We already know the drill: Not many people listened to the Velvet Underground at the time the seminal quartet changed rock music in the late 1960s, but everyone who did ended up starting a band. Something like that must have happened down here as well, because there’s no shortage of…
“Whole lotta kielbasa going on,” noted one hipster-doofus spectator Friday, December 7, at Miami’s Polish American Club, where the scent of porky goodness had permeated even the old living-room furniture out in the lobby. But the sausages flying out of the kitchen on paper plates weren’t the reason we’d come…
By the time Trans Am arrives in South Florida this weekend, it’ll have a new paint job. Valves will have been adjusted. That sticky window vent will be fixed. Since 1993, the Washington, D.C.-based indie-rock trio has garnered a reputation as a purveyor of eccentric instrumentals that merge the cold…
Hey, consumer, isn’t it just a matter of time before the opportunists plunder the vaults for a Pink Floyd compilation? Oh, here it is now. But given that Pink Floyd is arguably the quintessential album band of all time, who would want this jumbled collection of spaced-out scattershots? Compiling the…
Chris Carrabba’s slingshot ride to stardom is streaking skyward as we speak. The leader of the Boca Raton-based Dashboard Confessional has already been plastered across a full-page fashion layout in Rolling Stone, and now Spin, Interview, Teen People, and Alternative Press are all lining up for a piece of the…
“What do you think this is?” Casee, master of ceremonies for the evening, barked incredulously into the mic as he paced the stage. “Why are you all sitting down? This is not a classical concert! We are not playing Tchaikovsky! This is reggae music!” Chanting down Babylon is always more…
“You self-righteous fuck/ Give me a reason not to rip your face off.” These are not healing words. Slayer’s God Hates Us All, released September 11, is a soundtrack to terror and mayhem, making it either one of the most prescient or ill-timed albums ever. Its cover, a photo of…
A handful of artists can evoke distinct imagery and a tangible mood with no more than the dropping of their names. Alice Cooper is surely among the first generation of theatrical rockers to possess the ability to shock and horrify at the mere mention of his nom de rock. It’s…
It wasn’t a question of whether Jimmy Eat World’s fourth album, Bleed American, would ever see the light of day. It was simply a matter of when. “Even if we had to print it ourselves,” says vocalist/guitarist Jim Adkins, “we knew the record was going to come out. There was…
During its nine-year run, Medeski, Martin, and Wood has become all things to all people. The trio continues to satisfy the jazzbo crowd who count on the band’s Blue Note releases to bear the future-fusion torch. But somewhere along the way, the dreadlocked white-boy network stopped playing Hacky Sack for…
While American artists have tried to capture the British sound for many years, their attempts to appropriate the English essence are generally as successful as coaxing an authentic shepherd’s pie from Stove Top mix. More than 200 years ago, Paul Revere warned that the British were coming, and we were…
Because people down here can be right nasty — pocketing money promised to families of dead firemen or feeding false information to the public about West Nile viruses running roughshod at fun-filled street festivals — it’s a miracle any good gets accomplished at all. That’s why the annual City Link…
Amhad Miller, Malik Flavors, Monk Hughes, Joe McDuffrey, Otis Jackson Jr. — these are the listed members of Yesterday’s New Quintet. Combining layer upon layer of Fender Rhodes, vibraphones, kalimba, electric bass, and a slew of drums, percussion, and sampled loops, Angles Without Edges is a startling debut LP of…
Spitting polysyllabic Ginsberg-gushes with his substratum voice, Aesop Rock raps his visions with smart-bomb precision. On his fourth release, Labor Days, he’s a frenetic storyteller, updating his namesake’s plainspoken lessons with free-flowing emceeing bred in the underground of the claustrophobic Alphabet Avenues. The kids, dogs, horses, ants, and asses of…
Thickest cranium in rock? Probably Martin Atkins, former drummer for Public Image Ltd., now de facto head of the industrial-rock conglomerate Pigface. Who else would devote insane amounts of time, money, and energy to industrial music — a subgenre that had its day bathing in the money hydrant during the…
When Freestyle Fellowship dropped its second LP, Inner City Griots, in 1991, it not only changed the way many viewed hip-hop’s inherent potential but it ran somewhat counter to the Dre/Cube/Snoop trinity that was drastically reshaping the face of the music. While the shit on Griots was as hard as…
With his trusty vintage Telecaster, Chris Spencer has been pummeling eardrums for more than a decade with his evil brand of bluesy, abrasive rock. For the first part of the ’90s, his original outfit, Unsane, was the darling of the New York City noise-rock scene. After a nasty car wreck…
Regional bands paying tribute to idols and heroes is a rite of passage in South Florida. The past year has seen local indie-rock homages to Tori Amos, the Pixies, Joy Division/New Order, and the Smiths. Now a Velvet Underground lovefest with sets from Mr. Entertainment and Whirlaway, among others, is…
September 2001. Aesthetic fetishism becomes a federal crime — film festivals are shuttered, vintage clothing stores torched. Jackbooted thugs descend upon Quentin Stoltzfus’s three-story Philly home — henceforth called a “compound” — and confiscate the offending material: vinyl by acoustic weirdos John Fahey and Syd Barrett, psych symphonies by Brian…
If Pavement fans were saddened by the announcement last year that the band had finally run its course, they certainly must have been heartened by the enormous potential for solo work among Pavement’s individual members. Although the prospect of diminished creativity looms whenever the whole truly is greater than the…
South Florida is starving for reggae music. Given our proximity to Jamaica, reggae bands should find rich fields of West Indian immigrants within which to flourish. Aside from stumbling upon stacks of old roots records played by Lauderhill patty-shop proprietors or late-night public radio retro Rastafarians, however, we’re infected with…
Just as in World War II, France has spent much of the rock era standing on the sidelines. While England and America carved up most of the Western pop empire between themselves, France was a musical irrelevancy: a land of accordions, Maurice Chevalier, rich cuisine, and Jerry Lewis fanatics. But…
