Three weeks ago, I spoke on the phone with the two women who will be starring in Florida Grand Opera’s upcoming production of Tosca, Giacomo Puccini’s great opera about a brave, doomed painter, a jealous, doomed singer, and a very-mean (and very-doomed) police chief. One of these interviews was published…
The Gipsy Kings didn’t set out to redefine world music. They didn’t intend to scandalize the world of traditional Flamenco music through their inclusion of pop instrumentation and rock song structures. They just wanted to make pretty girls dance, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The history of the…
The Really, Really Good Looking Tour: Cobra Starship, Metro Station, We the Kings, the Cab Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Culture Room Better Than: The programmed sounds coming from your 1985 Casio keyboard. The bands on this tour could have held an open casting call, but they wouldn’t have found a…
These days, it’s hard for pop artists to make a lasting impression with Generation Y. MySpace and YouTube have hijacked America’s attention span when it comes to music, and a singer/songwriter needs to find new ways of gaining popularity if radio play isn’t happening. Local singer Yoni seems to have…
Talented songwriter k.d. lang has clearly learned a few things from spending so much time around Tony Bennett. The two have been recording together since they released 2002’s A Wonderful World, and on her latest disc, you can hear the influence of Bennett in her approach to singing. The Alberta,…
Everyone’s had that embarrassing moment, right? You’re belting out the lyrics to your favorite song standing there like Freddie Mercury at Wembley Stadium, acting the ham. The jukebox is playing all the tunes you fell in love with as a teenager. You might as well sing along, right? You’re slightly…
This weekend marks the impressive 15th anniversary of the local annual event known colloquially as the Bob Marley festival. It’s sponsored by his estate’s official organization, Bob Marley Movement, and each year’s headliners are composed of various configurations of his extended clan. And in the spirit of Marley’s humanitarian message,…
In case you didn’t already know, Erykah Badu’s long-awaited album, New Amerykah, Part One: 4th World War is in stores now. The album came out yesterday on Erykah’s birthday and it’s tight. Yesterday was also Ky-mani Marley’s birthday…and it seems that a musical lovechild between the two artists must be…
This one takes me back to the last year that Slum Village was still together as a group and promoting videos for Fantastic Vol 2. Jay Dee was already working on Common’s Like Water For Chocolate album and doing beats for a slew of other hip-hop heavyweights but Slum as…
By ANDY VIHSTADT DangerKeys Photo by Melanie Pullen for Fat Possum Records Akron, Ohio’s Black Keys called on Danger Mouse and a handful of guests to flesh out their two-piece sound for LP5. Stream the first single, “Strange Times,” at the duo’s MySpace page. Attack & Release hits stores April…
Since this festival is only two weeks away, you might as well start mapping out your plans for Langerado weekend now. It’s March 6-9, which is right around the corner. Here’s the official line-up with set times for all the bands that you want to see. Friday and Saturday are…
One of Central Florida’s most popular jam bands, Shak Nasti, is in town and playing a couple of shows–one in Fort Lauderdale, the other in Coral Gables. Langerado is just around the corner and if you want to get in an early jam fix, go check these guys out tonight…
A.B. Quintanilla being interview by a reporter at his Listening Party. A.B. Quintanilla & The Kumbia All Starz Listening Party February 20th, 2008 The Raleigh Hotel Better Than: Staying at home and listening to a 20-second song snippet from Amazon Oeuvres, Champagne, and Cumbias? Last night’s listening party sponsored by…
Bleubird is a rapper who has taken an unusual path to success. His style is a combination of the heady white-boy rhymes of Aesop Rock and the rapid-fire spoken-word style of Saul Williams. Hell, call him Allen Ginsberg with shelltoes on if you want to, because he can fit that…
The local punk scene in South Florida isn’t as strong as it should be. The bands are here, and the venues exist, but there’s something that prevents all the dots from connecting. While in theory it should be as simple as honest promoters lining up shows and letting bands and…
Most bass players don’t get recognition, let alone fame. You can probably count on two hands the bassists that found the limelight in the past 40 years. I’ll spot you Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke; good luck coming up with eight more. It’s an unfortunate casualty of the instrument. It…
From the first moment you get on the phone with Willie Stewart, you can tell he’s vibrating on a higher plane. The 55-year-old musical savant speaks with the slow joviality of a sage — or at least a man who’s learned a thing or two during a lifelong journey through…
So Mad Cobra didn’t really have much of a career outside of this track, but for a short while this tune ran dancehalls around the globe. Since it’s throwback day, don’t be afraid to sing along to this one. — Jonathan Cunningham…
It seems crazy to say this, but it’s been 21 years since No Use For a Name debuted as a band. In other words, the band as an entity can legally drink; a substantial number of its fans cannot. Pop-punk intrinsically seems like a genre made both for and by…
MC Lyte will probably always remain one of the most underrated MC’s of all time. Of any gender–not just because she’s female but rather hip-hop enthusiasts tend to forget about her too easily. But what a lot of critics and award shows never acknowledged was that during the ’80’s and…
It looks like McDonald’s is going after the urban crowd with this one. “Cha cha now y’all.” — Jonathan Cunningham…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Sex & Violence For your viewing pleasure: the new Kanye West video, directed by Spike Jonze. Much like his 1995 vid for Wax’s “Southern California” (reminisce here), Jonze shows his penchant for slow motion and fire. Add a shovel-wielding lingerie model to the equation and you’ve got…
