Prepare to face the dark side of the Force. The Dark Lords of the (metal) Sith are about to invade South Florida. Well, maybe this isn’t quite what George Lucas had in mind, but Vader, the veteran death metal band which takes its name from Lucas’ most famous villain, is…
South Florida punk rock just lost its favorite uncle. Die Stinkin’ — Palm Beach County’s longest running punk band (b. 1985) — played its final show in Fort Lauderdale on May 28. And I fucking missed it. Yep, Smarty Pants Pompano decided it’d make more sense to drive up to…
When both halves of a couple drink from Dame Fame’s trough, it’s often marriage’s acid test. While some pairs eventually implode (e.g. Bennifer), some endure, their bond buttressed. Take Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. While the country music stars can be lumped in with the beautiful rich category, they seem…
When the Stills released their 2003 debut album, Logic Will Break Your Heart, critics were quick to lump them in with Anglo-inspired New York City bands like Interpol and the Strokes. The knee-jerk brush-off: Great, more Joy Division/Echo and the Bunnymen wannabes. It didn’t matter that the Stills are from…
The basic ingredients of Saturday’s Laptop Battle at Churchill’s Pub are, well, pretty basic. All that’s needed are computer-wielding contestants, an audience, and a few brave judges. Now, about the rules: Screw the rules. What do you think this is, American Idol? All right, so maybe there are a couple…
Nothing personal, Meg, but working with new playmates has set Jack White free. “I’m through ripping myself off,” he asserts on the title track. If you didn’t catch that, he repeats, “I’m done ripping myself off.” From the lighthearted ease that oozes from every track, it’s obvious that White has…
The good folks at the Anti- label sure know how to pick ’em. But while labelmate and fellow flame-haired vixen Neko Case gets all the attention from horndog rock writers the world over (“She can sing, and I’d do ‘er!”), the enigmatic, sometimes disturbingly intense Houston expatriate Jolie Holland threatens…
Kill Rock Stars is owned by a man named Slim Moon who has better taste in music than you do. His ears are irrefutably sharp: The KRS roster is a dense handbook on indie-underground innovators and breakthrough wonders ranging from Sleater-Kinney and Elliott Smith to the Gossip and Xiu Xiu…
Ghostface Killah’s epic Fishscale is the Finnegans Wake of 2006: a dense, textured creation rich with wordplay, visions, rants, and insanity. It’s a kaleidoscopic crack-house opera, a true-crime novel, a Coppola screenplay. Ghostface’s machine-gun rhymes fly out of the speakers so fast that by the time you’ve dodged one, you’ve…
by Max Sirianni Evergreen Terrace wants you to know that it is not a Christian band or a straight-edge band. It is strictly a hardcore band (its website address is www.evergreenterracehxc.com). Though the group’s songs tend to be catchy and melodic, the guys never let go of their violent and…
The Miami Club scene has long stood as the premier hotbed of nightlife in the Southeast. Hell, it’s one of the hottest anywhere in the United States. With notorious dance destinations like Space and Crobar spawning a culture of plastic sex appeal and marathon parties, it’s a wonder that same…
From downtown Dallas street corners to ’round-the-world street fights, it’d be understatement by half to claim that it’s been a strange and surprising trip for sisters and Chicks founders Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, especially since it’s the latecomer lead singer who got the band into trouble in the first…
The side project is an established rock phenomenon. Distanced from the bread-and-butter band, one can engage in pursuits that might not fit the profile of the mothership group. The late Jerry Garcia played bluegrass banjo with Old & In the Way, and the Mekons’ Jon Langford played big rock riffs…
After striking gold on her very first attempt with “Heartbreaker,” an anthem for outrage, Pat Benatar’s grip on the charts was as firm as her spandex outfits from the early ’80s on. “I Need a Lover” (written by the then-unknown John “Cougar” Mellencamp), “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “Treat…
Three names — three lousy names. That’s all I saw listed on the sign-up sheet when I entered Studio A on May 24. It was the Regional Air Guitar Championships, and I was hopin’ there’d be a flood of mullet-headed Guitar Center cronies lined up outside. But no — just…
Kylewilliam Campol, AKA imadethismistake, offers a blend of minimalist soundscapes combined with off-beat samples, nontraditional instrumentation, and spoken-word poetry. On Campol’s second release, The Hypothetical Child’s Hypothetical Situation, the one-man band explores the usual themes of heartbreak, lost love, and existential pondering. The album also has samples that sound almost…
This weekend, the temperature will climb from a simmer to a boil at the inaugural Memorial Fest, a reggae concert that boasts so many topnotch performers, it’s difficult to determine exactly who the headliner ought to be. The festival comes on a weekend that has become known for bringing dense…
On Sunday, May 7, rock music buffs from Miami to Martin County were wetting their pants in anticipation: The Motor City 5 — the band that gave birth to modern garage rock — was scheduled to headline this Sunday’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage show at the Seminole Hard Rock. But…
Outtakes has long been fascinated by Memorial Day Weekend in South Beach, AKA Urban Beach Week — even if the past couple of years have looked more like Sausage Week, what with the lack of ladies strutting about (the usual groups of naive 15-year-olds notwithstanding). Given that people come by…
The Belle Album is the last great secular record Al Green made before giving his life over to preaching the gospel. (He returned to the Hi Records formula in 2003 with I Can’t Stop, but that’s another story.) It’s the first album Green produced himself and the first to feature…
Dr. John, AKA Mac Rebenack, has undergone a number of incarnations in a career that spans nearly 50 years, from the acid-tinged voodoo of his Night Tripper persona to his role as one of New Orleans’ most revered champions of American musical tradition. After several outstanding albums elaborating on the…
Those who remember the glory days of grunge might recall Mark Pickerel as the drummer for Screaming Trees. He’s traded (in part) his drum kit for guitar and lead microphone and signed with Bloodshot, one of the primo outfits for alt-Americana. But any assumptions that he’s “gone country” are swept…
