Sayre Berman Carlos Santana and Derek Trucks Hard Rock Live Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Better Than: Sitting home and watching the speeches of Rev. Jeremiah Wright loop constantly on every channel. There are three sure things at a Santana show: 1) Carlos will display the highest level of improvisational virtuosity;…
They were hailed far and wide as digital visionaries last fall, when they offered up their newest album as a “pay as you like” download. But Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke says it’s not likely to happen again. “It was a moment in time,” he tells the Hollywood Reporter. In…
From rockers like the MC5, Alice Cooper, and the White Stripes, to hip-hop artists like Eminem and Slum Village, to electronic gurus such as Juan Atkins and DJ Godfather, Detroit has produced a kaleidoscope of artists who have achieved worldwide acclaim. There’s no shortage of topnotch musicians in that city,…
Audiences first encountered blues guitarist and singer B.B. King in the ’50s, thanks to relentless touring of the so-called “chitlin circuit” and a series of memorable recordings. But that was just the beginning: By crossing over to a rock audience in the ’60s and ’70s, King played a crucial role…
When it comes to making sacred steel music, folks here in Florida take the genre seriously. If you’re not familiar with sacred steel, its main instruments are pedal and lap steel guitar (which are played while sitting down) and it’s typically associated with gospel and Southern-style rock. It’s soulful and…
Los Angeles is a city known for its musical potpourris. There are over a hundred ethnicities represented in the city, so it makes sense that Ozomatli’s latest effort, Don’t Mess With the Dragon, is a fusion of Spanish rock, hip-hop, reggaetón, reggae, and funk, the perfect crossover release from the…
Pelican, Circa Survive, and Thrice Revolution, Ft. Lauderdale Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Better Than: Considering just Thrice’s set – better than the band’s last appearance in South Florida, last December at the Fillmore Miami Beach. The Review: Alright, I start this review very irritated that it can’t be more detailed…
Miami Symphony April 27, 2008 The Lincoln Theatre Better Than: 100 years of symphonic solitude sung by Marquez himself. It’s not every night that one gets to hear a hundred year span of classical music played live; then again, it’s not every night that The Miami Symphony Orchestra hits one…
Honda Civic Tour Panic at the Disco, Motion City Soundtrack, The Hush Sound, Phantom Planet Wednesday, April 23, 2008 The Fillmore Better than: waiting outside the venue in your min-van to pick up your 12-year-old daughter and her four best friends. I seem to have lost track of when shows…
Bonde Do Rolê Thursday, April 24, 2008 Studio A Better Than: Carnival at Rio. In a mish-mash of Western, Latin and African sounds, Brazilian quartet Bonde Do Rolê got the crowd shakin’ their respective asses last night as they introduced their new lineup after lead singer Marina Ribatski unexpectedly left…
I just got this press release forwarded to me so I apologize for getting this info to folks with such short notice. But it sounds like an alright festival and if bands want to be a part of it, reach out to the organizers asap. –Jonathan Cunningham CULTURA Festival ’08…
Even by their own genre’s standards, Polish black/death metal outfit Behemoth sounds like a relentless hailstorm of jackhammer drumming and super-fast, abrasive riffing. As if the band’s whiteface outfits and anti-Christian artwork weren’t clear enough, the latest album is called The Apostasy, which means “renunciation of religion.” Thankfully, though, there’s…
The dense, crushing expansiveness of Pelican’s four-song debut EP was an incisive slice through heavy metal’s bloated corpse, with its pinnacle track — the appropriately titled “Mammoth” — being little more than a plunging meditation on a single bruising riff. Following that release with 2003’s Australasia album, Pelican proved they…
There’s always been something a little wacky about Jamaican dancehall legend Ninjaman. He emerged in the late 1980s as one of the hardest and rudest dancehall acts on the scene. Since then, his image has always been half gangster and half weirdo, but the hard-driving and unmistakably eerie music he…
Carlos Santana has a lot on his plate these days: He’s launching a chain of Mexican restaurants, appearing in Macy’s commercials to hype the line of women’s shoes he’s designed, and advocating a national holiday to honor labor leader César Chávez. But he still finds time now and then to…
Concert Review: B-Live at The Bayfront Park Amphitheatre B-Live April 19, 2008 The Bayfront Park Amphitheatre Better Than: The biggest block party you ever attended. See the slide show here Miami is mad about its music, not to mention its mojitos, so when the good folk at Bacardi took over…
Eisley Thursday, April 17, 2008 Culture Room Better than: Taking three xanax and drinking a handle of Jack. If you’re anywhere near exhausted, don’t even think about going to an Eisley show. This all-in-the-family Texas-born quintet (four sisters and their cousin, all with the last name DuPree) may produce some…
“Warning: trying to follow Meshuggah’s music can make your eyes cross.” Apparently, the appeal of Swedish death metal band Meshuggah extends beyond your typical metal fan base. So much so that awareness of the band has even reached classical conservatory culture. In Volume 29, Issue 2 of Music Theory Spectrum,…
Tomorrow night marks the three-year anniversary party forThe Rock, the weekly locals-only showcase at Tobacco Road run by the loveable Oski Gonzalez, guy about town and frontman of his own band, the Oski Foundation. Yes, The Rock usually happens on Thursdays, but it’s been bumped forwards this week to Friday…
Carmen Lundy Quartet Unlike most vocalists in the jazz realm, this Miami-born diva doesn’t always rely on material from The Great American Songbook during her sets. Instead, Carmen Lundy always includes as many of her own compositions as she can both when recording and playing live – something she has…
Yes, his last name is Allman and his band, Honeytribe, plays blues-inflected rock — but as far as Devon Allman is concerned, the comparisons to his dad stop there. The younger Allman grew up listening to blues, metal, and college rock, and he didn’t meet his dad, Gregg Allman, until…
There’s no shortage of reggae music in South Florida. This place is probably the capital of reggae in the U.S., not just for its popularity but for the number of celebs who call it home. International reggae star Freddie McGregor is one of those artists, and he’s putting on a…
