Obituary singer John Tardy was a pioneer of the low-growl metal-vocal sound, but he sounds pretty normal over the phone. “I can’t wait to see the fans in Miami,” he says, referring to the Tampa band’s first local gig in two years. Saturday’s stop at Studio A is part of…
Chicago DJ Terry Mullan’s house music is so acidic he should be pimping Eveready batteries. Mullan was last in Miami in March, at Nocturnal for the AM Only party during WMC. His renown stems in part from his track “Sidewinder,” which wound up on the Chemical Brothers Brother’s Gonna Work…
Austrian-born jazz guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel invariably gives the first impression of a phenomenally understated musician. He rarely raises the voice of his instrument above a normal conversational tone. It’s a brilliant gambit; by keeping his cool, he draws the listener in. Now you’re in Muthspiel’s territory, and you have about…
Some of the brightest rising stars on the Christian rock scene arrive Tuesday for the local stop of their Pages Tour, so named for the journal in which headliners Shane & Shane penned many of their lyrics. The Shanes — last names Barnard and Everett — perform in support of…
The beautiful thing about art and music,” reveals 37-year-old renaissance man Djinji Brown, “is that you can redefine or reinvent yourself by trying some different shit.” He should know. A recent Miami transplant, Brown has perfected the art of reinvention over his musical career. Starting out playing in a hardcore…
The four guys of Tigercity must be totally smooth dudes. There’s the cover of their latest self-released EP, Pretend Not to Love — a photo of four graceful stallions galloping down a crystalline beach. Smooth. Then there’s the opening of “Are You Sensation” — grooving percussion picked up by funky…
The British and French can barely conceal their contempt for one another, so leave it to a band from Louisville, Kentucky, to unite the two countries’ rich, if diametrically opposed, musical traditions. VHS or Beta’s debut album, Le Funk — short on vocals but long on grooves — flaunted an…
After 10 years or so, the members of Mendoza Line are still mining their original choice of topics: dashed hopes, failed relationships, and the uncertainties of life in the modern era. The band’s latest two-disc opus clings to this tangled trajectory, maintaining a decidedly downcast gaze. Therefore those unfamiliar with…
On his latest album, The London Book of the Dead, Steven Coates, the man behind the Real Tuesday Weld, goes deeper and deeper into the past. Contrary to what the title might suggest, Book of the Dead is less of a morbid affair and more of an exploratory one. Coates…
If you ever want to travel back to the year 1986 — and God knows why you’d want that, but at least Dick Cheney wasn’t running the country — this disc should do the trick. It’s filled with the sort of manically synthesized pop we all remember from those days…
Alanis Morisette is conquering the web with an unpredictable cover. The typically angst-ridden Canadian singer produced a satire of the Black Eyed Peas’ inane hit song “My Humps.” There is even a Will.i.am stand-in for the video, which, while faithful to the original lyrics, is delivered in Morisette’s usual slow…
Fidel Nadal Templo August 29, 2007 Better Than: Standing around under the hot, backing sun of Bicentennial Park’s Memorial Fest reggae festival. Fidel Nadal is an internationally acclaimed Argentine reggae superstar. His songs focus on the plight and social issues of the underprivileged. Nadal is old school, starting out in…
It’s sensual, moving and breathtaking all at once. And smooth-delivering Victor Manuelle is a master at it. No matter the subject the Puerto Rican salsa star is a virtuoso at delivering impromptu lyrical soneos that can go on for several minutes at a time. Whether he’s singing about a woman…
Inside Club Dream on August 21, the pressure was palpable. The Miami Beach night spot had been converted into the set of a $150,000 music video for Slip-N-Slide rapper Plies’s hit song “Hypnotized,” which features — who else? — Akon. The day’s shoot began at 12:30 p.m. and kept the…
Tahita Bulmer, the effervescent frontwoman for New Young Pony Club, has got little love for the sort of po-faced, pseudo-earnest bloke rock that’s held her London home in its tatty-trousered chokehold. “It’s been very white, and male, and middle class, or upper-middle class. Women and their histories and their perspective…
When you think about it, Labor Day is possibly the most American holiday we have, trumping even the Fourth of July. Let’s face it: We pride ourselves on our blue-collar roots more than we do on a silly declaration. Therefore here is a handful of songs about the American working-class…
The drum ‘n’ bass tanks keep rolling at Laundry Bar, with DJ Krust manning the booth this week. Krust was originally a hip-hop guy who began DJing in the mid-Eighties at schools and small clubs around his hometown of Bristol in the UK. During the later part of that decade,…
Rich Ulloa can’t contain his enthusiasm. Here he is, arms full of scrapbooks, three of the 20 volumes he has meticulously compiled since the early Nineties. They comprise every scrap of paper having anything to do with singer-songwriter Mary Karlzen. She’s one of the more prolific artists he has managed,…
Rumors of Shine’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. DJ Jonathan Cowan’s club opened to much fanfare in the Shelborne Hotel in spring 2006, immediately garnering kudos for its intimate size and ambience, as well as a jaw-dropping Steve Dash sound system. (It’s one of only a few by the guy…
“Conscious rap” needs to be eliminated from hip-hop’s vernacular — or at the very least, Talib Kweli’s name should be stricken from its rolls. Nobody’s quite sure what the term means: Music that doesn’t focus on rims and butts? Songs wherein the listener’s life isn’t explicitly threatened? Kweli has said…
Some Forgotten Country opens with picket-fence guitar, Harry Smith banjo, and a bluesman spitting marbles: “Going to Atlanta just to look around….” I’ve heard this stoned baritone before, almost 40 years ago. He’s the willing trucker “smuggling smokes and folks from Mexico,” the strung-out hillbilly “with a needle and a…
Panacea’s striking LP, The Scenic Route, ripples with introspective rhymes and production. The creative spark that Washington, D.C.’s K-Murdock and Raw Poetic dubbed Panacea was formed as a side project around a larger hip-hop band called RPM. The Scenic Route’s organic elements would probably spoil in the hands of live…
