Music

There’s nothing particularly hip about the Sandbar Lounge in North Beach. Dark green walls decorated with beer signs, sombreros, and lava lamps surround three pool tables, a long oval bar, and what passes for a small stage, a tiny space sandwiched between doorways leading to the women’s and men’s bathrooms…

“We’re going to talk about the Latin Grammys,” I propose to Bacilos skeptically, repeating the phrase that has reverberated monotonously through the Magic City like an echo. “Sí, sí, sí,” responds the trio of Latin Americans who played together for six years in Miami before breaking out with a major…

One night in April 1999, in the EGREM studios in Havana, the Cuban producer Tony Pinelli, along with a group of top island musicians, was breathing life into a traditional disc featuring the queen of country music, Celina Gonzalez, and her son Lazaro Reutilio. Musicians came and went from the…

The official story is in: The Source Hip-Hop Music Awards ended on a happy if uninspiring note until Raymond Scott, part owner of the magazine, got into trouble at the end of the party. City of Miami Beach Police arrested the rapper known as Ray Benzino for speeding and resisting…

Charlie Haden, onstage at the Theatre Maisonneuve in Montreal two months ago, caressed the strings of his bass, gently swaying from left to right as he nurtured the genteel rhythms of the Cuban and Mexican boleros heard on his new album, Nocturne. It was a performance of elegance and sophisticated…

Driving through this lavish residential North Miami neighborhood, you would never know that behind the beige iron gates of a towering, almost three-story Mediterranean style villa nestled in the middle of the block is the iriest vibe this side of Jamaica. If you can make it past these private gates,…

Hey, faggot!” The visitor from New York stopped dead in his tracks. An incredulous look crossed his face as he turned toward Washington Avenue. He eyed an SUV speeding down the strip, pumping out DMX and full of do-rag-wearing boys out for a joy ride. “Man, I’ve never been called…

Listening to an old-time radio show years ago, Emilio Reguiera heard a raspy voice slur through a calypso chorus, cracking the words into jagged shards of disappointment without ever losing the beat. He could not understand the English, but he could almost see the lined black face of the chombo,…

Rebellious, provocative, revolting, or simply honest are words that have been used to describe Bersuit, the Argentine rock band partial to naming discs Asqueroza Alegria (Disgusting Delight), Libertinaje (Licentiousness), and, most recently, Hijos del Culo (Sons of the Shit Hole). Sometimes distracted by the noise of his raucous bandmates while…

I can’t stand the rain, and I still have jet lag from my belly-dancing trip to Egypt, but I want to check out Zo’s Summer Groove block party on a soggy Sunday last month. Looking for the press room in the tunnel beneath the American Airlines Arena, I get lost…

There are two ways to tell the story of Cristian Castro. The first is the story of the artist who was born in December 1974 to Latin television luminary Veronica Castro, inheriting her penetrating eyes and a voice experts deem one of the most powerful in the world. This is…

At Ozzfest this year a female fan showed her appreciation for the return of Nonpoint by letting the rap-metal band’s frontman Elias Soriano rub his face against her chest. As the former Fort Lauderdale resident buried his head in the groupie’s mammaries, his long black dreads flapped in the humid…

We come alive after our nine-to-five.” That is the creed of moneyman Mel Cheren and impresario Michael Brodi, the nightlife visionaries who in the late Seventies opened what may be the most heralded club in history. “We come alive after our nine-to-five” was the mantra of New York City’s Paradise…

Matti Bower picked an awkward moment to make her pitch. Eager to get out the word about Music Fest Miami, a Labor Day weekend event designed to celebrate the cultural diversity of Miami-Dade County, the Miami Beach city commissioner joined WQBA-AM (1140) radio commentator Ninoska Perez Castellon on her show…

This Friday Level will open its doors for a night benefiting Jungle Habitat, and who better to spin the event that will save the orangutan than the dance remix duo that has been saving divas in the club wilderness: Thunderpuss. The Billboard-topping team of DJs Chris Cox and Barry Harris…

When Juan Esteban Aristizabal woke up on July 12, he was not a rock star. By the time he went to bed that Tuesday night, he was. “It’s completely absurd,” says the 27-year old called Juanes, while a television camera caresses his face, a newspaper reporter scribbles notes, and a…

With the salsa market saturated in the Seventies by the ever-multiplying Fania All-Stars and their imitators in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, and the Bronx, “romantic” or “erotic” salsa emerged in the mid-Eighties to stimulate exhausted fans. Gone was mean street talk of prostitutes and prison raps improvised over pounding percussion…

Hunting autographs at CB Smith Park in Opa-locka, neighborhood kids hurry past the unguarded gate backstage where hip-hop act Iconz waits to perform. With their debut album Street Money, Volume 1 approaching gold, the performers headline the ninth annual Janet’s Youth Talent Showcase, sponsored by Jah-Net’s Jamaican Cuisine, and return…

The sense of imminent doom began around 7:15 p.m. The doors of Little Havana’s Manuel Artime Performing Arts Center were supposed to open at 7:30 p.m. for an 8:00 show, but they were wide open fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. The signs were ominous. No line snaked out the door,…