Outside of jazz, there aren’t many alto saxophone playing star-types left. In fact, aside from Maceo Parker, none come to mind. In the 1960s and ’70s, Maceo was one of the central players in James Brown’s JB’s, and for the past couple of decades he’s been keeping the fires of…
With amps turned to thunder-and-lightning levels and enough instruments on hand to open their own music store, San Diego’s Truckee Brothers take a blowtorch on Double Happiness to everything from stolen elections to pretentious rock stars to the nature of Mother Nature. Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart live on in…
Kicking off with a statement of intent — a cover of the Los Mirlos track, “Sonido Amazónico” that opened the groundbreaking 2007 Barbés compilation of Peruvian psych-funk Roots of Chicha — Brooklyn-based Chicha Libre make it abundantly clear that they do not intend to break much new ground on their…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Friends of P Portishead returns after a decade for its Third on April 29. Click here to order the special edition before eBay scavengers deplete the supply. The box set includes a P-shaped USB card with the album and five films, as well as a double LP…
There’s some sad news out of England to report. According to this story from the AP, vocalist Corrine Bailey Rae’s huband, Jason Rae, was found dead over the weekend in the city of Leeds. Jason was a saxophone player in the band called the Haggis Horns. They’d just released an…
Hip-hop’s smokiest DJ is back at it again with a fresh new podcast via the HVW8 crew that’s well worth listening to. DJ House Shoes has a bunch of hip-hop exclusives from cats like Kool G. Rap, J. Davey, Ta’Raach, Pete Rock, and of course, some solid J. Dilla material…
Growing up, I’d come home after school, say hello to my stay-at-home mommy, give her my empty lunch box, tell her about my day, and start my homework (so Dad could check it over before dinner). House nestled snugly in the suburbs? Check. Trips to Disney World? Check. Parents still…
One of the trends in punk rock that I happen to enjoy very much is how influences shape a 30-plus-year-old genre. C’mon, there’s only so much one can do with three chords, right? Well, Miami’s Boy Prostitute has definitely taken cues from the Ramones’ playbook and injected the chords with…
There are a lot of DJs in the club scene who get off on controlling a crowd. They’re in the booth keeping dance music lovers enthralled with club bangers, but ego sometimes gets in the way of personal enjoyment. For Melbourne, Australia, transplant Ean Sugarman, the approach to the craft…
All of the Winter Music Conference activity over the next two weeks can be fun, but there’s an annoyingly incessant air about it, too. There are countless singles, albums, and DVDs to promote, and often it’s crap that won’t even be attainable for a while by the plebeian public. At…
Roots Rock doesn’t really have a home in contemporary reggae any more. A good number of singers are keeping the consciousness aspects of the music alive like Tarrus Riley, I-Wayne, and others, but where those artists shine as individuals, it’s rarer still to find a full band willing to trod…
(A) First of all, don’t do your shout out track as an intro. No one cares that you like the city of Chicago. (B) If you’re going to have DJ Khaled do an interlude, ask him not to refer to you as “the definition of the projects,” because that doesn’t…
There are few kinds of music more evocative of the place from which they come than that made by the Malian desert nomads known as the Touareg. One can almost see the endless stretches of sand laid out in all directions when listening to the sparse guitars and minimal but…
The Mars Volta switches gears on its fourth album, giving beat-propelled dance pop a spin. We kid! The Bedlam in Goliath is stuffed with nine-minute alt-prog epics — the type the band has refined to blood-drawing sharpness over the past seven years. We’re not quite sure what singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala…
Between Flo Rida’s ubiquitous “Low” and this, Miami is blowing up the Billboard charts. The boss, Rick Ross, officially released his second album, TRILLA, yesterday, at number one on the Billboard 200, with 198,000 physical copies sold… And, haters, it’s also #1 for legal digital downloads too, as well as…
Everyone knows about Jay-Z’s upcoming Heart of the City tour which kicks off in Miami this Saturday. For Jay, the 22 city tour is sure to make him a ton of money and most of the dates are sold out already. That’s pimpin’ but Jay-Z is known to take it…
We asked another South Florida SXSW warrior, the proprietor of the illustrious Churchill’s, to weigh in on his musical discoveries here so far. Pedal to the metal. Well, not just metal, but in fact all genres from alt-country to zydeco…. (Actually that’s a lie; I haven’t seen any zydeco bands…
Life is good when an artist experiences a few career highlights during a slow period. Such is the life of Detroit-based Motown recording artist KEM, who brings his brand of well-received, intimate soul to Miami this weekend. His sophomore album, Album II, enjoyed great success, nearly going platinum in a…
When it comes to what goes into my mouth, I’m pretty discriminating. (I’m a vegetarian; what did you think I was talking about?) I also staunchly oppose the “five second” rule, thoroughly inspect cutlery, own a toothbrush sanitizer, and carry antibacterial gel in my purse. But on a Friday night…
Do You Like Rock Music? charts another step in the evolution that took British Sea Power from post-punk-flavored debut The Decline of British Sea Power to slicker sophomore disc Open Season. For record number three, BSP enlisted three producers, including former Arcade Fire drummer Howard Bilerman — notable because this…
The Bonzo Dog Band, an eccentric ’60s British band with a penchant for silliness and satire, once released a song whose title begged the theoretical question: “Can blue men sing the whites?” That is, of course, a twist on the age-old argument about whether white musicians have suffered enough to…
It would be only natural to surmise that this North Carolina combo called Chatham County Line has returned to its roots, given the fact that it’s reunited with former producer Chris Stamey and that its aptly named fourth album recaptures the essence of its original back-porch motif. This is, after…
