It’s 11 on a hot and sticky Friday night, and I’m sweating inside Hollywood’s Club M waiting on a miracle. The once-popular, always-dysfunctional, heavily loved hardcore band Load is scheduled to play an impromptu set within the hour. If all goes well, it’ll be the band’s first time on stage…
After a four-year absence, Marilyn Manson has returned to the public eye in the video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses” by porking his barely legal girlfriend in a rain of blood. Considering Manson’s affinity for shock value, it was a grand reentry into the rock world. That kind of flashy, trashy imagery…
Coming off an eight-year recording hiatus with a thing or two to prove, Queens, New York, MC and early ’90s underground hip-hop phenom Pharoahe Monch delivers a poetically flawless product with his second solo release, Desire. Central to the disc’s impact is Monch’s seamless mastery of fusing words to render…
EPs, while thoroughly forgotten, have always been the best litmus test within music. Not only are artists able to feel out their fans but listeners can get a small taste of an upcoming album. As listeners, we either like it or we hate it, but when the latter occurs, at…
With musicians, like athletes, it’s always disheartening to watch them hang around long enough to see their abilities break down. Bad Brains fans, long beset by the band’s notorious instability, have every reason to expect that a present-day reunion album can do nothing but tarnish the band’s hallowed legacy. After…
Interpol’s major-label debut, Our Love to Admire, isn’t as monochrome (or monotonous) as its previous two albums. “Pioneer to the Falls” is arguably the richest song the band has ever recorded, a track that channels the stormy textures of the Cure’s Pornography. Death-march piano and woodwinds add countermelodies; a giant…
In ice-cool genre-mashup circles, Brazil is the de rigueur frontier for new hard-hitting, urban-sexy dance beats. Bonde do Rolê, hailing from Curitiba, is the first group from the baile funk scene to make international inroads, thanks to a chance discovery by Florida-bred DJ/producer Diplo of Hollertronix. On its first full-length,…
Groovebox Symphony @ Studio A You may (or very well may not) remember those glow stick lit nights in the late 90s at Malibu Grand Prix, where the air smelled of Vics and organic electronic mixes begged the body to groove. For many of these Full Moon ravers, candy or…
Morrissey July 14, 2007 Mizner Park Ampitheatre Photo by Jeffrey Delannoy Better Than: For Morrissey fans: everything besides sex. But then again, considering that Mozzer is famously “asexual,” for some diehard fans even that may not be the case… The Review: There is a famous Baroque sculpture in the Cornaro…
Local MC’s are always vying for the number one spot. Despite the amatuer camera skills used to record this, wordsmiths Lyve Kaos of Brokensound BLVD/Deadbeat Writer’s Lab and freestyle champion Wrekonize go at it in a top notch battle that’s full of sharp barbs and comical punchlines. Hip-hop fans should…
Passing this along from Pandora’s e-mail list… Hi, it’s Tim one more time… Disaster looms! Yesterday a federal court denied a plea to delay the massive increase in rates webcasters must pay the record labels. This means that, absent immediate Congressional action, the new ruinous royalty rates will be going…
Seven years ago actor Andy Garcia portrayed Arturo Sandoval in a biopic film about the renowned jazz musician. On Sunday Garcia and Sandoval will stand side-by-side on stage. Garcia will try his hands on the congas alongside the Cuban trumpet-player and friends at the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club in Miami…
So I finally headed out to the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where the Latin Alternative Music Conference’s headquarters are stationed. At the showroom, you are inundated with an array of products ranging from Gibson Guitars to Microsoft’s Zune, which is trying to beat the iPod in its own game…
Latin Alternative Music Conference Indie Musician Showcase July 11, 2007 New York, NY So last night I headed out to the Mercury Lounge, where the LAMC indie showcase was already unfolding. The venue is a small room located in the city’s Lower East Side (also dubbed East Village), and is…
Once a year, Latin Alternative musicians – those who don’t play salsas, tangos, boleros or other regional beats come together in New York City for a series of industry panel discussions,networking opportunities, open bars (there is a cocktail party that begins at 1 PM on Thursday!),promotional stops and of course…
Not even the shorest glimpse of the movie El Cantante is not necessary to understand Marc Anthony is no Hector Lavoe. Short on schooling but long on raw ability and bravado, Lavoe had a unique propensity – unlike Anthony whose antics at times seem forced – to grasp a stage…
Search through the iPod of any pop-punk fan over 12, and you´ll see the names Screeching Weasel and Riverdales in the artists menu. Search through their closet shelves and you´ll find where many of those iTunes files came from — rows of compact discs that have sat untouched since the…
From first impressions of Fort Lauderdale-based rapper Protoman, one can´t help but notice the wrinkles under his eyes. With his rugged face and mature presence, you´d guess his age to be late 20s or early 30s. Not close. The 5-foot-10 lanky MC shows you his driver´s license, displaying DOB: 09-29-1985…
It´s unfortunate that Daddy Yankee is the poster boy for reggaeton in this country. It´s even more unfortunate that he took this album as an opportunity to declare himself the Big Boss (of reggaeton, one would presume), mainly because the shortcomings of El Cartel: The Big Boss wouldn´t be as…
Sometimes life´s trials and tribulations help musicians produce their best work. The source of Cuban troubadour Amaury Gutierrez´s pain is unknown, but its fruits are draped all over his new album, Pedazos de Mi. Although the album´s theme is of a man still in love and carrying a broken heart…
What is Ozzy now, 100 or something? You´d think the old coot would call it a career rather than further tarnish his legacy. Like most icons past their prime, though, maybe he just doesn´t know when to say when. He´s clearly saddled by idiots. Why else would he choose to…
Somewhere Hector Lavoe and Celia Cruz to name a couple are smiling, and probably jamming as well. And Oscar Hernandez should no doubt feel a sense of accomplishment. Hernandez, the founder and pianist for salsa ensemble Spanish Harlem Orchestra, recently set out to maintain the charged fusions of Afro-Caribbean rhythms…
