Black Tide and Bullet for My Valentine

Does being in a sub-21 thrash-metal outfit guarantee an early exit from the innocence of childhood, or a permanent home in pubescent immaturity? We don’t think the young shredders of Black Tide really give a shit one way or the other; they’re too busy basking in the warmth of critical…

Toots and the Maytals Play the Culture Room This Sunday

Legendary reggae artist Toots Hibbert is coming to Broward County this weekend. If you’re even vaguely familiar with the history of reggae, you’ll know that Toots is a long-time staple of the genre…so much so that he lays claim to being the first musician to use the word “reggae” in…

HR of the Bad Brains to Play Churchill’s August 30

I got a random email last week stating that H.R. of the Bad Brains is going to be in Miami this Saturday at Churchill’s. I haven’t heard dick for promotion on this and Churchill’s doesn’t even have the show listed on their website. But random emails and word on the…

Spam All-Stars Pay Tribute to James Brown in New York

Ernest Barteldes Still Black, Still Proud: The African Tribute to James Brown with the Spam All-Stars August 22, 2008 Lincoln Center, New York Shortly prior to nightfall in Manhattan, Miami’s own Spam All-Stars hit the stage during the last weekend of summer outdoor concerts at Lincoln Center to kick off…

Last Night: Smashing Pumpkins at Mizner Park Amphitheatre

Santiago Felipe Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan performed at Mizner Park Amphitheatre Thursday night. Click here to view the full slideshow. Smashing Pumpkins Thursday, August 21, 2008 Mizner Park Amphitheatre, Boca Raton Better Than: Not showering and looking for Molly for four days at a jam-band festival to get the…

Last Night: Stone Temple Pilots at Seminole Hard Rock

Sayre Berman Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland performs at the Seminole Hard Rock Live Wednesday night. Click here to view the full slideshow. Stone Temple Pilots Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Seminole Hard Rock Live, Hollywood Better Than: A Jukebox Filled with Hits of the ‘90s You want perspective?…

Last Night: Matisyahu at the Florida Room

Matisyahu and local beatboxer Komakozie going in. Matisyahu Wednesday, August 20, 2008 The Florida Room Better Than: Listening to the Klezmatics at a nightclub The Review: There’s something about catching a show at the Florida Room, the laid-back, SoBe speakeasy, that reminds you of a bar from the 40s or…

La Gata

Some cats really know how to scratch at your heartstrings. A little more than a year ago, Miami’s popular octogenarian tango interpreter La Gata reduced a crowd of Latin American émigrés to tears following a screening of a self-titled documentary about her at the Spanish Cultural Center in Coral Gables…

Fall of Olympus

This four-piece outfit is not to be confused with, oh, Walls of Jericho, or Fall of Troy, or any number of the other heavy acts out there with vaguely ancient-sounding names. These guys hail from the northern reaches of Palm Beach County, where they’ve been slowly churning out their “100…

DJ Dara

Ireland native and longtime New York resident DJ Dara has had untold influence on the taste and purchases of drum ‘n’ bass DJs across the nation for the past 12 years. He’s one of the core managers at the seminal record shop Breakbeat Science, which operates both online and as…

Justin and Christian Martin Present A Dirtybird Wedding

Over the past few years, brothers Justin and Christian Martin, with their Dirtybird and Buzzin’ Fly crews, have harnessed their San Francisco hometown’s thermal currents to establish themselves and their city as an increasingly potent presence on the international techno circuit. Including cohort Claude VonStroke, the Dirtybird gang launched a…

Lazardi

Since 1994, locals have known Venezuelan-born DJ Lazardi from the parties he’s grown not only at Space but also at Nocturnal, Amika, Maze, Opium Garden, and Liquid. He began at Space in 2004, when the club’s owner, Luis Puig, decided to try an “international party” in what was then the…

Last Night: Rodrigo y Gabriela at the Fillmore Miami Beach

Rodrigo y Gabriela Wednesday, August 13 The Fillmore Miami Beach Better Than: The smooth-jazz pap often foisted upon “world music” fans. The Review: “Feel free to do crazy shit, encouraged Gabriela, of the Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, to the fawning crowd assembled at the Fillmore Miami Beach…

Tonight in Live Music: Thursday, August 14

*Not live, per se, but a special DJ event: check out B-more’s Dave Nada at tonight’s edition of Money$hot at the Vagabond. Click here to read more about him, and click here to check out a Pitbull remix by him. *Something a little more high-brow: Ellis Marsalis (yep, like Wynton)…

Dave Nada and DJ Craze

Money $hot, the neon-and-shades-heavy Thursday-night throwdown at The Vagabond, continues its romance with all things Baltimore this week by bringing down that town’s latest rising DJ star, Dave Nada. A favorite on blogs such as Discobelle, Nada has a style that’s a rapid-fire cut-and-paste, moving from bass bump to electro…

Ellis Marsalis

Jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis is more than an iconic performer and critically lauded composer; he’s a New Orleans jazz father figure. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the shape of contemporary jazz should immediately recognize his as the surname common to trumpeter Wynton, saxophonist Branford, drummer Jason, and trombonist Delfeayo. Still,…

New World Beat

Popularized by Lionel Hampton, the vibraphone is from the same family as the marimba and xylophone. Over the past couple of decades, the instrument has found its place among both the Latin and jazz music scenes thanks to the likes of Tito Puente, Gary Burton (who introduced the four-mallet technique),…

The Frustrations

Times are tough in Detroit. The auto industry is a popcorn-movie train wreck again, thus the city’s legs are wobblier than Lindsay Lohan’s after an all-nighter. But the Motor City music scene is something that simply can’t be squashed, what with its rich history as a — perhaps the —…

Candlebox

Let’s be frank: During Candlebox’s original run in the Nineties, the Seattle quartet was absolutely hammered by critics and some music fans for being grunge lite. The main accusation: The group had co-opted the riffs, moods, and flannel — yet excised most of the nihilism and self-hatred — of that…

Stone Temple Pilots

Hey, Scott Weiland: Look, I’m gonna be honest with you — I really don’t care whether Slash took his stinky leather boot, planted it on your scrawny behind, and gave you the heave-ho from Velvet Revolver, or you went all “You can’t fire me cuz I quit!” on ’em. You…