Miami Music Matters

New Year's Eve: ¡Suenalo! and ¡Mayday!

Inverted exclamation points will be in abundance on New Year's Eve at Transit Lounge when two of Miami's best bands, ¡Suenalo! and ¡Mayday!, toast to 2010.

The celebration will set you back $20 in advance or $25 at the door.

I know, Transit Lounge never has a cover charge, but this rare exception is well worth it considering the lineup, the "complimentary" champagne toast, and the guaranteed good time the venue always brings.

If you can't make it for New Year's, both groups have shows scheduled for '10 already. ¡Suenalo! will play January 2 at Jazid in Miami Beach and January 7 at Waxy O'Connor's in Brickell. ¡Mayday! will open for Nas and Goodie Mob at the Adrienne Arsht Center on February 5.

New Year's Eve: Spam Allstars

If you want to avoid the high-priced, A-list parties on New Year's Eve, but still want to have a good time on South Beach, Catalina Hotel may be the place for you.

For $95 (chump change by South Beach standards), you can party with Miami's own Spam Allstars. The Latin funk band will be playing from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. in front of the hotel on Collins and 17th Street.

As if that wasn't good enough, there will be an open bar from 8 p.m. to midnight as well as food (including sushi and desserts).

Tickets and more information can be found at the Catalina's funky website.

NYE Is Amatuer Night - see Lady Gaga @ LIV. Friday,January 1st is for Professional Partiers - See Agent Orange At Churchill's Pub

Let's face it. New Year's Eve is amatuer night. It's the night where every unfun pencil pushing middle manager, assistant principal or shift supervisor thinks they are the wild and crazy guys from the 70s SNL skit. They drink too much, puke on your shoes and then drive drunk on the highway until they sideswipe a cop or smash into a dumpster.

A dumpster is an appropriate analogy seeing how the night's entertainment choices are led by an appearance by Lady Gaga - the pop strumpet who cancelled her tour with Kanye West because there weren't 10,000 suckers in each city who would pay 3 figures to see her play. Only a few rows at her early NYE  gig at in the Knight center are 3 figures, the rest of the seats are a pedestrian $23- $63  -- so she's appearing at LIV, where maybe 1000 chumps will pay between $425 (general admission) to 25K (25 seat pool cabana) to hear her sing to a track (at best) or lip synch (at worst).  If they put a band poolside, I will be very impressed,  but I highly doubt that's happening. Even if it did, that ticket is still overpriced by $250.

So you could pay nearly $500 to get treated like crap at a bad gig, or you could go to a house party on NYE and see a great live band for  $415 bucks  less (that's $10 for the mathmatically challenged). That show stars legendary Surf-Punk Band Agent Orange  at Churchill's Pub. In case you're totally unfamilair with the origins of American punk rock - AO is led by guitarist Mike Palm, and is responsible for "bloodstains" one of the great anthems of the early 80s. If you can imagine a mixture of Dick Dale and The Buzzcocks, you have half an idea of the racket that Palm has been making for 30 years. While Palm has never hit it big, his nose to the grindstone approach is totally refreshing. It's pretty impressive that a man his age is willing to crisscross the state of florida from miami-panama city-sarasota, just to have to lump it 15 hours to Wilmington,NC for a sunday gig. You would have to pay me 10K a show to keep that schedule, or at least give me plane tickets, but Palm, like Mike Ness is in another state of mind when it comes to touring.

So go see the real deal Friday. Sure Agent Orange plays south florida twice a year, but damnit, the man and the kids he plays with still kill. Opening the show is Broward County's own surf punk, Laramie Dean.

Missed Out On The 90s Local Music Scene Glory Years? South Florida Music Scene Blogspot Has Gotcha Covered. In fact - they have uploaded The long lost ANGER CD!!!!

. The fine folks over at The South Florida Music Scene Past And Present Blogspot  have created a living, breathing collection that reanimates every spilled pabst and jager shot poured at long-closed joints like Washington Square, Cheers, The Foundation, Plus Five (aka the pus dive) and Squeeze (aka "cheese"). 

You may notice that the blog is heavy on the punk rock - and that's because that's all that mattered down here in the 1990s. Sure, you had your natural causes and roosterheads and steven talkhouses - but that wasn't vital outside of Greg Baker's column. The true 305 scene was embodied by crazy bastards like ANGER -  a band made up of two tech metalheads (Alex Marquez, Dennis Munoz ) and two hardcore punk freaks named Gene Navarro and Luis Rodriguez who not only embraced the Scarface caricature of Miami life - they lived it, breathed it, and sang about it on their sole CD, uploaded here for all of posterity.  Rodriguez is credited as the rhythm guitarist - but as one who was at the sessions - I can tell you he played  everything on this record,sans the vocals, solos and the drums. His razor sharp riffage puts this record head and shoulders above any other South Florida  hardcore record - and in my not-so-humble-opinion -- "Miami, Fl" is  the best east coast hardcore record ever made - save for the Cro Mags Age Of Quarrel Lp.  

