Also Not Basel-Related: Jason Mraz, Dec. 5

To haters, this Mechanicsville, Virginia native is a purveyor of Top-40 shlock, yet another pretty boy with a sincere face and a soul as deep as a wading pool. Well, that set wouldn’t get within 100 yards of a Jazon Mraz concert, so it’s better to take a look at…

Completely NOT Basel-Related: Nic Fanciulli at Mansion Dec. 6

Yes, while everyone else is running around in a pseudo-art-related frenzy, there are a few big events this week that are absolutely NOT related to Art Basel. It seems almost anticlimactic to talk about them, though, with all the big-deal one-off events going on. Still, here’s something for the frequent…

Art Basel Week: Prefuse 73 and Eliot Lipp, Dec. 7

Shoring up Heathrow’s more dancefloor-friendly offerings is tonight’s party, which tends more towards the experimental and heavy. Prefuse 73 was born Guillermo Scott Herren in Miami but grew up in Atlanta; still, he remains popular locally thanks to his releases on labels like Schematic and Warp. With a dizzying discography…

Art Basel Week: Pink Reason and Times New Viking, Dec. 7

The last of the Art Basel week shows at the Kill Your Idols space kicks off with a set from Brooklyn-based Pink Reason, currently a trio but really the brainchild of Kevin Failure, the band’s frontman. It sounds a little like Joy Division or another post-punk act put through a…

Art Basel Week: Sex Vid, Caustic Christ, and Annihilation Time, Dec. 6

The elusive Seattle/Olympia hardcore-ish band is cult-famous for its refusal to make a web site or even properly record and distribute its music. The Pittsburgh foursome Caustic Christ has toured with similarly deliciously named bands like Municipal Waste — ’nuff said. Meanwhile, the songs on Annihilation Time III: Tales of…

Homegrown

While seemingly the whole highbrow world descends on Miami Beach on this night for the official opening of Art Basel, across the causeway, the Vagabond kicks off the artsy extravaganza with a locals-centric fiesta. OK, so Miami New Times is an official sponsor of the event, but it’s never a…

Art Basel Week: Modernage and Tommie Sunshine, Dec. 5

Tommie SunshineThe Vagabond continues its Friday party tradition of live music on the patio, with scorching elecro on the inside. This edition, in a big ASICS-sponsored fiesta of free giveaways and a giant Lite Brite-style installation, features locals Modernage onstage. The quartet recently released its latest EP, Sirhan Sirhan, featuring…

Art Basel Week: Andy Rourke at PS14, Dec. 5

Static Interference, the occasional locals-only extravaganza thrown by the band Astari Nite at PS14, continues during Art Basel with a night dedicated to a band everyone likes: the Smiths. The party’s called, unsurprisingly, Louder than Bombs, and it’s billed as a sort-of-tribute night. Besides Astari Nite, a ton of other…

Art Basel Week: “The Gossip After Dark,” Dec. 4

This isn’t a live performance by the Gossip per se. But the band will most certainly be in the house at O.H.W.O.W. tonight, for a party following the opening of Portland Now, a group show at the Bas Fisher Invitational space. (It’s curated by the band’s guitarist, Brace Pain, a.k.a…

Art Basel Week: Nodzzz, Matt and Kim, Dec. 4

Matt and KimSome of the best music presented this week comes courtesy of the ongoing Converse-sponsored Kill Your Idols event in the Design District. An ode to current movers and shakers keeping the original punk spirit alive (albeit in mutated, advanced forms), the space features a photo exhibit by Eileen…

Art Basel Week: A.R.E. Weapons, J.D. Samson at O.H.W.O.W., Dec. 2

Longtime legends of the lower-lower Manhattan underground, the quartet A.R.E. Weapons have been steadily chugging along since 1999, blasting out something along the lines of electro-rock as imagined by former punk rock types. The band’s noisy assault of party-in-your-face found some near-mainstream success in the U.K., where it scored a…

Art Basel Week: Home Grown party at the Vagabond

Rachel Goodrich While seemingly the whole highbrow world descends on Miami Beach tonight for the official opening of Art Basel, across the causeway, the Vagabond kicks off the artsy extravaganza with a locals-centric fiesta. Okay, so Miami New Times is an official sponsor of the event, but it’s never a…

I Set My Friends on Fire to Perform at Drake’s Bar on Dec. 1

The seemingly-out-of-nowhere appearance of the young Kendall duo I Set My Friends on Fire has been recounted in New Times’ pages several times in recent months. But just to recap: teenagers Matt Mihana and Nabil Moo, formerly of a more by-the-numbers post-hardcore band, wanted to form a new project. They…

Last Night: The Black Crowes at the Fillmore Miami Beach

Sayre Berman Chris Robinson, lead vocalist of the Black Crowes, performs with the band at the Fillmore Miami Beach. Click here for the full slideshow. The Black Crowes With the Buffalo Killers Wednesday, November 12 The Fillmore Miami Beach Better Than: Watching Almost Famous and wishing real rock and roll…

Q&A with Secondhand Serenade, Performing Tonight at Revolution

The obvious similarities between Secondhand Serenade, hailing from the suburbs of California’s Bay Area, and homegrown sensation Dashboard Confessional are impossible to ignore. Like Dashboard Confessional, the name is a framework for a shifting project led by a singular talent; John Vesely is to Secondhand Serenade what Chris Carrabba is…

Pelican to Perform at Culture Room Saturday, November 15

The instrumental rock quartet Pelican has markedly evolved in recent years. Perhaps it was a result of moving from the band’s original hometown of Chicago, for the sunnier climes of Los Angeles. For where the earliest Pelican material skated around the borders of metal, as time has passed there’s been…

David Squillace to Play the S.A.F.E. Party at Circa 28 on Saturday

The newish local nonprofit S.A.F.E., dedicated to forward-thinking dance music events with no bullshit and no guest lists (omg!), continues to impress. There was that crazy Richie Hawtin one-off last December, a gig by Matthew Dear this summer, and the latest coup, M.A.N.D.Y. at tiny Circa 28 two weeks ago…

Italian DJ Duo Crookers Hits Heathrow Lounge this Saturday

Score another point for Miami in the good fight to keep quality dance music coming down here beyond WMC. The latest coup? Why, the only East Coast appearance on the current tour by white-hot Italian producer/DJ duo Crookers, who skip down here straight from Toronto. What’s even stranger is where…