Maybe it’s expecting too much to want the major record labels to step back for a moment and rethink their stance on music and the Internet. They’ve spent so long treating their most fanatic consumers (i.e., the ones so geeked up about music that they spend hours online downloading the…
bird gets the smile seems to be the kind of band Miami needs. Stocked with a couple of veterans from the local scene, BGTS makes sounds of the sort commonly defined in Webzines by a morass of hyphenated music-geek terms. A quick review of online descriptions suggests that BGTS is…
A handful of Armani, Guess, and Kenneth Cole shirts wrinkle in the humidity outside an unmarked club on Collins Avenue. There’s no line and hardly a soul on the street, but still a honey named Honey holding a clipboard marked “Guest List” insists the guest list is closed. One of…
After putting one over on the public — by which I mean the fanatical hundreds who keep up with Damon Albarn’s digital circle jerks — the Blur frontman, Dan Nakamura, Jamie Hewlett, and everyone else collecting royalties three albums in for one album’s worth of real, ahem, work return with…
Ever since Diane Sawyer profiled the cherubic Utica, New York native with piston dexterity over a decade ago, Joe Bonamassa, now 25, has been working on his blues prerequisites: thick riffs, thicker skin. So, It’s Like That, Bonamassa’s second LP, finds him wading in the genre’s chasm between sunshine and…
Those looking for a mix CD that represents everything that is right with dance music today need look no further. Trevor Jackson, the man behind last year’s popular Playgroup LP, has compiled and mixed a collection of groovers that spans the past two decades. Jam-packed with Eighties production, Jackson’s contribution…
Bondage — to a beat — is back. This time in Miami Beach. After nearly a six-month hiatus, the London Ballroom unleashes its fetish club night once again, promising nothing short of pure debauchery. David Cordoves inaugurated the club theme night in Miami Beach three years ago. He moved it…
There are no dark-haired Europeans or designer Italian suits at Billboardlive tonight. No anorexic, blond model-types. Tonight this smoke-and-mirrored Eurotrash playground has been transformed into a thug heaven — a house party for towners from da city across the causeway in the northwest sections of Miami. Here to celebrate the…
Blame it on Rio, of course. Ask your average music lover in this country about the rhythms of Brazil, and you may get three postcard-worthy descriptions: cool, bubbly, bring-out-the-caipirinha type of sounds (bossa nova); sexy, sweaty, and acrobatic (samba, lambada); or just plain camp (hey, it’s Carmen Miranda time!) What…
Richie Stephens
In today’s competitive dancehall reggae arena, many artists bust with one initial tune, only to shortly disappear. Achieving longevity is no easy feat for an audience that can be as fickle as the genre’s continuously dropping riddims. Singers, however, tend to have a better run than DJs since love songs…
Not too long ago life was much simpler for Tijs Verwest (a.k.a. DJ Tiesto). He was a household name among Holland’s night crawlers, had achieved industry distinction with his small but potent label Black Hole Recordings, and headed up collaborations with fellow Dutch trance star Ferry Corsten in addition to…
It took some determination to find the unmarked Soho Lounge, but several hundred indie rock kids were rewarded for making the effort August 2, when the weekly Friday-night party Revolver christened a new venue with a typically schizophrenic mix of live music and DJs spinning everything from James Brown to…
“I think people honestly, genuinely love my salsa music; that’s the end of the discussion right there,” says Luis Enrique, wearing the kind of enlightened smile you might see on a salmon who’s decided to stop swimming upstream. Hugging his guitar, the “prince of salsa” leans back in a booth…
Whether or not Injected’s rendezvous with fame will be a fifteen-minute fling or an LTR remains to be seen. But if staying power is a vital ingredient to a healthy relationship, the Atlanta quartet thinks it’s off to a good start. “When you first meet a girl at the bar…
After years of struggle and relative obscurity, Carlos y Marta are about to make a name for themselves. At least that is what this Miami-based duo now hopes with the recent release of debut -CD Trova Bolero on the Duque Productions label. Although they’ve been performing for an ever-growing South…
Even though the Brazilian group Skank ventures far in its relentless exploration of sounds — mixing Brazilian pop with Jamaican ska and reggae and, more recently, adding Sixties psychedelic Brit rock to the repertoire — and even though it has toured throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America, in…
Once upon a time, there were three cellos who needed three women to play them. Since the age of nine had the girls toiled to hold their fingers against the strings and gracefully stroke the bow across them, back and forth, just so. Nearly two decades later, the three women…
Please don’t put your life in the hands/Of a rock ‘n’ roll band/Who’ll throw it all away.” Wise words. Noel Gallagher should know since they’re his (from “Don’t Look Back In Anger”). He’ll be the first to admit that there have been plenty of times in Oasis’s career when he…
There is a line outside the entrance to Piccadilly Garden on this summer Saturday night at 1:00 a.m., but not for the usual clubland reasons. There is no pretentious doorman. There are no partygoers bluffing about who is on the mythical guest list. Instead Trinidad, the pleasant dreadlocked giant behind…
Barry White. Englebert Humperdink. Jose Luis Rodriguez. When you’re ready to slip into something a little more comfortable, there’s really nowhere else to turn. Venezuelan loverman Rodriguez, better known by the name El Puma for his penetrating stare and jungle-cat appeal, has been setting the right mood for more than…
If you consider Enrique Bunbury the only survivor after the sinking of Titanic-like Spanish rock band Heroes del Silencio, then his fascination with dark and foggy atmospheres will seem appropriate. In his new solo album, the fourth since Heroes released its last live disc (ironically named Para Siempre [Forever]) in…
Don’t feel bad for Paul Oakenfold. The superstar DJ may miss a step here and there, but the sci-fi soundtrack maker and club-hit remixer won’t feel a thing when his debut artist album gets the third degree by critics expecting a watershed release. Unfortunately for Oakey, contemporary DJ Timo Maas…
