Oakland-based R&B singer Goapele spends plenty of time on her second album describing the indelible virtues of everlasting love. Example: “First Love,” a lush slow jam with fluttering electric guitar and tinkly Motown piano in which she flashes back “six days into spring where our story begins,” recounts her slow…
One’s 30th birthday is typically the staging ground for life crises and philosophical introspection, and Jenny Lewis’ own impending milestone has given birth to Rabbit Fur Coat, a quiet solo departure from the power pop of Lewis’ other band, Rilo Kiley. Backed by the literally named Watson Twins, Lewis abandons…
Mark my words: In the coming year, no fewer than three independent-label punk bands — at least one Nordic — will record sloppy versions of “Automatic,” Resolve’s amazing closing track. Moreover, the pressing substance of Resolve will inspire approximately 163 kids to clear boxes of wrapping paper out of the…
After years of stalking every bar, club, concert, and fetish party in Palm Beach County, regaling unsuspecting crowds with stream-of-semiconsciousness poetics, the guy formerly known as “just Timb” made the obvious move and rechristened himself with the U word. Chances are, you’ve seen this leather-wrapped, rainbow-tressed, living manga moppet, either…
I’m not sure what kind of “post” Armor for Sleep occupies. Is it post-hardcore, post-emo, post-screamo, or post-emo/hardcore/screamo? Whatever. The truth is, since its 2003 debut, Dream to Make Believe, this quad from New Jersey has extended its reach far beyond simple categorization and has even been the featured subject…
Local legend Charlie Pickett was there before Wilco, before the Jayhawks, before the onslaught of roots Americana and the dilution of rock ‘n’ roll. His masterpiece, Live at the Button South, was released in ’83, when Pickett was a college dropout from UF who returned home to Dania Beach and…
Hard rockers Planeside have been slowly picking up momentum and accolades from peers and fans, and it’s easy to see why. The rhythm section of Craig Sala (drums) and Ken Hirasaki (bass) has been at it since the boys’ teenaged years with Joni’s Butterfly, a New England band whose name…
If you’re anything like me, you spent much of your childhood wondering just what the fuck was up with those perennially sad and generally bothersome parents. With 1988’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince managed to capture those feelings of generational separation. The Fresh Prince…
It was a cool, peaceful night in Western Broward, patchy clouds parting to reveal a deep, star-speckled sky. A gator looked on with reptilian detachment from the shallow bog bordering a dusty clearing on the edge of the Everglades. About 40 people, teens and 20-somethings mostly, gathered here last week…
Dude’s kind of obnoxious, huh? I guess we get the superstars we deserve. Truth: I haven’t been able to take Em/Marshall/ Slim seriously even as a joke (always the most serious of literary forms; just ask David Mamet) since sitting through 8 Mile, which I was hoping would be fun…
Alt-country’s answer to Catch Me If You Can’s Frank Abagnale, Will Oldham has recorded under such pseudonyms as Palace Brothers, Pushkin, and Superwolf. Although his work under these names has gravitated toward 11th-hour Dust Bowl despair and acoustic minimalism, Oldham has spent much of the 21st Century loitering as the…
I’m not sure when it was that them compact disc doohickeys became the rage, but I do joyously remember when punk rock bands released kick-ass seven-inch vinyl records. South Florida at one point was a hub of seven-inch activity, with now sadly defunct record labels like Mike Borras’ Smooth Lips…
It’s a little scary when a talent as huge as Shawn Elliot arrives so suddenly on the scene. Which is not to say that the longtime Floridian hasn’t worked his way up: In a former life, the syrupy-flowed MC/songwriter/producer was a stock broker, a career he traded in 2001 for…
Even with a small window of downtime, Baby Anne still sounds busy. Via phone from her Orlando digs, Florida’s best-known female DJ explains that she’s not only in-between a cross-country jaunt to promote her new collaborative album with protégé Jen Lasher but that her off days are consumed with, um,…
I’m not sure exactly what this means, but I know it’s true: The Avett Brothers make the kind of music you can believe in. My introduction to the hard-working North Carolina string trio was from its website (theavettbrothers.com) and the home-movie-quality video for “November Blue,” a ballad of love and…
The great thing about instrumental albums — good ones, anyway — is how the lack of vocals lets your imagination create sonic landscapes filled with whatever tripped-out imagery your substance-assisted brain can dream up. You don’t even have to be high to see the vast stillness of the Southwestern desert…
Back home in Michigan, way before he nailed Pam Anderson, Kid Rock had a tatt-spangled stooge — lackey, flunky, bitch — (you get the idea) in Uncle Kracker. His first major-label release, 2000’s Double Wide, did little to change that image, but his second, with its tone-deaf rendition of Dobie…
If you’re like most people, you were introduced to South African music through Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who appeared on Paul Simon’s 1986 smash, Graceland. It was Mambazo that provided the harmonic rainbow that opens “Diamond’s on the Soles of Her Shoes,” introducing the musical style known as mbaqanga to Western…
Few R&B divas have the career longevity of Patti LaBelle. Born in Philadelphia in 1944, LaBelle, like virtually every singer of her generation, began singing in church. The Lord beheld her mighty pipes and said, “You go, girl!” Early on, she hooked up with Cindy Birdsong, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah…
Make no mistake — Paris Is Burning has nothing to do with 2005’s widespread turbulence in France, the 1966 film about the last days of German occupation in the capital, or the 1990 documentary of New York’s finest drag queens. This Paris burns in South Florida, and it’s of the…
I hate the Grateful Dead. I’ve always hated the Grateful Dead. Numerous times over my lifetime, people have tried to get me to appreciate the band, with little success. The interminable solos, the dope-smoking-moron lyrics, the ridiculous ambient jams — I’d rather shove chopsticks up my pee hole than listen…
Of the many larger-than-life musical archetypes — standbys like the Preening Lead Singer, the Strung-out Axeman, the Hip-hop Hustler, and the Tortured Indie Outcast — perhaps none is as patently cool as the Globetrotting DJ. He’s a lone apostle of the beat, red-eyeing across continents with only a pair of…
