Are you a Dapper Dan Man? Now before you go searching the mind log for that reference, I’ll quit pussyfooting and just give it to you: O Brother, Where Art Thou, the Coen Brothers’ hilarious rip through Homer’s Odyssey, a great film which also featured a terrific collection of vintage…
There’s a power to Earth, Wind, & Fire and it’s a power that transcends the obvious comparison to the elements. I remember many years ago as a young man being confronted by a classmate who could’ve sworn her parents had been “making it” to “some damn Earth, Wind, & Fire…
Even after “retiring” from music a few times since making the tenor sax his raison de vivre in 1946, Sonny Rollins has never ceased to be a jazz innovator and leader. For a man who cut his teeth performing under geniuses Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk and who chose to…
SoCal-style punk has been suffering blows lately, with three members of über-influential Rich Kids on LSD passing away in the past year, plus billions of bands bastardizing the genre into incoherent screamo fests with the good parts stolen from Pennywise or Lagwagon. Thankfully, there are a few youngsters out there…
What started off as a “shits ‘n’ giggles in the basement” kind of band has grown into an unstoppable street punk/Oi! force to be reckoned with. The Dropkick Murphys even have a competitive hockey squad in the Boston area! So ten years, five full-lengths, and a bucketful of singles later,…
Torche has been cutting mighty swaths with its down-tuned scythe for some time now; the band’s full-length debut on Robotic Empire Records last year garnered praise from both indie and major press camps. These veterans of the local scene are rumored to have most of a second album completed, and…
Listen, kids: There was a time when the splinter cells of punk, hardcore, and metal distinguished themselves with divergent doses of brutality and technical prowess. But in the late ’80s came a wave of bands pulling those forms together into the same fold, and crossover acts like Nausea, Destroy, Hirax,…
With this double bill, it seems the fine administrators of the City of San Diego have assembled an audio/visual review, straight from their beachside city to ours. The brochure might read something like: Get your indie on with Goodbye Blue Monday, which boasts angular guitars and a rock-solid rhythm section!…
Hard rockers Planeside have been slowly picking up momentum and accolades from peers and fans, and it’s easy to see why. The rhythm section of Craig Sala (drums) and Ken Hirasaki (bass) has been at it since the boys’ teenaged years with Joni’s Butterfly, a New England band whose name…
I’m not sure what kind of “post” Armor for Sleep occupies. Is it post-hardcore, post-emo, post-screamo, or post-emo/hardcore/screamo? Whatever. The truth is, since its 2003 debut, Dream to Make Believe, this quad from New Jersey has extended its reach far beyond simple categorization and has even been the featured subject…
I’m not sure when it was that them compact disc doohickeys became the rage, but I do joyously remember when punk rock bands released kick-ass seven-inch vinyl records. South Florida at one point was a hub of seven-inch activity, with now sadly defunct record labels like Mike Borras’ Smooth Lips…
Few local bands can claim a stronger love/hate relationship with the world than Radar O’Reilly. It’s hard to say where exactly it fits into the heavy metal world, though due to its outspokenness, it may be somewhere near classic/stoner rock. At least it ain’t nü-metal, emo, or pop-punk. I’ll tell…
Make no mistake — Paris Is Burning has nothing to do with 2005’s widespread turbulence in France, the 1966 film about the last days of German occupation in the capital, or the 1990 documentary of New York’s finest drag queens. This Paris burns in South Florida, and it’s of the…
With heavy hearts, we report that indie fixture the Brand is trading sunny South Florida for the gray skies of London. Over the past three years, few bands have been as instrumental in helping foster Miami’s fledgling indie community. Musically, the band made an instant impact after its 2002 formation,…
Punk rock, regardless of what the more militant camps will tell you, has always survived on its underlying humor. Sometimes it takes a little digging to uncover it, and sometimes it doesn’t. Guttermouth has never been shy with its comedy. Hell, it might be its only saving grace — Lord…
In addition to purchasing copious libations at music fests, we’ve been making a habit of stuffing ourselves with vitamin supplements and our pockets with granola bars. Such training will come in handy for the Non-Stop Rock Fest, which promises to be a long and varied showcase of kick-ass, local rock…
That opening count-off on the high hat, followed by that vicious ripping-into by the rest of the band, makes Miami’s Hellhounds reminiscent of second-wave hardcore British punk acts like the Varukers and Disorder, but the comparison ends there. This well-executed version of American hardcore keeps the rhythm section on a…
George Clinton’s musical career began 40 years ago when he literally stepped out of the barbershop with his doo-wop outfit, the Parliaments, and scored big with the hit “(I Wanna) Testify.” Not bad for a teenager from North Carolina. Once the throbassonic mothership from planet Funkadelica landed in his brain…
Along with billions of barrels of black gold and the occasional successful stab at beauty pageants, Venezuela has a rather vibrant music scene that has flown under the radar for far too long. At the modern forefront, slowly gaining momentum and venturing into the mainstream, are Los Amigos Invisibles —…
Born in Germany to a Chinese-German father and a Hungarian mother, Ottmar Liebert began his love affair with the guitar at age 11. By the time he was 18, he was educated into the many ethnicities of music, and he began traveling as a musician throughout Europe and Asia before…
Samantha Jones ought to be a familiar name if you’ve ever dug the Central Florida music scene. From her stints in punk/indie bands like Crustaceans and Bitchin’ to her most recent bass/vocal work with Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard’s alt-country-punk side project, Rumbleseat, Jones likes to keep…
Since its introduction in the 1930s by Willie and Troman Eason into the Pentecostal Church’s musical worship, the steel guitar has quietly become a triumphant instrument for praising the Lord. Sacred Steel, the genre of music born out of the African-American Holiness-Pentecostal Church, takes up the original “Hawaiian” steel guitar…
