Lizard King Jim Morrison, one of the most influential American rock singers ever, was born in Melbourne, Florida on December 8, 1943.
He went to UCLA film school, graduated, and hung out on Venice Beach, where he and Ray Manzarek started The Doors.
There's a famous incident that took place at Dinner Key Auditorium in Coconut Grove known to a world of Doors fans as The Miami Incident that involved drugs, nudity, 13,000 people, the police, the Miami Herald, a student-led decency campaign at the Orange Bowl, and the national media.
Click here for more info on that. Watch the video above for some of Morrison's response to the incident courtesy of the Wolfson Archive on YouTube.
Every last tiny speck of brain matter splatted against the Columbus, Ohio stage he was riffing on when he was killed by a crazed gunman may have already been sold on Ebay, but the legend of Dimebag lives on through recorded documentation of his music.
The video above features Dimebag Darrel shredding with Pantera in West Palm Beach in 1997. According to the upload description "rex, vince and phil kick ass too!"
This is video of a metal band called Blood Oath playing live in West Palm Beach on September 11, 2005 at Classics Bar. The information is courtesy of YouTube user EsotericDeath who uploaded the above video and wrote a brief description of it.
If you are a fan of fast, loud, heavy music, and lots of growling, then this song is for you. Click here to see the original flyer post for the above concert on an old livejournal site from 2005.
Saigon Kick was arguably South Florida's biggest rock export in the early '90s, a band with some major hits that remains somewhat underrated, perhaps, because of the time at which it appeared. At first glance, the group, originally a quartet, had all the aesthetic stylings of a glam-metal act. But their first album didn't come out until 1991, the famous year when Kurt Cobain and his cohorts began their swift work of taking down arena rock.
But while Saigon Kick was more or less a "metal" band, the group always had a soulful side and a love for experimenting with big, trippy pop textures. Sure, their biggest hit, "Love is On the Way" in 1992, was a pretty straightforward power ballad. But take this song "I Love You," from the band's 1993 album Water. It has a weirdly fuzzy, spacey sound over tinkling drum beats that sounds a little like something Jane's Addiction would do.
Here's a video of Miami's own Hemlock playing a song called "Sweet Sweet Music," and sounding like a disco version of the Allman Brothers. The movie appears to be a shoddy film to digital transfer. Click the HQ button at the bottom of the player to watch it in high quality. According to the YouTube description, Hemlock released a single called "Disco Break," apparently through Warner Bros. Here is that song.
The soul great Betty Wright is one of Miami's best not-so-well-kept secrets. Starting out as a gospel singer with a family group, in the mid-1960s Wright switched over to R&B. Her robust mid-range belting and knack for picking funky beats and melodies made her a hit, and Wright quickly racked up hit singles throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, she's been a favorite of the hip-hop generation, and younger music fans will recognize her hits from the many newer songs that have sampled them.
Here's "Clean Up Woman," which, upon its 1971 release, reached #2 on the Billboard R&B charts, and peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song provided the unforgettable riff for Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" (the remix version with Biggie which is NOWHERE on YouTube), and was also sampled on SWV's "I'm So Into You,"Afrika Bambaataa's "Zulu War Chant," and Sublime's "Get Out!" remix, among others.
Ladies, listen to this and take heed -- don't make things easy for the clean-up woman. Listen to the song and you'll know what Wright is talking about.
Today's throwback comes from wayyyy back in the way-back machine's gears: 1930, when Phil Spitalny's orchestral jazz compositions were pop hits. It's hard to imagine a time before popular music was splintered into a thousand different subgenres, but think about it: Beyond classical and real folk traditions, there was basically just music. Now they have a creaky charm, but Spitalny's songs probably powered the classy nightclubs that occupied South Beach's art deco buildings before they were retro. Maybe flappers danced to them, daring to show their knees!
There's actually a less tenuous local connection for this song. At the peak of his career, the Ukraine-born Spitalny was known for leading his all-girl orchestra (arguably the first), but he later decamped to Miami Beach. Here, he was a music critic for local newspapers of yore -- the Miami Beach Sun and the Miami Beach Reporter -- before he passed away in 1970.
This song, "What's the Use," was released as part of the Hit of the Week record series, which were pressed on laminated flexible cardboard to keep prices down during the Great Depression.
While we're on the subject of the Freestyle Invasion II concert this Saturday, we put together a play list of some of the best songs by the artists performing. Enjoy.
Oh yeah - there's also another HUGE freestyle show coming up, the Freestyle Extravaganza on June 27 at the AAA. That one features Stevie B, TKA, and Lisa Lisa, among others! What is this, freestyle summer? But we'll get to that one next week.
Until then, here are some top tunes from Taylor Dayne, Debbie Deb, Judy Torres, Nice N Wild, and many many more. Hit the jump to listen.
