Oranger is three guys playing guitars and whatnot, singing songs that sound like the Beatles’ about girls who sound like fun. Like Denver’s Apples in Stereo (who sing about drugs that sound like fun) or Canada’s Sloan (who sing about being in bands that sound like fun), Oranger doesn’t churn…
Compiling the year-end best-of list is an old rock-crit trick to avoid doing real work. There are so many cookies yet to be baked, and there’s maintenance needed on the nativity scene (we’re replacing the miniature sod roof this year and doing a little touchup work on Joseph), so cranking…
Even though they’ve lost a step or two, the members of the Wu-Tang Clan still generate a dangerous vibe on their third group effort. But considering that they once revolutionized hip-hop’s raw, hardcore sound, the lack of innovation on The W leaves their future uncertain. Hopes were high when the…
Solo albums are supposed to be like extramarital affairs, giving artists the right to enjoy complete freedom and perhaps to try a few things they wouldn’t normally do with their regular mates. Apparently Rush frontman Geddy Lee wasn’t really aware of these options — or chose not to take them…
A few years back, when the record industry was trying its damnedest to stir up an electronica youthquake, Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim, was the hit maker most likely to be denigrated. After all, how hip and underground could he be if every freakin’ tune he created wound up in…
Master Jeffrey Holmes has more fun than the rest of us on a regular basis, and the week before last was no different. First on Saturday, December 9, Holmes turned his Sailboat Bend apartment building into Gallery Noir, showcasing a collection of edgy art from various area quirksters, including Holmes’…
Al Galvez has a plan. The leader of Miami’s dreamy acoustic trio A Kite Is a Victim not only resides at the center of his own little music-business ecosystem, he has also managed to tap into the nationwide network of indie-rock cognoscenti. He has made friends, influenced people, and carved…
City Link’s Music Fest is supposed to be a blast. After all, this block party for local bands in Fort Lauderdale’s bars-‘n’-clubs district is about the best concert the city can count on each year. And even though crowds swell to claustrophobic levels, it is fun to cheer loud bands…
On her debut, Who Is Jill Scott?, the titular Philly native pens love-themed sonnets that could get her hired as a writer for Hallmark’s Mahogany line. Even so, just when you’re about to pigeonhole Scott as a too-smooth sapstress, she spews lines like, “I been a lady up till now/Don’t…
Do you believe in rock ‘n’ roll? Or to be more succinct, can music save your mortal soul? Ask the nine Canadians in Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and they’ll probably give you a quizzical look, turn to each other, nod in apocalyptic agreement, then proceed to blow your brains out…
Although electronica superstar DJ Shadow is renowned for his collection of 45s, he also has another obsession — the school-band records collected on this release. Before Reagan gutted public education in the 1980s, thousands of high schools had music ensembles. For the kids involved, these bands offered training, an outlet…
Inside a utilitarian Knights of Columbus hall on a lonely street in Coral Gables November 25, an assortment of young musicians congregated, anxious for an opportunity to set up equipment and bash out two songs apiece. Bassists, guitarists, singers, drummers, and various synth-tweakers stacked up like jetliners waiting for clearance…
There are three kind of country songs that matter: you left me, I’m leavin’ you, and I’m drinkin’ because you left me or I’m leavin’ you. Of course you got your variants: dancing with the big guy’s wife before or after you left me or I’m leavin’ you; getting drunk…
There’s an almost incomprehensible sweep in the desert landscape that awestruck newcomers often interpret with the word majesty. To natives it’s often just home, but it seems rare that anyone besides a native can locate that desert place of mind where the routine of seeing as much of the planet…
Boyton Beach’s new meganightclub, Orbit, has spent its first month flip-flopping between antiquated, nearly forgotten metal acts and some of the moment’s hottest DJs — thus neatly encapsulating the bipolar state of the South Florida music scene. “Well, we’re doing everything,” explains public relations dude Peter Gross. “Any band we…
When Veruca Salt drew countless comparisons to the Breeders, “Seether” received massive mid-’90s airplay, putting the Chicago band on the map with Smashing Bald Guy for a while. Six years later, after a nasty split with cofounder Louise Post, singer Nina Gordon flounders for a new identity and finds one:…
In his tiny bedroom at the top of the steep, white-tiled stairs of his family’s modest South Miami-Dade County townhouse, Richard Rippe strikes a blow against everything that is wrong with the music industry. The 24-year-old’s afro-topped, six-foot-three frame is folded over his Apple Powerbook, his long fingers gently brushing…
Like a zombie in a shopping mall, impervious to the bullets fired at its heart by the desperate and weary, the tribute album continues to stomp across the landscape of rock, pop, and soul, destroying all in its soulless, heartless path to destruction. The latest victim is Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen’s…
There’s a fine line between preciously twee and just plain dorky, and Kindercore Records from Athens, Georgia, has spent considerable resources blurring this distinction. The label’s protagonists scoured their fair hamlet for nonthreatening indie-pop in April 1996, resulting in the following epiphany: “There are a lot of good bands in…
As downtown Fort Lauderdale struggled to find a foothold anywhere outside the staid, stifling ennui of pointless yuppiedom, a few brave young men set up an indie-rock shop right in the heart of Cover Band/Disco City. They fought for your inalienable right to hear Built to Spill on godforsaken Himmarshee…
You know a metal band is in bad shape when it hasn’t topped the charts in nigh on a decade and its designated pretty boy has been sporting baseball caps over his balding pate for longer than that. Such has been the case for the Scorpions, who’ve released nothing remotely…
TitanElevator (Tombola!/Virgin) Of these two discs — both from Mexican would-be Becks — Plastilina Mosh’s sophomore release, Juan Manuel, is the better, mostly because it’s more of a live-band thing than a band-in-a-box product. “Boombox Baby,” the record’s second track, is its best: bubble-gum bass, chicken-scratch guitar, lemon-meringue synth. Its…
