Why does everything have to be Forbes magazine?” scoffs Aaron Funk, the electronic music madman who performs as Venetian Snares. Speaking with New Times by phone from his native Winnipeg, Canada, he’s 30 minutes into his first U.S. interview in two years, and on a rant of sorts. “I see…
Listen up, maggots! You veteran musicians who think today’s pop music is bland, mindless garbage are as ubiquitous as chick bassists. Players that are proactive enough to do something about it, though, are quite rare. Enter the Codetalkers, featuring Col. Bruce Hampton. Hampton is a legendary guitar picker who cavorted…
I have a new thing,” Pee Wee Ellis, the legendary sax man and bandleader of James Brown’s JBs for much of the ’60s, rasps over the phone from his home in England, where he works with fellow legends like Van Morrison and Oumou Sangare. “It’s called ‘smunk,'” he says. “It’s…
Sometimes, the heckler is right. Many moons ago, a young Millie Jackson wrecked some poor tuneless hackette’s act in the famed Harlem nightclub, Small’s Paradise. The would-be diva dared Jackson on-stage. Oops! After dusting the object of her ridicule with her gorgeous, soaring alto, Jackson embarked on a monster career…
It’s not uncommon at a major record label’s headquarters to see a hip, bald man in his late 30s cleaning out his cubicle. In his four years as a business analyst at Universal Music, Rob Coe has seen more than 200 people pink slipped and escorted from the building. What’s…
It’s Friday night. Need something to do, but you’re sick of everything? Has your quest to find a band with passion, hooks, and memorable lyrics been less than a success? Would it be too much trouble if an act could provide those goods and services in the studio but go…
In 1988, a quartet of blond Australians concluded the globe needed ABBA to achieve world harmony. Unfortunately, several years before, the Swedish dancing queens had declared they’d never perform again. So the Aussies dubbed themselves Björn Again and took their message of peace and platform shoes worldwide. In 1992, they…
At half past midnight in early December at club I/O in Overtown, the Rev. Carleton “King” Coleman, the baldheaded provider of lightning and thunder, was emceeing his first show since he retired on-stage at New York’s famous Apollo Theater in 1967. Even though he was a month shy of his…
Twenty-three years after busting the nation’s jaw with its infamous appearance in The Decline of Western Civilization (Penelope Spheeris’ documentary of the Los Angeles hardcore punk scene), the state of Fear, L.A.’s greatest punk band, is still strong. The band has a greatest-hits record out, a compilation of outtakes emerging…
Hey, it’s not our fault!” Nebula singer/guitarist Eddie Glass protests over the phone from his California home after it’s pointed out that his band has circled the globe four times in six years yet never set foot in South Florida. “We tried on our first tour, but your whole state…
(To the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock”): Ra-di-o, ra-di-o, ra-di-o sucks/They’ll play anything/as long as the label’s got bucks/Talent has nothing to do with the climb to the top/Oh ra-di-o sucks/They play famous pro-ge-ny/And stars of TV re-al-ity/shows that just won’t go away/But that’s noth-ing compared to the punk-ies/who just…
It’s a tall order to remain the biggest badass in the R&B world for damn near 50 years, but living-legend Andre Williams has managed to do it with verve, style, and an impeccable wardrobe. Williams first hit the scene with his 1956 smash hit “Jail Bait,” a hilariously funky jam…
The sun is setting on the 17th-annual Fort Lauderdale Blues Festival, and funk legend/rap innovator Clarence Reid, a.k.a. Blowfly, is pacing backstage. The lithe, six-foot-one, 58-year-old Reid has spent the afternoon waiting for Solomon Burke, the 400-pound, 62-year-old “King of Rock and Soul.” Burke is headlining the festival and allegedly…
As a late Wednesday night becomes an early Thursday morning, Angelo Pillitteri — a lean, long-haired, leather-clad man known for the past 22 years as “Flash” — takes the stage with his mates in F, the band named after him. Save for a few lines on his face, Flash could…
If there were any justice in the world, the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition of giant would have a picture of Solomon Burke next to it. Nothing the 400-pound, 62-year-old father of 21 known as the “King of Rock and Soul” does is small. Burke doesn’t have a powerful voice; he…
If you ask the average, aging, leather-clad punk rocker to explain the difference between “old school” and “new school,” he or she will bitterly complain about the last decade of pseudo-punk pop poofery started by Green Day and currently championed by Good Charlotte. Then he or she will mutter a…
A lot has changed in Sam Fogarino’s world over the past 14 months. Last August, the former Victoria Park resident turned Brooklynite was embarking on his first U.S. tour as the drummer of Interpol, a NYC-based quartet of sharply dressed, moody post-punks riding a gigantic wave of overseas hype. For…
It’s 2 p.m. in Milwaukee, and Captain Sean-Doe, vocalist for a band of Southern California troublemakers called Throw Rag, has stumbled out of bed to share road wisdom via cellular phone. “Most people don’t want to commit to being poor,” he rasps. “It’s not as romantic as people might think,…
“It’s always something,” Poison the Well guitarist Derek Miller laughs through his dying cell phone from Cleveland. “Every time we release a record, it’s always, ‘What the fuck happened?'” Such is life for the world’s most-beloved and hated hardcore band. If you listen only to the first 40 seconds of…
You’d be hard-pressed to find an album with a more severe split-personality disorder than Hocus-Pocus, the latest from futuristic New York City rockers Enon. The first track, “Shave,” rides along to a laid-back electro groove and bassist Toko Yasuda’s breathy ultrafemme vocals. The second, “The Power of Yawning,” is a…
Dear Drive-Thru Records, We in Broward County are best-known as a mullet-friendly, white-flight, overgrown suburb. And you, Drive-Thru co-owners, are from New Jersey. Hell, you took your love of Bon Jovi and applied it to mall-punk cuties. We should be simpatico. Why are you invading us? Broward gave you New…
It’s 6 p.m. at Dungeon Studios in North Miami, and, as Wire once said, there’s something strange going on here tonight. A shock wave of catchy, heavier-than-lead, industrial guitar is blasting from one cinderblock bunker. It’s the kind of thrash-core that’s allowed sloppy punk rockers to drink for free all…
