Music

In the smoke-filled confines of Morning Drinker Studios in Fort Lauderdale, there was a rap-off a-brewin’. Weed aficionado Afroman and Florida’s own Blowfly, two rappers who like to spout off about drugs, drinking, and all types of ill shit, were poised to offend anyone within earshot. Blowfly, the original dirty…

Electroclash was just a 15-minute cocaine high on the pop time line, so Miss Kittin is deservedly cranky on her solo debut-cum-comedown, I Com. She kicks off a liturgy of her sub-A-list duties (adding people to the guest lists, kissing cheeks) on the opening track, “Professional Distortion,” before reminding us…

After the commercial and creative peaks of its “La Bamba” cover and 1992’s Kiko, respectively, Los Lobos owed themselves — and us — another great record. The Ride, a mix of rearranged band classics and sublime originals, is such an album, not just as strong as the last few outings…

This ain’t no never-never land. This ain’t no tweehouse fort. This ain’t no Disney-go-round. But somewhere in the ether, savvy counselors at a cult day camp broadcast Sung Tongs over the PA during ‘shrooms-and-cookies hour. Animal Collective’s fuzzy-wuzzy instigators, Avey Tare and Panda Bear, sacrifice folk, cracked Beach Boys vinyl,…

The Hold Steady is the current project of former Lifter Puller vocalist — and security broker — Craig Finn. After the legendary Minneapolis band went belly-up, Finn left his job in the finance trade and moved to New York City to create stories of the underworld. A street punk with…

The intro to Tanya Stephens’ latest album asks this question: “At this stage in my life/I really don’t care if I have the approval of a few of my peers/I diverted for a little while/And the calls from my so-called friends stopped/I guess they thought I lost it/’Cause if they…

“Second verse, same as the first!” When Joey Ramone, innocently enough, heisted this line from Herman’s Hermits, little did he know that it would one day become a battle cry. Since then, untold scores of punk and indie acts have clung fanatically to a simple, profoundly imbecilic idea: making every…

So, I can’t stop listening to American Idol reject William Hung’s CD. And I can only chalk it up to its overwhelming guilty-pleasure aspect. The mutilated notes, the castration of everything decent about the human voice; it’s all there waiting to make love to my ear. Violent, atonal love. His…

These days, mash-ups of Jay-Z’s The Black Album are becoming as common as massive egos on reality shows. Not to mention that the whole DJ mash-up phenomenon is getting to be as played out as trucker hats at Old Navy. But regardless of the impending irrelevance of the novelty blends,…

Munich’s Chris de Luca and Michael Fakesch (Funkstörung) are better-known for their remixes (including those for Wu-Tang Clan and Björk) than for their own productions, which fuse playful melodies, granulated textures, and fractured, cubist electro-rhythms into crunchy, metallic hip-hop. Disconnected is Funkstörung’s first album since 2000’s Appetite for Disctruction. By…

Like pre-Iraq War British intelligence, U.K. hip-hop is regarded as suspect at best. After all, the classic hip-hop mantra “Fuck tha police” doesn’t seem as relevant when the fuzz comes armed with billy clubs and funny hats. Upwards, the new album from long-time U.K. scenester Ty, marks a sea change…

With the title of his new album, standup performer David Cross has a point. Abortion, Gulf War II, and Family Circus aren’t inherently funny, but he successfully mines them for big laughs. The balding, bespectacled Cross has been in the spotlight recently as the neurotic psychologist-cum-actor Tobias Funke on Fox’s…

South Florida is home to thousands of DJs, both the big-name and the bedroom variety. Sure, female DJs get behind the decks, but many are marketed as hot, busty eye candy. DJ Soozin sits at the opposite end of the table. In fact, she’s not even at the table. She’s…

Remember the ’80s? If you lived in South Florida during that magical decade, you steered your new Celica through a sea of spring breakers. You might have been an extra in Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise, you lucky dog. It was filmed in various locations along Fort…

The world at large remembers the Porky’s movies, if it remembers them at all, as the precursors of the American Pie films, a way station between Animal House and the most recent crop of movies that encourage us to laugh at young people and their genitals. The more savvy film…