“I do this for the love of music/Not for the glitter and gold,” sings India.Arie on her Grammy award-winning ditty “Little Things.” The statement itself is no life-changing revelation, but it’s the truth and emotion in Arie’s voice that makes her words so powerful. One can’t help but believe that…
Ravenous electronica fans probably won’t be satisfied, even though Ultra Music Festival has expanded into two electro-filled days. From a partier’s standpoint, it just means there’s more debauchery to locate when the Cure leaves the stage Friday night until the festival reopens on Saturday morning. While there’s guaranteed to be…
Well, folks, it’s finally over. I’m hoarse from screaming, exhausted from 96 hours of straight partying at South by Southwest, still desperately hungover yet rejuvenated beyond my own expectations about music as a whole. We all know the music industry isn’t exactly putting out quality material these days, and between…
Irish crooner Tony Kenny thinks he’s hot property. So much so that his website has the words “Tony On Tour Now!” encrypted in virtual flames. That’s as corny as it gets, but still, you’ve got to love guys like Kenny and the few remaining song-and-dance men like him. His dusting…
In 1967, the Who released an album called The Who Sell Out, a psychedelic set of songs interspersed with faux jingles and endorsements. A little more than 35 years later, they brought that theme to reality by lending their music to all three installments of the CSI television franchise. It…
At first brush it seems like Goatwhore would be just another shtick number in a long line of sappy run-of-the-mill post-emo bands so often grouped under the misnomer indie. But then again, Goatwhore is everything a person could want from a metal band and then some — from the maniacal…
It sure doesn’t look like much from the outside, but Café Iguana is the place to be out west. The nightclub is awkwardly crammed into a vanilla-yogurt strip mall in the drabbest part of the ‘burbs (technically, it’s Hollywood out here), sitting among dollar stores and pawn shops. It’s an…
The sophomore album by hip-hop artist El-P portrays a world plagued by war and malevolent technology. Cities are burning under the noses of uncaring mayors. There are “rats tappin’ glass in a government lab.” It doesn’t sound happy. Then again, these aren’t happy times. “C’mon, Mom, can I borrow the…
The Winter Music Conference (WMC) sounds like an incredible, genre-defying jam that could be conjured up only in the wildest dream state. We’re entering a week packed with parties and special events, where the collective lineup of talent features everything from classic goth-rockers the Cure to the current “King of…
The music of New York in 1974 was in a serious state of transition. Disco fever was the talk of the town, but unknown to the masses, a new music genre was about to replace it. Hip-hop didn’t have a name back then, but young vinyl fiends such as DJ…
Alright is a love-loathe proposition. Plenty of listeners will be enchanted by Allen’s defiantly casual singing, cool-girl vocabulary, and taste for hybrid pop, while others are sure to find these attributes irritating to the extreme. As for the MySpace phenom in the spotlight, she doesn’t appear to care what reaction…
Since putting their collaborative efforts on hiatus last year, the dynamic duo of Dubfire and Sharam, known more famously as Deep Dish, have each sought to create a stronger distinction between their solo recordings. Although Sharam has adopted a free-wheeling aesthetic, Dubfire has taken a decidedly rootsy turn with his…
Anyone hoping that singer David Kilgour’s latest disc, The Far Now, would be a return to the streamlined, guitar-driven rush of his former New Zealand punk outfit the Clean will quickly be disappointed. Instead, for this, his sixth album, he’s offering down-to-Earth, contemplative jangle-rock with melodies and moods strong enough…
While many of his famous Brazilian contemporaries are reissuing hits from their lengthy catalogs, 64-year-old singer Caetano Veloso stubbornly continues to push himself forward, as evidenced on his newest album, Cê. The simple, stripped-down instrumentation here (guitar, bass, drums) is also a nice change from some of his larger samba…
Sometimes, house music is just too underground for its own good. Entire dance albums are composed, mixed down, and released in the middle of the night, but try getting in touch with these fly-by-night producers. It isn’t easy. 24 hour Miami House Music is a raucous album with a cheesy…
MySpace really is taking over the world, ever since Rupert Murdoch got his grubby little hands on the friendly website. Aside from being the main cause of procrastination in offices around the world, MySpace is now throwing a megaconcert in Panama City for spring break, and Canadian rockers the Vincent…
My electronic-music hangover is starting already. The Winter Music Conference hasn’t even gotten here yet, and I’m already burned out after hours of listening to some of the oddest and most obscure tracks the FPL-driven genre has to offer. I’m not exactly an electrophile, but it’s 11 p.m. and fate…
During the mid-1980s, the toughest name in hip-hop belonged to Big Daddy Kane, the smooth, debonair rapper and Juice Crew affiliate who could steal your woman and your wallet at the same time. He’s one of the few rappers to appear in Playgirl, and for a while, he was seen…
Long gone are the days when John Digweed needed the name of his erstwhile partner, Sasha, to draw attention to his talents. The DJ has been shining alone for a while, and he’s now lending his skills to others, specifically Canada’s production duo de jour MSTRKRFT. Digweed and MSTRKRFT are…
The boys from Snow Patrol have come a long way from the days when they posed as members of the band Belle & Sebastian to infiltrate the student union club at the Glasgow School of Art. In fact, the indie darlings (from Glasgow by way of Dundee) are big, fat…
When the City of Delray Beach needed some room to build a new parking garage downtown last year, there were some unfortunate casualties, and the debauched dueling piano bar Hugh Jorgan’s was one of them. Now with a new name and a new home near Mizner Park in Boca, Funkey…
Brooklyn-based indie-rock upstarts Dirty on Purpose come loaded with all sorts of swoony strings (kind of like the Arcade Fire) and vocal tics (à la Clap Your Hands Say Yeah). Less down and dirty than precious and pretty, the band’s tunes mostly coast on spiky guitar lines, plunked-piano melodies, and…
