Much like their trip-hop fore-bearers Portishead, Swedish electro pop act Little Dragon has sailed above the genre heap thanks to having a one-in-a-million female voice out front. Singer Yukimi Nagano's soulful alto has already taken her on top of the pop charts( #1 UK, #2 US), as a the lead singer for two tracks off of Gorillaz' "Plastic Beach" Lp. Now with a full world tour with Gorillaz under their belt, Nagano and Little Dragon are touring behind their second Lp, 2009's Machine Dreams, while debuting new material at a coyly referred to new album that will most likely launch them into stardom.
Tonight, after 4 years of being shut out from the most dynamic new female pop singer on earth, the 305 finally gets a peak at Nagano at the Electric Pickle tonight. Go tonight, or pay three times as much and see them at the Fillmore next year.
In 1985, Fishbone released their debut self titled EP, fusing ska, comedy, punk rock, funk and the kitchen sink into a potent musical punch that has continued to influence culture some 26 years after its release.
It's no mystery that the uber popular kids show Yo Gabba Gabba takes many cues from the 'bone, as it's creator is the singer for 3rd wave ska band the Aquabata, but you could've knocked the Fisher brothers over with a feather if you told them back in the day that they would influence Mama Doni: a Jewish-themed, female-fronted, children's music act.
Sure, Klezmer and Ska share tempos and instrumentation - but Fishbone's skanktastic influence (through the filters of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt) is felt through the first half of "Shabbat Shaboom." There is more ska than you can throw a schtick at, and enough musical hybrids to fill up a Toyota dealership.
But while Mama Doni's musical roots are traceable to South Central LA, her subject matter is strictly kosher. Not since Woody Allen's "Radio Days", has American Jewish youth culture been celebrated with such a sublime mix of silly and substantive.
It's hard not to smile during "Chicken A La Tango," no matter how old you are. So when Mama Doni channels her Yen(ta) Stefani and boogies on "Sabbath Queen" - it's very easy to imagine 6-11 year old jewish kids throwing down at the JCC or during Hebrew school study breaks. And if they get any questions from their goyam friends about their heritage, they can throw on "Shabbat Shaboom" and have an edu-dance.
The mash up is the most quintessentially democratic music form going today. You don't need to learn an instrument. You don't need to form independent compositions on a computer. You just need a record collection/mp3 file folder and the ability to mix two records that ordinarily wouldn't belong together.The trick is to dig tracks from the back of the audiences' cerebrum -to mix the uncool with the cool - the guilty pleasure with the hot track and make the musical salad into a melting pot.
For the last 10 years, DJ Z-Trip has been the mash up king, circling the globe with his Serrato kit and taking prisoners. He's mixed 808 Handclaps to Nirvana, mixed Queen and Black Sabbath, put Bad Brains and Booker T and The MGs in one phrase and managed to get hip hop kids all over the world to sing classic rock songs.
While Z-Trip isn't quite as fun to watch with Serato as he was when he mixed vinyl live back in the day, you can bet your overpriced bottle of vodka that his hump-day party at LIV tonight will go off as soon as he plays "Walk This Way."
When The Ramones fired off the first shots in the Punk Rock revolution back in 1975, they were a reactionary movement. Disgusted with the radio's state of corporate rock and disco, they attempted to recreate Phil Spector's 20-person-strong wrecking crew hit factory with three chords, two amps and a cloud of dust. By the time they did their victory lap on the Lollapalooza Tour in 1996, the Ramones had successfully given music a teenage lobotomy, despite never having a hit record.
A year after The Ramones gave birth to punk rock, Bruno Esposito, the one man band known as Lone Wolf, came into the world. By the time he was in grade school, he knew he had two paths: music and food. While his food was good enough to become the sous chef for mango-gang leader Chef Allen Susser before he hit 25, Esposito's true calling is music. He knocked around Miami's punk scene for years, before distinguishing himself as the stand-up bassist for local psychobilly quartet The Van Orsdales.
After his tenure on the greaser circuit, Esposito relocated to Georgia to attend luthier school. His childhood hobby of fashioning guitars out of kite strings and shoeboxes transformed from a passion into a profession, as Esposito quickly fashioned a line of banjos out of cigar boxes and chewing tobacco cans.
