The misunderstood phenomenon of XBXRX is best explained after a large glass of tequila and a handful of barbiturates. Imagine the creative noise manipulations of mid-90s anarchic noize-master Flammable Child thawed by the artistic impulses of Melt Banana and finally garnished with the technological misuses of the Residents. XBXRX has…
An orthodox Jew reggae-rapping about God, the Torah, and clean living? If you hanen’t seen Matisyahu on MTV’s TRL or heard his album Live at Stubb’s, you might not believe it, but the bearded, black-hatted singer is the real deal. The former Matthew Miller grew up in White Plains, New…
Cell phone cameras. MP3-playing sunglasses. Laser-pointing, voice-recording, de-ionizing salad spinners. Thanks a lot, technology — now everything that does anything does something else too. The musical equivalent is, of course, the Benevento-Russo Duo, the Brooklyn-based drums ‘n’ keys outfit that’s the Optimus Prime of genre-crushing hybrid bands. With a well-practiced…
Gilles Peterson might have the best job in music. Check out the Swiss-born Brit’s CV, and you’ll find bullet points along the lines of “globe-trotting DJ,” “influential tastemaker,” “arbiter of cool,” and “hero of the underground.” For almost two decades, Peterson has been digging through crates in dusty record shops…
The Numb Ones make music that’s brazenly unnecessary: cornball, big-haired, ’80s-rock retread played by hipster, greasy-haired, ’80s-rock acolytes. But believe it or not, the whole unsubtle, steamroller package is not such a bad thing. See, necessity might be the mother of invention, but it’s no relation to good times. And…
Think about South Florida’s intimate relationship with Cuba and the Caribbean and the influence it’s had on our indigenous music scene. The same sort of cross-cultural, stylistic leg-humping goes on in Southern California across the Mexican-American border, and there’s no better example than L.A.’s Ozomatli. The bilingual, genre-smashing, Latin-funk-rock-rap outfit…
While the White Stripes, the Black Keys, and the Hives have made some damn fine modern “garage rock,” nothing beats the sounds from the genre’s heyday in the mid-’60s. The Nuggets and Pebbles compilations already have mined this mother lode of reckless, wailing vocals, fuzzed-out guitar, and caveman drums, with…
Big Star founder Alex Chilton escaped hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, but apparently the masters for In Space, the band’s first studio album in 30 years, were lost in the flood. What else could explain this limp counterfeit now on the racks? Space unfolds like a song-by-song study of what not to…
Playing the Angel’s first cut is called “A Pain That I’m Used To.” Its second is called “Suffer Well.” And the disc’s back cover bears the epigraph, “Pain and suffering in various tempos.” We get the idea. Yes, pain and suffering are spelled out — if never actually conveyed —…
Rogue Wave’s Out of the Shadows was last year’s great indie-pop debut — a bittersweet album of ’60s-inspired pop, ideal for melodists and English-lit students who had gone too long between Shins albums. It was the work of one man — Oakland, California’s Zach Rogue (born Zach Schwartz), who recorded…
Even in South Florida, signs of autumn abound: The bountiful cocaine harvest is over, kids carve up German tourists for jack-o’-lanterns, and the goofballs at NOAA run out of alphabet. Another of fall’s many rituals that local music lovers have come to expect is Moonfest, the annual costume-studded bacchanal that…
A giant among giants in the dance scene — literally and figuratively — Carl Cox might just be the most renowned techno DJ in the world. Currently ranked number six on TheDJList.com (putting him in company with names like Oakenfold and Sasha), Cox has snagged DJ of the Year kudos…
You gotta wonder if maybe Billy Idol invested in the patenting of hair gel, since there are few who’ve done as much to bolster its sales as he has. The only time he veered from his trademark peroxide-blond spikes was in ’93, for his techno-informed Cyberpunk, and the dreadlocks that…
So what do all these new bands that play ’80s romantic revivalist music listen to besides the Chameleons and Interpol? Depeche Mode, of course, which you can verify for yourself at the kickoff show of the venerable band’s new tour. These Brits have been making albums since 1981, certifying them…
“Repackage sex/Keep your interest,” chanted vocalist Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill on the Gang of Four’s slashing 1979 debut, Entertainment! A quarter-century later, the middle-aged pair chant it again on this set of rerecorded classics, all performed without a hint of irony. In England, where the proletariat is more…
The seventh album by these Welsh baroque-pop mavericks refines their flamboyant songcraft in one grandiose, candy-coated, 54-minute package. Far more adventurous and fun (and less maudlin) than recent efforts by peers like Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips, Love Kraft slyly alludes to several classic-rock touchstones (Beatles; Nilsson; Crosby, Stills, Nash,…
Call a band’s style of music “freak folk” for long enough and eventually they’ll get tired of it. That’s the lesson to take from Animal Collective’s Feels, an album that sees the New York quartet not only excising the acoustic elements that dominated last year’s Sung Tongs but also reaching…
How powerful is the sensitive male stink conveyed by Death Cab for Cutie? I’m on a New York City subway, where no one — no one — talks to strangers, and despite my wedding ring, bad haircut, and general homeliness, a young woman approaches me, drawn to the bleed from…
Coheed & Cambria plays with Mewithoutyou, Dredg, and Blood Brothers at 5 p.m. Saturday, October 29, at Revolution, 200 W. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $19 in advance, $22 the day of the show. Call 954-727-0950.
When Outtakes heard the exciting news that the New York Dolls were playing Fort Lauderdale, we decided to dig up the proto-punk glam-band’s local history. After all, this is the group, led by David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter, he of “Hot Hot Hot” infamy) that helped usher in the punk…
What do you get the world’s most famous globetrotting DJ for his latest tour? How about a traveling, half-million-dollar stage show complete with buto dancers, taiko drummers, trapeze acrobats, carnival showgirls, a chorus of singers, a hundred lasers, and some hair-singeing pyrotechnics? It’s a worthy start, at least, to compliment…
Two of the most outstanding — and outstandingly named — punk-rock outfits to emerge from the late-’80s/early-’90s South Florida scene were Chickenhead and the Funyons. Chickenhead released a solid seven-inch on Emil Busse’s Fourandahalf Records and a great song about assassinating Fidel Castro (“Young Fidel”) on the Lookout!/Kill Rock Stars…
