Miami Music Blog

​After a seemingly endless heyday, rap-rock eventually became one of the most reviled musical artifacts of the end of the last millennium. But it's been more than a decade since then. Fred Durst has disappeared from everywhere except Twitter, and critical darlings like Cage are starting to rhyme over guitars again. So the timing of Miami band Alukard's debut full-length, One Shot, seems fortuitous. To lump it in with the crappy nu-metal-with-scratching of two decades ago, though, would be seriously wrong.

via myspace.com/bobbytakcharliepickett

Charlie Pickett and Bobby Tak

​Here's a track from the forthcoming collaborative effort between some of South Florida's most notorious, adept and unfortunately under-recognized musicians. We're talking here about Bobby Tak (formerly of the Bobs and New Wave sensations the Cichlids), guitar master Charlie Pickett, and Ian Hammond (of the DT Martyrs).

I'll be examining their previous output in depth on my weekly Blast From the Past columns here on Crossfade. In the meantime, though, check this collaborative effort from the trio. Together, they play as the Loose Cannons, and promise a new album dropping sometime soon. Enjoy their cow-punk blues racket.

MP3: The Loose Cannons - "Wilderness"

Flux Forces makes your favorite cassettes

​It's Friday and the radio's reporting a current temp of 83 degrees. Your Datsun's dash clock is busted but your Casio wristwatch reads 7:39 p.m., which means this trip is still on schedule, but barely. You're bored, sick of the public airwaves and things like the weather, so you press play on a mixtape you made this morning. The first three songs slip by unnoticed while you negotiate tight traffic at the Beach end of the MacArthur Causeway. Shit's clogged. 

​Over at our post announcing the first phase of Ultra's line-up this year, commenters have been divided. One camp seemed appalled by the new presence of jam-scene-birthed acts like Lotus, Pretty Lights, and the Disco Biscuits. The other camp's reaction can basically be summed up thusly: "FUCK YEAH BISCO!"

If anything was proven by the slightly ravey afterparties for both Phish's local New Year's Eve run and this past January's Jam Cruise, it's that 2010 is the year of "livetronica." Jam band fans long ago discovered that electronic sounds are ripe for experimentation and the sort of mass group ecstasy produced by guitar-music festivals. And dance music fans -- yours truly included -- seem to finally grudgingly accept that experimentation and improvisation isn't just for people in patchwork pants.

Thank the Disco Biscuits for helping to pioneer this long-building crossover. The Philadelphia band first got together in 1995, when the founding members met while attending the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, they've been experimenting with a sound sometimes called "trance fusion," which is something of a misnomer. No, they don't play at Infected Mushroom-style scary BPMs. But what they do accomplish, however, is the creation of dance-style grooves that still leave room for surprises.

​You may believe you're only just be getting acquainted with his name, but that's something he promises to change very soon. And in truth, Yeyo's been a lot closer than you may think for some time now, well within earshot, but just on the verge of something bigger. The Puerto Rican born rapper/producer moved to Miami seven years ago from his hometown of Cupey to follow his dream of breaking into the rap game. And it's something he's worked tirelessly to achieve, first studying audio engineering to give him understanding of the craft. But 2005 was his breakout year, a year when big things would happen. In one year, he not only started his own imprint, The Art of Sound Group, but he joined forces with the powerful backing of Sony, landing a publishing contract as well as a record deal for his group The DEY, a Latin hip hop group with whom he released  highly buzzed about EP The DEY Has Come and appeared on such colabs as Paula DeAnda's "Walk Away" and Sean Kingston's "There's Nothing" remix.

On his own, Yeyo also added to the string of accomplishments a Grammy nod for his appearance on Locos Por Juana's "Tu Sabes Muy Bien (La Nalga)." And you can add to that mix for good measure a pair of ASCAP awards and global appearances. Not too shabby for a young dude from PR who you're just getting to know, huh? His recently released EP The Life of a Warrior, which dropped in late December, is the next step on that trajectory. And his single, "Please DJ" featuring Notch and Itagui of LPJ, is the catalyst. Already the song's getting added at radio stateside and getting plenty of spins abroad.

