On the front of At Sixes and Sevens, Jason Loewenstein’s name appears scrawled in a feverishly etched, scratched-over-for-emphasis font very similar to the one Pavement used to grace the cover of its celebrated 1992 album, Slanted and Enchanted. This is worth mentioning because Loewenstein is a former member of Sebadoh,…
The alt-country boom seems to have mellowed a bit, but it certainly hasn’t hit the skids the way tech stocks have. It’s still alive and very healthy, with Ryan Adams boasting one of the finest records of 2001 and Wilco having released a great album (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) this year…
Don’t make plans to hit the final Frannipalooza — the blowout that was scheduled for early September in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Founder Franni Howe-Southern, who recently unloaded most of her overgrown land south of Sailboat Bend, has sniffed out some new digs south of St. Augustine and won’t even be…
If Kruder and Dorfmeister are a blunt before breakfast, then Jazzanova is cocktails after dinner. Stylish and sophisticated, Jazzanova’s debut LP, In Between (discounting 2000’s remix collection), is a journey through nu jazz that you’re not likely to forget. The six-man team from Germany has dominated the jazz-dance and downtempo…
Like virtually all products of American culture, hip-hop has traveled on globalism’s winds to take root in the unlikeliest of places — from Serbia to São Paulo. Africa Raps: Senegal, Mali, and the Gambia, a compilation on German label Trikont, brings rap’s Afrocentric tendencies full circle, collecting recent material from…
In the past, Blackalicious’ Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel wasted a lot of breath dissing mainstream rap, but the crew’s latest album focuses on broader themes. The current single, “Make You Feel That Way,” works like an intimate list of meditation topics, listing concepts and actions that convey love…
Sandwiched between a large desk and credenza at his Boca Raton-based Hardware World distribution company, DJ Hardware maintains a polished-businessman persona. Todd Greenhouse, a.k.a. Hardware, makes a living DJ-ing and handling A&R accounts for several record labels, including New York City’s hip underground imprint Adrenalin and his own start-up, Pure…
There is a line outside the entrance to Piccadilly Garden in Miami’s Design District on this summer Saturday night at 10, but not for the usual clubland reasons. There is no pretentious doorman. There are no partygoers bluffing about who is on the mythical guest list. Instead Trinidad, the pleasant,…
Seville — one of the area’s most promising acts — has tossed in the terrycloth. Friday night, while the foursome milled about the Factory for an early show featuring Koufax, Hey Mercedes, and the Rocking Horse Winner, bassist Dan Bonebrake was all smiles as he shared the obit appearing on…
The congenitally collegiate Brooklyn-based indie-pop outfit Aden named its last two albums, Black Cow and Hey 19, after Steely Dan songs, and though the idiosyncrasies the band buries within the fussy clean-channel noodling on its new Topsiders probably wouldn’t attract the attention of Messrs. Fagen and Becker– (Can you imagine…
Not to be confused with L. Shankar (the violinist famous for his work with Echo and the Bunnymen and Peter Gabriel), vocalist Lakshmi Shankar is the sister-in-law of sitar master Ravi Shankar. Active in India’s performing arts circles since the 1940s, Shankar performs Hindustani songs that are among the subcontinent’s…
Totó la Momposina is a one-woman walking encyclopedia of Colombian musical folklore. She’s also something of a perfectionist. A band with the chops and horn section wielded by her ensemble could easily have cranked out an entire disc of the blazing, salsa-influenced rave-up that opens Pacantó. The title cut transforms…
With fellow Swedes the Hives garnering a lot of hype for doing a not-bad imitation of the Hellacopters, it’s time for these Nordic gods to reclaim the throne of Snowcap Rock. For one thing, the ‘Copters have been around almost a decade. In that time they’ve always steadfastly subscribed to…
Although Afro-Cuban music is the music of West Africa filtered through a distinctly Cuban lens, that’s only part of the story; Cuban music has profoundly influenced musical styles all over the continent of Africa. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Congolese rumba (which mutated into soukous), a dance…
Like father, like son. Those are words for music-industry execs to live by. Especially if good ol’ Pop still has what it takes to sell albums and his last name can help launch his offspring. Of course, show-biz lore is full of children of famous parents who made it (mom…
See those red cheeks? No, over this way. Sorry — we’re blushing with pride up in here. This paper has held an unenviable underdog status when it comes to local music festivals. Behind the competition’s formidable stranglehold on the music-fest market, any attempt by New Times to begin its own…
Yes, nü-garage is the new grunge, and yes, Australia’s Vines began life as a Nirvana cover band. But if the teenagers that make up the quartet continue down the eclectic and electric path Highly Evolved lays down, there’s no doubt that they’ll outlive the hype. (They were called the second…
Following an unfortunate turn to homogenized Latin pop with Tito Puente Jr., the Musicians Exchange returns to pristine form this week when it hosts jazz multi-instrumentalist/legend Ira Sullivan. As Chicago became a linchpin in both the jazz and blues scenes in the 1950s, Sullivan emerged as one of the city’s…
If The Willies is any indication, Bill Frisell could probably make “Achy Breaky Heart” sound like a walk in the clouds. Here, the rangy jazz guitarist, banjo player (and Bad Liver) Danny Barnes, and bassist Keith Lowe revisit the terrain Frisell explored on 1995’s Nashville, spinning a handful of folk…
People started talking all kinds of mumbo-jumbo about Bob Marley almost before he was cold in the ground, but before he was a conveniently agreed-upon symbol for vague ideas about good times and world peace, he was an uncommonly sharp writer of deceptively simple pop songs. What was more, he…
“I am not one of these thug-rapper guys,” Cee-Lo Green announces on his solo debut. It’s by proclaiming his difference that this member of the Atlanta-based rap crew Goodie Mob discovers himself. With his Perfect Imperfections, Green stakes out his place in a long line of rock and soul eccentrics…
DJ The Wookee, a.k.a. Angelo Jordan, opens the door of his Fort Lauderdale pad, while holding the collar of his male pit bull Niko, who starts howling and scratching on the door after he puts him in the other room. His living room is consumed by his three turntables, mixer,…
