Miami Music Blog

​Night Watch is a regularly-occurring feature by nightlife columnist Tara Nieuwesteeg.

Last weekend, it took a minute for me to muster up the courage to enter The Warehouse Pub (1599 NW 1st Court, Boca Raton; 561-392-3798).

Sure, this was Boca, but still -- the pub was located in a dark part of town, and pick-up trucks (blaring country music) packed the parking lot. Good ol' boys stood smoking and laughing raucously out front.

I darted inside and was relieved--I discovered a narrow, well-lit room that smelled overwhelmingly like buttered popcorn. The place sported disco balls, lots of mirrors, paper Halloween decorations, and homey, wooden walls. The black-marble bar was narrow, but ran into a bigger room, with a few pool tables and several framed collages filled with drinking, smiling faces--many sporting big mustaches and outdated haircuts. The place was slammed, too--with the sort of familiar-faced, knee-slapping, hard-drinking crowd you find in the local watering holes of tiny country towns.

​According to the Yacht Manifesto #1: "Yacht is a Band, Belief System, and Business conducted by Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans of Marfa, Texas and Portland, Oregon, USA." Also, Yacht "seeks to explore frontiers and to expand awareness of extraterrestrial Intelligence" and "believes in an Afterlife," but "does not believe in 'Heaven' or 'Hell.'" Moreover, the manifesto screams: "YACHT IS NOT A CULT."

Hmm ... Now, I don't know about you, but when somebody reassures me that whatever weird shit they're into isn't a cult, it's usually time to assume that the aforementioned weird shit is indeed a cult. And that goes double when the statement is made in italicized capital letters. It's the typographic equivalent of crazy eyes.

Really though, who cares? Cult or not a cult, so long as Yacht keeps pounding out art-pop party hits -- such as "See A Penny (Pick It Up)" -- and giving them out for free at TeamYacht.com, this thing seems to be all about good tunes and good times. That said, if there's so much as a single mention of castration, carving swastikas into human flesh, or Kool-Aid, I am so fucking gone.

Saturday, November 14. Electric Pickle, 2826 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Doors open at 10 p.m., and tickets cost $10 through Epoplife.com. Ages 21+ with ID. 305-456-5613; Electric Pickle at Facebook.com

​Night Watch is a regularly-occurring nightlife column by Tara Nieuwesteeg.

Boca is not renowned for much except its manicured shopping plazas, delicious lunch spots, and its armies of early-bird-special-seeking Q-tips who make the roads a little less safe and the frozen yogurt shops a little more busy.

But Boca and I have a long and complicated history; our lives are as entwined as a pair of melodramatic lovers caught between adulation and detestation; constantly rolling in and out of each other's beds; packing suitcases, flinging vases, and then naming our future children. The point is, I love Boca (sometimes) and believe its bright spots should be brought to our readership's collective attention. Just because most things in Boca close before 8 PM doesn't mean the fun spots do.

Photo by Ian Witlen

MSTRKRFT at 2009's Ultra Music Festival.

​If there is one guarantee in life is that Ultra Music Festival's lineup is always one of the best in the country. Need proof? Early-bird, two-day tickets to the festival, which sold for $99.95, are gone. What's impressive is that it happened without a single act being announced for the 2010 edition.

But don't fret, tickets to the festival haven't really sold out. Two-day general admission tickets are now being sold for $139.95 (plus all those taxes and ticketing charges). Still no word on who exactly will be performing, but if you're smart you'll probably want to snag some tickets right away. The festival will take place March 26 and 27 at Bicentennial Park in downtown Miami. Tickets are available now via ultramusicfestival.com.

​
In this age of laptop-toting faux live electronic dance music acts, an actual band employing actual live instrumentation and vocals is a rare thing, especially when said band is delivering funked-out dancefloor bangers like 2020Soundsystem. The musical brainchild of Leeds-based DJ and esteemed 2020Vision label owner Ralph Lawson, the Soundsystem was formed in 2003 as a means of interweaving live electronics with his DJ sets and transcending the tried-and-true record-jockeying formula at the clubs.

Originally a duo comprising Lawson and percussionist Danny "Dubble D" Ward, the project became a quartet when Argentine transplants Fernando Pulichino and Julian Sanza where invited to join on bass and keyboards, respectively. Furthermore, the band began to experiment with guest vocalists, including an early collaboration with singer Diane Charlemagne, of Goldie's "Inner City Life" fame, although Pulichino himself has since taken up lead vocal duties.

