Lightweight entertainers suffer from acid reflux live (hey, Ashlee!), survive on a steady cocktail of water and lemon, and form far-too-dependent relationships with their personal trainers. Biggie-sized entertainers have more fun pound for pound. For this, the man at the center of Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys is in…
Although he’d like to be a martyr of the law to his loyal followers, R. Kelly’s recently been brought down to comedic folly thanks to the patron saint of parody, Dave Chappelle. Guilty or not, fans always flock to buy Kelly’s blend of thug soul and catchy-as-hell R&B, as evident…
After a Skinny Puppy concert this summer, electronic keyboarder cEvin Key was greeted by an enthralled female fan, joyous at having just seen Key’s reunited band perform after a ten-year absence. Smiling, she offered Key a gift. Into the palm of his hand she placed a baggie filled with some…
Driving on Powerline Road through northern Pompano Beach, it’s hard to imagine that anything remotely artistic exists amid the scores of retail buildings and nondescript warehouses (and, of course, that beautiful mountain of a landfill). But if you venture to the last warehouse on 32nd Street and enter Bay 7…
Mos Def’s sophomore album, The New Danger, is remarkably different from his 1999 bow, Black on Both Sides. That memorable debut possessed literate rhymes delivered with razor-sharp timing; The New Danger relies on smart scat rap leisurely doled out. Black on Both Sides offered late-’90s boom bap and neo-soul; The…
Gold Chains (Topher LaFata) teams up with good friend Sue Cie (Sue Costabile) for the lighthearted When the World Was Our Friend. Here, the duo inject dance cheekiness into punk, resulting in music that often borders on novelty but mostly rocks a tough groove. “California Nites” blends guitar riffs that…
October marked the anniversary of Elliott Smith’s tragic suicide — not that his death came as a huge surprise to fans of his music. But even as bitter as Smith’s songs could be going down, they always left the sweetest aftertaste of beauty and hope. From a Basement on the…
Montreal, well-known for its avant-garde, epic-rock sprawl, has recently disclosed the illuminating revelation that it can nurture an entirely different sound too. And so out of the city’s wintry gales comes the Arcade Fire. Equally familiar and pioneering, Funeral is a densely knit patchwork of personal history, inspired as much…
At its best, Luna sounded catchy and fun, in a disposable-pop kind of way. At its worst, Luna seemed boring and contrived. But now, with its seventh and final album, Luna has released its best, most spirited, and most relaxed work to date. Rendezvous opens with the ingeniously simple “Malibu…
If you were born before 1981, it’s possible you went to a rave when you were younger. Really, it is. And one Charissa Saverio, a.k.a. DJ Rap, might have been the chick with the decks spinning that very rave. Since the ’90s, Rap has emerged from the hedonistic rave jungle…
We all have a death wish, but some of us have come a little closer to fulfilling it than others. Take Little Dickie Evans, who has had more than one brush with fate as singer for the Stud Dogs. In honor of Halloween, he relives one of his close calls:…
The following riveting conversation was heard outside Revolution (200 W. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale) on a recent Friday night: Man number one: Hey, how ya been? Man number two: Hey… yeah, uh… uhhh… Man number one: You… been playing out lately? Man number two: You know, it’s… it’s cool. Advice…
Are you angry yet, folks? Are you good and hopped up after the presidential debates? What the trio of confrontations between George and John (no, not Harrison and Lennon) needed was mood music. Like when Bush suggested that college-educated men and women who can’t find jobs should go back to…
Pinback’s new release, a catchy multimelodic, indie-rock affair titled Summer in Abaddon, could be its best work yet. And it should be: The duo spent three years fine-tuning the CD with painstaking detail. “Zach and I are different people,” says multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Rob Crow of his co-conspirator, Armistead Burwell Smith IV,…
By the time Taking Back Sunday released its first album, 2002’s Tell All Your Friends, emo had been around for years. TBS had all the requisite moves — churning, angular, post-punk guitar, earnest, heart-worn vocals, anthemic choruses with big hooks, and rumbling, hardcore rhythms into the breaks. It was hardly…
Six months after its release, UNKLE’s Never Never Land finally lands stateside. The brainchild of DJ/producer/Mo’ Wax boss James Lavelle, UNKLE’s latest (featuring Jarvis Cocker and Brian Eno) is DJ Shadow-less but no less operatic in its symphonic, electronic trip-hop that evokes Massive Attack and Pink Floyd. With new colleague…
In her native South Africa, 29-year-old folk-rock singer Karma-Ann Swanepoel was a smashing success. At age 21, she soared to the top of her country’s charts with her band Henry Ate, winning numerous awards, giving concerts to crowds of 45,000, and touring with other South African pop stars like Johnny…
Teedra Moses grew up studying her mother, a successful gospel singer on the church revival circuit. She grew up listening to gospel on the radio in her mother’s car and jamming to Luther Vandross. Later, she graduated to every young girl’s first love: Prince. Moses studied Prince songs like calculus…
No woman is an island. But in 1999, New York-based electropunks Le Tigre suggested that one could be. The dance feministas — fronted by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna — sounded equally idiosyncratic and didactic at the time, their sole peer being Germany’s Chicks on Speed. On Le Tigre’s third full-length,…
Though big beat never really exceeded its novelty status, artists like Fatboy Slim helped champion its thunderous dance-funk anthems into mainstream success. Songs such as “Praise You” and “Gangster Trippin'” became such commercial forces that they — deliberately or not — added to the soundtrack of our lives. So maybe…
Armed with a PowerBook, vocoder, some moogs, and a host of analog accessories, Toronto’s Solvent (a.k.a. Jason Amm) pre-sents us with his fourth full-length and first for the Detroit techno label Ghostly. And the knobs Amm twiddles produce some of the finest synth-pop to come out in years. Instantly nostalgic…
If LL Cool J’s most recent album seemed to prove that hip-hop wouldn’t allow its veteran stars to age gracefully, this is the rebuttal. Largely MIA since 2001, De la Soul has still seen the growth of its reputation as patron saint of the hip-hop underground. If you can get…
