Trans Am sure threw its fans for a loop with TA, last year’s self-described “party album.” Especially since the band began as an auspicious instrumental unit, its evolution, which has gradually allowed singing to take center stage, was unforeseen. The ironic edge of ’80s hair-metal and cheesy synth-pop has always…

Selling jazz albums in mass quantities usually involves some sort of trickery: Diana Krall’s blue jeans, for instance. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, a common ploy was to include a contemporary pop standard, reinterpreted instrumentally. Sometimes the end would transcend the means and the result would wind…

www.britesidemusic.com Someone needs to find the template they use to make this omnipresent, post-adolescent, Broward County alt-rock, then smash it — or at least abduct and reprogram it. This Pompano Beach boy band includes Jason Knapfel, who pens a column on the local music scene for the Sun-Sentinel. Brite Side’s…

Bandwidth is the first to admit that a bout with vertebral subluxation is like being vexed by the devil. And nothing can make those pinched nerves happy like a good face-down adjustment on a leather table. But what is it with West Indians and chiropractic care? The preponderance of chiropractors’…

When the Cure completed its last album, 2000’s Bloodflowers, bandleader Robert Smith knew it lacked focus. Eager to give the troubled project some cachet, he said the record was the final installment of a trilogy. Of course, it helped that he chose a pair of the British band’s best-loved works…

Fox may be fair and balanced, all right, but they don’t make it a priority to report the passing of underground celebrities like Wesley Willis. And during a week without e-mail, one is pretty much cut off from the network of journos and music freaks who’d feel obligated to pass…

Another late-night shooting in downtown Fort Lauderdale, only with a twist. Not a racially motivated act, conjectured the cops. This time, it’s a white gangbanger packin’ heat who caps the ass of a black Himmarshee partygoer. It all happened in front of the Friday-night bar crawlers filling the streets, no…

That which is too silly to be said is instead sung, claimed Voltaire. Which may explain why Chris Carrabba, the compact Boca Ratonian who leads Dashboard Confessional, is well on the way to achieving god-like status. A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar, Dashboard Confessional’s follow-up to 2001’s The…

Self-loathing is South Florida’s incurable cancer. The fact is, no one loves this part of the country enough to want to save it. There are dozens of other cities that care enough about themselves that they don’t chase their symphony out of town. And nowhere feeds its historic architecture and…

During the season most of us love to hate, it helps to set the hellacious days and stifling nights to music. A poor substitute in lieu of air conditioning, perhaps, though these recommendations are designed to distract you to the point that you forget about the pool of sweat collecting…

Massachusetts singer-songwriter John P. Alexander has been here before. He hung out with fellow Vietnam vet and former Seminole Chief Jim Billie at a Hollywood nightclub. And he toured South Florida with his sticker-festooned acoustic guitar back in 1999. This information and more was gleaned from his website, johnalexander.com. And…

Miami’s Para has long toyed with the notion of operating as an acoustic duo along the lines of a Latin-tinged Mazzy Star, but singer Jaquelline Biver and guitarist Omar Elesgaray found that transforming their gentle tunes into fleshed-out rockers provided more fun. The band is a full five-piece now, but…

In our long thin sliver of occupied territory, enjoying nighttime entertainment requires a serious commitment. Only a few lucky souls are fortunate enough to live near the scattered outposts of fun and diversion, and many of them wouldn’t be caught dead walking to their destinations. When was the last time…

New Times Broward-Palm Beach fell victim to an elaborate ruse when we published a go-see-it blurb in our Night & Day section for the Necrophiles for Sunday, July 6. When Tavern 213 staff confirmed that the show was indeed to take place that night along with local acts Shortstack and…

Common courtesy dictates that you should never telephone anyone even peripherally involved with the music business until noon — at the earliest. Yet it’s coming up on 4:30 p.m., and Psycho Daisies leader Johnny Salton is still struggling to pull it together to talk about his band’s new album, Snowflakes…

According to Doctor Science and Professor Solstice, summer is officially here. But the usual brutality has been tempered by a second year of rain, daily and weekly rain, endless rain, rain of the feline/canine variety. While we cower and wait for the oppressive temperatures to begin, the seasonal slowdown is…

During short-haired 1983, while MTV helped heat up the nascent New Wave scene, South Florida generally refused to play along. Who cares about A Flock of Missing Persons at Work Without Hats in the Dark when Buffett’s in the backyard? Lake Worth residents Bill and John Storch were 19 and…

Kelly Massing gets pissed every time he opens the phone book. After more than 15 years in the Yellow Pages, he can’t believe what they did to the listing for his Wilton Manors record store, Kelly’s Klassics. After all that time, the phone number is still there, correct and unchanged…

Locating the source of Clematis Street’s troubles is harder than finding the headwaters of the Amazon. Several suspected causes of this West Palm Beach malaise: Wild packs of black kids. The post 9/11 economy. The demonic, overcommercialized CityPlace. Or maybe former WPB Mayor Joel Daves, a downtown resident fond of…

Since his extravagant Secret World tour back in 1994, Peter Gabriel appears to have aged 20 years and added 20 pounds. That’s of little concern to his fans, one imagines. Undeterred by their hero’s taking ten years to release his last album, 2002’s Up, Gabriel’s core audience remains deeply loyal…

Three years and several scores ago, I piloted a Subaru from Colorado’s Queen City of the Plains through Texas and the Redneck Riviera to rain-soaked South Florida. Upon my arrival back in early March of 2000, the folks here at New Times held my tiny hand as I squealed with…

Thanks to the follies of ex-New York Times scribe Jayson “Worse than Linda” Blair, it’s more difficult than ever for writers and reporters to get away with truth-tinkering. Rather than submit to having my floorboards ripped up à la “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Bandwidth has elected to come clean regarding some…