It’s fitting that Raul Malo’s first solo album kicks off with a whirlwind hybrid of a song, blending salsa figures with calypso horns, English-language lyrics, a chorus drawn from Beatles-era Top 40 hits, and a pumped-up carnival atmosphere raucous enough to swallow the rest of Today. But Malo’s huge, emotive…
With the release of Bionix, the second installment of the Art Official Intelligence troika, De La Soul come off unpretentious and finally unfettered after previous efforts to escape the Day-Glo handcuffs created by 3 Feet High and Rising, their hugely influential debut. The album is, as its title promises, “better,…
Anyone who thought September 11 and the spiraling recession that followed would put a damper on Miami nightlife underestimated clubland’s tenacity. “The beautiful thing about Miami is it can be anything you want it to be,” says Louis Canales, as he takes a sip from his rum and Coke before…
By the time Trans Am arrives in South Florida this weekend, it’ll have a new paint job. Valves will have been adjusted. That sticky window vent will be fixed. Since 1993 the Washington, D.C.-based indie-rock trio has garnered a reputation as a purveyor of eccentric instrumentals that merge the cold…
When Merlin ran away, the dancers were tumbling in a field after rehearsal at the Jaycees Club on Marathon Key. The Shih Tzu nosed around in the sand on the volleyball court and then trotted across the Jaycees’ driveway to Stanley Switlik Elementary School. Sniffing at the silver buttonwood on…
Young women in tight hip-huggers and heels line dance with buff boyfriends while the master of ceremonies, wearing a microphone headset, cheers on the DJs in Portuguese. This is Friday, November 16, the first night of South Florida’s First Annual Brazilian DJ Festival. At the end of the night, makeshift…
The modern history of Mexican rock has two eras: before and after “La Negra Tomasa,” the cumbia-rock cover immortalized on the self-titled 1994 album from Caifanes, the most important Mexican band of the late Eighties and the group that spearheaded the rock mexicano renaissance. And even though Caifanes recorded four…
Partially hidden behind palm fronds and gurgling fountains, the Green Room is working its way through a nine-song set on the patio of Piccadilly Gardens. The tropical landscaping of the design district restaurant/lounge that hosts Saturday night’s PopLife might obscure the band from sight, but the sound system is impeccable…
Like the twisted ladder of genetic material that fuels life, Recluse DNA is a shifting chain of elements that come together and split apart. The band of six core members can attract additional members to double in size or shrink back, all the while switching musical codes from dark, ambient…
Thickest cranium in rock? Probably Martin Atkins, former drummer for Public Image Ltd., now de facto head of the industrial-rock conglomerate Pigface. Who else would devote insane amounts of time, money, and energy to industrial music — a subgenre that had its day bathing in the money hydrant during the…
When I first passed through the narrow iron entryway to Radical Café Bar one year ago, I was reminded of Lezama Lima’s novel Paraiso, that sensual paradise where rhythm runs through the body and is expressed by a word or a glance. At the far end of the patio where…
First things first: Yes, this is the album whose cover was to feature the group members blowing up the World Trade Center. The Coup, hip-hop’s most notorious Marxists, have been calling for an attack on capitalism for a long time, and their album design was simply the victim of bad…
Dude, did you know “god” spelled backward is “dog”? Yeah. Well, DMX might actually subscribe to this kind of bong-load theology, because his canine-laden references to himself have made a serious transition throughout his career. The exultant woof-woofs of “Where My Dogs At?” have evolved to the point where, on…
Once upon a time, the city of Mostar was considered a model for how fractious ethnic communities could learn to live together. The Bosnian war changed everything, although amid the general destruction, groups of musicians struggled to instill a small sense of normalcy. Meeting by candlelight, they quietly assembled to…
Damian Marley, 24-year-old son of Robert Nesta and Jamaica’s 1977 Miss World, Cindy Breakspeare, has his father’s dreads, his mother’s pretty face, and a raspy, just-out-of-bed vocal style all his own. On his sixteen-track sophomore outing, Halfway Tree, the youngest Marley’s sing-song delivery would grow tired fast were it not…
When Paquito Hechavarria and German Pifferrer were kids, mambo was new and Dámaso Perez Prado ruled. “I remember when I was little, I used to sit at the piano,” says the 62-year-old Hechavarria, spreading his plump fingers and pounding the air just above the glass table where he sits on…
In a small storefront chapel in a typical neighborhood of San Francisco, between a corner market and an African fabric store, sits the Church of John Coltrane, where members meet twice a week to praise the Lord through the music and spirit of the late jazz legend. If Coltrane is…
South Florida is starving for reggae music. Given our proximity to Jamaica, reggae bands should find rich fields of West Indian immigrants within which to flourish. Aside from stumbling upon stacks of old roots records played by Lauderhill patty-shop proprietors or late-night public-radio retro Rastafarians, however, we’re infected with the…
It all started with a dress. A white dress with black polka dots and red trim. Crinoline skirt. Red belt. Red shoes. Like Minnie Mouse wears. Only this is TMarie, at age six. She is competing for Tiny Miss Miami 1994. Her hair is pulled back in a poof. Her…
Whenever two or more people gather in the name of big, audacious, open-minded art, anything heavenly or earthly may result. Bring together the talents of Cuban-born violin contrarian Alfredo Triff and Brazilian composer and saxophonist Livio Tragtenberg, and all of pop culture — not to mention the traditional rhythms of…
When Miami superclub Space first took to representing its sound on CD, it delivered a trance-heavy salvo by DJ Edgar V. called Trancemissions. Since that release the club has undergone major renovations, and its latest release, The House Sessions (Bliss Records), still includes the progressive trance sound, this time courtesy…
There’s a gaggle of underage girls gawking at the band on the far side of Finnegan’s 2 on Saturday night: blond, late teens, ponytails. The doorman might keep them from setting foot inside, but they don’t mind catching what they can from Lincoln Road, leaning against one another for support…
