You may think you don’t like ska. In fact, you may be 100 percent certain of it, but that’s no reason to dismiss the Toasters. Yes, the band has been ska’s undisputed American flagship act for upward of 20 years, but that doesn’t mean much to the nonaficionado who isn’t…
I have a new thing,” Pee Wee Ellis, the legendary sax man and bandleader of James Brown’s JBs for much of the ’60s, rasps over the phone from his home in England, where he works with fellow legends like Van Morrison and Oumou Sangare. “It’s called ‘smunk,'” he says. “It’s…
It’s ironic that the latest Shady/Aftermath product rollout is titled The Documentary. With its stylized violence and all-American appeal, the consortium bears a closer resemblance to the latest Jerry Bruckheimer vehicle than it does to an Errol Morris film. There’s even a certain formula: Pluck the latest at-risk superstar from…
Though 2002’s Come with Us had the brothers Chemical stirring all their past ingredients in one pot, the promise far exceeded its result. With last year’s greatest-hits package providing a welcome breather for the techno innovators, it seemed a back-to-basics record was in order. But Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons…
Does this ring a bell? A small-town band with a three-letter name attains cult status by issuing a string of entrancing albums full of cryptic jangle and mumbling majesty. Bored, the group eventually starts to tinker with the very formula that put it on the indie-rock map. Yes, Low has…
From break beats to broken beat, Brazilian Girls specialize in a sort of musical globalization and amalgamated planet rock. Imagine being trapped inside a French film: First you’re riding in a horse and carriage on a cobblestone street; then you pass a subway corner where b-boys are break dancing. Nearby,…
Now that Ice Cube is doing slapstick comedy, we can all agree that the edge of gangsta rap is permanently dulled. The writers of Are We There Yet?, which opened recently in South Florida theaters, originally had in mind Adam Sandler to play the lead role of Nick (a mere…
Catch one of their live shows and you’ll probably be struck by Atomic Tangerine’s boundless vitality. The Orlando hardrock four-piece is all wide smiles and stage presence; the music is instantly likable and bereft of pop cliché. Watch them and you get no hint of the dark days not long…
John Lennon disappeared before most people had his post-Beatles persona figured out; compare what you know of him to your ideas about Paul McCartney, who’s given us more than two decades extra to understand him through goofy Christmas songs, bizarro pop-star collaborations, and the occasional crappy solo album. So you’d…
Like British counterparts Sidestepper and Da Lata, Domenico+2 offers further proof that Brazilian music can yield some of the most intriguing forays into electro-trad fusion. The key difference between those groups, though, is that Domenico+2 is actually Brazilian. And that indigenous legacy is important: Guitarist Moreno Veloso is the son…
For proof that a Grammy doesn’t always signify a band’s best work, consider British reggae legends Steel Pulse. The band’s 1986 LP Babylon the Bandit swelled with squishy synths, programmed drums, and bubblegum reggae-pop songs with titles like “School Boy Crush” and “Sugar Daddy.” Largely devoid of sociopolitical commentary, it…
The youngest MTV viewers know Xzibit primarily as the host of Pimp My Ride, in which he comes across as the benign, good-humored benefactor of shitbox autos. Musically, though, his grin turns to grim on a regular basis. Weapons is characteristic of his work: a spare, stern hip-hop foray that…
A friend says everyone needs one Ani record but nobody should bother with two. This discounts the achievement of the first half of DiFranco’s career, when she achieved power and clarity on a half-dozen discs. But following Dilate in 1996, which announced her as human even as she brushed something…
The ominous grooves that Shivaree creates for its tales of treachery, frustrated sexuality, and emotional defeat sound like the disjointed music emanating from a carny sideshow tent after midnight. Eerie hints of tango, girl-group R&B, spaghetti Western guitar, and musical saw all drift through the disjointed soundscapes, weaving a spell…
Miami’s I/O Lounge was at half capacity January 14, the crowd divided between hard-core hip-hop heads and general-interest partiers ready to recite lyrical ringers like “Yo mama’s got a peg leg with a kickstand.” Former Pharcyde fellow Fatlip was headlining, but by the time he wrapped up his couldn’t-call-it-a-comeback set,…
From the “Big Truck Round-Up” banner and the open-air toilet barely concealed by a chunk of drywall to the graveyard of broken instruments strewn around the stained concrete floor, Two Story Double Wide’s Delray Beach warehouse is more reminiscent of a central Alabama shanty than a rehearsal studio — all…
“Indeed, some of my most pleasurable moments on a tour occur in the struggle to secure a working payphone on a rainy night with only 10 minutes until the bus will finally and irrevocably leave my ass behind somewhere in Missouri. For it is of this stuff — an essence…
It was an era rife with history, one engraved with the underpinnings of dance culture. Through the early ’90s, the U.K. music scene witnessed the dual explosion of Britpop and club music, the latter of which united them both through its carefree, drug-fueled settings. The Renaissance label, which picked up…
James “Baby Huey” Ramey (1944-70) is legendary to soul/R&B collectors. Back in the ’60s, the Rolling Stones would squeeze into packed clubs to see him. Popular locally but unknown beyond Chicago, he and his band the Babysitters seemed poised for national stardom, but Huey — cursed with a serious glandular-induced…
He was never going to be confused with Tupac while alive, but the late, great prankster Ol’ Dirty Bastard is now shadowing him in the lucrative hip-hop afterlife. Like Pac, he’s left a maternal hand on his till of posthumous product, the only question being how much of it exists…
M83’s 2003 album, Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts was straight-up Blade Runner material, circa Los Angeles 2019. Dark and extravagant, it demanded proper subservience, too intense for a pedestrian spin on the stereo. While it garnered the group overseas adoration akin to that enjoyed by other French knob-twiddlers,…
Wes Anderson’s new film is his moodiest, most adult yet: Bill Murray’s Steve Zissou, a washed-up oceanographer/filmmaker plainly modeled after Jacques Cousteau, has a heart of gold, of course, but he also curses and behaves irrationally and commands unpaid interns to make him lattes on stolen espresso machines. The film’s…