And because we like you--I mean, really like you--like in that "let's hold hands" kind of way, we're hooking you up with that very track, right here for free. Hit the jump to get it.

via myspace.com/thomasfunction

​The Alabama foursome Thomas Function makes its label home on Fat Possum, that originally Epitaph-spawned label that began as a blues imprint. That family tree indeed tells you a bit about the band's sound -- propelled largely by a punky euphoria, but informed by a bit of a Muscle Shoals thrust. (Check out those soulful organ stabs).

Yes, this is low-pretense, vaguely retro-sounding stuff of the kind that's de rigeur in the circles of rock lovers who are exhausted by the overproduction of Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, and Grizzly Bear, et. al. Where Thomas Function sets itself apart from a lot of the shitgaze/lo fi/garage/whatever pack, though, is with tunes that are, at their core, downright strummy and feel-good. There's no shame in sticking some feel-good hooks under all those layers of fuzz.

Here's the band's song "Conspiracy of Praise," off the album Belly of the Beast off the band's 2008 debut album, Celebration. The quartet is currently touring behind the 2009 follow-up, In the Valley of Sickness.

MP3: Thomas Function - "Conspiracy of Praise"

Thomas Function With Teepee, Electric Bunnies, and Manny Mangos 9 p.m. Friday, January 29 The American Legion, 6445 NE 7th Ave., Miami Admission is free; ages 21 and up; 954-394-2763; harveysbythebay.com

​If bouts of casual pyromania are your idea of a perfect night out, then consider the hairy, sweaty, and certifiably dangerous members of Monotonix your Israeli tour guides to paradise. Like IDF explosive experts or any troglodyte teen with a Zippo, the Monotonix men -- singer Ami Shalev, guitarist Yonatan Gat, and drummer Haggai Fershtman -- think fire is the funnest invention of all time. And that's why they insist on setting flame to whatever the fuck happens to be hanging around the stage ... Guitars, girls, you. 

​Radioboxer ain't fuckin' around. And they want you to know it. They've started off the year on a mean tear. First, there was a gig at everyone's favorite punk/rock haven, Churchill's, last Thursday. Then on Saturday, they rocked the Design District courtesy of Bardot. And they've got more opportunities still for you to catch them in the coming weeks. On the 29th they've slated a show for Propaganda, where the Palm Beach-bound can take in their sound. And on the 30th they're hitting up Miami's oldest bar, Tobacco Road. More shows lined up for February, including a special Valentines Day show. But more on that later.

Meanwhile, they're working hard on new music in anticipation of a second album. And because you're loyal readers, we're gonna hook you up with a brand new track, not on last year's kick ass debut Radio Drama. Here's a live recording of "Last Hero in Town."

In the early- to mid-aughts there was a huge deluge of post-Strokes revivalists that flooded and clogged the scene. Sometime around 2006, it all hit critical mass, Casablancas and Co. went on indefinite hiatus, and the thing began to die. Meanwhile, a new trend -- electro-tinged, indie pop mash-ups -- bubbled up for the late-aughts and this new decade. 

Photo by Ian Witlen

​The stoner metal hardliners ain't gonna like this one, but, shock, horror, Allen Blickle, drummer of the awesome Savannah quartet Baroness, has musical taste besides sludge and doom. (Drummers, because of their scarcity, always seem to be the musical oddballs in bands, though.) Stereogum posted yesterday his remix of Surfer Blood's "Swim (To Reach the End)," and it's nothing you'd expect from a guy who plays in a band whose album covers look like this. In fact, Stereogum's post quotes an old interview he did with heavy metal bible Revolver, in which he talked about liking random stuff like the Album Leaf. Go figure.

For this remix, Blickle has taken the Palm Beach boys' indie-blog hit and turned it into a little bit of a lightly electro-styled ditty, the kind of thing that might be used in a shoe commercial. The original song's fine on its own, and this remix is kind of superfluous, but it's pleasant enough.

MP3: Surfer Blood - "Swim (Alpaca Remix by Allen Blickle of Baroness)"

Cover art by Charlie Rosario

​We're nearly a week into 2010 and thus far no cubaneo? Well, I simply can't abide that. And neither should you. Which is exactly why Crossfade's hooking you up with a track straight off Rumberos de la 8's self-titled debut. Technically, los Rumberos' members hail from both Cuba and Puerto Rico. But that rumba sound is undeniably Cuban. And besides, we're all practically cousins anyway! With its roots planted firmly in the Afro tradition, and recorded and mixed by none other than DJ Le Spam, that certain...let's call it ochimini... is most definitely present.