Today's MP3 of the day relates to the serious meaning behind Memorial Day, and comes courtesy of local troubadour Matthew Sabatella. He's one of the most unique solo performers in town, as he's dedicated his work lately to preserving American folk traditions. But not folk like the festival in Newport, think even further back -- as in, before most recorded popular music.
Sabatella's Ballad of America series has showcased music of the the 18th (really!) and 19th centuries. Volume Three, for instance, was dedicated to songs from the lifetime of Abraham Lincoln (and it seems Honest Abe was a sentimental fella).
So following that, Sabatella offers for free download his rendition of the traditional song "The Vacant Chair," with music by George F. Root and words by Henry S. Washburn. Get the explanation behind the song, and the download link, after the jump.
From the May 18-24, 1988 issue of the Miami New Times.
Twenty one years ago on South Beach Club Nu threw a Rambo III Premier Party. They flew down 3 skaters from LA. That same week they had a ladies' night, a model search, advertised the world's most expensive vodka, got sponsored by Robert's Western Wear, and featured performances by The Neighborhoods and Fetchin Bones.
Stay tuned to Crossfade as we continue to dig in the crates for more throwback content straight from the archives.
A couple weeks ago I got a mailed copy of Elizabeth Goodman's new Cat Power book, Cat Power: A Good Woman. Although it's deeply reported, it's unauthorized; Chan Marshall refused to speak with Goodman for the project, and thus all her quotes therein are indirect. It's a fast-paced read, but I'm going to recuse myself from commenting further on the book (although, Cat Power obsessives, you can read my late 2007 New Times interview with Chan by clicking here.)
In any event, the book reminded me of this throwback, the video for Cat Power's "He War," from the 2003 album, You Are Free. Where most music videos shot in South Beach are all about the party, Marshall and director Brett Vapnek spun the island's baked pastels in a different direction. The song, built on ragged chords and tripping piano, obliquely describes an irreparable relationship rift. So does the video: Marshall and her boyfriend are seen slowly working their way across the Beach, treading the same ground but never really occupying the same space. Set against an impossibly sunny, cheerful backdrop, the alienation only seems more intense.
Expose was a chart topping Miami based girl group that got caught up in a protracted legal battle involving labels, lawyers, songwriters and publishers. Eventually the original three members were replaced and the band continued, and you can find them at 'relive the 1980s' type concerts to this day.
But what happened to the original girls of Expose? I found one. Here's a YouTube of Laurie Miller doing a live performance in 2008. She doesn't allow embedding so you have to click here to see it.
"Don't fight it, we gona feel it tonight, ya understand." And with these words Sam Cooke launched into "Feel It" on what would become his "Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963" album, though it wasn't released until 1985, well after his death.
Jerry Wexler, the man who coined the term "Rhythm and Blues" and a partner in Atlantic Records, said of Cooke "The best singer who ever lived, no contest." High compliment from a guy who knew and worked with Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Led Zeppelin.
Ah, thank Google Alerts for bringing this gem of South Florida music past to our inbox. The Sunset Strip story is one that has been told, but what of bands elsewhere in the country who were plying the same sound? One of these, it seems, was a band called Poser based in Ft. Lauderdale. (Perhaps "poser" meaning, well, "poseur" wasn't such common parlance in the 1980s?).
A YouTube user named "rockinroger2" uploaded this video of the band about a year ago and has this to say as a description:
Here's a great video I found by none other than John Cougar before he added that stupid Mellencamp and ruined everything. This video pioneers the South - Beach - music - video genre and exceeds the quality of almost everything that came after it. Here are the lyrics to the song. Remember, John Cougar sold millions upon millions of albums in his day.......
Against All Authority has been keeping it real for over a decade and a half now, forming in the Magic City back in 1992, anchored mainly by bassist/vocalist Danny Lore and guitarist/vocalist Joe Koontz. While the band often gets easily lumped into the "ska-punk" category, it has mostly eschewed the cheesiness often found in that subgenre, favoring calls to action over good-time party tunes. And sonically, when you strip away the brass section (now just a single trumpet), what's left are some excellent straight-ahead punk tunes. These are fun, though; AAA's idea of revolution is anything but dour and boring.
Probably the only surf-rock song nearly everyone recognizes is "Wipe Out!" (if you really need a reminder, click here). And the version with which people are familiar is that done in 1963 by the Surfaris, a California quartet still making bank on the nostalgia circuit today. By all accounts, pretty much, the band's four original members wrote the song in the studio, creating its memorable pseudo-creepy introduction and awesome drum solo.
This is all to the chagrin of Merrell Fankhauser, a sort of folk-psych-rock cult figure who, in a more clean-cut incarnation in the early Sixties, fronted the band the Impacts. What did they play? Surf-rock. And what does he claim they originally wrote? Why, "Wipe Out!," of course.
