Trained in jazz trumpet since he was 14, Hugh Masekela was one of the first African musicians to make an impression on American ears. Masekela was born in South Africa in 1939 and came to the States in 1961 to escape apartheid, landing in New York and absorbing as much…
Zeitgeist: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit): the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. Yeah, it’s a loaded word, one that knots sober Teutonic gravity around dramatic academic loft. But Merriam-Webster’s definition couldn’t be more on-point in describing the music of U.K. quartet Bloc Party. When…
Gamers know him as the sword-wielding, anime ally of Nintendo hero Mega Man. But to local hip-hop heads, Protoman is one of South Florida’s new crop of talented underground rappers. Part of the close-knit Audio Thrift Shop posse, Proto slings intensely articulate rhymes over jazzy, old-schoolish boom-bap and forward-leaning distorted…
Debauchery was on Beatcomber’s mind at this year’s Beerfest, the ninth-annual installment of the sudsy celebration sponsored by this columnist’s humble employer. It was a heavenly evening, with a broad smudge of high, wispy clouds pearlescent against a pastel sunset. A warm breeze blew off the New River, across the…
A little over three months into its swanky, swinging existence, the Jetsetter Lounge has hit cruising altitude and seems to be settling in for a long, leisurely ride. Owner/alpha-jetsetter Mike Jones is like a lava lamp of great ideas: new theme nights, happy — check that — “ecstatic hour” parties,…
Wayne Coyne promised a return to the guitar-grinding Flaming Lips of yore with At War With the Mystics, and he does — kinda — deliver. Just like the Oklahoma freak rockers’ ADD stage show, there’s more of everything here, guitars being just another sliver of the whole gonzo pie: more…
“Ass Cobra.” There’s a certain poetry to the phrase. “Ass Cobra.” A two-car caravan is halfway through the 1,300 mile trip from Hialeah, Florida, “City of Progress,” to Austin, Texas, “Live Music Capital of the World.” The vehicles contain the members of Humbert, a pop-rock band named with a louche…
A week after the techno-glitterati shot its wad at Miami’s Winter Music Conference and returned to its incubators of slick in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Chicago, Fort Lauderdale hosted a sort-of multimedia bacchanal of its own. It wasn’t at the beach or in the swanky pastel confines of a $400-a-night art…
Ouch. Not sure how we got here, but somehow hip-hop has arrived at the point where it’s not only unpopular to be a thinking fan or MC, it’s plain uncool. If you ain’t trappin’ with Jeezy or snappin’ with D4L — if you actually have something, dear God, thematic and…
If you haven’t already gotten onboard with Roots Manuva, the original savior of U.K. hip-hop, now’s your best chance. Predating the Streets, Dizzee, and Merry Ol’s latest export, the foul-mouthed firecracker known as Lady Sovereign, Roots has been on a steady roll since last year’s Awfully Deep. That album, his…
The Hellhounds play at 7 p.m. Friday, March 31, at South Shores, 502 Lucerne Ave., Lake Worth. The show is free. Call 561-547-7656.
If recent breakouts by Mylo and Vitalic have proven that there’s still life left in house music and upbeat electronica (and they have), Idol Tryouts proves that there’s also life beyond it. This double-disc set, compiled by the soothsayers at the edgy Ann Arbor label Ghostly International, is split into…
Mount Sims plays three times over the weekend, starting Thursday, March 30, with his full band at 10 p.m. at Crush at Tabu, 2674 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Call 954-566-6331. Matt Sims will DJ at 10 p.m. Friday, March 31, at Roxanne’s on Main, 3148 NE 12th Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $8. Call 954-567-9552. The full band plays again at 9 p.m. Saturday, April 1, at Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Tickets cost $10. Call 561-832-9999.
South Florida has long been a hub of pirate-radio activity. Thanks to mercilously flat terrain, miles and miles of nondescript subdivisions and warehouses, and a large Caribbean population used to getting its news on-air, Broward and Dade counties are home to as many as 20 illegal stations at any given…
What the Darkness is to Queen and Electric 6 is to AC/DC, Diamond Nights is to Cheap Trick. That is, unabashed revivalists who self-consciously ape their idols, putting tongue in cheek, cock in rock, and volume in stratosphere. But like their ’80s-lovin’ peers, the Brooklyn-based Nights are more than mere…
Quick, name your favorite Irish DJ. Come on, we’re waiting. OK, maybe you see our point. Even though it supports a flourishing underground scene, the Emerald Isle isn’t known stateside as a dance music hot spot. Which is why we’re just as surprised as you that this year’s New Times…
Released last year, Efon’s The Free Album showed the West Palm Beach hip-hop impresario’s serious determination and drive to put together a full-length mixtape of local talent. Add to the difficulty of shepherding rookie rappers the financial cost of production and pressing and it’s clear that in Efon, you’ve got…
Bigger, better, longer, louder: From the opening fiddle flourish of Theresa Andersson on Friday afternoon to the Black Crowes’ final guitar wail Sunday night, this year’s Langerado Music Festival offered more of everything music fans could ask for. With more than 40 bands filling five stages, savvy Langeradans could concoct…
Things happen pretty fast on the streets of the Dirty South. Whereas crunk ruled the block last year, by the end of 2005, it had been boiled down to an even more minimalist, bootycentric, low-end theory called snap music. At the center of crunk’s rapid-fire evolution, Atlanta has spewed out…
The Flaming Lips play at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Langerado Music Festival. See the following page for details.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then South Florida’s lack of concert venues has given birth to some truly bizarre music-scene mashups. Local promoters have always had to improvise to make shows happen, which is why we’re now used to folk strummers at sports bars, hip-hop at Irish pubs,…
One more reason to hate/boycott/firebomb Starbucks: Without some serious redirection of popular perception, Shawn Snyder’s kind of intimate, cozy folk music will forever be associated with currant scones and half-decaf triple venti lattes. Maybe, though, that’s not such a bad thing — if the World Caffeine Syndicate chose to carry…
