The Scourge of the Sea creates a sound that’s a lot less menacing than its moniker might imply. Using an arsenal of keyboards and acoustic guitars, this multifaceted three-piece creates an ethereal ambiance filled with shimmer and strum, a sound that references Belle and Sebastian, the Church, the Cure, and…
Chicago MC Lupe Fiasco achieves a remarkable duality on his first single, a soulful, summertime love letter to skateboarding (wherever you can, because you can, as long as you can) imparted with cool nonchalance over producer Soundtrakk’s brassy slopes and steady, measured drums. At the core of this song’s heavy-lidded,…
Mariah Carey. Glitter. No other combination of words evokes images of four-inch stilettos, dresses of about the same length, and a near-shattering fall from grace quite like those three. The past few turbulent years in Carey’s career have made it difficult to believe that one of the media’s biggest punching…
After a summer of touring behind their new full-length album, the twee-poppers of Miami’s Baby Calendar return to finish where their journey began — at Churchill’s. There the bandmates hosted a CD-release party in May for their third LP, Gingerbread Dog, and then went on a nearly three-month trek of…
After releasing countless EPs, Dominic Angus has made a name for himself as the harder and more experimental voice of dance music. Performing under the name Dom and Roland (Roland referring to Angus’s drum machine) for the past ten years, Angus has always followed a darker style, especially when compared…
Though he has only recently released his second album, Beto Hale has been a musician nearly his entire life. Performing at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City when he was eleven, Hale got an early start crafting his unique blend of pop-punk, Brit-pop, and New Wave. He learned the drums…
What makes the Lawrences an unusual punk band, aside from their conceptual albums and duet-style vocals, is their fierce hatred of the Warped Tour (and not because the group hasn’t been invited to it). The band played on the tour in 2002 and was kicked off for criticizing the tour…
In 2002 “My Neck, My Back,” Khia’s bass-heavy ode to oral pleasure, took over the urban airwaves. Despite the song’s explicit exhortations, it became a global, mainstream hit for the young rapper from Tampa. Her debut album, Thug Misses, sold 800,000 copies independently. Then the rumors began. First there was…
This is the second installment in a four-part series about world-beat women. Next week: singer/guitar player Michelle Forman. Nadia Harris, frontwoman for the electronica-infused reggae band Agape, is bona fide Jah kin. It’s evident in her spiritual words, the way she swings her body to the mesmerizing beat of the…
Until Missy Elliott purchased sampling rights to Cybotron’s “Clear” for her “Lose Control” single in the summer of 2005, more people had heard of Juan Atkins than actually heard him. Over the past two decades, fans and music scholars have cast him in mythic proportions, reciting his achievements like oratory…
Max Anderson is a wealthy Coral Gables resident with a boxing pedigree. Jesús Velez is a poor boy from Calle Ocho who uses street smarts to defeat his opponents in the ring. The two kick-boxers are competing for the limelight in a brutal industry where only the hardiest survive. This…
When news spread that the Sixties Brazilian Tropicália group Os Mutantes (the Mutants) was getting back together, its frontman, Sérgio Dias, was the last person to know. “I started receiving telephone calls from, like, Mojo magazine, saying, ‘Listen, you’re gonna play here again. That’s great,'” Dias says, laughing, from his…
Ryan Cabrera began his musical career in Texas playing guitar in a noisy punk band before discovering Dave Matthews and deciding he wanted to make music that sounded softer, trading electric for acoustic and forming alt-rock band Rubic’s Groove. The band grew popular in Dallas, opening for acts like Cheap…
Rapping and singing love-torn lyrics over jazz-tinged guitars and hip-hop beats on “Ms. Used” — the first track on Tiffany Miranda’s debut album, I Speak Music — Miranda has a genuine knack for blending R&B, jazz, and hip-hop into something refreshingly different. Now living in Miami, Miranda was born in…
Jamaican-born Eddie Kirkland has toured with Otis Redding, performed with John Lee Hooker, and has played guitar during a televised performance while standing on his head. Brought up in Alabama, Kirkland learned guitar, harmonica, and vocals before moving to Detroit, where he first met and recorded with Hooker in 1943…
Bandleader, singer, composer, trombonist, Grammy winner, political activist, and living legend Willie Colón has done it all. He cut his first album, El Malo, at the age of seventeen with vocalist Héctor Lavoe, another artist with a now-legendary resumé. El Malo helped define the “New York sound” — known today…
Zac Brown is a younger Jimmy Buffett, assuming Buffett traded his margarita for a beer and hung out with bikers. The lead singer and guitarist of the Zac Brown Band, Brown belts out sentimental lyrics with a hint of a Southern drawl over catchy, acoustic guitar notes and the backing…
Born Jasiel Robinson in Atlanta, Georgia, Yung Joc had a childhood nearly as aggressive as his lyrics. He got into fights, kicked out of schools, and arrested, all before he received his high school diploma. Young Joc, whose album New Joc City debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop…
Editor’s note: One of the hottest musical movements Miami has to offer is its unprecedented fusion of “world beat” sounds. The only thing the all-encompassing experiment appears to be lacking is a representation of female voices. Blame it on machismo, marianismo, or any other culturally appropriatismo. Yet there are a…
Madonna live in concert can be a religious experience — especially for the performer herself. On 2004’s “Re-Invent Yourself Tour,” Madge mixed spiritual iconography of various faiths the way a DJ mashes up records, while her current “Confession Tour” finds her kickin’ back atop a giant crucifix. Alas, we don’t…
Sela McCray lived in New York City in the early Eighties. “I was a Billie Holiday head. Then one night my wild roommate brought me to a punk club. I was fascinated by the whole culture, so I became a punk … one of the three black punks in New…
Five Across the Eyes (F.A.T.E.) looks like a typical South Florida new-school tough-guy hardcore punk group. The bandmates’ T-shirts feature elaborate lettering and spider webs with designs printed on the side. The cover of their self-released EP, Empty Bottles and Liquor’d Spit, features an outline of a brass knuckle. Imagine…
