Bedside Merges House and Live Music Together on New EP

A year ago, I sat down with Travis Acker and Trace Barfield, two lifelong musicians with years of experience playing in bands and busking on the street. They’d recently warmed to the wonders of electronic production and rededicated themselves to merging the best of IRL and URL into a cohesive,…

Zack and Ben Bush Revive History at Ball & Chain

From 1935 to 1957, Ball & Chain was the beating heart of Calle Ocho, a buzzing club where jazz legends such as Billie Holiday and Chet Baker made Miami dance. But then the Little Havana gem languished for decades. Until brothers Zack and Ben Bush came along, that is. “The…

YesJulz’s Socially Conscious Party Culture Wins Over Miami

The first party Julieanna Goddard ever threw was broken up by a full-on police assault force. She was still a Tampa high-schooler at the time. “We had like 200 kids upstairs, and I’m telling them: ‘All right, everybody, shut up. The cops are downstairs,’?” the 25-year-old social engineer remembers. “A…

Lolo Reskin’s ’80s Prom Has Become a Miami Thanksgiving Tradition

“We keep saying maybe we won’t do it this year, but then we decide why not,” Lolo Reskin says. Lauren “Lolo” Reskin, the owner of Miami’s Sweat Records, will — thankfully — once again throw her signature Thanksgiving Eve ’80’s Prom this year. This Wednesday night at the Electric Pickle…

Power 96’s Lucy Lopez Gives Hialeah a Voice on the Airwaves

Years before Lucy Lopez became a funny, sassy fixture on Power 96 — as the sole female cohost of the hit music channel’s popular Morning Show — she called into the radio station on a whim. While stuck in traffic. To rail at the on-air hosts. It was around 2001,…

Miami Rapper Hound da God Is Tired of Overtown Being Overlooked

Gary Black is frustrated. The 33-year-old rapper has lived in Overtown almost his entire life and hates that Miami’s most historic black neighborhood has a bad reputation. Black admits he has seen Overtown at its worst. He grew up in the ’90s, when drugs and crime ravaged the streets. But…

Melissa Etheridge on Cancer, Songwriting, and the Magic of Marijuana

February, 13, 2005, at the Staples Center in sunny Los Angeles. There she was: 45-years-old and bald as a lightbulb. Chemo therapy had taken her hair but, it seemed, not much else. The 47th Annual Grammy Awards was perhaps the defining moment of Melissa Etheridge’s career. After being diagnosed with…

Miami’s Five Best Thanksgiving Parties of 2015

Drop down and do the turkey gobble — Thanksgiving is almost here! While the week of the fourth Thursday in November is typically reserved for feasting on pavo, congri, y yuca con la familia, it’s also a time to party it up, burn all those pre- and post-Turkey Day calories,…

Miami’s Ten Under $10 Weekend Party Guide

Future. With Culture Prophet, Treznik, and ES.P. Presented by King’s Head Records. Friday, November 20, 10 p.m. Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; 305-699-2669; gramps.com. Admission is free. Ages 21 and up. Step into the future — of funk, that is — with Culture Prophet as the electronic artist under…

Radioboxer Is Back, and You Can (Sort of) Thank Us for It

Vanessa “Vanne” Dazza seems calmer and more composed than the last time I interviewed her in the spring of 2011. This may be because our first interview was conducted — at the insistence of her band, the “bi-polar power pop” outfit, Radioboxer —  inside of BT’s Gentleman’s Club on free beer…

Culture Prophet Launches New Monthly Party at Gramps

Michael Barksdale wants you to dance this Friday night at Gramps. Otherwise known as Culture Prophet, the electronic artist under King’s Head Records is putting together a night of electro, nu disco, and future funk that he hopes your feet will be powerless to resist. “I really want the night…

Miami Music Project Aims to Raise $50,000 for Give Miami Day

Birthed in a Doral warehouse, the Miami Music Project has spent the last five years teaching kids who might not otherwise have the chance how to sing and play musical instruments, from the violin to the tuba. “Our goal is to transform communities using music as a vehicle,” explains Stephen…

A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg Helps Rec Room Celebrate Three Years

It’s been a classic three years for the Gale Hotel’s LDV Hospitality Group: three years of rockin’ beats at Rec Room, three years of clinking glassware at the Regent Cocktail Club, and three years of delicious tartufo and thin-crust pizza at Dolce Italian. “Longevity in this town is sometimes hard…

Eight Rock Stars Who Retired to South Florida

From having luscious locks of hair and hoards of groupies lining up outside their dressing room, to opening a barbecue joint and getting their mailbox smashed by some rowdy youths, South Florida is where rock stars come to retire. Sure, we may be no L.A., but there’s something magnetic about…

Meet Icon Miami, the New Nightlife Concept Replacing Mansion

Back in August, news broke that longtime Miami Beach nightlife staple, Mansion, was shutting its doors. At 11 years of age, the venue was considered elderly by nightclub standards. The news caught some off guard. Others, not so much. Longevity is rare in Miami nightlife. Space’s 15 years of operation…