Second Phase of Ultra Line-up Announced

Thanks again Miami Nights for the heads up. No real surprises on this second phase of the lineup for the Ultra Music Festival, except for the totally awesome addition of Underworld headlining the second night. Don’t know who they are? Yes you do — their big mainstream breakout track was…

Raw Power

Placing a phone call to Austin Barber, vocalist and guitarist for Oakland-based quartet Saviours, can be off-putting. After a few rings, his voicemail greeting comes on, a recorded clip of a hillbilly-sounding guy ranting, possibly about gold. It’s utterly creepy, hard to shut off, and goes on forever. “Oh, that’s…

Girl Talk

Pittsburgh might not be known as a hotbed of hip, but native Gregg Gillis, a DJ turned remix artist, serves up white-hot mashups that perfectly reflect the genre-bending preferences of downtown types. Like similar DJs/remix artists such as Flosstradamus and The Rub, Girl Talk spins sets that traverse hip-hop, crunk,…

Reasons to Believe

I don’t care about his feathered hair. I don’t care about his unfortunate fascination, in the Seventies and Eighties, with puff sleeves. Or his continuing fascination with white suits. Or the fact that, with some teenage parenting, he could technically be old enough to be my grandfather. I love Rod…

Jacki-O: Rapper, Label Head, and now… Author?

Miami native and one-time TVT Recording artist Jacki-O had a tough last few years. She garnered some national attention with her 2003 single “Nookie,” and “All Grown Up” became the official ring entry music for Stephanie McMahon in the WWE. But a couple years after that, things took a nosedive…

A Love Letter to Rod the Mod

I don’t care about his feathered hair. I don’t care about his unfortunate fascination, in the Seventies and Eighties, with puff sleeves. Or his continuing fascination with white suits. Or the fact that, with some teenage parenting, he could technically be old enough to be my grandfather. I love Rod…

Jose El Rey rules the House of Sex

If you haven’t seen Jose El Rey perform around town yet … you’re missing out. How to describe the legend? He doesn’t really sing, he doesn’t really rap…. He just kind of is, over some tinny 808 freestyle beats. He makes ladies want him and guys want to be him…

Arsis, live at the Culture Room on Wednesday

Arsis, in classical music parlance, most commonly refers to the up-beat, or unstressed parts of a measure. The term seems an odd choice of name for a technical death metal outfit whose lyrics focus on death, defilement, and the destruction of the sacred, and whose pummeling assault leaves no room…

First Phase of Marley Fest Announced…

Well, technically it’s now the “15th Annual Caribbean Fest,” but everybody knows it’s all about the Marleys. And this year, it looks like they’re getting it together musically. While the first few years were mostly reggae, and mostly Marley, things got a little scattered in the meantime. This led to…

Concert Review: 3 Inches of Blood and the Black Dahlia Murder

Hate Eternal, 3 Inches of Blood, and the Black Dahlia Murder Wednesday, January 23, 2008 The Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale Better Than:Oh, making offerings to false metal gods? The Review:It’s always a reassuring sign when, after driving almost an hour in torrential rain, one is greeted at a venue’s entrance…

Map of the Universe

Ladies and gentlemen, this local trio is floating in space. Its tripped-out sound is a rare, galactic union of Pavement-style power-chord grit, hooky postpunk, and cerebral, swirly shoegaze. Although the band formed in 2005, the members each boast a Miami rock pedigree. Vocalist/guitarist Ivan Marchena and drummer Ed Artigas previously…

Latest Local Fixation… Black Tide!

I can’t believe I haven’t written about these kiddies before, but I’ll fix that soon. Black Tide are four guys from Miami who are garnering major buzz for their crunching, amped-up, old-school kinda thrashy metal sound. They’ve already got a deal with Interscope, and they’re currently touring Europe with Avenged…

Village Voice’s 35th Annual Pazz & Jop Poll is Online

In case you missed it, this year’s edition of the Village Voice’s “Pazz and Jop” poll is online. It’s an annual roundup of a bunch of music critic’s top-ten lists for the preceding year. For this big-deal anniversary edition, 577 critics responded. Jonathan Cunningham (music editor of the Broward-Palm Beach…

Concert Review: Sofia at Harold Golen Gallery

Sofia January 19, 2008 Harold Golen Gallery Better Than:Tiesto’s faux “progressive” electronic beats Nowadays a lot of electronic music has very little to do with the genre’s original theories of sound experimentation. During its initial stages, weird, non-melodic tonalities ruled the day. For instance, Fifties artists such as Louis and…

King Britt: Full Q&A

In this week’s edition of the print version of Miami New Times, I wrote about legendary DJ/musician/label impresario King Britt’s gig this weekend at Shine. Because of pesky space limitations, I only got to use a few sentences from our near-half-hour conversation. So, for fans, I’m printing the whole transcript…

The King Is Back

King Britt is, above all, a shape-shifter. The Philadelphia DJ, musician, and label impresario is no stranger to Miami, but each time he pays a visit, it’s in a different guise. Last time was during Winter Music Conference, most notably for his annual Art of Seduction party, a soulful gathering…

Club Action

With the conversion last year of the old Jackie Gleason Theater to the Fillmore Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County gained yet another live music venue. And it was yet another enticement for bands to play down here, rather than make the rest of us trek up to Broward or even Palm…

The Machine, Live at Revolution this Saturday

Not just a cover band, the Machine is the Pink Floyd experience. Not content to adequately recreate a thin smattering of greatest hits, like a live classic rock station, this New York-based sonic Ouija board delves deep into the history and legacy of one of rock and roll’s greatest bands,…

Throwback Tuesday: New York Dolls

So, in just a few hours I’m off to an opening party for Dr. Feelgood’s, a new bar in West Palm Beach co-owned by Vince Neil… Of course, of Motley Crue fame. I’m a big fan of debauchery on nights it shouldn’t technically happen — like Tuesday — so I’m…

Interview: Killswitch Engage

Killswitch Engage are pretty high on my list of bands I’d like to party with. The Massachusetts-based quintet are infamous for drinking lots of cheep bear, causing fun trouble, and reveling in the sort of sarcastic humor that earns their home state’s natives the label of “Masshole.” At the initial…

Interview: Every Time I Die

Andy Williams, guitarist for the Buffalo, New York-based quartet Every Time I Die, is an imposing physical presence for sure. With a close-cropped head, arms covered with a patchwork of tattoos, and a bushy beard, he’s described by tourmate Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan as “a beast” “When you…

Interview: Dillinger Escape Plan

Dillinger Escape Plan are sort of like a band of vikings, blazing through a town in a maelstrom of chaos that leave the feeble shivering in a puddle of their own secretions. Think noise, destruction, flames — literally, frontman Greg Puciato has been known to shoot fireballs from the stage…