Concert Review: Kid Sister at Klutch, January 1

Kid SisterFriday, January 1, 2009Klutch, Miami BeachBetter Than: Electro-rap posers like Kesha.Here I thought LMFAO was the worst thing to happen to hipster-hop, but then came Feminem songstress Kesha. Coing to the industry’s attention when she sang on Miami hip-hop artist Flo Rida’s hit single “Right Round,” she seemed rather…

Bob Sinclar Does Mansion This Saturday

French producer/DJ Bob Sinclar (neé Christophe “The French Kiss” le Friant) was Born in 69, as it says literally in the title of his most recent full-length. And you need to sample only a small cross-section from his decade-plus of throbbing tracks to understand his promotion of this double entendre-imbued…

Over the Weekend: Phish, Lady Gaga, and Simian Mobile Disco

Vacation is over, South Florida. After two weeks of back-to-back long weekends, we are finally returning to our same ol’ routine for a while at least. In case you were elsewhere visiting ungrateful relatives, here is what you missed over the weekend:Phish at American Airlines ArenaThe Vermont jam band invaded…

The Best Local Albums of 2009, Part One of Four

Over the next two days, we’ll post Crossfade contributors’ favorite local albums of 2009. They’re listed in completely random order, so stay tuned as the full list rolls out. ​Raffa and RainerNo Mercy (self-released)myspace.com/raffaandrainerMiami folkies Raffa Jo Harris and Rainer Davies play the sort of wistful melodies that make your heart…

Phish

If ever a band were built for an arena, it’s Phish, back after a handful of years with a fresh new commitment to its avant-expansive rock. This isn’t one of those comebacks where a group reprises a “classic” album, thankfully (although Phish covered the Stones’ Exile on Main Street on…

Kid Cudi

“I’m a Facebook prophet/I told all the girls that I’d be the hot shit.” Thus sings Kid Cudi on “Soundtrack 2 My Life,” the uninflected voice of a generation that grew up staring at monitors for hours and spends nights cycling through social networking websites. Embodying the hipster-hop aesthetic, Cudi’s…

Agent Orange

Thirty years ago, singer-guitarist Mike Palm and the rest of his Southern California trio, Agent Orange, got the good idea to mix first-wave punk rock and hardcore with ’60s and ’70s surf music, holding onto the loud/fast/snotty approach while delivering melody and clarity too. And with that, they all but…

Blowfly

The Big Day Out Festival is one of those “some-day” trips to daydream about. An annual series of massive one-off fests throughout Australia and New Zealand, it’s like a Reading or Leeds done Down Under, with the world’s biggest festival draws ever. This year’s edition features seven dates from January…

Sound Tribe Sector 9

Did somebody say, “jam band”? But wait, there’s no Hacky Sack and no tie-dye, and what’s with all of those laptops (like, four of ’em) onstage? If you haven’t figured it out by now, Sound Tribe Sector 9 is not your average jam band. Sure, they noodle on guitars, but…

Nonpoint

It’s hard to believe that at the end of the decade, any band once labeled “nu metal” is still going strong. So leave it to musicians from South Florida, land of anomalies. In late 2009, Fort Lauderdale’s Nonpoint still enjoys an active touring career and a healthy, loyal fan base…

Edwin McCain

Who hasn’t been to a post-1998 wedding in which the couple danced to Edwin McCain? The saxophone-drenched ballad “I’ll Be,” in which McCain promises, in essence, never to be a douchebag, granted him the one commercial success he needed to live easy. He’s since dropped off the mainstream music radar…

Candyland 14

Above all else, Candyland deserves an award for being South Florida’s longest-running annual electronic music festival. Yeah, uh, “festival” — that’s what they’re called now, to avoid that pesky “rave” word. Make no mistake, though; in its late-’90s heyday, Candyland was one of the highest-budget, complete-fantasy “parties” ever. Of course,…

EOTO

It’s been two years since jam juggernaut String Cheese Incident called it quits in 2007. Some of the former members have dropped off the radar, while others have appeared with new projects. The latter holds true for the String Cheese rhythm section of Jason Hann and Michael Travis with their…

Carlos Fauvrelle Plays Mansion on Saturday

While still relatively unknown in the States, Portuguese DJ/producer Carlos Fauvrelle is renowned through the Iberian peninsula, a region increasingly associated with the tribal house genre (see Chus & Ceballos, Mastiksoul, etc.) Fauvrelle has been crafting his own percussive-driven brand of tech house since the early 2000s, releases of which…