The record, which was recorded in City of Progress Studios in North Miami is the first analog rumba recording out of Miami in 20 years. Tracks like "Oddié," "Descarga 8," "Ave Maria Morena" and this little gem, titled "El Cisne Blanco," pop with the Rumberos' mastery of Latin percussion and ooze Caribbean soul. The album was recently released digitally, but the record won't drop until the 28th. You definitely want to check this out. And you can also catch them live weekly at their residency at Hoy Como Ayer with Spam Allstars. 

Photo by Jeremy Harris

​In this 21st century world where even your grandmother's getting busy with the Facebooks, MySpacies, and Ashley Madisons, there's something mysterious and exotic and enticing about a young lady who can't be found anywhere on the interweb. So when a fanboy asks Google, Who is Diamond Hymen?, and gets absolutely nothing in return ... The intensity of his musical crush becomes almost unbearably massive. Dude needs data, pronto. 

Local rapper-producer Parable

​Whenever the web seems to have reached its peak of weirdness, the whole thing whirlpools into entirely new dimensions of the bizarre, revealing secret worlds where you can watch celebrity breakdowns streamed live, read first-round NBA draft picks suicide tweets, or even e-shop for shrunken human heads. One of the milder byproducts, however, of the internet's impetus toward ever-increasing intensity of experience is the constant super-speed mutation of new music.

By now, it's routine for singles and even full albums to be leaked online as soon as they're recorded while covers and remixes emerge before the original tracks even get an official release. And today's free MP3, "Day 'N' Nite Massacre Remix" by local rapper-producer Parable, totally belongs to that hyper-referential world of über-blogginess. It's a remix of a remix of a remix, layering some Parable lyrical flow and Rusko boom over the blog house re-up of the Crookers take on Kid Cudi's original. So download this version, then the version before it and whatever other alternate cuts you can find, then maybe the OG Cudi edit ... And listen to that multi-generational mess for a glimpse at the ongoing life of a momentarily trendy track as suspended in the weird, whirlpooling ether of the interweb.

MP3: Parable - "Day 'N' Nite Massacre Remix"

​Despite its seemingly official, compendious name, the Mexican Institute of Sound is not some sprawling, south-of-the-border government entity all about the science of airwaves and eardrums. In fact, the Institute's only got one member -- Mexico City cratedigger-slash-EMI exec Camilo Lara -- and he mostly studies the art of shaking ass. 

​It's inevitable ... Sometime this Saturday-night-slash-Sunday-morning your half-drunk ass will find itself wandering, like a partied-out zombie, through the near-abandoned labyrinth of weird, winding roads that buffer Transit and those temporary Miami Music Festival tents from the banker-bustle of Brickell. But wait, before you pass out and puke on that lonely patch of median grass, there's one last, totally essential showcase -- the SESAC. And lucky for zombified you, the band you're most amped (or semi-conscious) for, Arboles Libres, doesn't start banging around onstage till the latest possible hour.

Yeah, that's right, your dark hippie buddies -- frontmen Juan "Nacho" Londono and Eddie Moreno with drummer boy Anthony Genovese -- won't get their chance to take you on a trip to the inner-mind till two in the fucking morning. Which, if you think about it, might be the best possible scenario ... Your body's supremely depleted state will make it uniquely susceptible to synesthetic suggestion. So forget shotgunning Redbulls and forget sleep, just let your exhausted zombie self freefloat through the squelched, kaleidoscopic landscape of Arboles Libres' Spanglish-spiked, psych-folk soundtrack.

MP3: Arboles Libres - "Yellow Man"

The SESAC Showcase with Eremite, G-Man & Scuti, Habitat, Minimal, Thania Sanz, and Los Hollywood. Saturday, December 12. Transit, 729 SW 1st Ave., Miami. Showcase starts at 8 p.m., but Arboles Libres are scheduled to play last at 2 a.m. The event costs $10, or $25-$50 festival pass. 608-271-3633; miamimusicfestival.org

​When New Times featured Music is a Weapon over the summer, the Magic City hustlers were giddy with go after a 7-day Netherlands stand that saw the band treated like the rock stars they're destined to become. You could see the sparkling stars in their eyes, refracting back from the gilded mirrors that most definitely await them. And you could hear the tell-tale hum of a band on the run.

