Sponge Rotting Pinata (Chaos/Sony) You’ve heard the jaunty title track (possibly the only song in pop history to use a pinata as a metaphor for a cowboy’s broken heart), the gripping “Plowed” (with its riveting “in a world of human wreckage” chorus), and the supercatchy “Molly” (“Sixteen candles down the…
The technology gremlins have been playing hob with Lycia. During a show in Philadelphia two and half weeks ago, the band’s keyboards, a critical ingredient in its dark, ethereal sound, winked in and out. Then, during the same set, without any apparent provocation, the drum machine, another critical ingredient, shifted…
Thanks to the regional college radio success of their single, “I’m Beautiful,” the Wilcoxes have gained a reputation among local scenesters for being a band that hails from some supercool bastion of alternative rock far, far away. Not so. The Wilcoxes — vocalist Spring McClure, guitarist Kelly Fulton, bassist Claudia…
Cake Motorcade of Generosity (Capricorn) Ever get the feeling alternative rock is on the verge of collective suicide? I do. All the hot new bands sound so bedraggled with Weltschmerz it’s a wonder they have the energy to pound out the same three power chords over and over. The five…
Up on stage, John Tenaglia looks satisfied. The boxy WSHE owner holds a microphone in one hand, shields his eyes against the glare of the spotlights with the other as he beams out at the crowd of about 200 — station personnel, advertisers, local ad agency reps, and sundry listeners…
Paul Stanley, king of the nighttime world, just woke up. And you can tell. His voice has little of the distinctive arena-rock urgency that one somehow can’t help but expect after hearing all his rousing stage patter between tunes on Alive!, KISS’s epochal 1975 live double-LP. “I wanna know how…
Various Artists For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson (MusicMasters/BMG) Harry Nilsson was to the Seventies what Warren Zevon was to the Eighties. Imagine Randy Newman, but suave. Now imagine Randy Newman, suave and drunk as hell on martinis. Maybe we all needed to be reminded about Nilsson. His…
The telephone connection crackles with static as Theodore “Lolo” Beaubrun, Jr., front man for the Haitian roots band Boukman Eksperyans, shushes the half-dozen children who happily scamper about his father’s Port-au-Prince home. “It’s ‘vacation noise,'” Beaubrun notes lightheartedly, before returning to a very serious discussion of his band’s precarious position…
Rara Raveup Boukman Eksperyans Libäte (Pran Pou Pran’l!) (Mango) For listeners whose perception of “voodoo” has been formed through the distorted lens of Hollywood, Libäte (Pran Pou Pran’l!), the third release by Haitian rasin band Boukman Eksperyans, is a joyous revelation. Central to the album A indeed, to the the…
Esquivel Music From a Sparkling Planet Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Bar/None) Between 1958 and 1967, Mexican pianist-bandleader-arranger-composer Juan Garcia Esquivel recorded and released a series of wonderfully bizarre orchestral albums in the U.S., music that aggressively cross-pollinated big band sounds with the aural anarchy of composer Raymond Scott (whose…
At the opening-night talent showcase for Billboard magazine’s Latin Music Conference, held here last week, Cuban singer Albita Rodriguez was the obvious star attraction. A crowd of about 450 recording executives, distributors, producers, promoters, journalists, and musicians mingled vigorously during acts that included a Venezuelan model-turned-pop-singer and one half of…
“Jim is one of those people who has absolutely no idea what he’s capable of.” Brian Franklin sits in the corner of a nondescript North Miami Beach fast-food restaurant, munching on French fries and talking about his friend and sometime-musical collaborator, Broward-based singer-songwriter Jim Jones. But he may as well…
John Prine Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (Oh Boy) Many listeners discovered A or rediscovered A singer-songwriter John Prine with The Missing Years, his brilliantly crafted 1991 album (produced by Howie Epstein, of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fame) that won the whiskey-voiced vocalist a Grammy. Not nearly as ambitious,…
There’s nothing like an artist’s early death to prompt critical reconsideration A and the reputation of Frank Zappa, who succumbed to cancer in late 1993 at the age of 52, has gotten a major boost as a result of this phenomenon. At the time of his passing, the music made…
Artists and musicians, even those regarded by most as unorthodox, sometimes choose to do things by the book. But if the South Beach-based band Muse were sticking to the book, it would be a tome from the lost city of Atlantis or the wreckage of some UFO from far, far…
Morphine Yes (Rykodisc) This is one of those albums you respect much more than you like. You know — the kind you listen to over and over in an attempt to let it grow on you, before slipping it quietly into the CD rack where it will remain for quite…
The calendar says it’s 1995, but the vibe in rock and roll these days is decidedly mid-Seventies. As the Jimmy Page-Robert Plant juggernaut makes its way across the land, we’re reminded that the biggest draws in last year’s fair-to-middling concert season were highly profitable treks by the likes of the…
“Fuck it, we drove.” Milk Can’s Joel Schantz didn’t mean to encapsulate the mindset of the entire Dade County delegation in attendance at the recent Southeastern Music Conference in Tampa with his offhand remark. But as anyone familiar with Milk Can’s body of work can attest, Schantz has a gift…
Kenny Neal Hoodoo Man (Alligator) Kenny Neal is a bluesman through and through. He won’t knock you out with guitar gymnastics a la Buddy Guy or stun you with his voice like Luther Allison or cause you to do double takes on his harp licks as you would with Sugar…
Tommy Anthony doesn’t look like a pop star. He has the rough-hewn features and stocky build of an ex-football player. (In fact, if you pry a bit he’ll admit he played a little semi-pro ball with the Miami Storm.) The bandanna he frequently sports atop his head gives him a…
A corridor on the second floor of Miami Children’s Hospital in southwest Miami is set aside as the Observation Unit, a part of the sprawling medical center where sick and dying children are treated. At the end of the hallway on a recent afternoon, a group of women could be…
“Well, I’ll tell ya,” drawls tenor-sax great Illinois Jacquet by phone from his home on Long Island, “they say you always return to the scene of the crime.” Jacquet is referring to Fort Lauderdale, where he will perform with his big band on Saturday as part of the Bonnet House…
