After Jamie Foxx’s career-defining performance as Ray Charles, the most predictable move he could have made was to resume a musical career that has been dormant for the past decade. It’s also not surprising that Foxx would recruit several heavy-hitting friends — Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, and Ludacris among…
The biggest debates in rock music are about the great mimics. The Strokes outlasted comparisons to the Velvets, Coldplay somehow became bigger than Radiohead, and you can’t even speak the word Nirvana without thinking the word Pixies. So it’s understandable that one of the most refreshing groups to surface this…
The passionate-almost-to-a-fault brand of pop rock that we call indie is brought to full bloom by Portland’s Kind of Like Spitting. Chief songwriter Ben Barnett has unleashed a deluge of recorded material since 2000, extolling the virtues of full-on engagement with life, love, and music. He’s persisted through an evolving…
Few local bands can claim a stronger love/hate relationship with the world than Radar O’Reilly. It’s hard to say where exactly it fits into the heavy metal world, though due to its outspokenness, it may be somewhere near classic/stoner rock. At least it ain’t nü-metal, emo, or pop-punk. I’ll tell…
There’s Americana music, and then there’s American Music, and in the anything-goes days of the early 1980s L.A. punk scene, the Blasters’ American Music blew the barnyard doors wide open with a then- shockingly un-punk mix of pre-Beatles rock, country blues, and rockabilly firepower. Led by brothers Phil (vocals) and…
Dear Mainstream Music Machine, When I’m forced to consider all the Britneys and Jessicas you’ve manufactured, I thank the Lord you’ve overlooked Susan Tedeschi. In your world of oversexed teenaged hacks, shiny hair extensions, and even shinier new breasts, you seem to drive talent out beyond the city limits, throw…
The sheer longevity of “Japan’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” (18 years!) is amazing enough, but consider that most who pursue such cacophony usually burn out immediately. For nearly two decades, Guitar Wolf has spewed a surprisingly consistent rock tornado mangled in that particularly Japanese way, all the while looking…
Direct from Beatcomber’s lips to your, um, eyes — Happy New Year! Here’s a toast to new beginnings! (Yeah, I’m drinking and typing. You gonna give me a TUI?) But there’s one question that keeps bouncing around my head like that unpardonable “Laffy Taffy” song. Why is the local music…
It’s become an annoying trend, the recent attempt by onetime rockers to reinvent themselves and thereby salvage their careers by making albums stocked with standards. If the blame’s to be laid on anyone, point the microphone at Linda Ronstadt. After wearing out her welcome on Top 40 radio following a…
In December’s Vibe, Mary J. Blige said that even though she’s comfortable revealing her abs in photographs, “I ain’t giving you titty, nipple, pubic hair or damn near clitoris.” While that’s certainly the most colorful quote uttered by a public figure in 2005, Blige’s comment actually runs counter to the…
Like truants and delinquents at military school, the men of 31Knots roar with frustration, but they never lose their discipline. The wiry trio strikes a good balance between emo and math rock, with riffs that forgive lines like “Hell hath no fury like me.” There’s a lot of clockwork in…
Listen closely to their second full-length and you can actually hear the members of Mason going through puberty. Which is to say, there’s a lot of straining, questioning, aching — and not a little whining — wrapped up in You Were Supposed to Be Beautiful. If that sounds intolerable or…
With heavy hearts, we report that indie fixture the Brand is trading sunny South Florida for the gray skies of London. Over the past three years, few bands have been as instrumental in helping foster Miami’s fledgling indie community. Musically, the band made an instant impact after its 2002 formation,…
He might not be as famous as the legends he’s played with, but veteran saxman Pee Wee Ellis gets credit for being one of the primary architects of James Brown’s brand new bag. As Brown’s musical director in the late ’60s, Ellis helped coin the emerging language of funk, whittling…
If you grew up in South Florida in the ’90s, you probably love metal. You probably dearly miss ZETA. And every year, you probably thank your lucky stars that Nonpoint, Miami’s premier Latin American rap-metal icons, are still holding it down. Formed in 1997, the band features a lineup that’s…
The last time Galactic played Fort Lauderdale, at an overcapacity show at the Culture Room, fans immediately noticed a missing element: vocalist Theryl “Houseman” DeClouet was no longer with the band. The sextet has since nixed lyrics from its repertoire and returned to its roots, focusing solely on instrumental explorations…
Tiësto in Concert begins at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, January 12, at Hard Rock Arena, 5747 Seminole Way, Sunrise. Tickets cost $32.50, $67.50, or $250 for VIP. All tickets for the original October 27 date will be honored. Visit tiestoinconcert.com.
Detroit, May 2003, the “Gangster Bass Tour”: Dan “Doormouse” Martin, a six-foot-tall electronic musician sporting a beard and an all-too-revealing cheerleader outfit, screams across the stage, commanding DJ Baseck to do jumping jacks. Miami native DJ Otto Von Schirach stands off to the side, scared shitless, as a naked Baseck…
Phil Spector’s legendary “Wall of Sound” is the inspiration for this massive, engrossing collection of early-’60s girl groups. While Spector’s best-known sides are absent, it’s amazing to hear how creatively energizing his hits were during a brief period usually disparaged as a downtime in “rock’s maturity.” Among the standard swooning…
Let us now discuss the labyrinthine, in-your-face, introspective, esoteric, head-bobbing, fist-pumping, booty-shaking, genre-defying mélange of the Rock Critic Cliché milieu. (Riffage. Let us also discuss riffage.) Like any other, this profession suffers from a unique lexicon of ridiculous, impenetrable jargon. I am certainly not immune to this disease, nor can…
When the Xbox 360 hit stores last month and the system sold out within hours, a Berkeley business professor commented on the genius of Microsoft’s marketing. “Shortages create a whole mystique of desirability,” the prof said. Ryan Adams, take note. With the release of 29, Adams’ third album this year…
Some soul singers have sung their joy — Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder not least — and made their best art. But Anthony Hamilton comes from a bluesier tradition, with a lilting, earthbound voice that knows struggle, and he came with a masterwork in 2003’s heavy Comin’ From Where I’m…