The band has enjoyed increasing recognition since 2005, when they closed the Sonar music festival in Barcelona to an audience of 10,000 people, the live recording of which became disc 2 of their first album, No Order. The Live at Sonar disc is now widely regarded as a seminal work of live electronica and DJ/musician collaboration, and gave the band's sound more cohesion as they worked towards the completion of sophomore album, Falling, released in September 2009. Crossfade had a chance to catch up with DJ Ralph Lawson on the cusp of 2020Soundsystem's live performance at LIV on Saturday night and ask him what they're all about.

2020Soundsystem at LIV. Saturday, November 7. Doors open at 10:30 p.m. $25 cover. 4441 Collins Ave. (Fontainebleau Hotel) Miami Beach. 305-674-4680.

Read the full Q&A after the jump.

photo by Jipsy / Nefariousgirl.com

Radioboxer plays a FLIFF party at Cinema Paradiso

​Friday, November 6

Girls who rock...plus Johnny.

​Alright, if you're not headed up to FLIFF tonight to catch Radioboxer at Cinema Paradiso, but you are in the mood for a little local rocking this weekend, there's a simple solution. It involves floors covered in a perpetual sheen of freshly spilt beer, a haze of cigarette smoke so thick it makes the eyes water and a bathroom where at least seven new infections as yet unknown to man are no doubt being cultured at this very moment. That's right, I'm talking about Churchill's. Where else would you find such a decidedly rock 'n' roll element in Miami?

And tomorrow night they've got a pretty sick lineup waiting to make a hell of a lot of noise. They've got Guilty Fingers (but who doesn't?), Sector 11 and Eztorbo Social. And Guerrilleros de Nadie. The three-piece band, comprised of guitarist/vocalist Michi, bassist Twan and drummer Johnny, play loud, and they play fast. And they're music is really, really aggressive. Plus, they kick ass bilingually, which is like getting a beatdown with the SAP turned on. If you want to rock hard, Guerrilleros' thrash punk is your ticket.

Guerrilleros de Nadie perform at Churchill's Pub (5501 NE 2nd Ave.) on Saturday, November 7.

via Flickr user xshotbymk

​Tonight: The new jam capital of the world, Broward County, welcomes The Radiators to Culture Room. Peaches, who is probably the polar opposite of every jam band ever, is playing Revolution Live. Surf rockers Cutback are playing a rum fueled show at Mai Kai tonight, and reggae masterminds 4th Dimension are at the Dive Bar.

Tomorrow night, if you're not checking out heavy metal dance music in Miami, you can catch the Radiators again at Culture Room, Nuggets at Talent Farm, or City of God at Solid Sound Studios.

Sunday, check out Hit The Lights at Culture Room if you need to end the weekend on a bang or Bernard Allison at Back Room Blues Bar if you're looking to wind it down.

​We checked them out in the studio and then followed their adventures on their latest national tour... So Crossfade fully recommends Jacobs Ladder's EP release party tonight at, of course, Churchill's. Yes, this kicks off another tour, this time around the Southeast and a little bit up the East Coat, as far as Brooklyn. Too bad there isn't such a thing as frequent van miles. Your $10 entry gets you a free copy of the EP, Ours For the Taking, which is worth owning physically because the album art is awesome. The excellent retro-ish power-poppers of Ex Norwegian also play, as do frequent Jacobs Ladder bill-sharers Flower Flower Yes and I Shot Broadway, and finally, Talent Farm/Solid Sound Studios mainstays Vega Under Fire.

The Miami-based, 26-year-old Rico Love is quietly becoming one of the industry's most sought-after R&B and pop arrangers and songwriters. Starting out in his early 20s as a rapper in Atlanta, he got his real boost when, as a performer, Usher signed him to his J Records imprint. And while working on his debut album, Rico penned a little tune for his mentor as an experiment. That song was Usher's "Throwback," one of the standout tunes on the singer's 2004 album Confessions.

After some time in Atlanta and L.A., Rico Love moved to Miami about a year and a half ago to work with locally born and bred hit-maker Jim Jonsin. And so I met him last night, at the studio he shares with Jonsin, to discuss the various projects he's got in the works. Rico Love is about to blow up -- last night he was awaiting the arrival of Kelly Rowland, so they could work on a number of vocals for her next solo album. Next week he'll be working on Nelly's comeback, he wrote about half of the next Usher album, and to name a random track, you can currently hear him on Fat Joe's "Aloha," which also features Pleasure P.

Check back on Crossfade over the next couple of weeks for a better introduction to Rico Love. But, OMG, what I want to talk about right now is that he's also responsible for the latest Leighton Meester single, "Somebody to Love," which features Robin Thicke, above. It's a sleazy-sexy, Madonna-style electro dance number.