Dr. Aljazz It´s always a plus when people have multiple talents. Some athletes paint; some hip-hop stars make movies. Nowadays, you almost need a second trade to make it in this world, and local gastroenterologist Dr. Albert Fernandez-Bravo understands this perfectly well. The local doctor, who goes by the name…
Joan Jett 6/30/07 When we got to Dolphin Stadium and realized it was silly foam hat day; I knew it would take an awful lot of domestic, stadium-sized beers to survive until Joan Jett played. Turns out, I was right. So we roamed through the mini-mall labyrinth in search of…
At this point, I’m just bugging out on all the vintage vids you can find on-line. I came across this OLD SCHOOL joint of a very slender ?uesto and his long time band member Black Thought having a freestyle session in a dusty Philadelphia alley. It bleeds the essence of…
Anybody remember back when Lauryn Hill was still normal? You know we love you Lauryn…just keep taking thos meds girl. Anyways, while crusing the vaults I came across this old school Mona Lisa jam and had to post it. It’s a return to rare form. Wyclef, who was bald when…
Tonight’s stop of Jesse Malin’s “Death and Taxes” tour, at Studio A, promises a bonus: openers Acute are hometown boys. Well, at least singer Isaac Lekach, 26, is. (Remember the basically one-man act, Poulain? That was him). Lekach went on a sort of vacation to Los Angeles a few years…
Stretch out ya legs let me make ya bald/drive ya insane, drive ya up the wall. Man, I miss when they used to shoot hip-hop videos in black and white. Last time I spoke with Phife Dawg, he confirmed that Tribe was working on a brand new album, though the…
I must confess that ever since The Good, The Bad and The Queen started making music around a year ago (you know, the cross Atlantic supergroup comprised of Damon Albarn from Blur, Simon Tong of the Verve, Afro-beat legend Tony Allen and Paul Simonon of the Clash) that I’ve been…
René ”Residente” Pérez Better than: Trading in your new Daddy Yankee CD for a slightly used paddleball. Calle 13 is from Puerto Rico, but on Friday, Residente and Visitante were running on Cuban time. La Covacha’s patio/concert area was bloated with eager audience members by 1 a.m., which also happened…
DJ Goodroid Better Than: Listening to Y100’s techno hour and calling it a party. The Review: Drumwerks is back at Soho Lounge every Thursday night, only this time they’ve included a new resident DJ, Goodroid, who claims to have the only dubstep set in Miami. Either way, it’s always fun…
On his debut solo album, Raised by the People, Notch is a sonero. A songsmith. He’s confident, even boisterous. But the person sitting across from me during a recent lunch interview is humble. He might attribute his humility to his nomadic journey in music; from his days in the reggae…
Somewhere Hector Lavoe and Celia Celia – to name a few – are smiling and probably jamming as well. And Oscar Hernandez should no doubt feel a sense of accomplishment. Hernandez, the founder and pianist for salsa ensemble Spanish Harlem Orchestra, set out to maintain the charged fusions of Afro-Caribbean…
Tony Orlando June 27, 2007 Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Better Than: An Elvis impersonator When you’re a singer whose career is based on hit songs you can count on one hand and your 15 minutes of fame lasted five years, it’s probably best…
It´s Saturday night at Tobacco Road in Miami, and the Heavy Pets are holding court upstairs. Funky environs and even funkier music have always converged at the Road, and tonight´s no exception, especially since it involves a group like the Heavy Pets, whose instrumental prowess and ability to fuse genres…
As pioneers of ¨trance fusion,¨ as they like to call it, electro-jam rockers the Disco Biscuits have made a name for themselves as innovators of the perpetual groove. By focusing on electronic effects, the Philadelphia-based group is known for finding creative ways to extend chords and sidestep the jam-band label…
KRS-One likes to pick a fight. Anyone who remembers anything about ¨The Bridge Wars,¨ the feud between KRS-One´s Boogie Down Productions and DJ Marley Marl´s Juice Crew featuring MC Shan that spawned a number of classic hip-hop songs in the early ´80s, knows that KRS started it. The Juice Crew´s…
If you dipped your toes in the waters of the Florida rave scene during the past, oh, 15 years, you´ve probably collected some warm, fuzzy half-memories of Rabbit in the Moon. Remember that time at Ultra when that spaceman landed on stage and showered the crowd with sparks from his…
A self-professed Fort Lauderdale beach bum, Jaco Pastorius (1951-87) lit the skies of modern music for a relatively short time, yet his afterglow can still be seen. Larry Graham and Stanley Clarke took electric bass to new heights, but Pastorius eclipsed them, making the electric four-stringer a lead instrument in…
J-Perk ¨Lauderdale¨ (Organized Confuzion) Sometimes, rappers borrow a beat from another producer, and it all turns out wrong. Either the hook isn´t right or the lyrical flow doesn´t match the bpm´s, and the result is almost never better than the original. But local rapper J-Perk and his Organized Confuzion affiliates…
It was only two weeks ago that I wrote a column about how local indie/underground hangout Roxanne´s on Main was in a state of flux. The Oakland Park-based bar and popular show venue has been under new ownership and management for the past four months and steadily losing the bulk…
Even with the flood of tribute albums besieging the marketplace in recent years — some worthy, most redundant — an homage to an album like the Clash´s Sandinista! seems an especially arduous undertaking. After all, the original LP was mind-numbingly schizophrenic, sprawling across three records, six sides, and a full…
If there´s one thing missing from the recordings made by most current neo-soul artists — besides, of course, an unprocessed rhythm section — it´s a sense of urgency. All too many of these contemporary R&B artists better hope the revolution gets televised, ´cause that´s gonna be the only way they´ll…
Brought out of retirement in 1996 for the CD Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer gained newfound fame and recognition that landed him a world tour and two solo albums. Even with these accomplishments, he still had one lasting dream: to make a disc of boleros, a project…