When Manu Chao released his landmark album, Clandestino,
in 1998, it was regarded as an instant classic by most people who heard
it. The 16-track disc was a funky underground pop album aimed right at
the cultural left (and bourgeois right) of Spain, France, South America
and Mexico all at once. Between the songs sung in French, Portuguese,
English and Spanish, and the spliced-in sound bites from Zapatista
leader, Subcomandante Marcos, Clandestino managed to speak for the voiceless with songs that were catchy enough to captivate folks around the world.
I'd
need another two years before the album even made it into my orbit, but
I had the same reaction upon hearing it that most others did: instant
classic. I was probably somewhere in the south of Costa Rica or
Nicaragua, the first time I listened to it (on repeat for hours)
but damn if this record didn't guide my entire summer back in 2000 as I
traveled via land and mostly hitchhiked from Panama to Detroit.
10
years after the album's debut, it's good to go back and listen to one
of its most recognizable songs, "Desaparecido." The video is a bit
trippy, but it's a good shake up for a Tuesday morning.
With only two days to go until West Coast super DJ/Producer Madlib the Badkid, arrives in Miami for a show at Blacksheep Bar on December 4th, I'm personally excited to see how Miami reacts to him.
There
are times when he gets audiences like the one in the video above. It's
a three minute clip from the last time he was in Miami at the Raleigh
Hotel for WMC and the crowd looks about as live as a corpse. They
loosen up after awhile, but it's of course, more evidence on why
sometimes, WMC parties are more about who can afford to be there rather
than who actually loves the artists that are performing.
Plenty of songs have extolled the watery, nubile virtues of Miami, or even of Florida in general. But few -- beyond those by hyper-local artists based here -- have name-checked other specific locales in South Florida's tri-county area. Which is why "West Palm Beach," written by the folkie Bonnie "Prince" Billy under his on-and-off Palace Brothers moniker, is so surprising. Billy (born Will Oldham) is from Louisville, Kentucky, and his bittersweet, country-flavored paean to the city starts off pretty generically: "
I cant get the sand out of my shoes / This being in Florida's done a number on my blues / Just the way the women walk round here."
But why West Palm Beach specifically? Ah, the obvious answer comes in the second verse: "Grandma lives down the road." Still, it's kind of nice to hear an idealized little ditty about a place that's an unlikely subject for an outsider's song. Billy's version of West Palm doesn't, it seems, involve being stuck forever on westbound traffic on Okeechobee Road, or dodging table-dancing trophy wives at the City Place Opa to get to the faux-Rococo Muvico theater. (Then again, his song was written before City Place existed at all ... imagine that!)
The song first appeared in general release in the mid-Nineties as a Palace Brothers single; Billy later re-recorded it in 2004 for a solo disc, Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music. After the jump, listen to an MP3 of this later version of the song.
Over the weekend, the hip-hop community was hit with sad news. Early '90s rapper MC Breed died in his sleep, only two months after being released from an Atlanta hospital for kidney failure. He was just 36 years old. The official cause of death is still pending.
It's a death that caught a lot of people off guard who didn't know that MC Breed (born Eric Breed) was even sick. The Flint, Michigan native was popular in the early '90s due to his landmark singles, "Ain't No Future in Yo Frontin'" and his breakout collaboration with Tupac Shakur on the song, "I Gotta Get Mine." He never gravitated toward mainstream success the way he could have, but he was respected by a lot of people in the hip-hop industry.
His beats and rhyming style gave him more of a West Coast feel to an extent, and Sway Calloway of MTV recently commented that a lot of people initially thought Breed was from the Bay Area. Even though he never recorded another major hit after the two mentioned above, his place in the hip-hop history books is secured. And "Gotta Get Mine" should go down as one of the top 100 hip-hop songs of all time.
Here's the video for the song that introduced him to the world, "Ain't No Future in Yo Frontin.'" I'm glad that Breed lived long enough to see Barack Obama get elected president. In this same songs he spits, "If I was the president, then I would state facts, you leave it up to me I'd paint the White House black--it ain't no future in yo frontin.'" R.I.P. to a legend. His music presence will be sorely missed.
There's something about the early music of Yo Majesty that will always have a soft spot in my heart. Back when this Tampa-based duo used to be a trio, Shunda K, Jwl B, and Shon B, were my favorite female MCs of 2007.
They were butch, black, badass rappers who were sort of like a 2007 version of 2 Live Crew. And their music is just as crunk. Hell, they had songs called "Kryptonite Pussy." If that's not 2 Live Crew-esque, I dont' know what is.