Well, it seems like glory stories weren't the only great good thing MW brought back from their trip across the pond; they also brought back a song. In fact they brought back a track so infectiously anthemic that to simply call it a song would be selling it short. And if there's any justice in this unbrave new world of ours, what they wrought will sell anything but short.

The tune's entitled "Bam in Amsterdam" and it's got both the drift of the Continent about it as well as the unmistakable mark of American progress. A sort of love letter to the town that loves them, "Bam" surely must be the way MW feels every time they take the stage. Insistently with-it and consistently catchy, it's a picture perfect aural postcard sent back from the Yellow Brick Road. And if this wondrous little ditty doesn't end-up on some commercial or two, I'll eat my hat.

​After disappearing briefly and temporarily to record its debut album, local indie-glam party band People From Venus is back. And totally energized by the new slab of future pop in its ass pocket, the Miami Beach-based crew seems set to re-stir the supercharged ions of hype still lingering from being named one of SPIN's 7 Undiscovered Bands Worth a Listen. 

Photo by Grant David Keyes

​Like the amplified and remixed white noise of a midnight tide shift as seen on TV, there are squalls and snarls of late-summer indie-pop bleeding from a bedroom studio in Macon, Georgia. All software synths, samples, drum machines, and dreamy vocal layers -- this is the faraway, New Wave-y work of Washed Out, a one-man project helmed by Ernest Weatherly Greene. 

​If cult movie messiah Alejandro Jodorowsky and PFFR co-produced a mass psychosis session in the secret subterranean tunnels that link Vizcaya Gardens to the Domino's at NE 2nd Ave. and 34th, then Miami-bred psychedelicists Ice Cream would be named official jam band. 

​Hey, lost soul. Word is, you've been searching for some kind of trippy party shaman to lead you on a spirit quest to the center of your very own inner outer space. True? OK, then, it's totally time you took a tab of that Space Voodoo Crystal stuff. Hence, today's free MP3, "Mutations." 

Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers' Socialismo Americano

​Hollywood band Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers have remained a recognizable presence on South Florida's music scene for over a decade. They've released three records, and have a fourth on the way called ¡Socialismo Americano!, due out Thanksgiving week.

For a peek into the upcoming release, Mr. Entertainment (a.k.a. Steve Toth) sent us a couple MP3s including "Center of the Universe" and "The Looker." "Center of the Universe" sounds almost like a slowed-down "Back in the U.S.S.R." (which makes sense considering their album cover is an obvious homage to Sgt. Pepper's) infused with Pink Floyd psychedelia. It's epic yet palatable and poppy. Gritty at times, but with synths floating above, softening the rock. The song will stick in your head for days.

"The Looker" spins psychedelic with touches of classic rock, alternative, hints of Latin rhythms, and vocals that breeze more like an endearing wise guy than growl with angst or soar with ostentation. The song is fun and memorable. Think a more danceable, mainstream Ween or a much cooler, more appealing, eerier, (dare I say smoother?) Rob Thomas during his Santana-collaboration era. 

Random details: If you can't deduce from the album cover who the Pookiesmackers are, Toth is dead center with the commie-starred hat. To his right (our left) is Brandon. Next to Brandon is Mahoney (in a red shirt). Above Mahoney is Richard Vergez (wearing sunglasses). Next to Vergez with the long blond hair is Mark Zolezzi. And finally Mike Vullo in the banana suit.

Get the MP3s after the jump.

via myspace.com/ycentertainment

​Like some buff God-looking dude, Jon Gaiser (a.k.a. Gaiser, a.k.a. Fraktion) emerged from his bedroom studio in a blaze of blue light. The genius was naked, except for a sweaty sheet wrapped about his waist, and he stroked his beard while muttering this rote quote: "My bedroom has always been a room full of gear that happened to have a bed in the corner." So wise, so sagacious, so weird -- Gaiser had just given birth to today's free MP3, a minimal techno baby called "New Dust." 

