This a good time for the national music industry, what with South By Southwest just wrapping up in Austin, Texas, and Miami’s annual booze-and-schmooze expo taking place from March 22-26 in the form of the Winter Music Conference. I’m not real happy with the music industry right now, though, and…
Fluffy Black Eye (The Enclave) Call it a backlash against the Gallagher Brothers, trip hop, or all things Manchester. Whatever the case, it was only a matter of time before an English band picked up some screaming guitars and told us exactly everything that’s wrong with the world. Such a…
Among those devoted to the preposterous notion that they can support themselves by making music, the recitation of day jobs is a hallowed form of commiseration. At its worst this ritual comes off as a kind of macho bellyaching, a self-pity sword fight. But the day-job comparison has more noble…
A scratchy recording of a vaguely familiar tune plays in the small University of Miami classroom where Paul Austerlitz lectures to a handful of students on the social history of Caribbean music. As a man sings in phlegmy French over lilting guitar and soft percussive beats, Austerlitz explains that the…
The late great rock critic Lester Bangs used to imagine what his records would say to one another if they could talk. Butted up against each other on his less-than-organized shelves, how would they get along? Like, what would Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On say to Sly and the Family…
Out of this world Virtua Cafe, the cyber club and interactive entertainment emporium, reopens tonight (Thursday) in Coconut Grove’s new Streets of Mayfair (3390 Mary St; 567-3070) after closing down its South Beach locale a few months back. Added to the club’s original concept are a restaurant, retail store, and…
U2 Pop (Island) So this is the “next big thing” the music industry has been so desperately searching for? Hate to disappoint, but the U2 of Pop is emphatically still U2 — underneath the electronic trickery, you can hear Bono’s vocal idiosyncrasies, Edge’s ringing guitar, Adam Clayton’s prominent bass. Despite…
Scott Drake is old enough to remember a time when traditional high-energy rock and roll and guttural punk rock shared more than a little common ground — when the squalling racket of the Damned, the Dead Boys, and the Vibrators revealed an obvious debt to the blues-derived work of the…
Everything works out for the best when you just go with the flow, contends Muse vocalist Paul Isaac. A year after leaving Miami for Los Angeles to record its major label debut, Muse is finally prepared to meet the world with an album recorded in Atlanta. Titled Arcana, the disc…
Tony Bennett Tony Bennett On Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday (Columbia) Tony Bennett has nearly always been an anachronism. His career began just moments before his brand of sophisticated, Tin Pan Alley melody was bowled over by the passionate rhythms of rock and roll. A half-century later, with all…
Since most rock critics are neither swamis nor gypsies, they really have no business predicting the future, whether it’s the commercial faring of a new album or the direction an artist’s career will or won’t take. Nevertheless, the Miami Herald’s pop critic and resident Fleetwood Mac fanatic Howard Cohen wrapped…
Let the stars guide you to the grand opening of the Moonlite Caffe (410 Espanola Way, Clay Hotel, Miami Beach, 604-9060) tonight (March 6). The small restaurant/bar features international food delights at all hours of the day, plus an eclectic mix of musical inspirations, from Latin on Thursday to reggae…
It’s late February. It’s a Friday night, so you take your wife by the hand, kiss your kids, wave goodbye to the babysitter, and hop in the car. If you don’t have kids, you can bring the babysitter along. Your destination? Coral Gables Congregational Church, where Tigertail Productions presents the…
On the surface Columbus, Ohio, isn’t very different from a lot of not-so-progressive midsize cities in the Midwest, from its long, hard winters and obsession with college sports to its myriad flourishing country-and-western bars. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find what may be the most vibrant and varied…
Since I do a lot of bitching and moaning about the largely pathetic live-music network in South Florida, where worthwhile touring acts are as rare as a Miami snowstorm, I think it’s only fair to point out that there are several fine shows lined up this week at various spots…
Mandela Original Soundtrack (Island) This 26-track collection from the documentary of the same name blows its own horn too loudly by claiming to represent “the essential music of South Africa.” Its best moments, though, shed intriguing light on the development of the country’s music. From the Manhattan Brothers’ upbeat, urbane,…
Enough of the crowds on South Beach. It’s time for some decadent diversions in other parts of town. The Latin influence bleeds into North Miami when coffeehouse-cum-club the Grind (12573 Biscayne Blvd., 899-9979) hosts Descarga, a Latin open-mike night put on by local rock en espanol band ANada? Anyone who…
Credibility is a tricky thing in rock and roll — not because it’s so hard to attain, but because it means different things to different people. Aficionados of punk and rap seem more obsessed than others with the concept of credibility, but there’s a key difference that separates the two…
Like most things on South Beach, club openings depend on money, time, and the planets being correctly aligned. Having postponed their opening last weekend because of circumstances beyond the control of just about everybody, Zeptepi (1532 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 534-5221) gears up yet again to open its doors on…
A week or so before the second annual Miami Latin Jazz Festival, held February 15 at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, organizer Arturo Campa told me the show was going to span the history of Afro-Cuban music. And the lineup for the event, a benefit for the Friends…
With the rarest of exceptions, the music industry is a festering slime pit populated by rabid weasels, an utterly soulless corporate machine devoid of morals and dedicated to nothing other than the pursuit of the almighty dollar at the expense of artistic integrity and all trace of human compassion. This…
Pioneering entrepreneur Mark Soyka knows it isn’t easy selling live jazz in South Beach, a place where the throbbing pulse and synthetic drone of DJ-spun techno is the preferred soundtrack, and where what little live music you can find is of the rock and roll variety. But through perseverance and…
