People in Buenos Aires protest that the world never gives Argentines credit for their inventions: the radio, the bus, the ballpoint pen. Charly Alberti, retired drummer of South American pop phenomenon Soda Stereo, has a hi-tech version of an old complaint. He claims the Swiss watch company Swatch ripped off…
In the case of MC Brother J.C. Crawford, it was a legendary 1968 Halloween night call to arms at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom that launched both his and one particular garage band’s meteoric rise to cult stardom. “Brothers and sisters!” Crawford extolled, his invocation already set to a fevered pitch. “I…
Blackalicious doesn’t pay lip service to the false gods of commerce, name-drop hot clothing labels, seek celebrity endorsements, or pray fervently for a solid-gold single to drop from the sky and deliver them from obscurity. The Bay Area duo, composed of lyricist Gift of Gab and producer Chief Xcel, have…
The fusing of ancient Eastern mysticisms with the Western muscle of modern technology, while a noble concept, is one rarely accomplished to a satisfying artistic effect. For example bhangra, originating in the farms of the Punjab in the Indian subcontinent, marries its modern mutation of chirpy, bouncy melodies favored in…
Just call Wynton Marsalis the Terminator. No, he’s not replacing strongman-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a homicidal cyborg in yet another sequel to the sci-fi action-adventure flick. But to some the 38-year-old Marsalis — virtuoso trumpet player, composer, teacher, band leader, and ardent traditionalist — is a murderer. He is killing…
“Percussion is one aspect of musical culture that needs to be highlighted,” insists Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain, on the phone from his Peoria, Illinois, hotel room only minutes after arriving there from a sold-out stop on his current Masters of Percussion tour, an electrifying company of Indian percussionists that…
Most music that reaches us from the Balkans is emotionally of a piece with the area’s tragic history. But Gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia proves on Baro Biao, World Wide Wedding that Romanian music also can be deliriously celebratory. Well equipped to make momentous music for equally momentous occasions, the…
There’s something gracefully modest about the ten-year career of Kelly Hogan, a postpunk diva from Atlanta whose mastery of songcraft is rivaled only by her artistic range as a writer and interpreter. Her work in the early Nineties with the Jody Grind balanced rootsy traditionalism with altrock irreverence, and she…
In the white-tile living room of his sparsely furnished two-story house in Kendall, Roberto Martino is watching a video of his band, T-Vice, playing at Carnival 2000 last March in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A mass of black bodies clad in yellow T-Vice T-shirts moves from left to right across the big…
Glenn Danzig is a living, breathing cartoon character. No, really, just take a look at the cover of the new Danzig album, which pictures the singer emerging from a bog like the comic book character the Swamp Thing. Inch-deep third-degree burns scar his massive biceps. “Yeah, I’ve got 666 burned…
There is a compilation disc of Miami-based bands that frequented Churchill’s Hideaway, the Little Haiti haunt that has been a long-standing haven for all manner of rock and roll noise and punk-rock chaos. Issued in 1993 on Frank “Rat Bastard” Falestra’s Esync label, the CD’s title embodies both the ethos…
It pays to be young, tragic, and talented in the ’00s. A couple of years ago, our generation frowned upon the lay-me-bare memoir and the confessional song. The mere mention of such things conjured horrible images of James Taylor turning his heroin addiction into nursery rhymes or Elizabeth Wurtzel dining…
The debate about whether or not a scratch DJ is a “real” musician should be finished by now. It’s been more than twenty years since Grandmaster Flash first began working over the instrumental sides of disco twelve-inches at Bronx block parties, a little less than that since Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”…
For a fix of Finnish fiddle music, you’d naturally look in the Finland section of your friendly neighborhood CD store. But to satisfy that Finnish-harmonica jones, you’d best bypass the international bins altogether and grab this one-of-a-kind disc from the Marquette, Michigan-based Les Ross, Sr. Playing in the all-but-extinct lumberjack…
When people write about Yo La Tengo, they typically concentrate on the fact that the band’s drummer, Georgia Hubley, and its singer-guitarist, Ira Kaplan, are married, and that they sometimes sing about it. But the Hoboken trio is far more than an indie-rock version of the Eurythmics. It’s really about…
On Friday Shadow Lounge (1532 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-531-9411) offers one less reason to party in Broward County. Surely you’ve heard about the infamous swingers’ clubs north of the Miami-Dade line, where couples go to … umm … be with other couples. But for whatever reasons, the steamy subculture…
When Arsenio de la Rosa puts the squeeze on his two-row button accordion, you can hear it hyperventilate like a felon on a weekend furlough about to be reunited with his wife. Since he began accompanying his son’s quintet of Latin rappers several years back, de la Rosa, now age…
Perhaps it’s time to give in, simply to admit squeaky-clean Coral Gables is the place for blues in Miami-Dade. The proof for this admission comes this weekend during the Coral Gables Bluesfest, which will be held in and around Satchmo (60 Merrick Way, Coral Gables; 305-774-1883). For the first five…
Unsuspecting concertgoers at the Subtropics Marathon, a four-hour performance that featured experimental South Florida composers two weeks ago, reported a shocking sight. Two twelve-foot towers, made of stainless-steel buckets suspended from steel rods, flanked the stage to the left of the entrance to Hice Hall inside the Miami Beach Community…
The first time I missed saxophonist Sonny Rollins, or, should I say, bungled a golden opportunity to catch the jazz god descend for one of his occasional concert appearances, was the summer of 1985, in New York City. He gave an unaccompanied outdoor performance in the sculpture garden at the…
At a time when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is lobbying Congress to pass a law that would make all recording artists nothing more than “workers for hire” (essentially making them even less than a label employee), it’s refreshing to see there are still people like Dan and…
For more than a decade, the Jungle Brothers have remained members of hip-hop’s original tribe. For the hardcore hip-hop heads who have been fans of the Jungle Brothers since their classic 1988 debut, Straight Out the Jungle, news of their recent collaboration with a U.K. artist better known in club…
