Many people have trouble maintaining a marriage; some have difficulty keeping a band together. Michael and Carissa Alvarado raised the stakes by not only marrying, but also founding the folk pop group, Us the Duo. In a joint interview with New Times, they shared their secret for maintaining both a…
When a human being turns five they get a birthday party with a piñata, clown, and cake with the cartoon character du jour on it. When South Florida’s favorite free monthly music zine Pure Honey turns five, they get rock and roll and lots of it. Yesterday Pure Honey listed…
Mad Decent Block Party is already celebrating its eighth edition. Started in 2008 as a way for Diplo to showcase acts on his EDM label Mad Decent, the festival has expanded to include artists outside the label bringing stars from the world of hip-hop and EDM together under the hot…
Sometimes you just want to go where everyone knows your name; that safe, familiar dive where the drinks are cheap, the lighting is low, and you can always get away with wearing sandals and a T-shirt with stains on it. Because the only thing anyone cares about at a dive…
Josh Simkowitz has written fifty songs in the year and a half since he took up the moniker Chaucer. “I have a song in my head, but they usually come out as a different song than I thought they would,” the ultra-prolific Palm Beach native tells New Times. Inspiration can come…
“You know how on Facebook you get these sponsored messages? I kept getting an ad for Ted Nugent’s show at Pompano Beach Amphitheater,” Tony Landa, bassist for Humbert, tells us. “One day after seeing it I yelled, ‘Fuck Ted Nugent!’ and then I thought: could that be a show?” Turns…
In every screenwriting 101 class, they’ll tell you drama is easy — it’s comedy that is hard. You can multiply that adage by 69 when you’re talking about songwriting. Over the last 30 years, musicians like Beck and the Beastie Boys have dipped their songs’ toes in comedy, and comedians…
Visual artist Monica McGivern and musician-about-town Alexandre “Booty” Merbouti are a little like Bennifer and Brangelina. Their band, Miami art rockers Mo’ Booty, got its name when the pair decided to join forces. “Monica lived for a couple months at noise rock legend, Rat Bastard’s recording studio.” Merbouti reminisced. “She…
After years of changing the classic rock station whenever one of their songs came on, it wasn’t until four songs into their set at Perfect Vodka Amphitheater last night that I could fully appreciate Steely Dan. We were midway through “Hey Nineteen.” As the 10-member backing band riffed on that…
For a lot of rock stars, headlining a show at Bayfront Park is just another gig at just another amphitheater — a very hot and humid amphitheater, but an amphitheater nonetheless. For Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, though, it brings back fond memories. “I mostly went to smaller venues, but I…
Ten years ago, singer Sofy Encanto was a songwriter looking for a band, while Andres Ponce was making beats and looking for a singer. “We met through a mutual friend, and it just clicked,” Encanto remembers. “Andres was very heavy into the Beatles. I was into ’90s hip-hop like A…
Buckcherry first made a name for itself in 1999 with its debut, self-titled album, earning a rep for reviving Sunset Strip rock ‘n’ roll a la Mötley Crüe. But singer Josh Todd tells New Times the band’s influences have always been all over the place. “When my mom used to…
Photo Credit: Benhur Photography. When Tiffany Miranda started out as a recording artist, she looked around the studio and quickly noticed she was in the midst of a male-dominated industry. “Women are known to be vocalists or songwriters, but they rarely are in the position of creative control of a…
It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been a decade since She Wants Revenge released its self-titled debut album. The Southern California duo, with their 21st century Joy Division post-punk sound, were a constant presence on indie radio in 2006. They toured with their dance rock forefathers Depeche Mode and…
On the way to pick up his teenage daughter from school, DJ Craze reminisces about when he was her age. At 16, he says, “I had my first DJ battle. I soaked up that early hip-hop influence of battling and being the best. I wanted to be the best DJ…
Though the electro-pop trio Pompeya hail from Russia, they’re about to make Florida their home for much of the month of May, with half a dozen shows scheduled up and down the Sunshine State. According to Pompeya’s singer and guitarist Daniil Brod, though, there’s not a huge difference musically between Miami…
As he drives through the Southwest during our phone call, Dick Dale is not pleased with my first question. “Have you done any research at all on me?” he says. Of course I know all about the king of surf guitar, whose fast scales captured the Zeitgeist of the beach…
Heads bobbed and hair flew in all directions Tuesday night at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale as the Sword absolutely crushed at their brand of high-decibel rock ‘n’ roll. The Austin, Texas four-piece are classified by some as metal, and I suppose the fact they’ve toured several times with Metallica…
“I grew up in West Texas. It was like what you see in Friday Night Lights. The only two bands that came into town were ZZ Top and Pantera, and in a funny way, I think The Sword are somewhere in-between.” That’s the Sword’s laid-back guitarist Kyle Shutt tells, speaking by…
On February 1, 2016, Jon Bunch, former lead singer of Pompano Beach emo band Further Seems Forever, was found dead in Irvine, California at the age of 45. After months of waiting, the cause of death has been ruled a suicide. Bunch first found fame as the frontman of Southern…
Brian Silla, the self-effacing singer of the Front Bottoms, doesn’t like to describe himself as a singer/songwriter. Songwriter, yes — he’s always working on verse — but it’s his qualities as a singer that have him poking fun at himself. Fans of his New Jersey-bred four piece (of which there…
Flatbush Zombies move much quicker and rap more fluidly than any of the undead from The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones — but it is such pop-cultural nerd phenomena that infected the three hip-hoppers and has them wreaking havoc on the underground scene. Their debut album, 3001: A Laced…
