Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra perform at 8:00 p.m. Friday, February 9, at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd, Miami. Tickets cost $15-$62. Call 786-468-2000 or visit www.carnivalcenter.org for more information.
Bobby McFerrin and Voicestra One-hit wonders, by definition, have a lyrical or instrumental gimmick, and one that won’t carry the artist any further than, well, one hit. Was it really possible for Hot Butter to top the electronic weirdness of its 1969 Moog-based hit, “Popcorn?” Or, in more recent times,…
Billy Joel After more than four years off the road — which included a rather ill-fated renouncing of pop music for classical — Billy Joel returns to (what else?) woo us with his legendary catalogue of songs. Aw, why not? Joel’s work came ready-made for nostalgia 30 years ago. The…
Erick Morillo As a warmup for his performance at Winter Music Conference next month, Erick Morillo will spin at Club Space this Saturday. Raised in Colombia and New Jersey, the DJ/record label owner is most popular for the song “I Like to Move It,” which he recorded under the pseudonym…
Dick Dale It’s almost an insult to the artist when a flyer promoting a Dick Dale concert refers to him as a “guitar legend” and then goes on to note, “as heard in Pulp Fiction and as remixed by Black Eyed Peas.” About time the kiddies turned off MTV. A…
It was clean. It was wholesome. It was family-friendly. That’s right. It sucked! — David Letterman, about Paul McCartney’s Super Bowl XXXIX halftime show As the Global Alliance of Couch Potatoes shifts its collective attention to our very own big game this Sunday, many of us will be wondering the…
This doesn’t sound like a Willie Nelson record, and it doesn’t sound like a Ryan Adams record (though he produced it). Dunno what it sounds like, to be honest, save for some ostentatious mashup that does less to pump up Shotgun Willie than shoot his legs out from under him…
Fall Out Boy is its own best friend and its own worst enemy. But subpar live shows, photos of bassist Pete Wentz’s penis, and Internet fights with ex-friends (see askheychris.livejournal. com/93593. html) can’t seem to stop the pop-punk juggernaut. The Chicago quartet addresses criticism head-on in this release, slyly incorporating…
Queens-bred, Broward-based lyricist Dynas has put out an impressive limited-edition mixtape, Street Skriptures, that unabashedly “borrows” beats and vocals from other producers. Corporate attorneys would call such an act theft, but hey, this is hip-hop. Jacking beats is a 25-year-old habit within the genre, and on Street Skriptures, Dynas does…
It’s good finally to hear an LP from Cali-via-Detroit hip-hop darling Ta’Raach, who has been stuck in “next to blow up” status for, well, the bulk of his life. While rapping under the name Lacks in the late Nineties, he helped start a makeshift group called the Breakfast Club with…
Although he hasn’t made much of a splash on this side of the pond, Paul Weller’s British career marks him as one the most successful artists to emerge from the punk/New Wave scene. This CD sampler culls 23 tunes from the four-CD, 67-track Hit Parade retrospective box, and although it’s…
Lots of rappers boast about surviving trials by fire. Mr. Lif knows whereof he boasts. Late last year, a tour bus carrying him, the Coup, DJ Big Wiz, Metro, and others flipped over and burst into flames. Everyone survived, and as a rebirth of sorts, Lif has undertaken this “New…
Forget for a moment the obligatory roll call of hits — we’ll get to that in due time. Focus instead on the fact that few artists have established an image as durable as Stevie Nicks has. True, she can come off as a bit precious — spinning like a dervish,…
Owing to the particular ambiance of his chilled-down sound, one pictures Miguel Migs doing most of his studio prep work poolside, surrounded by friends. The San Francisco DJ makes midtempo house music that glides and slithers. Nothing too bassy, nothing too chirpy. “Personally I’d rather hear great music all night…
A few short years ago, Jamie Foxx was the opposite of an award magnet — but that was before he won a Best Actor Oscar for the 2004 Ray Charles biopic, Ray. Since then, he’s been nominated for five Grammys, including three this year: one for his contributions to “Georgia,”…
The bookies in Vegas have made the Indianapolis Colts favorites by a touchdown in Super Bowl XLI, which, as we all know, will be played at our very own Dolphin Stadium. This betting line is of considerable interest to most Americans, because most Americans are degenerate gamblers and the Super…
For almost sixteen years now, James McNew has been commuting from Brooklyn to Hoboken, New Jersey, to spend hours on end, at least four or five times a week, with the same two people. And he’s pretty damn happy about it. Then again, his gig is pretty sweet: He’s the…
Although he never achieved the same fame as his peers — a group that includes Augustus Pablo and Tommy McCook — the late Jackie Mittoo (1948-1990) was a major player in the history of reggae, rock steady, and ska. Mittoo was an ace on the keyboards, a charter member of…
It’s visualization time, folks. So go ahead, close your eyes, and imagine an endless stretch of cliffs overlooking a slate-gray ocean, with cold waves crashing like reverberating feedback. A thick, moist fog clings to everything save a constellation of volcanoes dotting the landscape; each one sporadically shoots clouds of television…
Like Public Enemy and the Wu-Tang Clan, the five pioneering group members in N.W.A. were a revolutionary bunch that changed music with unabated street rhymes composed within the framework of gangster rap. However, no rappers were oppressed like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, Yella, and the late Eazy-E —…
Black Milk is becoming the hip-hop junkie’s newest fix. Born Curtis Cross, he has been creeping toward brand-name status since his 2005 debut album, Sound of the City. Until then, Black Milk was known strictly as a producer, so his pinpoint lyricism caught critics by surprise. His ability as an…
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been bragging about their wild-style freakitude for decades, but little speaks to the Peppers’ belief in their own out-thereness like their current choice in opener: Gnarls Barkley, the eccentric electro-soul duo featuring DJ/producer Danger Mouse and former Goodie Mob frontman Cee-Lo. No record in…