It's entirely possible, unless you reside in Little Buenos Aires (right up there between North and South Beach ...where Las Vacas Gordas throws down!), that you're unfamiliar with Damas Gratis. Hailing from Argentina, the eight-piece band has never been to Miami before. But these guys have been putting together some seriously swinging cumbia with Andean flavor, known as cumbia vilera, for the better part of the decade. The band started when founder and singer/keyboardist Pablo Lescano quit his previous band, Amar Azul. (Prior to that he was responsible for putting together Flor de Piedra, considered the first of this style of groups in Argentina -- though he didn't actually play in that band).

This is the first South Florida show of Damas' career, and to sweeten the pot, promoters are bringing on board your very own Bachaco. That local favorite group of kids is named after a type of wood ant, and has made a name for itself by melding reggae and dancehall with cumbia. It's a delicious little blend that is damned sure to get you shaking your money maker ... if in fact you make money with yours. We're not here to judge.

Get full show details and a few Damas Gratis MP3s after the jump.

Photo by Aigin Larki

​Ever wondered what screamo-lectro dudes do to unwind after a particularly strenuous hipster bikini dance party? Well, apparently, if the dudes in question are Daniel Werb and Paul Banwatt of Toronto synth-and-drum duo Woodhands, then it's all about a nice, relaxing, man-on-man bubble bath. Why the bubbles? Why the bath? Who knows, but bro bathing must be a team-builder beyond compare 'cause it's helped these two sustain their partnership through cold Canadian winters and several summers' worth of transcontinental touring. 

​Brooklyn's Drop the Lime has been nothing if not prescient. Those last few years, while everyone was running around to overly processed, overly happy so-called "blog house," the DJ/producer born Luca Venezia carefully stuck to his own thing. In the face of all that neon glare, Venezia and his Trouble & Bass crew built up a small army of fans into a more aggressive vibe.

The Drop the Lime style is impossible to classify neatly into a single genre, but above all it comprises a global, fiercely urban sound collage. Baltimore club beats meet Manchester acid house, then pair up with Kingston dancehall, Detroit ghetto tech, London dubstep, and every kind of gritty city dance sound.

Bass lines are warped, chewed up, and spit out, and frequencies get low enough to loosen the bowels. These are tough times, and tough music appeals, and as such Drop the Lime's star on the dance scene keeps rising. In 2008 he remixed for big names like Little Boots, Moby, and even Armand Van Helden; a new artist album is said to be in the works as well.

Here's a new track he just created for the folks at Bacardi B-Live...

MP3: Drop the Lime - "Devil's Eyes" (A B-Live Original)

MP3: Drop the Lime - "Devil's Eyes (Luca's B-Live Club Mix)"

Drop the Lime. With Damaged Goods, Troy Kurtz, and Juan Basshead. Saturday, October 24. White Room, 1306 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Doors open at 10 p.m. Tickets cost $10 in advance from wantickets.com. Ages 21+ with ID. 305-995-5050; whiteroomshows.com 

Album art by Reeve Schumacher

​For five years, local duo Michael John Hancock and Brian Robertson of Awesome New Republic have made hipsterized pop that sounds like some dead future from the '80s. They self-describe as "punk, soul, R&B," but that hardly probes the bloggy depths of the ANR enigma. It's way more complicated than just crossbreeding genres. In fact, Awesome New Republic is like a Pro Tools-powered tuneage collider that eats a bazillion bits of sonic matter (synthy soul, sci-fi folk, New Wave-y disco, etc.) and poops retro-futuristic fireworks for your ears.

​Like all purebred party animals, the adventuresome men of Miami garage psych crew Lil Daggers welcome any kind of fun, no matter how dangerous, drunk, or bizarre. They'll play house parties. They'll play pool parties. They'll play satanic séances, bake sales and shit fights. From the very first Pagan fuck fests to last weekend's killer kegger, we've always needed Daggers like these to keep things from getting dull. 

via thccrew.com

​This remix of Black Dada's "Imma Zoe" comes courtesy of UB the Underboss from the THC crew. The song is called "Imma Chico," and it calls for Latinos all over Miami-Dade County, South Florida, and the world to stand up.

Here's UB's message that we received by e-mail with the track: "Get ready for Calle Ocho 2010!!! Chicos & Zoes 2gether gettin' paper!!! Can you see the vision??? Let me know what you all think!!! Hollaaaa!!!"

The standout on the track is the Boss Lady Destinee. Damn, she can sing. UB's rocking the autotune, and the the third artist on the track, well we didn't get any info on who he is, but he did his thing too.