Mötley Crüe Returns to South Florida on Mar. 3

If it seems like Mötley Crüe was just here, well, it’s because they were, in July, headlining their Crüefest tour at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. They’re coming baaaaa-aaaaack, though, as part of their Saints of Los Angeles Tour, and diehard fans will be happy it’s a relatively…

Last Night: Yelle (Again!) at Art Loves Music

YelleWednesday, December 3, 2008Art Loves Music, Miami BeachBetter Than: I’m going to skip this.Let me start out by saying: Worst. Crowd. Ever.I’m going to keep this short since we already reviewed Yelle not too long ago. Way to castrate an energetic performer and have her beg you to wake up…

Jason Mraz

To haters, this Mechanicsville, Virginia native is a purveyor of Top 40 schlock, just another pretty boy with a sincere face and a soul as deep as a wading pool. To fans, he is a pretty face, yes, but also endearingly vulnerable. Fans know Mraz is open about singing of…

Michel Camilo

The sky is the limit for this eclectic Dominican-born pianist. A member of his native country’s symphony orchestra while still in his teens, Michel Camilo made the decision to leave that position in 1979, when he went to New York to study at Juilliard. At the same time, he hit…

The Misfits

For 30 years the Misfits have been spreading their colloidal mix of punk, rockabilly, and horror-flick themes to ravenous “fiends” around the globe. Formed in 1977 by Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only in Lodi, New Jersey, the Misfits were punk rock’s answer to the B movie. With a DIY ethos…

D. Ramirez

Dance fiends still drool over the mere thought of veteran DJ Dean Ramirez’s remix of “Yeah Yeah,” the woozy-cheesy electro-house Bodyrox track from 2006. In the song’s heyday, Nic Fanciulli and Paul Woolford described it as one of the biggest tunes at Winter Music Conference. And so Ramirez’s star went…

Last Night: Shai Hulud at Backbone Music, Delray Beach

After the Burial, Born of Osiris, and Shai HuludBackbone Music, Delray BeachTuesday, December 2, 2008Better Than: Feeling old in a place with no live music….The Review: Backbone Music, in the heart of downtown Delray, got the Broward-Palm Beach New Times’ Best Record Store nod in 2007. But because Delray seems…

The Britney Spears Circus Comes to Town Mar. 7

…No, really. As part of her Great American Second Act, Britney Spears’ upcoming comeback tour is titled The Circus Starring Britney Spears, proving again that the woman’s got more dark wit than expected. According to the current cover story on Spears in Rolling Stone, that means a bona fide, three-ring…

Also Not Basel-Related: Jason Mraz, Dec. 5

To haters, this Mechanicsville, Virginia native is a purveyor of Top-40 shlock, yet another pretty boy with a sincere face and a soul as deep as a wading pool. Well, that set wouldn’t get within 100 yards of a Jazon Mraz concert, so it’s better to take a look at…

Completely NOT Basel-Related: Nic Fanciulli at Mansion Dec. 6

Yes, while everyone else is running around in a pseudo-art-related frenzy, there are a few big events this week that are absolutely NOT related to Art Basel. It seems almost anticlimactic to talk about them, though, with all the big-deal one-off events going on. Still, here’s something for the frequent…

Art Basel Week: Prefuse 73 and Eliot Lipp, Dec. 7

Shoring up Heathrow’s more dancefloor-friendly offerings is tonight’s party, which tends more towards the experimental and heavy. Prefuse 73 was born Guillermo Scott Herren in Miami but grew up in Atlanta; still, he remains popular locally thanks to his releases on labels like Schematic and Warp. With a dizzying discography…

Wednesday Night: Q-Tip at Revolution

Photo by Eddie RosenstockQ-Tip with The Cool KidsWednesday, November 26, 2008Revolution, Fort LauderdaleBetter Than: Watching Q-Tip live on Letterman.The Review: Rap shows normally feature an MC accompanied by a tour DJ and a laptop, but when an artist such as Q-Tip brings a tight band with him onstage alongside the…

Art Basel Week: Pink Reason and Times New Viking, Dec. 7

The last of the Art Basel week shows at the Kill Your Idols space kicks off with a set from Brooklyn-based Pink Reason, currently a trio but really the brainchild of Kevin Failure, the band’s frontman. It sounds a little like Joy Division or another post-punk act put through a…

Last Night: Madonna at Dolphin Stadium

MadonnaWednesday, November 26, 2008Dolphin Stadium, Miami GardensI am writing this to you at 2 a.m. exactly, which is the time you get home if you live in Wilton Manors and go to Madonna concerts in Miami. Madonna does awful things to the Golden Glades Exchange. Madonna makes “lanes” meaningless and…

Art Basel Week: Sex Vid, Caustic Christ, and Annihilation Time, Dec. 6

The elusive Seattle/Olympia hardcore-ish band is cult-famous for its refusal to make a web site or even properly record and distribute its music. The Pittsburgh foursome Caustic Christ has toured with similarly deliciously named bands like Municipal Waste — ’nuff said. Meanwhile, the songs on Annihilation Time III: Tales of…

Shai Hulud

Few bands better embody metalcore than Broward County expat Shai Hulud. Though now based in Poughkeepsie, New York, the group was originally founded in the mid-Nineties by guitarists/Uncle Sam’s Records employees Matt Fox and Oliver Chapoy. Their initial sound was further propelled by the youthful exuberance of then-14-year-old future New…

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

When a friend asked Owen Ashworth for a collection of gloomy original tunes, the fledgling composer responded with a mixtape he christened Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. The name stuck when he began playing solo gigs, accompanied by gently pulsing electronic beats and tinny melodies from chintzy synthesizers. Ashworth’s vocals…

Quintron and Miss Pussycat

New Orleans has its own force of gravity — it’s stronger and more targeted than the scientific law governing the rest of nature. Call it voodoo if you like, or an imposing piece of dark matter disguised as real estate — but Quintron and Miss Pussycat might correct you, referring…

I Set My Friends on Fire

The seemingly out-of-nowhere appearance of the young Kendall duo I Set My Friends on Fire has been recounted in these pages several times in recent months. But just to recap: Teenagers Matt Mihana and Nabil Moo, formerly of a more by-the-numbers post-hardcore band, wanted to form a new project. They…

Homegrown, featuring ArtOfficial and the Spam Allstars

While seemingly the whole highbrow world descends on Miami Beach for the official opening of Art Basel, across the causeway The Vagabond kicks off the artsy extravaganza with a locals-centric fiesta. Okay, so Miami New Times is an official sponsor of the event, but it’s never a bad time to…

Cuban Drama Queen Lives Again at Viernes Culturales

La Lupe, the patron saint of Cuba’s Latin soul movement is being immortalized in film.La Mala is a Spanish drama based on the life of Guadalupe Yoli Raymond and named after one of La Lupe’s most famous songs. In it, Miami’s own Lena Burke puts on a hell of a…