Still smarting after a long weekend spent playing host to friend and über-producer Josh Wink (in town to perform at South Beach’s Crobar), Greg Chin — a.k.a. DJ Stryke — sits behind a desk in the airy, white-walled SoBe hotel-turned-office-suites headquarters of his Substance Recordings label. The pair met in…
Using pastoral English countryside colors to paint a scene of serenity, Washington, D.C.’s Phaser transcends the continental divide, adopting the sparkle of brethren like Suede and Oasis. The resemblance is particularly striking on tracks like “Life and Illusion,” where elevated choruses mesh with the cascading harmonies of brothers/vocalists Boris and…
Eight years ago, thinking man’s hardcore act Hot Water Music emerged from the swamps of Gainesville. With a name cribbed from a Charles Bukowski novel and an ever-evolving sound rooted in their love of AC/DC, Fugazi, and Avail, Hot Water Music appeals to indie rockers, musicians, and backpack-toting kids alike…
Last weekend at the Culture Room: New York City’s Toilet Boys got campy Friday night, stroking the crowd before strafing them with showers of fire and sparks. Miss Guy, the Boys’ transvestite vocalist, wore form-fitting, ass-revealing half-pants which left little to the imagination. Only the music was naked the following…
In the studio, Trent Reznor is obsessed with minutiae, compulsively fashioning and refashioning epic works of longing and despair with a surgeon’s precision. Live, he trades the scalpel for the machete, taking all the self-directed rage that drives his work, broadening its target, and coming out swinging. The audience becomes…
Early electro, the ’80s rap cousin that helped spawn both synth-pop and techno, was kinda clumsy. Infectious and freaky, yes, but because of the nature of the early beatboxes, the primal stuff — Newcleus, the Jonzun Crew, Soulsonic Force — lumbered along with the agility of Frankenstein. Complex rhythmic momentum…
Alanis Morissette’s jagged little thrill has subsided. It’s been seven years since her debut stormed pop airwaves and she was crowned queen of angst-in-her-pants self-martyrdom. The underperforming Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie somewhat dimmed the burnished jewels of her tiara, but not enough to knock her out of the palace. With…
With its leader’s distinctive sound, unique guitar tone, and signature improv stylings filling concert halls since the late 1970s, the Pat Metheny Group (with longtime keyboardist Lyle Mays and bassist Steve Rodby) has built a loyal and eclectic following that defies easy categorization. “It can be a 50-year-old jazz buff…
With DDT, brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson, along with bassist Paul Taylor, created heavy thrash-rock that was a dozen generations removed from blues and early rock. But then a sax, a female vocalist, and a keyboardist were added. The DDT Big Band was born. And when Taylor left to join…
Not much these days lives up to the idea of the present we’ve sold ourselves through the culture of the past. Didn’t it seem ten years ago, when alternative rock was just beginning to elbow its way onto radio playlists — when weird shit like dancemeisters My Life with the…
He was the wizard of a thousand kings/And I chanced to meet him one night wandering. He told me tales, and he drank my wine/Me and my magic man kinda feeling fine. You’d be forgiven if you thought that stanza belonged to Tenacious D, who bounced into the Pompano Beach…
Staying dead is no mean feat. Just ask David Gans. Whether as an author, producer, or radio-show host, Gans’s name has been intimately linked with that of the Grateful Dead to those inside the scene. Sure, Gans doesn’t mind the numerous accolades he has earned from his work — including…
The members of Mushroomhead want everyone to know that they had the idea first: cluttering a stage in goofy masks to usher in the end times with mediocre metal. And while fans of Des Moines’s abrasive Slipknot howl from the balconies of hardcore injustice — accusing Mushroomhead of being a…
What with most reggae legends either deceased (Peter Tosh, Bob Marley), retired (Toots Hibbert, Leonard Dillon), or a mere shadow of what they once were (Black Uhuru, Third World), it’s nice to see a living legend who’s still right on the money. Beres Hammond has been regarded as one of…
Just in time for the six-month marker of the nation’s worst terrorist attack, a year-old Dania Beach record label and studio, Full Moon, has produced United, a collective project by Local Artists Against Terrorism, who dabble in every shade of patriotic paint in an attempt to raise funds for the…
On Damien Jurado’s first two albums, Waters Ave. S and Rehearsals for Departure, he liberally blended an almost sprightly pop with a masterfully controlled melancholy, resulting in works of great creative tension. For his next record, 2000’s Ghost of David, Jurado gave in to the dark side, fashioning a quiet,…
We may never get back the true Mystikal, the real Mystikal, the Mystikal who put his skills on the table first, then looked around for some well-deserved ass. That was the Mystikal of “Y’all Ain’t Ready Yet,” and indeed we weren’t. When the New Orleans rapper dropped that single in…
The San Francisco-based quintet Vue, a band in touch with the purest of rock ‘n’ roll’s primordial ooze, is regularly hit with observations regarding its similarities to other seminal stalwarts. Guitarist Jonah Buffa puts up with the volleys of comparisons but defies anyone who would try to pigeonhole Vue as…
Fifty-two gospel 45s, Mae West’s rock album Way Out West, a stage recording of Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard Simmons’s Sweatin’ with the Oldies video, and an amateur oil painting of a squirrel. Andrew Yeomanson’s vinyl safari on a Tuesday afternoon hasn’t yielded an exceptional bounty — nowhere close to the…
The Reverend Horton Heat brings his traveling rockabilly revival to South Florida this week, with disciples Nashville Pussy working up the crowd to a fervent rush before Heat’s sermon. The whole white-trash, gearhead greaser crowd that has grown slowly yet steadily over the past decade — with perhaps a bit…
Over the years, and there’s been almost ten of them, it’s been nigh impossible for Fort Lauderdale’s Livid Kittens to enjoy a lick of respect. Even the band’s own fans will sometimes characterize the exciting quintet as merely a depraved novelty. True, singer Paige Alison Harvey and her scanty panties…
Accused of insensitivity, a soul as sensitive as Dan Gellar’s would be expected to shy away from controversy and cave in when the PC brigade comes rallying ’round. After all, the twee music Gellar champions — both as cofounder of the influential indie label Kindercore and leader of the electro-pop…
