Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson Revolutionized ’90s Rock

With coheadliners the Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson, the End Times Tour is a traveling history museum of ’90s rock. In fact, no two bands could represent the rock world’s issues of the 20th Century’s final decade quite like they do. As the ’90s began, the main musical debate involved…

Roosevelt Collier Is Keeping the Blues Alive in Miami

To an audience, the pedal steel guitar appears to have more in common with a keyboard than a guitar. Positioned horizontally, it produces a strong, twangy sound from its strings, which are plucked by finger or pick. The vibrations then ooze through a magnetic converter and out an amp. Don’t…

SunGhosts Hope to Live Up to the Title of Miami’s Best Band

New Times readers have spoken. During our Best Of 2015 Readers’ Choice poll, with a resounding click of the mouse, they chose the garage/surf rock four-piece SunGhosts as Miami’s best band. The honor had SunGhosts’ singer/guitarist Nik Balseiro — who discovered the achievement one morning in Chattanooga, Tennessee — humbled and…

Former Members of Astrokats Form New Band Bleeth

They might be fans of Baywatch, but the three members of local rock group Bleeth did not name their band after one of that show’s stars, Yasmine Bleeth. “We wanted something that when you heard it, you didn’t have anything to relate it to or have some preconceived idea of,”…

Pachanga Boys Bring High-Endurance Live Music to Miami

If you are a literalist and head to Trade tonight expecting to hear Pachanga music, you will be sorely disappointed. If, however, you wish to dance the extended night away to a medley of electronic waves and beats, The Pachanga Boys will not let you down. Made up of native…

Circ X: From Dancing Condoms to Opera-Singing Drag Queens

Advertising a performance as a burlesque show will surely draw some people looking to ogle scantily clad women, but Diana Lozano, director of Circ X, is quick to explain that the root of the word “burlesque” is derived from a Latin phrase that means “to make fun of.” “Burlesque is…

Lori Garrote on Making Songs Mean Something

Even Lori Garrote’s day job involves rock ‘n’ roll. On a recent afternoon, she juggles questions not only from New Times but also from her co-workers at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. The onetime singer of the New and AKA is now concentrating on a solo…

Heroes and Villains Assemble for Churchill’s Supercon Afterparty

Fans of 1980s Captain America comic books might remember the Bar With No Name. In the superhero realm, it was a dive establishment where colorfully costumed villains could shoot pool, drink beer, plan evil schemes, and talk about that one time they almost kicked Iron Man’s metal-plated keister. Sadly, the…

The War on Drugs Lives Up to the Hype at Fillmore Miami Beach

The War on Drugs with The Everymen Fillmore Miami Beach Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Better Than: Staying home and hate-watching LeBron James lose another NBA Finals. It’s safe to assume the Philadelphia-based rock band that played the Fillmore last night came up with the name The War on Drugs ironically…

Cold War Kids Deliver a Free Show to a Lucky Few in Miami

Cold War Kids Lou La Vie, Miami Thursday, June 12, 2015 Better Than: Anything else you can get for free. Only Miami’s most punctual freeloaders were able to witness fourteen songs of high-energy rock and roll last night. At 8:15 p.m., on the corner of 14th and Biscayne, hundreds of…

For Alex Niggemann, Techno Was Love at First Listen

With his older brother DJing in the family garage, a teenage Alex Niggemann learned about techno music through osmosis. But it wasn’t effortless. There was obviously a lot of sweat mixed in as well, the classically trained pianist and Berlin-based DJ told New Times. As he prepared for his sojourn…

Neutral Milk Hotel in Miami: A Review With Live Concert Drawings

Editor’s Note: Photography isn’t allowed at Neutral Milk Hotel shows. So we at New Times recruited Miami’s most skilled live concert drawer, Brian Butler, to capture the idiosyncratic magic of Jeff Mangum and company last night. Neutral Milk Hotel With Mind Brains Olympia Theater at Gusman Center, Miami Wednesday, May…

Meet South Beach’s DJ Johnny Cash

When offered the assignment of interviewing Johnny Cash, I had a moment of insane excitement as I imagined asking questions about “A Boy Named Sue” and Sun Records. But then I remembered the Man in Black had been dead for over a decade. The Johnny Cash with whom I would…

Pitbull Turning Miami Into 1950s Cuba for Music Video

Ever been tempted to take a time machine back to 1950s Havana, but the only thing keeping you in 2015 was you wouldn’t be able to dance to Pitbull in the ’50s? Well, now the 1950s and Pitbull’s music don’t have to be mutually exclusive. This Friday, April 10, Pitbull…

Rhythm Foundation on 13 Years of the Heineken TransAtlantic Festival

Thirteen is a number considered by many to be unlucky, but the organizers of the 13th-annual Heineken TransAtlantic Festival see themselves as incredibly fortunate. When this world music-focused fest was launched in 2003, it seemed unlikely that a decade-plus run lay ahead. But as Rhythm Foundation director Laura Quinlan explains,…