Esposito has taken punk's DIY ethic to a new level. Rather than drag a drummer or a drum machine on the road, Esposito bangs out a straight 4 beat on a kick drum ala Joe Buck Yourself. But while Buck screams about tractors, Esposito's Lone Wolf character vocals are a low simmering guttural growl. Lone Wolf doesn't need to scream at his fans. He's too busy picking out lines on his home made banjo or deciding how many shots of Jim Beam to down before launching into a Robert Johnson-influenced gut-bucket blues.
Eric Clapton may have popularized "Crossroads" but if you can afford a junkie nurse, chances are you've never actually gone to one and dared the Devil. Lone Wolf may be playing small clubs, but that's only because the Devil is ducking his challenge. The Devil knows Esposito can make a ragu out of his hooves and horns and braise his tail in a wine reduction. The Devil knows Esposito can ride a 10-speed 75 mph down a mountain at daybreak, miss the tour bus, and still make a gig 400 miles away. The Devil knows Esposito could make the fiddle of gold Charlie Daniels got off him, and Esposito doesn't need to wager his soul - or his pizzeria in Costa Rica to get it.
But every night on the bandstand, Lone Wolf is wagering that the Blues he loves is still worth singing in a society that values music less than Satan does. If that's good enough for Daddy, that should be good enough for you to go to Churchill's tonight.
While the University Of Miami's pop concert programming has been known to host semi-edgy alternative acts like Girl Talk and The Godfathers - the non-classical acts sponsored by their esteemed Frost school of music over the years are usually about as challenging as a six-piece puzzle. Schools as tiny as Bard and Vassar host a multitude of cutting edge acts every year. By contrast, Toots Thielman's harmonica (best known for the theme to "Sesame Street" is the heaviest thing that's rocked (the on campus) Gusman Hall in memory.
The 26th annual SEAMUS electronic music festival seeks to change all that. Starting this afternoon, 120 acts will perform, for free, by 10PM saturday night. This necessitates a rather bizarre schedule that starts at 8:30 AM(!) Friday morning for a slate including Kansas-based sound designer/composer Kip Haaheim. Even more bizarre is presenting a lifetime achievement award to avant garde music legend Laurie Anderson at Key Biscayne's most infamous tourist trap, The Rusty Pelican. Sure, the RP's views of downtown are spectacular. But at this rate, by the time SEAMUS pays tribute to Aphex Twin, the awards ceremony will be held on a glass bottom boat at Pennekamp Park.
Anderson will briefly sing for her awards supper as part of a Gusman lineup that begins at 7:30 pm on Saturday. For more details, click here.
In case you missed the drone rock era of the late 1980s/early 1990s favoured by My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr, you are in luck. LA duo NO AGE has both revived the genre and played Miami more often in the last year than many of our own hometown acts. Their latest LP, Everything In Between, was released last September to wide acclaim. When they aren't kicking out the moody jams in Miami (they recently played both Sweatstock and Art Basel), No Age have found themselves on festival bills with many an alt-rock titan, who are probably amused when they start cranking out G.G. Allin and Black Flag covers.
Tuesday night shows are a rare treat nowadays, so get thee to overtown and support No Age. Perhaps if you buy enough merch, they'll consider hiring a touring bassist.
Nine years after the first edition of "American Hardcore: A Tribal History" came out, and four years after the book was made into a documentary, author/ex-promoter Steven Blush is taking the second edition of the book out on the road, ostensibly to let the kids have their say. But as he is old enough to be a grandpa to a 2011 version of Harley Flanagan, the book tour is more like a traveling musical anthropology tour.
Tonight you can expect discussion of what it means to be straight edge. You can expect tales of street justice. You will hear about Positive Mental Attitude. The praises of The Bad Brains will be sung. Ian MacKaye will be discussed, and there most likely will be at least one story involving the Boston vs NYHC grudge match.
The book ends in 1986, right around the time Miami punk rock scene began to take off. Many hardcore bands of that era had either gone metal (Black Flag, DRI), alt rock (The Replacements, Husker Du) or disbanded, so while it is a decent jumping off point to describe that scene, one might ask Blush why he feels further generations of punk/hardcore/postpunk weren't worthy of his attention. Why indeed is he doing a second edition of his first book, rather than making a volume 2?
