What do U2, Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald, and Michael Jackson have in common? Aside from being music legends, these artists (and many more) are named on Peruvian percussionist Alex Acuña’s resumé. Further bullets on Acuña’s impressive list of accomplishments include his being recruited for Pérez Prado’s big band…
Val Wisecracker knows plenty about tunecraft, and she’ll share it at the songwriters’ showcase series at the Wallflower Gallery (a three-time New Times “Best of Miami” winner). Val, whose real last name is Caracappa, uses the pseudonym because Caracappa is difficult for journalists and radio announcers to spell and pronounce…
Eight years ago, pop-punk rockers the Smoking Popes found themselves signed to Capitol Records, opening for diverse acts such as the Goo Goo Dolls, Jawbreaker, Green Day, and Morrissey. The band had sold out countless venues and garnered a glowing reputation for its fusion of punk and big-band sounds. Then…
Miami is full of hustlers, and Mckenley Joseph is one of them. The 28-year-old runs his own online record store, Undaground Science (www.ugscience.com), from his home in the Design District. He also owns High Level Promotions, a marketing company that counts Colgate and Frito-Lay among its clients. Undaground Science, however,…
After the first minute: Oh, some New Order B-sides. After two minutes: Oh, they let Belle and Sebastian hang out once. Four songs in: Uh, how did this just turn into a hipster disco thing without getting sucky? Eight songs in: What the ever-lovin’ … Plastic Noise Experience? One song…
A rocked-out brawn-versus-hazy beauty dichotomy has always been key to this Hoboken, New Jersey trio’s Sonic Youth-meets-Velvet Underground M.O. The conflict yielded cracked indie diamonds until the bandmates’ muse led them astray at the turn of the millennium (see 2000’s flaccid And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out and 2002’s…
Except for Val Kilmer and his crafty misfit cronies in Real Genius, you’ve probably surmised by now that chemist types are socially awkward stiffs with strange laughs and even stranger diets. In her previous life, Chicago’s Psalm One might have been tagged with this stereotype. But scientists-turned-hip-hop-MCs are a quizzical…
Kelis has come a long way since her early days of singing about roller rinks and backing up ODB. After marrying rapper Nas last year, she has become the boss of hip-hop music. Kelis Was Here is a dark and sultry collection that proves she is truly a musical chameleon…
More so than last year’s Cold World Remixes, Terrorfakt’s new power-noise set is deep-fried in a Rice Krispies batter so corrosive that it should carry a warning sticker dissuading fans from using it as drive-time crankup, because the wide-wrapped panning tends to get you looking for loose bolts in death-defying…
Although Jay Bennett departed Wilco before the band swapped roots rock for experimental indulgence, his solo career found its own progressive posture. His 2002 collaboration with Edward Burch, The Palace at 4am (Part 1), saw him flirting with texture and ambiance, lending his music a more cerebral sensibility. The Magnificent…
Anticon, undie? Not really, anymore: cLOUDDEAD was barely hip-hop to begin with, and Why? came out as Pavement Mach 2 last year. So here’s Dosh on some Aphex Twin-as-New Wave ambient hoo-ha to set the label further adrift: a salad-toss swill of winky, pinprick bells; violin splinters; contorting and barely-there…
Having shamelessly pleaded for nookie last year — in the Latin-tinged solo single “Lonely No More” — Matchbox Twenty heartthrob Rob Thomas can be blamed for indirectly instigating Sugarcult’s emo-pop, feel-cheap hit of the summer. Thomas, of course, simply didn’t “wanna have to pay for this.” Tim Pagnotta’s invitation is…
Hollyhood, stand up! Off the debut album from the Broward resident, the three MCs rip the up-tempo, Biggie vocal-sampled track with punch line after metaphor. Even though a bit unpolished, the trio comes off the top with their own original, unadulterated rhyme schemes. No blunts and bras on this one…
It’s difficult to imagine a guy in a suit writing Criteria’s riff-based anthem rock. That’s why lead singer Stephen Pedersen quit his nine-to-five at a law firm to pursue music full-time. The result of his brave endeavor is When We Break, an emotionally and physically moving album with intelligent lyrics…
Like fellow Vikings, artists, DJs, and quirk-rockers Eirik Glambek Boe and Erlend ÿye of Kings of Convenience, Bardi Johannsson persists in being a hyphenate of performance. The lead singer of Icelandic surfer-songsters the Bang Gang, Johannsson is on a tour of the United States that showcases his tune-mixing abilities. The…
Anna Nalick’s melodic, slightly miffed, but contemplative alt-pop sound is likely to jive with anyone who can confess to having belted out Avril Lavigne’s whimsical “Complicated” while listening to the radio on the way to work. Okay, let’s face it, that would be a lot of us. Also running in…
According to Tango36’s Website, www.tango36.com, the Miami-based musicians make up a rock band that just happens to sing in Spanish. They kind of cut you up and spit you out with that eerie retro goth sound on songs like “Camino al Sol ” and “Vaquero,” but the next thing you…
Hahahelp! fits into a long Miami tradition of experimental noise-trash musicians, in the line of Harry Pussy, Laundry Room Squelchers, Monotract, the Curious Hair, and others. The band exists as a collection of odds-and-sods drums, cheap synthesizers, out-of-tune guitar and bass, and improvised vocals. The group began as a free-form…
A side project of Miami hip-hop group Phoenicia, Soul Oddity fuses Detroit electro with Miami bass funk to create a sound that, if anything, is much more odd than soulful. Founded by producers Romulo Del Castillo and Joshua Kay in 1996 after the two supposedly saw a UFO, the band…
A jazz performance student at the University of Miami, Devin Bing has always been a little bit blue. Growing up in New York, he began playing piano at age six and performing at local blues clubs at age fifteen, and when he was eighteen, he was already headlining his own…
This Miami-based outfit composed of three international talents is a mélange of Spanish rock, pop, and salsa influences. The lyrics have soul; the music has flavor. Erick Bolívar, who began his career as a child singer on Venezuelan television and has written salsa songs for many artists, is the voice…
Southern hip-hop magazine Ozone recently joined powerhouse DJ collective TJ’s DJs to present the first annual Ozone Awards, hosted by Trina and David Banner. Though it was held farther up the state in O-Town, Miami made its presence known in a forceful way throughout the weekend of festivities (which included…
