In its Sixties prime, the North Shore Band Shell provided the setting for a television variety program. In fact the Mike Douglas Show logos can still be found in a dressing room. Recently, in an effort to build a sense of community among residents, Miami Beach officials revamped the shell…
The witching hour seems an appropriately freewheeling time for the joyously disorienting sounds emanating from WLRN-FM’s (91.3) The Modern School of Modern Jazz. Every Saturday from midnight until 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, Steve Malagodi guides his listeners through this oasis of avant-garde tunes, wading waist-high into a world of free…
While WLRN-FM’s (91.3) overnight institution Clint O’Neil remains a favorite, WDNA-FM’s (88.9) Steve Radzi edges him out solely for the diversity of his playlist. Each Saturday beginning at noon, Radzi works his way through the entire history of Jamaican music, from early-Sixties ska to Seventies dub, from Eighties dancehall to…
Prolific conductor and composer Michael Tilson Thomas is so in demand he often needs to appear in two places at once. On any given Sunday he can be found at the Lincoln Theatre in South Beach conducting an afternoon performance by the New World Symphony, where he’s artistic director. Just…
No surprises here. WDNA’s nightly Latin-music marathon owns this category for an obvious reason: Latin music, especially in Miami, must include Cuban music, and WDNA is still the only area radio station consistently playing material from the island. That said, Fusion Latina deserves extra credit for airing a variety of…
If the opening montage on this compilation of chilled-out groove artists sounds like it was recorded inside Miami International Airport, that’s because it actually was. Coproducer Mark Christopher plays it coy when asked just how he persuaded a ticket attendant to do a terminalwide broadcast over the airport’s PA system…
Calling the University of Miami’s WVUM-FM (90.5) uneven is being more than charitable. One minute you’re listening to a blistering set of drum and bass, the next you’re being aurally assaulted by frat boys and giggling freshmen. Such are the consequences of WVUM’s unfortunate charter, which bars not only community…
One thing those crusty old scenesters never mention about the punk-rock heyday of the Cameo: For a while there, the movie-theater seats were still in place! Sure puts all those “I got my ass kicked at the GBH show in ’86” stories in perspective, don’t it? Okay, so the concrete…
For one sweet, sunny spring day Bayfront Park became Utopia, a symbolic song of freedom and unity you could dance to. Haitian, Jamaican, Cuban, and American flags waved together above 15,000 fans of Fugee chief Wyclef Jean and his rainbow coalition of talent, the Refugee Allstars. The ensemble included fellow…
Lloyd’s of London is famed for selling insurance to safeguard singers’ voices. Miami’s own DJ Craze may want to consider taking out a policy on his hands: Those ten fingers weave just as magical a spell as any set of vocal cords. Cutting and scratching his way through the world…
On her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, this Fugee diva-for-the-millennium was sultry without being crass, vulnerable without being weak, and, most of all, grounded and intelligent while still gazing skyward. In one knowing lyrical snap she looked around at her pop-music peers and sang, “C’mon, baby, light…
Tucked away inside the Marlin Hotel, Tom Lord-Algae is tweaking knobs at South Beach Studios for some of the biggest names in music. He put the leveling touches on CDs by the Rolling Stones (Bridges to Babylon and No Security); Marilyn Manson (Mechanical Animals); Hole (Celebrity Skin); as well as…
While attending Palmetto High School, singer-guitarist Jeff Rollason played in a band called Strangelove, which recorded in some long-forgotten local studio. His next band, the underappreciated Mr. Tasty and the Breadhealers, recorded at Who Brought the Dog? studio. Then they broke up. Two years ago he formed Curious Hair and…
For the past decade her uplifting artistry could be found all about: at an Irish pub in the Gables, a coffeehouse in North Miami, a bookstore in Kendall, an upscale restaurant in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, a legendary bar in downtown Miami, a park in North Miami-Dade. At venues…
With little local fanfare, the soft-spoken Seven has made an international name for himself and his record label, releasing joyously skewed takes on premillennium DJ culture. Artists as disparate as Germany’s drum-and-bass deconstructionists Funkstörung and Miami’s down-tempo mixologist Push Button Objects have graced the label with twelve-inch vinyl; a single…
In real life Sean “Birdman” Gould is a Southern boy who came to Miami Beach to make rock and roll and pick up chicks. In this exuberant clip, the Clambake singer-guitarist portrays a Southern boy who comes to Miami Beach to make rock and roll and pick up chicks. In…
Willy Chirino’s feel-good nostalgia album showcases the chops of local Latin talents such as Arturo Sandoval, Albita Rodriguez, Jon Secada, and Roberto Torres. With a little help from his friends, Chirino departs from his formulaic pop-salsa format to shine on a merry mix of Cuban classics, including “Guantanamera,” “Son de…
Only months ago Al’s Not Well was on top of the local rock hill. The exotically coiffed and coutured crew’s blend of pulsing rhythms, psychedelic meanderings, and solid New Wave sounds had landed them a deal with Tommy Boy’s Beyond Music imprint, touring gigs, recording sessions. The queen goddess of…
While her drummer Derek Murphy remained in New York working on other (read: well-paying) gigs, and bassist Matthew Sabatella concentrated on his own impressive musical projects, everybody’s favorite silly little girl-genius kept a hand in by performing solo. During one such highly charged sho, in April at Power Studios in…
We like ’em young. Especially when a gang of whippersnappers exudes so much raw talent that within months of their band’s formation, they are being booked to record at Criteria under the aegis of local supermanager Rich Ulloa, releasing a subsequent EP produced by Rose Guilot, playing showcases at top…
A coffeehouse without a screeching espresso machine? Sans cigarette smoke and incessant chatter? Could it be? It is, in a suburban Kendall neighborhood where a house doubles as Temple Beth Or, the main sanctuary of which is transformed every other month into the concert venue Sacred Grounds Coffeehouse. Launched in…
A boisterous crowd gathered outside the Miami Beach Convention Center in August to protest a performance by Cuban musicians invited to the MIDEM music conference. Inside a more joyful noise was heard as the show went on right in the face of bomb threats. Since April acts from the island…
