A.B. Quintanilla being interview by a reporter at his Listening Party. A.B. Quintanilla & The Kumbia All Starz Listening Party February 20th, 2008 The Raleigh Hotel Better Than: Staying at home and listening to a 20-second song snippet from Amazon Oeuvres, Champagne, and Cumbias? Last night’s listening party sponsored by…
Johnny Cash once said, “When people ask me who my favorite country singer is, I say, ‘You mean, besides George Jones?'” Nicknamed “No-Show Jones” in honor of all the gigs he missed as a result of his drinking/drugging/God-only-knows, the now-76-year-old Jones still ranks second to Eddy Arnold for the most…
Truth be told, Q-Burn’s message is no more abstract than “get thee under the mirror-ball and shake yo’ ass.” The former Rollins College (Orlando) DJ is a master at blending software and electronics with live instruments to create bump-and-groove house tunes, weaving his own guitar riffs and drum breaks into…
Like Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow knows the value of old songs. But unlike Stewart (who caught his third career wind by recording 76 albums’ worth of tunes your grandma got busy to back in the day), Manilow has slowly been working his way through the 20th Century, beginning with the…
This emo supergroup began as a lark in 2006, when the blogosphere had Snakes on a Plane fever. Gabe Saporta, frontman for New Jersey rockers Midtown, was recruited to pen a song for the movie. But the flick turned out to be an overhyped washout that couldn’t even muster enough…
It looks like McDonald’s is going after the urban crowd with this one. “Cha cha now y’all.” — Jonathan Cunningham…
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone February 16, 2007 The White Room Better Than: Having Dostoevsky read to you by an ex-lover. Hard to believe anyone would put their faith in heartbreak, let alone turn out en masse to listen to it. But that’s Miami – ever ready to flip the…
You don’t need to know the music of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone to know that somehow, somewhere, sometime, you too have trod down that same long, dark road. But it helps, if only for the fact that you can commiserate. You might even get a bit gleeful hearing how…
Better hook up the Red Bull I.V. — DJ Boris is on his way to Space. The Russian-born 35-year-old is known as much for his marathon club sets (15 hours at Crobar in 2006, 22 hours at Nocturnal during the 2007 Winter Music Conference) as for his ever-growing list of…
It ain’t no disco when Second Sun blows up a room, or at least that’s not how the Miami DJ duo looks at it. Sure, a lot of knob-twiddling is going on when the pair makes its hypnotizing house and trance sounds. But Antoine Toupin and Adam Cavaluzi, who met…
Known primarily for his role as bassist in Bla Fleck’s Grammy-winning New Grass Revival band the Flecktones, Victor Wooten is a phenomenal composer and bandleader in his own right. Widely respected by fellow musicians and acclaimed by the bass cognoscenti (he’s the only three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Bass…
Van Halen with Ky-Mani Marley Bank Atlantic Center, Ft. Lauderdale Feb. 12, 2008 It’s hard to believe that it’s been 24 years since I last saw Van Halen featuring “Diamond” David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen together on the same stage. Yes, it was back in 1984 at Madison…
Black Chiney Sound System Friday, February 8th Whyte Noise, Fort Lauderdale Better Than: Listening to pussyclaat soundbwoys trying to compete. Last Friday night, Bobby Chin and one half of South Florida’s Black Chiney sound kept the dancehall a blaze until the wee hours of the morning in downtown Fort Lauderdale…
Well, we’ve certainly come a long way since 1979. And we will most certainly not delve into any kind of bizarre correlations between the melting surf-guitar-driven punk rock of the Placentia, California-based band Agent Orange, and that happy, dioxin-filled defoliant that made many an uncle crazy. But it’s always nice…
Operating out of Utrecht, the Netherlands, the three-piece collaborative known as Black Sun Empire is now in its 10th year of tearing up dance floors and producing tunes both technically proficient and powerful. Comprising darkstep/neurofunk producer Rene Verdult and the DJing brothers Milan and Micha Heyboer, the band offers a…
Bang Camaro is hard to pin down — bass, drum, three guitars, and a vocals choir that can include up to 18 people. Is it cacophony? Discordance? Full-fledged riot? Or just a really good fucking time had by all? Whatever the case is in the end, the shtick has worked…
Granted, the name Hungrytown suggests a Third-World municipality desperate for charitable donations. But it’s actually the handle for a husband-wife duo that purveys honest-to-goodness, down-home folk songs with an authentic old-time flair. Cast with fiddles, mandolins, banjos, bluegrass, and balladry, their self-titled debut boasts a rustic back porch feel that…
Angels & Airwaves Tuesday, February 5, 2008 Revolution, Ft. Lauderdale Better Than: Spending all night trying to figure out why everyone accepts AVA as the abbreviation for Angels & Airwaves. The Review: David Glimour and Roger Waters did it. That is, they pursued solo careers after a hugely successful run…
When I pulled up to Churchill’s Pub, 5501 NE 2nd Ave., a police patrol car was parked out in front. The lights were on and two officers were talking to a young man. What a lovely way to start a night of jazz music. As me and my friends walked…
Girl Talk February 2, 2008 Studio A Better Than:Cocaine and Miami Subs The Review: “Bounce That”, the 12th “song” off of Girl Talk’s third album Night Ripper has kicked off almost every mix CD I’ve made in the past year. And regardless of each of my friends’ musical preference, be…
Rod Stewart Hard Rock Live February 1, 2008 Longtime fans who bemoaned Rod Stewart’s recent four-album cycle of standards will be relieved to know that Roddy’s stripped his current tour of replays of the great American songbook and returned to singing the kind of songs that earned him his rock…
When two-time Tony Award nominee Christine Andreas last came to Miami, it was to help christen the Carnival Center while taking a turn Margaret Johnson in a production of The Light in the Piazza. “Opening a venue is always exciting. Mine was the first foot or limb to step on…
