We be flexin'.
At various points in our city's music history, the raddest Miami-bred noisemakers have left town, hit beaches besides Haulover, and showed off the 305's sonic muscle all across these United States of America.
For the last few years, the Jacuzzi Boys have been the MIA's Best Scene Ambassadors. But there were many before them.
From Charlie Pickett to L'Trimm ... Just check the cut for numbers 15 to 11 in Crossfade's epic list of the 50 Best Miami Bands of All Time.
15. Jacuzzi Boys
If any current Miami band has the opportunity to break out of South Florida and secure a wider national audience, it's the Jacuzzi Boys. Signed to Sub Pop imprint Hardly Art, the Boys' 2011 release, Glazin', which they smartly promoted with tours across the United States and Europe. (Take note, Miami bands: You don't break out by performing at the same five local clubs.) But even when they released 2009's No Seasons on Orlando's Florida's Dying, we here at Crossfade knew the Boys would become the men who'd put a face to Miami's indie and garage rock music scene. Perhaps the Jacuzzi Boys could once and for all disassociate the 305 from the word "¡Dale!" -- Jose D. Duran
14. Gucci Crew II
Before he was King of Diamonds' chief stripper wrangler, Disco Rick was the DJ, producer, and idea man behind prolific Miami bass outfit Gucci Crew II. Rappers Victor "MC V" May and Cleveland "Too Forty Shorty" Bell would release five albums together before fading in the mid '90s.
But the Crew's best work all came before a falling out with Rick led the producer to depart and form a new group called The Dogs (of "Your Mama's on Crack Rock" fame") in 1989. While '88's "Truz 'n Vogues" was one of the great car-accessory anthems of all-time, Gucci's all-time classic was 1987's "Sally (That Girl)," on which the duo chant-rapped lines like "She pulled down her pants and said, 'Splack these hams,'" in the stoic style of a '50s-era barbershop quartet. Sadly, like many of Miami bass's pioneers, May met a tragic end, the victim of a 2007 shooting in Americus, Georgia. -- Jesse Serwer
13. Charlie Pickett and The Eggs
The songs are so great. The lyrics are twisted yet affable. The Eggs coulda been up there. But they're from down here. Charlie Pickett and crew's punk rock was on par with the Replacements, the New York Dolls, and Gun Club. Except Pickett and the Eggs were better. But still, kind words from R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and roaring praise from Rolling Stone were no match for the geographical isolation of our Deco Swamp. Pickett ain't sour about not "making it to the top," the man still plays Churchill's on the reg, punk-rocking the pub with more passion, energy, and joy than kids three times younger than him. -- Jose Flores
12. L'Trimm
Miami bass had one of its few mainstream moments with "Cars With the Boom," the 1988 single by precocious Kendall duo L' Trimm. Discovered on local TV show Miami Teen Express, underrage MCs Lady Tigra and Bunny D rapped about their fetish for boys with loud subwoofers in a thick New York City-style drawl on "Cars" and they also had a hit with "Grab It!," which became the title song of their 1988 debut LP. Bunny and Tigra couldn't re-capture the magic of those early singles on subsequent efforts. But Tigra has remained a bass-music fixture, having most recently re-emerged with a solo album Please, Mr. Boombox in 2008 and an appearance on Yo! Gabba Gabba. -- Jesse Serwer
11. To Live and Shave in L.A.
The legacy of To Live and Shave in L.A. is one of the most convoluted in Miami music history. The plan -- as concocted by founders Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra and Tom Smith -- was to combine disparate genres like '70s glam and musique concrète, and then name the project after a Ron Jeremy porno.
At their peak, Shave was Miami's most-acclaimed noise outfit since Harry Pussy. But somewhere along the line, Falestra and Smith stopped seeing eye-to-eye about internal affairs and it all became a shitstorm. In the early 2000s, intraband politics inspired a number of spinoff protest bands (usually involving Rat), like To Live and Shave in L.A. 2. And after a few years of implosion and reassembly, the group became a supergroup that attracted part-time members such as Thurston Moore and Andrew W.K. A chronicle of the band's history is fully outlined on Rat Bastard's official site, Squelchers.com. But it doesn't really make the story any less awesomely cacophonous. -- Matt Preira
Check out the other installments of Crossfade's 50 Best Miami Bands of All Time:
-From 50 to 46: Scraping Teeth, Frank Williams & The Rocketeers, Iko Iko, ANR, Miami Bass Warriors
-From 45 to 41: Nuclear Valdez, The Goods, Locos Por Juana, Cynic, Avenue D
-From 40 to 36: The Agency, Pygmy, Suenalo, Triple C's, The Crumbs
-From 35 to 31: Quit, Young and Restless, The Reactions, Afrobeta, Cavity
-From 25 to 21: Critical Mass, Phoenicia, The Dogs, Chickenhead, Floor
-From 20 to 16: Buckwheat Boyz, The Mavericks, Against All Authority, T-Connection, The Eat
-From 10 to 6: Murk, NRBQ, Exposé, Poison Clan, Load
-From 5 to 1: KC and the Sunshine Band, Sam & Dave, Harry Pussy, Miami Sound Machine, 2 Live Crew
Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL.
