Music

The last half of 2000 was a bittersweet purgatory for “Big” Chad Neptune. The year-in-the-making full-length debut, The Moon Is Down, of his band, Further Seems Forever, was finally completed. To celebrate, the Pompano Beach outfit took a month-long jaunt through the Midwest and Southeast to preview the material. But…

It’s high noon in the historic district of Delray Beach. Two members of the Yoko Theory, Nathan Farnham and Henri Lemaire, haven’t been awake for long, so they’re a little punchy. But after a brief exchange about wearing panties onstage and whether New Times can print the word “fuck,” the…

Whether they’re working as MURK, Funky Green Dogs, or simply themselves, Miami DJ/producers Oscar Gaetan and Ralph Falcon have had a significant impact on dance music, winning over fans around the world with their signature dark house sound. Their latest mix compilation, Bangin’ Progressive Beats, finds them staying with the…

Hip-hop’s history — a dialectic forged by battling, boasting, and street-corner heroics — is a long-raging tug of war between MCs and producers. Throughout much of the late Nineties, the lyricists had the upper hand, prompting the British label BBE (short for “Barely Breaking Even”) to launch The Beat Generation,…

In an age when albums by hip-hop DJs seem to downplay turntablist techniques in favor of a mash-up mix-tape aesthetic, D-Styles takes a bold dive into uncharted waters with his debut album, Phantazmagorea. The former Invisibl Skratch Pikl (and current Beat Junkie) cultivates a dark, esoteric vibe with both his…

Ry Cooder almost didn’t get to make Mambo Sinuendo. Partly to blame, because of its megasuccess, was his Buena Vista Social Club LP, the best-selling album in world-music history. Indeed Cooder was this close to being denied his latest experimental excursion into Cuban music. Produced in Havana in 1996, Buena…

Funny thing about Mondays in Partyville — when the rest of the world is working up the strength to recover from a weekend of wild woolliness, things here are just starting to heat up all over again. Career partiers just keep on going and going and going and … True…

“We play in Miami all the time, we’ve even toured Europe, but we’ve never played in Fort Lauderdale,” says Juan Rozas, 28, singer and guitarist for the Argentine-born, long-time Miami-based alt-rock outfit Tereso, a name with a history of its own. Maybe as a reflection of the members’ attitude toward…

There we were, convocating with our cup-holders. The total commute from central Broward County to the Concrete (er, Convocation) Center on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables: one hour and 25 minutes. Approaching the just-opened venue from southbound U.S. 1 was — face it, folks — a colossal…

Bluesman/roots-rocker Jon Paris laughs aloud when asked about the Senate decision to declare 2003 as “The Year of Blues.” Facing the possibility of war, he finds the honor ironic, even though he believes that “it’s always going to be great [to have] a general audience recognizing the music, and the…

Freddie McGregor wears a big smile as he strolls through the double doors of the Dania Beach hotel lobby. Staff members at the registration desk light up with smiles of recognition when they notice the reggae great come in from the rain. The next several minutes are giddy with handshakes…

The premise for Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz latest video, “Play No Games,” is a straight-up contradiction. On the followup single to “I Don’t Give a,” the reigning Kings of Crunk (from their album by the same name) smooth out their usual rowdy club chants and croon all sentimental-like…

It’s been a long love story, but Martirio keeps romancing misty souls. The torch singer of the new Spain sets feet tapping and heads bobbing through a cigarette haze. Wearing dark glasses and peineta, the popular icon of Madrid’s Eighties movida scene longs, laments, and laughs darkly. This postmodern Andalusian…

Unlike the vast hordes of snowbirds, retirees, immigrants, exiles, and carpetbaggers who make up the bulk of the South Florida population, those born and raised here might actually feel some kinship with their fellow Floridians in towns north of Orlando. If you’re already acquainted with Central Florida’s politely combed orange…

You want to know how to play the game out there in the mean streets of clubland? You want to know how to get with the in crowd instead of having to call it an early evening and retiring to some nameless hole-in-the-wall bar mourning the notion that you don’t…

Once an electronica act has established an international career, things can get a bit dull if one doesn’t take some chances every now and again. Groove Armada, for one, has achieved such a strong reputation for lush Xanax-padded space ballads (“At the River”) and uptempo house numbers (“I See You…

James Taylor’s stab at “Everyday” was just underwhelmingly twee; Andy Bell makes the Buddy Holly tune full-blown gay, which is precisely the point, since few singers are so loud or proud about their sexuality as the Erasure singer (emoter, really). Erasure’s “Everyday” plays even sweeter than the original, but not…

You get one disc “for those of us who prefer singles to albums.” (Titled, naturally, Pop, and selected by journalist Miranda Sawyer.) Another put together by a man who believes the group to be “touched by the hand of God — not once but twice.” (Fan, assembled by journalist John…

In the Seventies, funk took soul and disco and fucked ’em up, twisted ’em around, and tripped ’em out. It got people to strut around like a chicken, telling them it was okay to get busy on the shag carpet. Funk took people to another place. Strangely, the genre doesn’t…