The question before the assembled members of Pillmagnet is this: When did bassist-vocalist Mike Szymanski first play in a band? Lead guitarist Justin McNeal, the whippersnapper of the group at 24 years old, blurts out his guess — “1968” — waiting a beat before adding, “with Buddy Holly.” Szymanski, outfitted…
Errej Eugaet, keyboardist and Web guru for the Houston-based electronica act Center, isn’t surprised his band doesn’t have a huge following in his hometown. But that doesn’t seem to bother him, because the world seems to like it. “Our flavor of music is not a Houston sound,” writes Eugaet via…
Various Artists Post Marked Stamps (Tree Records) Sometime in early 1996, a young man in Chicago named Ken Shipley conceptualized a series of two-song, seven-inch singles to release on his label, Tree. The series was called Post Marked Stamps, and the songs were built around the concept of long-distance lovers…
See any yet?” “What do you think?” “Keep looking.” It’s about an hour before dusk on a thundery afternoon, and my escort — an intense, voluble man in his thirties named Ore Pablos — is trolling slowly along in the far-right lane of West Broward Boulevard. We’re scanning the bombed-out…
Les Claypool sounds a little hurt when asked how his band fits into the metal-dominated OzzFest ’99 tour, which features Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of the original Black Sabbath, along with new-breed metal mongers like Rob Zombie and slash ‘n’ burn institutions like Slayer. Claypool’s genre-melding, eclectic Primus seems…
Joan of Arc Live in Chicago, 1999 (Jade Tree) Joan of Arc’s third disc is not a live album, as the title would have you believe. Rather it’s the materialization of the members’ collective artistic expressions while living in Chicago circa 1999. Tim Kinsella, frontman and mastermind of the threesome,…
True hidden treasures in the music industry are few and far between. Sure, industry monoliths occasionally dredge up a “lost” Beatles single or recover masters long forgotten, but the reality is that these situations rarely occur. And when they do, it’s often only to the benefit of the multinational corporations…
Greetings to our friends and fans, the Passion Seeds would like to invite you to our last show in South Florida. Next month we will be relocating to Boston, Massachusetts…. To all of our friends in the South Florida bands, press, radio, clubs and local scene — thank you from…
The scene is a self-service copy shop on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago, the time is several years ago, and the protagonist is Wesley Willis, beloved local icon. Willis is built like Sasquatch (he’s six feet, four inches tall and weighs more than 300 pounds), but his spirit is friendly and…
The Boneshakers Shake the Planet (Pointblank/Virgin) The quality of a college is reflected in the quality of its graduates. With that analogy in mind, Was (Not Was) surely must have been in the Ivy League of rock ‘n’ roll, considering the caliber of its alumni. Setting aside the presence of…
Wednesday, May 5, Club Q, Davie, 9:30 p.m.: About 75 South Floridian kids have gathered at this dank strip-mall billiard hall to experience a musical rarity — a nationally acclaimed emo band that’s actually deemed South Florida a worthy tour stop. The term emo, which is widely disavowed by the…
Who owns a song? In Western music there are 12 notes, a handful of note values (whole, half, quarter, et cetera) and only so many ways that they can be arranged and combined in different rhythms — making something completely original virtually impossible. The use of samplers, which directly borrow…
Blur 13 (Virgin) In the well-worn realm of “theme” music, there is precious little new to be said about a handful of mossy topics — love, loss, drugs, and death spring immediately to mind. On its sixth album, 13, Blur disregards this truism and attempts to say something memorable about…
Tom Waits Mule Variations (Epitaph) The evolutionary hat trick of Tom Waits’ transformation from offbeat singer-songwriter to hipster beatnik poet to howlingly dark performance artist took a grueling couple of decades. In the process Waits concocted some of the most amazing and maddening music of this generation without a second…
My kid’s getting circumcised tomorrow; I can’t stop apologizing to him,” Rudy drummer Howard Goldberg tells me upon our introduction at a recent gig at the Hole in Hollywood. Being a big-hearted and sensitive Infection, I respond that I’ll have a drink in one-week-old Zachary’s honor. “Have two, he’ll appreciate…
Propeller-shape ceiling fans whiz above tables, and mirrored etchings of fighter planes and combat choppers hang above the bar. A blue-and-white Piper stands guard by the back patio and a circa 1942 aviation tower crowns the building. But the candles, mirrors, and a waterfall of hot pink and silver tinsel…
Headline from last week’s Wednesday edition of the Sun-Sentinel: “Suspects described as ‘Gothic’ outcasts.” Excerpt from same article, which was written by a Washington Post writer: “Students at the Colorado school said the two gunmen, whom [sic] police say may have turned their weapons on themselves after killing as many…
“G-R-R-A-A-A-R… and another R, actually.” The Baboons’ front woman/vocalist Majica is spelling her nickname for a bemused reporter in a Fort Lauderdale bar. She’s apparently earned the sobriquet by virtue of the animalistic, guttural cries she emits during the South Florida world beat outfit’s shows. Later, while the reporter is…
Mojo Nixon & the Toadliquors The Real ASock Ray Blue! (Shanachie) An even dozen years have passed since Mojo Nixon and his erstwhile partner Skid Roper presented to the world an anthem to close the ’80s. The pure manic rockabilly energy groove of “Elvis Is Everywhere” captivated everyone from Graceland…
Olivia Tremor Control Black Foliage: Animation Music (Flydaddy) Picking a song out of an Olivia Tremor Control disc for critical examination and singular praise is like choosing your favorite spot of color in a Seurat painting. To narrow your focus is to lose sight of the bigger picture. You can’t…
“Wow,” declares Derek Hyde, squinting at the vision of Will Trev’s black ’66 Plymouth Barracuda, as Hyde stumbles out of the darkness of the Creepy T’s rehearsal space in a Fort Lauderdale warehouse. Stooped over like some tall, walking question mark, the singer-guitarist’s face breaks into a crooked smile as…
The hip-hop nation has always operated within a different set of marketing parameters than other music forms. Except for the multiplatinum artists, hip-hop airplay on radio or MTV is almost nonexistent, and purveyors of the genre must use different strategies to succeed. The lifeblood of hip-hop is street promotion; artists…
