Florida Comprehensive Assessment test scores came out last night and they stunk. Particularly in Miami-Dade. Yeah, the Herald made a big deal about Liberty City Elementary improving. And over the years, we have improved. I thank Jeb Bush for that. Lawton Chiles gets a C and Charlie Crist an F…
RotagillaSeason For Leavin’ (self-released)You’d think it was 1970 again, for Chrissakes, what with the way the guys of Rotagilla let out their inner Led Zep. Granted, there’s no hint of a Robert Plant or Jimmy Page lurking among this lot. However, in recycling the old school power trio format and…
We’re going with a sushi theme this week, with a couple of seafood-related ha-ha’s thrown in because, as it turns out, very few people have ever written or said anything funny about raw fish. If you’ve heard any good nigiri jokes, please feel free to share ’em with us.I never…
This week’s New Times includes a feature on Jim Jonsin, the Coral Springs resident who’s quickly become a super-producer and is blowing up the hip-hop and pop charts. (You’ve doubtless heard one of his recent hits, any number of synth-driven tracks like Soulja Boy’s “Kiss Me Through the Phone,” T.I.’s…
Notes from the Soundboard is a new column appearing weekly on Crossfade, focused on pop music’s history and ongoing evolution. Lee Zimmerman shares insights and observations on how music continues to connect with the weirdness of the world. Click here to read past installments. I try not to spend too…
Last night America found out the results in what many were too quick to paint as the next battle of the culture wars: American Idol’s Adam Lambert vs Kris Allen. Possibly gay, probable chonga, California-bred Lambert came into the final as the Favorite against the young, Christian, non-threatening Allen from Arkansas. Pundits, including ol’…
Yesterday we recommended tonight’s show at Churchill’s, which features local acts Ex Norwegian and the Jean Marie, opening for Nashville quartet Mother/Father. Here’s a free taster from the headliners, a song called “Youngest Gods.” While the band’s other songs are full of swirly, reverb-laden production, this one is relatively stripped…
Hint on how to avoid bad Miami restaurants: Take a look at the dessert menu before taking a seat. If it’s a compilation of Key lime pie, tiramisu, molten chocolate cake, and the other ubiquitous treats, politely excuse yourself and go somewhere else to eat. After all, there are hundreds…
The Great Native American Debate Those kids stink: Gus Garcia-Roberts’s May 14 story, “Renegade Road,” has much more information than the Miami Herald. I am shocked with the police records that describe the occupants of the car with the four Indians. No wonder they weren’t speaking. They were trying to…
In a large cylindrical cage, a tiny Asian dancer named April attempts to swing from a black plastic chain. But her red painted toes clumsily catch on the plush, pink carpeting, and she stumbles. As a result, her blond wig shifts to an extremely unnatural position. Flustered, she dangles the…
Twenty one years ago on South Beach Club Nu threw a Rambo III Premier Party. They flew down 3 skaters from LA. That same week they had a ladies’ night, a model search, advertised the world’s most expensive vodka, got sponsored by Robert’s Western Wear, and featured performances by The…
Besides being a metal head and a member of the semi-slumbering Miami-based rock juggernaut Humbert, Rimsky Pons makes his own sweet music, self described as “power-pop for the working class.” For those of you familiar with Humbert’s body of work, and Mr Pons’s place in it, you are already expecting…
Tonight, America will make its most important collective decision since we elected Obama. We take to the phones to text in our choice for the next American Idol. The choice is between lil’ miss glamour puss Adam Lambert and generically good looking, non-threatening, Christian boy Kris Allen. Well, officially it is,…
Out of the countless towns he’s played during his band’s national tours, Sammy Gonzalez, bassist of local trio Jacob’s Ladder, still prefers the tiny Frankenmuth, Michigan. An obscure, German-theme tourist destination billed as “Michigan’s Little Bavaria,” Frankenmuth is home to one “amazing promoter,” Jacobs says. “He throws shows at a…
Details are still vague, but cops were called to two deaths this morning. In one, at Miami International Airport, it seems a 43-year-old American Airlines customer service manager named Thomas Juxovich was working on a lift near gate E-10 when he fell and died at Miami International Airport. It happened…
Before their boat sank off Palm Beach last week — drowning at least nine people, including a pregnant woman — a group of 30 Haitian immigrants endured days drifting at sea without fuel and a harrowing journey from Nassau to a smuggler’s cove in Bimini.So says the complaint filed this…
The guys of the long-grinding Miami quintet Alukard hail from all over the city, but have made it their new mission to bring live rock back to the suburban expanses of Kendall, a couple years after staple venue Kaffe Krystal’s demise. “They were known for bringing a lot of emo,…
This was a week where people were just trying to figure out where they belong. It was an awkward thing to watch, like tweens on their first day of middle school figuring out which lunch table to sit at. Jason Taylor knew deep, deep down that his heart belonged to Miami,…
Being a blogger is a lot like being on a reality TV fashion competition show: some crazy man locks you in a small, depressing room for hours at a time and asks you to complete multiple, seemingly random tasks with ridiculously short deadlines and few resources and then the finished…
In this week’s print edition of Riptide, I wrote that none of the candidates in the Miami mayoral race will crack the $1 million benchmarks set by Manny Diaz in 2001 and 2005. Nevertheless, City Commissioners Tomas Regalado and Joe Sanchez are shoring up support with some of the city’s…
Virginia quintet Parachute has been on the rise since it landed the song “She’s Love” in a Nivea commercial. Suddenly, thousands of women with smooth legs wanted more of those smooth pop-rock sounds. In the resulting buzz storm on iTunes and the like, the song eventually also landed on the…
This week: VegetablesVegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. ~Garfield (Jim Davis)Large, naked raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who lie in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter. ~Fran LebowitzLife expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables…
