Singer Adi Elcida Hernandez and guitarist Ernesto Paez have known each other since high school. After getting married four years ago, they decided to form the band Modern Mimes. “I’ve been in metal bands since I was 13,” Paez says. “She’s always been a singer-songwriter. Two years ago, we said…

Ricco Black says his band Pandora Black is influenced by Massive Attack, Berlin, and Depeche Mode. Indeed, you can hear it in the dark and moody debut album Into the Shadows. But when he tells New Times his biggest inspiration was the ’80s rockabilly band the Stray Cats, that takes some explaining. “They were able to take 1950s sounds into the ’80s. We want to take ’80s sounds into the new millennium.”

What is neo-Cuban blues? It’s what local singer-songwriter Sol Ruiz calls her Spanglish sound that mixes music from two countries that are so close yet so far apart. “My parents are Cuban, and I was born and raised in Miami Beach, so I was interested in my roots,” Ruiz tells New Times.

Floridians don’t really know how to handle winter. While the rest of the country is shoveling snow and huddling around trash-can fires, we’re wearing shorts and hitting the beach. But we still find ways to celebrate the season — for example, with “Lots of good…

Top 40 radio is a beloved institution for a vast number of listeners. And few stations in America have been playing the hits as long as WHYI-FM. Better known around these parts as Y100, the pop station has been broadcasting whatever the kids happen to be listening to that week…

Though he’s recently had albums titled Global Warming, Globalization, and the upcoming Climate Change, lately Pitbull has not been the most political of rappers. His verses in “Timber” had nothing to do with deforestation, and “Give Me Everything” makes no mention of where he comes down on tax rates. But…

It’s an ironic truth that sends a mixture of anger and confusion shooting up the spine of out-of-towners: South Floridians who live near the beach tend not to actually go to the beach very often. Maybe we’re jaded, spoiled, or don’t want to get sandy — who knows? But the concert…

It’s only fitting that the most political of hip-hop groups, Dead Prez, would be touring during an election year. The duo, consisting of emcees M-1 and stic.man, have rapped for decades against power structures, war, and inequality. Or, as M-1, a resident of Miami for the last six years, puts…

When we spoke, Wayne Coyne was on the way to his Oklahoma City gallery to participate in what he describes as “Friday-night drunk yoga.” And though he says he’s “as old as Dracula,” the 55-year-old lead singer of the Flaming Lips still speaks as enthusiastically about the power of rock ‘n’ roll as any millennial out there.

LDV Hospitality — the parents of Miami’s Rec Room, Regent Cocktail Club, and Dolce Italian — are celebrating a four-year anniversary this weekend. And they’re doing so in style. Rec Room, the intimate Miami Beach hotspot in the bottom of the Gale South Beach, will be hosting a true rap icon…

Yet another new venue has emerged to try and reclaim the spot where the beloved Vagabond once stood. And the new joint, Armando Records, is hitting the ground running. But don’t expect an actual Armando to greet you at the door tomorrow night for the grand opening. “Armando is a…

It has been a big year for James “Woody” Beckham. While many people might foolishly think someone who suffers from paralysis — as Beckham has since 2011 — might slow down, Woody has proven just the opposite. He’s spent the last 12 months graduating from FIU with a finance…

Last year, when Johann Torres was closing down the Stage, a Design District music venue that he partly owned, he began sniffing around Miami for a new spot to host events. “One of the places I looked at was the American Legion,” Torres tells us over the phone.