In a backstage bay at the Kravis Center For the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, a row of chairs is lined up neatly along the front edge of a stage riser. The principal cast members of the Palm Beach Opera production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman occupy the seats…
The Reverend Horton Heat has been going downhill for so long, it’s difficult to remember exactly what made the band worthwhile in the first place. And it’s obvious they don’t remember either, or else they might have hit the brakes before landing at the bottom, which is exactly where the…
Just about everyone has heard songs by Kimberly Rew, but chances are good that most of those people have never heard his name, or, if they have, probably think he’s a woman. In most instances this would be a great place to soapbox on the ignorance of the masses, but…
South Beach during the Winter Music Conference is a futuristic scene with sci-fi elements galore: Newfangled illicit chemicals, glow sticks, and Vicks inhalers. Sexual energy threatening to combust at every turn. Vinyl, abandoned as antique by the rest of the recording industry, flourishes as the hard currency of the movement…
Listening to the shimmering title track of this new platter, you might imagine you’ve happened upon a lost track from the Counting Crows’ vault, with the same rich, rootsy melodies and layered production. Listen a few more times, though, and it will dawn on you that this is a helluva…
Gitane Demone comes as close to a gothic-rock diva as anything this country has produced. And that’s just the way she wants to keep it. After nearly two decades at the forefront of the goth scene, Demone scoffs at the prospect of mainstreaming her sound. “I think I’d rather die,”…
The High Llamas Snowbug (V2 Music, Ltd.) Orchestrated easy-listening pop is, by definition, supposed to be unambitious, soothing and relaxing — or so a large number of us have been lazy enough to believe. But to hell with that: The High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan composes as if he’s campaigning for…
Violent Femmes Freak Magnet (Beyond) For nearly 20 years, Gordon Gano has been playing out his emotional and spiritual angst through the electrified alternafolk of the Violent Femmes, veering madly between Bob Dylan gravity and Jonathan Richman comedy, with shout-outs to everyone from Lou Reed to David Byrne to Fred…
Various Artists Songs For Summer (Oglio Records) You’ve got to give Adam Gimbel props for chutzpah. Last year his girlfriend, Summer Brannin, died of kidney cancer at the age of 21. Gimbel decided to commemorate her death by making a mix tape with some of her favorite bands. But he…
The dance-music pipeline is easily clogged. New subgenres sprout virtually overnight, adding confusion to an already crowded scene. London-bred DJ Aphrodite is like the mason of the drum ‘n’ bass movement — straightening, strengthening, and fortifying the foundation of the style. Characterized primarily by speedy, rapid-fire beats, drum ‘n’ bass’…
Smashing Pumpkins Machina: The Machines of God (Virgin) Forget Geddy Lee and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson — the award for the most annoying voice in rock goes to Smashing Pumpkins’ lead shrieker Billy Corgan. Shrill, soulless, and metallic in the worst sense of the word, Corgan whines like a brat who’s…
Alexandre Pires does not want to talk about the days when he played at weddings and wakes. Looking back over his career during a recent stop in South Florida to promote his latest CD, Juegos de Amor (Games of Love), the Brazilian singing sensation prefers to recall the time troubled…
Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise Time to Discover (RCA) When Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise released its self-titled debut back in 1996, three friends borrowed the disc from me on separate occasions and not one got around to returning it. So I should have known better than to bring an advance copy…
Kid Loco Kid Loco Presents Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches (Atlantic) Trip-hop never quite caught on in the U.S., in large part because of its subtlety; the boom-bap of hardcore rap provides immediate gratification, while the sonics associated with its more psychedelic cousin take time to blow minds…
Sometimes music doesn’t need to be art. Just give the folks psychotic hillbilly gee-tar, lyrics celebrating an unholy alliance between food and sex, and throw some fried chicken around. That’s the way Southern Culture on the Skids (or SCOTS, for short) does it. The Chapel Hill quartet is renowned for…
Oasis Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (Epic) Advance hype for the fourth Oasis album (not counting 1998’s rarities and singles collection) suggested that the disc would be less about Britpop and more about psychedelia and dance/trip-hop. That certainly raised a few eyebrows (and when you’re talking the brothers Gallagher,…
The Willard Grant Conspiracy Mojave (Slow River/Rykodisc) Despite the melancholy that permeates nearly every song on the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s Mojave, there’s something achingly beautiful about the Boston collective’s latest album. It’s in the way the lush, acoustic soundscapes mingle with gliding pedal-steel guitar and well-placed dollops of fiddle, mandolin,…
Groove Armada Vertigo (Jive/Electro) Much has been made of the expansive height of the taller half of the English DJ duo Groove Armada. Andy Cato measures in at somewhere between 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-10 (no one seems to be able to agree on this urgent matter), apparently making the 26-year-old the…
Some days it seems like Raiford Starke knows half the musicians in South Florida — and has gigged with the other half. Take, for example, the drizzly Saturday a couple of weeks ago when Starke showed up at Hollywood’s Fiesta Tropicale in Young Circle Park. Clad in black jeans, a…
The Rockfords The Rockfords (Sony/Epic) Step off, Eddie Vedder. And Stone Gossard — you might as well be Stone Phillips this go-around. Mike McCready, lead guitarist for Seattle’s Pearl Jam, has assembled some childhood pals to eke out a dozen James Garner- influenced songs about angels and bad relationships. Let…
Boss Hog Whiteout (In the Red Records) Mr. and Mrs. Jon Spencer turn in their pop sellout to Geffen, only to find the label merged and their band dropped. So much for getting the corporation to subsidize the transition out of the cult’s comfy basement into the family room. But…
Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynne (Island Records) Insecurity can be a good thing. Take the example of Nashville chanteuse Shelby Lynne. Judging from the title of her mightily impressive sixth album, Lynne has one hell of a self-esteem problem. It’s hard to see why, though. Like Dwight Yoakam and…