Regardless, if you've spent time in the cameo theater (circa 85-89), Cheers, Flynns or the Thrash Can - chances are you'd be interested in hearing Blush speak tonight at Sweat Records. It starts at 8 PM, so it almost counts as nightlife. And if you're not embarrassed to admit you used to run around in circles, bring the kids along. Maybe you can put them off the whole teenage rebellion bit in one shot.
It speaks volumes about the state of the music world that the man with the biggest soul songs of 2006 and 2010 is playing a nightclub on a wednesday night. However, far be it for me to look Miami Beach's gift-horse Cee Lo Green gig in the mouth.
For those who remember (and how could you possibly forget?) 2006's ubiquitous smash "Crazy" , which Green sang as a member of Gnarls Barkley, Green 1-upped himself with last year's "F*** You" (clean version, "forget you") "F*** You" is a timeless ode to having your heartstrings pulled and stomped on by the pretty people. It's up for multiple grammy awards, making it one of the rare times in that craptacular show's history that the best pop song of the year has been nominated. And oddly enough, the video is even better than the song. It's a classic bit of musical americana that belongs on Broadway alongside Avenue Q.
Some folks think that having a #1 song with a profanity in the title is a sign of cultural degeneration. I think they could use a little more protien in their diets and a stump remover. But take a listen to the clean version and decide for yourself if the dirty words wouldn't tell the story better.
Have you been country since county stopped being cool? Does the 21st century's answer to pop metal make you want to put on a cowboy hat and drive your pick-up to sawgrass mills to buy a pair of discounted wranglers?
Well if so, you are in luck! You don't need to make date night plans until late fall, thanks to the Cruzan Amphitheater "Megaticket." The megaticket has two varieties. Option A is the reasonable lawn ticket - which is $149 for all six concerts. The shows begin with the St. Patrick's Day Kenny Chesney / Uncle Kracker concert and end with Toby Keith's October 15th shindig. If you don't mind using binoculars, and having overpriced Budweiser spilled on your beach blanket - that's the way to go.
But if you'd like to see Tim McGraw's movie star mug or Rascal Flatt's guitar picking with the naked eye, you will be parting with a whopping $799 smackeroos (plus service charges)for "gold circle" seats which promise a reserved parking space and the same "pavilion seat" for each show.
Apparently, the megaticket is recession proof. Arenas all over the US have adopted it. But then, what's a missed mortgage payment? Is it really important when you can see Kenny Chesney "fly" over the audience like Motley Crue did in 1990?
Back in the early-1990s, Sebadoh made hardcore hip to the skinny pants set by switching instruments at the end of their shows and blasting out Minutemen, Necros and SSD covers. Over the years, the hardcore scene has returned the favor, with hardcore labels putting out indie rock records in the hopes of broadening their market share / actually putting out records that the owners listen to, rather than the kids they sell too.
This expansion was disastrous when Lookout! records stopped paying punk bands like Avail, Operation Ivy and Green Day their royalties in order to fund indie rock bands like the Reputation. But it looks like it is going to work out for Boston-based Bridge 9 records. On tuesday, B9 will release Pebble, the latest record by Buffalo, NY female-fronted trio Lemuria. As Lemuria's previous album was released by ska-punk label Asian Man, and the trio has toured with punk and hardcore bands their entire career - commercially it's not that much of a stretch.
Sonically however, it's a huge leap from Bridge 9's bread and butter thug rock. While Lemuria's core members have played time in hardcore bands, it's pretty hard to imagine their sunny, Belly-meets-Jawbox power pop in an ipod shuffle with OG New York hardcore label-mates Agnostic Front. But when your younger brother comes home from college, it could be fun to upload a a B9 mash-up of AF's"victim in pain"/ and Lemuria's "gravity" on his ipod before he gets on the treadmill and see if he trips. Or better yet, go down to Churchill's saturday night and tell him you watched Bridge 9's hottest new band right from the middle of the "pit" the whole night - and didn't even spill your drink.
