Report from Lake Worth — there’s no shortage of noise up here! Or at least there wasn’t Friday night when I drove to the quaint hamlet to see 13-year-old Nick Klein (or Prodigy, as he dubbed himself for the evening) and his infamous local cohorts. As promised the eclectic and…
Whew! Florida musicians are pumping out product faster than Bandwidth Labs’ techs can take ’em for test runs. Blame it on the rock-bottom prices on CD burners — even small pets and most stuffed animals can make an album nowadays. Here’s the latest assortment to come through my transom, compiled…
Madrid’s Mus offers plenty enigma on its first album, a moody and contemplative work that picks up where defunct etherealists Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance left off. Though the lyrics are sung in Asturian, a rare romance language spoken only in the northwestern part of the Iberian peninsula, many…
As South Florida’s urban strip coalesces into one massive megalopolis, some holdouts are attempting to stop the merging burgs from taking on too many attributes of a major metropolitan area — like noisy nightlife, for example. The City of West Palm Beach has transformed its brick-lined downtown from a squalid…
You know, evolution is a funny thing. The vagaries of climate and isolation at the tip of our peninsula have given us such quirky critters as the manatee, the roseate spoonbill, and the sensitive singer-songwriter who happens to be revered by a sect of teenage punk rockers. Yes, I’m talking…
When Fort Lauderdale banished the under-21 posse from live-music venues within the posh city’s limits, the kids cried foul. After all, they charged, who wants to carve out an emo-punk scene in Pembroke Pines, Sunrise, or Davie? But persevere they have, in exactly the noxious, nefarious suburban squalor they claim…
At Bandwidth’s advanced age, recalling each and every New Year’s Eve celebration or determining how a particular year stacked up in the grand scheme of things isn’t always easy. That’s why I have plotted a graph of my New Year’s Eve celebrations, looking for spikes in the data, when I…
It hardly sounds like a compliment, calling someone a “croaky ’70s pop singer,” a “gravelly voiced flash-in-the-pan,” or an “excavated folkie,” but Melanie doesn’t let it bother her. Since the 53-year-old has virtually dropped out of sight after hits like “Brand New Key,” “Look What They’ve Done to My Song,…
A lot of local CDs crossed the Bandwidth desk this year. I’d like to say I listened to each one promptly. But with all the modern gadgetry at our disposal on the cusp of the year 2001 — monorails, underwater cities, robotic underwear — it’s easy to get distracted. Some…
Master Jeffrey Holmes has more fun than the rest of us on a regular basis, and the week before last was no different. First on Saturday, December 9, Holmes turned his Sailboat Bend apartment building into Gallery Noir, showcasing a collection of edgy art from various area quirksters, including Holmes’…
Compiling the year-end best-of list is an old rock-crit trick to avoid doing real work. There are so many cookies yet to be baked, and there’s maintenance needed on the nativity scene (we’re replacing the miniature sod roof this year and doing a little touchup work on Joseph), so cranking…
City Link’s Music Fest is supposed to be a blast. After all, this block party for local bands in Fort Lauderdale’s bars-‘n’-clubs district is about the best concert the city can count on each year. And even though crowds swell to claustrophobic levels, it is fun to cheer loud bands…
Al Galvez has a plan. The leader of Miami’s dreamy acoustic trio A Kite Is a Victim not only resides at the center of his own little music-business ecosystem, he has also managed to tap into the nationwide network of indie-rock cognoscenti. He has made friends, influenced people, and carved…
Boyton Beach’s new meganightclub, Orbit, has spent its first month flip-flopping between antiquated, nearly forgotten metal acts and some of the moment’s hottest DJs — thus neatly encapsulating the bipolar state of the South Florida music scene. “Well, we’re doing everything,” explains public relations dude Peter Gross. “Any band we…
Inside a utilitarian Knights of Columbus hall on a lonely street in Coral Gables November 25, an assortment of young musicians congregated, anxious for an opportunity to set up equipment and bash out two songs apiece. Bassists, guitarists, singers, drummers, and various synth-tweakers stacked up like jetliners waiting for clearance…
As downtown Fort Lauderdale struggled to find a foothold anywhere outside the staid, stifling ennui of pointless yuppiedom, a few brave young men set up an indie-rock shop right in the heart of Cover Band/Disco City. They fought for your inalienable right to hear Built to Spill on godforsaken Himmarshee…
There’s a fine line between preciously twee and just plain dorky, and Kindercore Records from Athens, Georgia, has spent considerable resources blurring this distinction. The label’s protagonists scoured their fair hamlet for nonthreatening indie-pop in April 1996, resulting in the following epiphany: “There are a lot of good bands in…
Marilyn Manson is well on his way to becoming nothing more than a pink Trivial Pursuit question. He and his band are in the midst of a big-deal national tour to promote their new release, Holy Wood, selling out some large arenas across the country. But here in his hometown,…
You’ve finished your record, designed some sweet cover art, and thanked all your friends and supporters in the liner notes. Now it’s time to throw together a package with a photo and a bio and perhaps some press clips and send it off to some third-rate, penny-ante, frustrated musician with…
Gadzooks! Can the tribulations of Fort Lauderdale’s beleaguered nightclubs get any worse? The venues are running scared, unsure of whether they’re going to be raided, busted, or forced to close. (The third looks likely in the case of Atlantis Night Club.) Yet for one brief, shining moment last week, the…
There’s a line in the sand — sin on one side, redemption on the other. And David Eugene Edwards has been caught on both sides. Through three albums with his band, 16 Horsepower, he’s put forth a sort of Flannery O’Connor stance on morality: Even bad guys can be good…
The dichotomy is almost paralyzing. But for Mark Kozelek, singer-songwriter for Red House Painters, it’s a badge of courage to fess up to a love of vintage AC/DC. He feels perfectly at home singing elegant, unplugged versions of “Up to My Neck in You,” from Powerage, “Love at First Feel,”…