The title track says it best: "Miami, See It Like A Native -- See it with a gun in your face!"

Has anyone seen Rachel Goodrich and Amy Fiddler in the Same Room At The Same time?

While in the audience at last saturday's Awesome New Republic / Rachel Goodrich bill I couldn't help but think two things:

1) ANR have gotten way freaking better since they opened for Blowfly at the Pawn Shop in 2005. 

2) Rachel Goodrich, she of  WEEDS soundtrack fame and of Rickie Lee Jones act stealing, is an absolute dead ringer for Miami Emo rock impressario Amy Fiddler. Has anyone seen these two in the same room at the same time? Granted Amy is semi-retired from the music biz, save for her hobbyist micro label Jackie Darling, Fiddler (real last name Fleisher) spends her time on Madison Avenue making nifty ads  which you can see at her web site  but who is to say, she's not playing tin pan alley songs on a kazoo in her spare time? It would be easier to swallow than to believe goodrich's backup singer can wear Rickie Lee Jones' wide brimmed hat, do her stage moves  and have no shame in her game.

Here's a picture of Amy, the teenage discoverer of Dashboard Confessional, all grown up. You be the judge:

Nas and Goodie Mob take on the Arsht Center

The touring hip-hop festival Rock The Bells may have skipped Miami in 2009, but that doesn't mean the 305 is missing out completely: Nas and Goodie Mob will take the stage February 5 at the Knight Concert Hall in the Adrienne Arsht Center.

The show is being billed as a one-time event, seeing as this isn't part of a larger tour. Nas hasn't been on the road since the summer's Rock The Bells tour, and he's presumably still working on Distant Relatives, his collaborative LP with Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, due in 2010.

Goodie Mob, the seminal Atlanta foursome that came up in the mid '90s under Outkast's tutelage, is freshly reunited and will also be at the show. Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, Khujo and T-Mo have played a handful of recent shows together, including a rousing performance of "Soul Food" with The Roots on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

And as an added bonus, Miami hip-hop band ¡Mayday! will open for both bands, according to band member Bernbiz.

This isn't the first time the Arsht Center has dabbled into hip-hop: Mos Def and Jay Electronica brought the house down in August.

Tickets for Nas and Goodie Mob range from $34.75 to $84.75 and are available at the Arsht Center's website.

Kid Cudi and Lady Gaga part ways, will both still perform in Miami

Hip-hop wunderkind weirdo Kid Cudi may have left the Lady Gaga Monster Ball Tour on dubious terms (was it for personal reasons, or because he punched a fan?), but he'll still be in South Florida for New Year's Eve.

With some help from G.O.O.D. Music labelmate John Legend, Cudi will be holding down the December 31 festivities at The W Hotel in South Beach. The event will be hosted by Nip/Tuck actress AnnaLynne McCord.

Not to be outdone by Cudi, Lady Gaga will go straight from her tour stop at the James L. Knight Center to the Fontainebleau Miami Beach for a special poolside performance and New Year's countdown. 

 

Who Is Sarah Jacob And Why Is Today The First I've Heard Of Her?

For all the many haters the music scene has out there, there is always one shining light to distract from the negative creeps who comment on here and on my stories. Today, that shining light is the physcially and musically loveliness known as Sara Jacob. Judging by her myspace page that is streaming her entire new album, which is entitled "DAMASK"   Sara is virtually unknown outside of the tiny singer-songwriter scene at North Miami's Luna Star Cafe, which while totally charming,  is barely larger than your bedroom closet.  

and that is a shame - for while some of the tracks on her record are way too long, she has a knack for song structure - and a gorgeous voice that will only get better when she plays more gigs, hopefully one or two of them at a joint I can drink a beer in without knocking someone over when I turn around from the bar.

TONIGHTS NAUGHTY BY NATURE SHOW @ REVOLUTION CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER

snowed in at JFK  = No OPP for FLL tonight -- Who's bummed we get no OPP? Every last homie!

Surfer Blood, the pride of West Palm Beach, Play vagabond tonight, show how fast a band can go up the ladder when they are young, good looking and talented

A few months ago, I wrote about West Palm beach's Indie Pop heroes Surfer Blood who played at the very bottom of a local band bill at the Morningside American Legion Hall. Since that time, they travelled to the CMJ festival in New York City  - and impressed enough of the music cognoscenti to land themselves as an opener at large venues all over the US and even a UK tour including dates opening for British Sea Power.

Once again, being young good looking and liking Brit pop has worked out for someone. That their tuneage sounds kinda like Brian Wilson singing over the Pixies Doolittle Lp doesn't hurt either.

So if you go out on the weekends and wear horn rimmed glasses - you best get to the Vagabond tonight, because this is your last chance to say you saw them in a club in miami. at this rate, they'll be headlining Revolution by next spring and starring in a reality show by  next fall.