the label’s own name for a subgenre elsewhere hailed as no depression or alternative country), and it is hands down the label’s best collection yet. The premise this…
Elio Reve was an obstinate man who refused to miss a beat. In more than 40 years as bandleader of Orquesta Reve, his celebrated troupe, Reve remained as consistent a presence on Cuban stages as the inevitable pair of timbales he banged on-stage. And he had no intention of abdicating…
South Beach is well-known for its cultural diversity. and fortunately this is reflected in the local music scene. Sometimes that diversity is displayed better than others, and this weekend is one of those times. Friday night the Van Dyke Cafe (846 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach, 534-3600) hosts the Nicole Yarling…
“When punk started in the Seventies, it was like a runaway train — nobody knew where it was going to end up,” Social Distortion guitarist Dennis Danell says. “Punk was more dangerous and threatening back then than it is now. I think rap and the whole street-gang thing busting out…
“I was absolutely ahead of everything everybody did,” Steve Alaimo says matter-of-factly. It’s not uncommon to hear such boasts from a music industry bigwig. It’s rather characteristic, actually. But in Alaimo’s case it’s hard to argue: As a recording artist in the early Sixties, he was among the unsung pioneers…
Tired of the summer music festival frenzy? Even though it goes to the soul of rock and roll (and money), it can be a bit much. A nice change is a down-to-earth homegrown summer music event that has taken hold on a farm in the middle of nowhere. On Saturday…
Mirabal Robert Mirabal (Warner Western) Robert Mirabal has two main cultural threads in the cloth of his being. One is a traditional Native American flute maker and player. His flutes are on display at the Smithsonian, he’s recorded and toured in a new-age context, and he was heralded for his…
As it turns out, the nuts were right. Paul is dead. Creatively, at least, the Cute Beatle met his maker in about, oh, December of 1970. And, despite all the corporate pandering and hollow hoopla, Paul’s latest effort, Flaming Pie, is just about what you’d expect from a rock star…
Bass player Eddie “Gua Gua” Rivera recorded a couple of tunes with his quintet, the Latin Jazz Crew, in a Kendall studio on a recent afternoon. For the first time in three decades, the tips of his long, elegant fingers blistered. Rivera has hardly touched an instrument since May, and…
Genius + Soul = Jazz/My Kind of Jazz Ray Charles (Rhino) Long before Quincy Jones was a magazine owner (Vibe, the Source) or the producer of Michael Jackson’s multiplatinum efforts, and even long before he produced Lesley Gore’s proto-feminist anthems in the early Sixties, Q was a fifteen-year-old trumpet player…
Party culture in South Florida spreads in many directions. One more outpost for nightlife begins tonight in an area that most do not consider an evening fun zone. Just west of downtown you’ll find Malaga (740 SW Eighth St., 858-4224), a restaurant and cocktail complex that has been remodeled, is…
Standing in My Shoes Leo Kottke (Private Music) In the wake of Beck, even old-schoolers like Leo Kottke are getting hip-hop hip. On his umpteenth album, Kottke teams with producer and former Prince cohort David Z for an intriguing, occasionally convincing synthesis of the guitarist’s left-field visions and drum loops…
First, get into the pop-music time machine. Sure, it looks like a big cardboard box, maybe a refrigerator box, with crude crayoned dials drawn on its sides. Okay, it is a refrigerator box. But use your imagination, dammit! Set course for 1983. And then go back. Back before Bush. Back…
Carey Peak wants to start a revolution. A rock and roll radio revolution, that is. Sitting in a tiny Fort Lauderdale rehearsal space dominated by a set of drums, Peak explains that he and his band the C60’s are striving to deviate from the cliched sounds of the third-generation grunge…
With his stinging guitar lines, booming chord sustains, and passionate vocals, Johnny “Clyde” Copeland has spent the past four decades cutting to the heart of the blues. Recently, though, doctors have been cutting to the heart of Copeland. Since a near-fatal series of heart problems in early 1995, Copeland has…
This Independence Day weekend Miami will experience an invasion that could be as explosive and energetic as last year’s blockbuster action flick. Instead of ugly tentacled creatures bent on blasting the planet, the city will be overrun by a clutch of Latin rock musicians who bring messages not from another…
The Hollywood Sound Williams/London Symphony Orchestra (Sony Classical) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been awarding Oscars for best original score since 1934, but do its voting members know what they’re doing? Not always. Case in point: Alan Menken has won five Oscars in the past ten…
If George Washington had envisioned this country’s birthday parties revolving around guys dressed like girls, guys that want to be girls, guys that like guys, and women that could beat up most guys, he might not have crossed the Delaware. Squeeze (2 S. New River Dr., Fort Lauderdale, 954-522-2151) is…
Dion The Road I’m On: A Retrospective (Columbia/Legacy) He’s best remembered for the string of brilliant doo-wop hits he had in the Fifties with the Belmonts — swaggering, salacious cuts such as “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer” — but Dion DiMucci not only maintained a career throughout the Sixties, he…
Building a successful business from the ground up is never easy. It usually takes a lot of work and a whole lot of money. Sometimes it even takes axes and cymbal stands, homeless men with ladders, naked guys with bags over their heads, guns, rats, and snipers. Nestled in a…
Everything made sense until the Beatles broke up. Rock’s audience expanded explosively at precisely the same time the music lost its popular and aesthetic center. The Beatles had demonstrated that what was popular could be art; in their wake, some artists decided to see whether art could be pop. It…
