On almost all accounts, Davey Molnar was the quintessential nightmare roommate. I met him freshman year in college, back in 1984, this pale bony kid from Jersey, a math genius utterly oblivious to the basic arithmetic of human interactions. He spoke in a slow, clogged manner, as if his sinus…
Some things are too good to be true, whether it’s ten CDs for a penny or John Lydon swearing he’ll never again be a Sex Pistol. Such was the case at the August 4th show at Bayfront Park, a multiartist reggae blowout thrown by Jamaica Awareness in celebration of Jamaica’s…
A voice-mail offering left for me last month by an unnamed reader, who objected to my not-so-nice comments regarding a cassette release by a local band: “You know, it really pisses me off that you writers think you can just say anything you want. These musicians put a lot of…
Various Artists America Is Dying Slowly (Red Hot/Eastwest) After releasing seven successful AIDS benefit compilations that focus on genres ranging from dance and jazz to indie rock and country, the Red Hot Organization has put out its first hip-hop record: America Is Dying Slowly (note the acronym). But with African…
This sounds like the setup to a familiar joke, but it really happened a few Thursdays ago: A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender: “You got any music tonight?” “Yeah,” the bartender replies, “the Laundry Room Squelchers are playing.” So the guy, who is familiar with the…
A weekend chock full of things to do, places to go, and people to see. On the beach end, three restless brothers from New York open Cream (601 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 674-7988) with promises and plans for frivolity. The festivities begin on Friday with a private party for VIPP’s…
With South Beach undergoing a strange summer regeneration of sorts, new parties are springing up all over while old (in SoBe terms) haunts are still hanging on. On Friday, Society Hill (627 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 534-9993) hosts a big blowout to celebrate its glorious first year in existence –…
R.L. Burnside A Ass Pocket of Whiskey (Matador) Recorded in one afternoon in the Holly Springs, Mississippi, hometown of 69-year-old blues great R.L. Burnside, A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey documents a noisy, spirited session between Burnside, his sideman Kenny Brown, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, a New York City-based…
“We play a lot. That’s what we do.” Rocket From the Crypt head pilot John “Speedo” Reis is pragmatic about the San Diego punk group’s nonstop touring schedule and prodigious output. In the five years they’ve been together, Rocket has cranked out a staggering amount of high-quality material for a…
Before the road dust had even caked on their vehicle, Coral Gables jazz-rock eccentrics the Jongleurs were forced to cut short their first full-scale tour when their Ford Club Wagon van took a nasty tumble. The quintet was leaving Savannah, Georgia, in the late morning sunlight on July 12 en…
Keb’ Mo’ Just Like You (OKeh/Epic) Alvin Youngblood Hart Big Mama’s Door (OKeh/550 Music) California-born bluesmen Alvin Youngblood Hart and Kevin Moore (Keb’ Mo’ for short) share more than just a label and a birth state. Both men are in their thirties and are equally dazzling guitarists and vocalists. More…
Screaming Trees had just ripped into “Nearly Lost You” when I spotted him — a dusty-haired kid of about fourteen, standing alone, mouthing the words to the band’s 1992 hit. He was like a lot of the other people who gathered in West Palm Beach last Thursday beneath a scalding…
Nightlife, it’s the right life. And this weekend, it’s also a meltdown of music and mayhem. Tonight (Thursday) begin to relive the glamour and elegance of Havana in the Forties and Fifties as Yuca Restaurant (501 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach, 532-9822) starts the summer run of Havana Nights. Enjoy the…
Way back in 1983, when the loud-fast acceleration of hardcore punk had turned the music into an atonal sonic speed race, a little-known band named the Melvins decided to slam on the brakes. Formerly a garden-variety, slash-and-burn combo, this Aberdeen, Washington, trio decided to play it slow. Real slow. Grindingly…
Futuristic glam-rock unit Psychotica is always one step ahead of itself. They signed a recording contract — with Rick Rubin’s American Records, no less — before playing their first public gig. They are touring — on the bill of Lollapalooza, no less — before the actual release of their debut…
Believe all the stress of hurricane threats and beach-bound traffic jams by traveling to another world. Marsbar (8505 Mills Dr., Town & Country Center, Kendall, 271-6909) celebrates 720 days of terrestrial occupation on Saturday, July 20, with complimentary cocktails and a seafood buffet from 8:00 to 10:00, a fashion show…
“Radio has pretty much disappeared as an art form and it’s getting worse day by day,” says Greg Baker, the former music editor for this paper and, along with Steve Alvin, host of The Beast & Baker Show, quite possibly the best thing you’ll find on the AM side of…
Metallica Load (Elektra) Soundgarden Down On the Upside (A&M) For headbanger careerists like Metallica and Soundgarden, heavy-metal angst can present some real artistic problems when all those bad vibes and bad-ass guitar riffs start sounding like the same old bitch-and-boogie. But as their latest albums indicate, Metallica knows this and…
Kembra Pfahler is a self-proclaimed rock goddess. And why not grant her the title? As the cofounder of the arty glam-punk New York City ensemble the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, the subversive singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, and weirdness guru has paved the way for a strange new aesthetic, created…
For more than a decade, Elvis Costello has been toiling away in the gap that separates blind ambition and tedious experimentation — a willing slave to the concepts and conceits of high art, a poster boy for creative indulgence, able to rock out only with other people’s songs. In the…
Los Lobos Colossal Head (Warner Bros.) All artists show their influences in their work. What separates the sublime from the hapless in this regard is the ability to do it without being crass. And there’s certainly nothing crass about Colossal Head, the seventh long player from Los Lobos. Genius is…
“The blues is alright” goes the refrain of the anthem of the same name, a regional Southern hit back in the mid-Eighties for its writer, vocalist/guitarist Little Milton Campbell, a 40-year veteran of the blues club circuit. The song has become Milton’s signature track and is already something of a…
