Born in South Carolina in 1942, electric guitarist James Blood Ulmer cut his teeth in funk bands and jazz organ combos, leaning toward jazz. In 1973, Ulmer hooked up with avant-jazz icon Ornette Coleman, who has a singular notion of harmony and melody — known as harmolodics. After playing in…
“Lean Back” gave Fat Joe a chance to make the really big money, and he’s taking advantage by embracing the mainstream. He came across as a genial glad-hander while working the red carpet at the recent MTV Movie Awards, and he makes repeated bids for airplay on All or Nothing,…
“On the day that Dennis Brown’s lung collapsed, spring rain was misting down on Kingston/And down at the harbor, local cops were intercepting an inbound shipment…” It’s a long way from the cornfields of Iowa to the hills of Jamaica, but lo-fi hero John Darnielle’s “Song for Dennis Brown” divines…
DJ Disciple performs at 10 p.m. Saturday, July 16, at Nocturnal, 50 NE 11th St., Miami. Admission costs $20. Visit www.NocturnalMiami.com, or call 305-576-6996.
One of rock’s original superstar divas can draw a crowd by just standing there, but to her credit, Stevie Nicks still performs with all her energy. I’d put my money down that Fleetwood Mac’s enduring appeal relates to Nicks’ charisma as a performer and her heartfelt facial contortions during delivery…
Don’t be afraid to say it: You thought that ska was dead and that its bastard brethren had gone out to sea too. But here we are, a long time after ’96’s Everything Sucks, and ska-punkers Reel Big Fish are on the road again, supporting a new album. Maybe it’s…
It’s been a long time coming, but Fort Lauderdale rapper Mike West is finally set to drop his full-length debut, A Westside Story Chapter 1. Hungry fans — and there are many — will have to wait till August to get a hard copy in their hands, but if you’re…
Yes, this is another story about a local hip-hop act. This is not, however, your typical tale peopled by former drug dealers laundering their money into a flimsy record or earnest suburban kids writing rhymes in their bedrooms and trying to save hip-hop. Instead, it features two young friends, both…
Huge stadium concerts can be a drag. The sound sucks. The band is so far away that the musicians look like gyrating ants. Tickets cost a fortune. What’s a fan to do? The smart thing is to wait 20 years until the popularity of your favorite monsters of rock wanes…
Just when you thought fondue, meat loaf, and on-tap appletinis were the most superdelectable fun the funky folks at Dada could provide, they add Palm Beach’s answer to David Bowie, the Ubiquitous Timb. Bringing a full sheath of bondage, love, interstate, and genre-bending tunes (as well as a full band…
Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters have made a career of delivering some of the most solid if uninspiring American pop-rock in the past decade, but In Your Honor is such a snoozer that it makes all other Foo albums sound experimental. First in the set is an “all-rock” side that Grohl…
Summer wouldn’t be summer without Fountains of Wayne. Sure, hot dogs would be just as carcinogenic, steering wheels would still sear flesh, and young lovers would still get VD, but the season wouldn’t be as special without the fine details and lacerating hooks of those New Jersey troubadours. Famous for…
Rappers and punks take pains to make their rebellious postures seem offhand. Shakira, meanwhile, doesn’t draw attention to her nonconformist tendencies — but make no mistake, she just don’t give a fuck. The Colombian superstar gave her 2001 crossover album (Laundry Service) and subsequent stadium-hopping stint (“Tour of the Mongoose”)…
Gabby La La is tap dancing. Tiny of frame, huge of talent, she tap-dances onto the stage — it’s about performance and percussion. Gabby is hooking into a growing audience, as if the sitar she plays, held like a Strat, is tapping the cosmic escalator and she is ascending into…
Even if his name doesn’t ring a bell, Rick Bauer’s towering frame should be easily recognizable to savvy Broward nightlifers. The six-foot-two Bauer and his band regularly play drinking holes from Himmarshee to Pompano Beach, digging into a massive trick bag for bar-rocking covers and late-night sing-alongs. With Daybreak, Bauer…
Somewhere between MTV, Quentin Tarantino, and cinéma vérité — which is true film for you Francophobes — stands the iconic reggae gangster film Rockers. Shot on location in the shanties, villages, and jungles in and around Kingston, Jamaica, Rockers debuted at Cannes in 1979, on the same night as Apocalypse…
Known primarily for his role as bassist in Béla Fleck’s Grammy-winning New Grass Revival band the Flecktones, Victor Wooten is a phenomenal composer and bandleader in his own right. Widely respected by fellow musicians and acclaimed by the bass cognoscenti (he’s the only three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Bass…
Following in the glorious, hook-heavy wake of epic rockers like Cheap Trick and the Replacements, Watershed plays exactly the kind of brash and heartfelt music Fort Lauderdale fiends for. Thing is, the up-and-coming fourpiece is from Columbus, Ohio, and it’s blazing across the country in a terminally unhealthy van. Its…
Yeah, it’s another battle of the bands. And yeah, it’s at the snuggest lil’ venue in Broward, Alligator Alley. But rather than fight for cut-rate studio time, a chrome-plated trophy, or dubious bragging rights (because who judges these things, anyway?), the winner of this particular sonic imbroglio will ascend the…
According to the title of his latest album, Steve Porter’s dance music is Homegrown, but his funky, progressive house sound is undoubtedly geared toward crowds around the globe. A Boston native who lives in New York City, Porter is a six-year veteran of the DJ circuit who was cutting his…
“Some day,” former heavyweight champion Sonny Liston once mused, “they’re going to write a blues song just for fighters; it will be for slow guitar, soft trumpet, and a bell.” Liston knew boxing was a lifetime of heartbreak doled out in three-minute doses; he just got the instruments wrong. Jazz…
If Alkaline Trio is truly the savior of punk rock, if the band really lives up to its rabid, fan-fueled glorification, you wouldn’t know it from talking to Dan Andriano. The bassist/vocalist sounds rather indifferent speaking over the phone from a tour stop in Boston. Given the hurdles the band…
