Billed as a celebration of women in music, Calliope Fest features an assortment of female performers, nearly all of whom fall into the singer/songwriter, “I’m a gal with a guitar and something to say” category that has become oh so popular since the rise of antifolk in the 1980s. Thirteen…
Why was MTV in town December 23 to film our very own Mary Tyler Whores? Who knows, but the footage will be something to catch when it finally runs. The rest of the world (or at least the part that has cable) will get a dose of the spike-haired snot-nosers…
Following the lead of Spiritualized and Spacemen 3, Canadian space-rock quartet Sianspheric brandishes winding waves of synthesizers and airy textures on its latest release. The Sound and Colour of the Sun at times conjures a mood that can soar like a Concorde overlooking the curvature of the Earth and descend…
On their most popular tunes, the French techno duo Daft Punk comes off as disco idealists for the new millennium. That’s to be expected, because lighter house tracks like the 1997 hit “Around the World” and last summer’s club smash, “One More Time,” are perfectly suited to mass pop consumption…
“Ooh,” recoils the sushi waitress. “That’s so ugly!”The offensive item is just a T-shirt — albeit a very special T-shirt with a representation of a man with a swirl of worms where his eye socket should be. It’s being modeled by Gory, guitarist for Death Becomes You, but the abundant…
The protorockers of Milemarker rouse cold-truth ruminations on breaking free from worst-case scenarios. Combining punk arithmetic and ethereal synthesizer with wraithlike singing, their fourth full length (first on indie stalwart Jade Tree) crystallizes their hardcore ethos and stark sound into an aural movement that mightily motivates. Initially a revolving roster…
The Bay Area has long been a breeding ground for odd musical beasts: psychedelia in the ’60s, damaged art-punk and industrial in the ’70s and ’80s, and experimental noise and weirdo beats in the ’90s. Lest you think this vile bloodline has faded like affordable housing, along comes Troll, a…
You ever notice that it’s much more fun to talk about Britney Spears than to listen to her? As an artist (and that term is used very loosely), she gives audiences banal, dry, teen pop and gussies it up with a shiny, enticing sheen — the musical equivalent of slathering…
As afternoon traffic whizzes down Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, drivers steal startled glances at brothers John and Bill Storch, busy being poked, prodded, and posed near the side of the street. The two, who have cultivated a reputation as composers of electronic scores to accompany experimental dance/theater pieces, notably…
“I have to have a job by next week,” Steve Rullman says matter-of-factly, slumped in front of a computer in his kitchen and flipping through the pages of a yellow notebook. The Delray Beach resident dabbles in all areas tangentially associated with music — performing, producing, promoting, publishing, captaining various…
Unless you care not a whit for modern music, you’ve heard of the Strokes, and if you’ve actually listened, you’ve likely written off the New York City quintet as The Band Most Likely to Choke on Its Own Hype. But if the idea of gutter-glam rock without a massive publicity…
When that old standby “creative differences” gets tired, try substituting “irreconcilable politics.” A band like Delray Beach-based Pank Shovel (“Can You Dig It?,” September 6, 2001) doesn’t have room for vast philosophical chasms, since the majority of the seven-piece outfit falls on the liberal side of the spectrum, with four…
While waiting for the day the turntable would finally be acknowledged as a musical instrument in its own right, hip-hop DJs, feeling they weren’t receiving their just due as artists, coined the title turntablist. More than just a marketing ploy, it was a job description, placing the emphasis solely on…
“So this is odd, the painful realization that all has gone wrong/And nobody cares at all,” sighs Chris Carrabba. “And nobody cares at all,” answers the gentle children’s choir of the crowd. What the hell? Seven hundred fans have arrived at Millenium, a dance club in Pompano Beach — on…
A common tendency among bluesmen today is to gain credibility by claiming that one’s father was good friends with Muddy Waters, that one played guitar with Son House for a few months in the Delta, and so on. But why check out the namedroppers when you can see an original?…
There are many reasons to be suspicious of the Cure’s latest Greatest Hits collection. The group has released two singles packages already, 1986’s indispensable Staring at the Sea and 1997’s spotty but more commercially relevant Galore; 15 of the new disc’s 17 tracks appear on these earlier works. More ominously,…
It’s a tad ironic that a band so thoroughly immersed in the American gothic ethic has been virtually ignored on our side of the Atlantic. Europe has embraced 16 Horsepower since its 1996 full-length debut, Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes, while back home we’ve been guilty of ignoring this grave-walking genre like…
At first glance, it appears Pink is trying to increase her chances of becoming a superstar by transforming herself into a cartoon. The artwork of her impressive new CD, Missundaztood, features the singer in a variety of action poses, including a snapshot of her receiving simulated cunnilingus from a teddy…
The makeup of Miami’s jam-fusion band Outdance is a microcosm of South Florida itself: Tom Korba, who plays the Chapman Stick, is a transplanted New Yorker. Drummer Raul Ramirez was born in Puerto Rico. Guitarist Josh Sonntag grew up in Cancun. Percussionist Sean Dibble is a Miami-Dade County native. But…
The electro has landed, invading area airwaves with fat, futuristic, robotic beats to spike the vein of a techno-deficient radio market. DJs David Noller and Sean Herrmann — a.k.a. Scratch-D vs. H-Bomb — broadcast live each Saturday on WZZR-FM (92.7). The throb originates from Bliss, a Clematis Street club where…
We already know the drill: Not many people listened to the Velvet Underground at the time the seminal quartet changed rock music in the late 1960s, but everyone who did ended up starting a band. Something like that must have happened down here as well, because there’s no shortage of…
“Whole lotta kielbasa going on,” noted one hipster-doofus spectator Friday, December 7, at Miami’s Polish American Club, where the scent of porky goodness had permeated even the old living-room furniture out in the lobby. But the sausages flying out of the kitchen on paper plates weren’t the reason we’d come…
