Going to see the Spencer Davis Group these days is a bit like drinking nonalcoholic beer. The name’s the same, but the oomph is all gone — that oomph, of course, was Steve Winwood. Davis is a talented musician in his own right, but it was Winwood’s bluesy, gritty vocals…
Ahh, to be an aging rock star. What better possible way could there be to live out one’s golden years than trying vainly to relive one’s golden youth? Leather pants, screaming groupies, pharmaceutically enhanced machismo. The Dennis Hopper-endorsed, carpe diem boomer mentality has given second wind to bloated rock corpses…
Blue-eyed soul singer Jamie Lidell’s Jim ranks as one of the most unabashedly retro albums ever made — an inspired throwback/tribute to late-Sixties and early-Seventies R&B. Much of the time, Lidell’s smooth, suave voice recalls Stevie Wonder circa “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and pre-What’s Going On Marvin Gaye. Propelled by handclaps…
Once his shit’s all the way together, Joel Zimmerman is going to explode. He seemingly can do no wrong — even his joke-band collaboration with Steve Duda, BSOD, illuminates a rare, untamed, scary talent. The pair’s half-ass, just-for-yuks foray into electro-house yielded some great songs that are all the rage…
Duran Duran boasts a rare longevity in the world of pop music — 12 albums and some 30 years in the business. The group’s two distinguishing members, synth master Nick Rhodes and vocalist Simon Le Bon, still speak to each other. Fans have accustomed themselves to the periodic, reptilian sloughing…
Of all the many musical exports Brazil has unleashed upon the world, no single piano player has done more for popularizing that country’s music than Sergio Mendes. In the Sixties, with his group Brasil ’66, he helped bring bossa nova into nearly every American home. That disc scored a radio…
The last time Donald Cumming, the 25-year-old frontman for the New York quartet the Virgins, visited Miami, he ended up in jail. Somewhat forcibly transplanted by his mother to the horrors of northern Florida from his native Manhattan, then-15-year-old Cumming took a bus down to meet an old friend. “We…
If the recent Smirnoff showcase in New York — in which Common, Q-Tip, and KRS-One disconcertingly sold their skills to the British-owned vodka company for some quick stacks — is any indication, the state of “conscious” rap is in serious flux right now. It seems to stand mostly for vague…
In 1997, when Portishead’s self-titled second album arrived, the group’s sound was routinely described as trip-hop. Eleven years later, that term is as dead as Fatty Arbuckle, but Portishead is alive again and more captivatingly obtuse than ever. “I never had the chance/To explain exactly what I meant,” lead singer…
As the side project of one-man band Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice exists as a place for odder sounds that his main gig’s black-metal specs permit. Wonderman Wrest, a.k.a Jeff Whitehead, released 777 copies of Lurker of Chalice in 2000 to immediate acclaim, prompting this reissue on respected L.A.-based sludge label…
Scrolling the Weezy files doesn’t always lead to stellar tracks. He’s got plenty of home runs, too many triples, a decent amount of doubles, and straight up strikes out that don’t even come close to a single on the windiest day. But check this track out between Kanye and Lil…
(photo by Martynka Wawrzyniak) The Virgins are the latest white-hot (in every respect, meow) NYC quartet you are going to really care about very, very soon, if you’re not clued in already. In this week’s issue of the Miami New Times, we tell you why in our music section’s Live…
The verdict is in and New York rapper Remy Ma has been sentenced to 8 years in a federal prison for assault, weapon possession and attempted coercion after shooting her friend, Makeda Barnes Joseph, last July in a dispute over money. Remy Ma accused her girlfriend of stealing $3,000 from…
In this week’s issue of the Miami New Times, we give you the rundown on Duran Duran’s latest album, The Red Carpet Massacre, and the group’s appearance next Monday at Mizner Park in Boca. Click here to read that story. But of course, there are plenty of outtakes left from…
Instead of just posting an old song, this time around, Throwback Tuesdays brings you a bunch of video goodness of some Miami legends who represented a these-days-often-forgotten element of hip-hop: B-boying! (No b-girls in these videos, oh well – if anyone out there knows of some web videos of breakdancing…
In case you missed the news in the world of Myspace and blogs, Dead Prez is popping up kinda randomly for a show tonight — a pretty good coup for a weekly party in Hollywood, known as Mellow Mondays. It’s a soul-poetry-funk-conscious sort of thang, and followers of that scene…
This was no interview, it was my dream date. The Diamond Princess sparkled like my logo right there. Read the whole story here, and listen to a few minutes of Miami royalty here below. – Jason Handelsman…
There’s absolutely no reason for Mindless Self Indulgence to be around in 2008. For starters, their aggressive, quasi-industrial sound – on paper, at least – is long past its sell-by date. Furthermore, they’ve been up and down the indie-major-indie label rollercoaster and should now be experiencing their inevitable decline into…
Anyone who says South Florida lacks homegrown live artists would be surprised by the growing pile of CDs at New Times. A pile of releases by our city’s hopefuls that is, well, hard to keep up with. In “Local Motion,” a new ongoing series in Burner, we’ll try to play…
Uh Huh Her sounds like one of those slightly glitchy L.A. pop bands you hear during your favorite edgy cable TV series and consequently keeps you watching through the closing credits to find out who it was. Luckily for that comparison, cofrontwoman Leisha Hailey happens to play Alice Pieszecki on…
People are still talking about DJ Heather’s set at this year’s Om Records WMC party. Still touring in support of last year’s Summer Sessions 2 compilation (a joint effort with Om Records veteran Onionz), she’s been putting in a ton of studio hours toward a forthcoming artist album. Along with…
It’s time for all you late-night hot-bodies to give some love to the new guy, Patrick M, the Argentine DJ who has taken Miami as his home and the Sunday a.m. terrace gig at Space as one of his vocations. This Sunday finds Patrick releasing his new track, “Hulk,” a…