Yo Majesty had lot's of media attention that year after a bunch of raucous performances across the country, including a few breakout gigs at SXSW, but haven't been too visible this year at all. I think it's because they need to bring Shon B back into the group, but that's me.
Anyway, the video above is from their glory (year?) and let's you know what type of vibe they were on at the time. If any South Florida promoters know how to get in touch with them, they definitely need some Miami shows soon. Check out the video and you'll see why.
So here's a really cool music video that describes my Tuesday night almost perfectly. Middleweight hip-hop champ MURS is in town tonight playing a show at Churchill's Pub and anybody that's never seen the West Coast veteran live should consider going. He's an indie hip-hop legend in the vein of Madlib or the Pharcyde and his catalog runs deep.
He's got one of the most eccentric personalities in hip-hop, and I'll never forget the first time I met him at a show in Detroit. A fight broke out in the audience, and MURS announced from the stage that "I ain't with that violence shit at my shows" then got off the stage, shoved one dude to the ground, head-butted the other guy in the face, stunned both of them, then went back up on stage and kept rocking as if nothing had happened. And yeah, I've pretty much been a MURS fan from that moment forward.
So he's performing tonight at Churchill's--and the only conflict of interest for me is that there's also a good heavyweight fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino that I want to watch with Jamaican fighter Glen Johnson taking on Tiwon Taylor. Aww, decisions!
Randomly, the really well-crafted video above combines both of these sports (hip-hop and pugilism) in an old-school way that's perfect for Throwback Tuesday's. Enjoy.
So this week's Throwback Tuesdays falls on the most important election in American history. There's no reason not to kick it off with a video that captures the way a lot of Americans are feeling this morning. Today is truly a historic day, and it can be an even more historic night if Senator Obama wins the election. Interestingly enough, all of this seems like it was prophesized years ago in songs like the one above by Sam Cooke.
The tune is called, "A Change is Gonna Come," and for contemporary readers, it's the same song that was featured prominently in the 1992 Spike Lee film, Malcolm X. It seems like the perfect song to compliment Senator Obama's campaign which has focused on a theme of change for the last year and a half. By this evening we'll know if real change is headed to the White House. But regardless of if Obama wins or loses tonight, the America that we all know has come along way. And if you haven't already done so, get out and vote people.
Good morning everybody...and Happy Diwali.
So we here at CrossFade give readers a taste of the old-school every week with Throwback Tuesdays. This week, we're throwing it way back and including a local legend in the mix.
Jazz impresario Julian "Cannonball" Adderley has always been one of my favorite saxophone players--and he's easily one of the best alto sax players of all time. A lot of people may or may not know that he was born and raised in Tampa, FL. He actually taught jazz and music education at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale during the '50s.
He was a Florida jazz legend before moving up to New York to join Miles Davis' band in 1957. Adderley was allegedly replacing John Coltrane in Davis' band if that gives you any idea of how good he was.
So check out this really well shot video for Adderley's composition, "Jive Samba" from 1963. It was originally called "Bossa Nova Nemo"...the guys really didn't have a name for the song, but chose "Jive Samba" later in jest. This is Adderley's quintet and the players here are phenomenal:
Cannonball Adderley--alto sax
Nat Adderley - cornet
Yusef Lateef - tenor sax, oboe, flute
Joe Zawinul - piano
Sam Jones - bass
Louis Hayes - drums
Los Angeles-bases funkateer Nikka Costa is in town tonight playing a show at the Culture Room. She's probably better known in Europe on a pop level but Costa, daughter of former composer and arranger, Don Costa, is a soul sensation that deserves better attention stateside as well.
Here's a video of her breakout song, "Like a Feather" from 2001. She's actually got a new album being released today, called Pebble to a Pearl so the fact that she's in town today celebrating--while she could easily be in New York or L.A.--shouldn't go overlooked. Check her out tonight if you can.
So if anybody watched VH1's heralded Hip-Hop Honors program last night, I'm curious to know what people thought. I'm not personally a fan of comedian Tracy Morgan hosting the show (his jokes are funny 60% of the time at best) but everything else associated with this year's Hip-Hop Honors was good.
Here's one of my favorite Slick Rick songs of all time, "Children's Story" which was easily one of the most creative music videos of the '80s by far. The combination of Charlie Chaplin style silent comedy mixed with black and white cinematography and hip-hop sung in an English accent was initially so jarring, that it immediately left a lasting impression on the hip-hop world at large. Enjoy.
It's good news to know that the O'Jays are still touring. They were easily one of the best R&B groups of the '70s and have a long list of hits that should make for a fun show tonight at the Hard Rock.
But there's also been a lot of tragedy surrounding the group's lead singer, Eddie Levert, who lost both of his sons, Gerald Levert and Sean Levert four months apart in 2006/2007. Both deaths were unexpected and must have been incredibly hard on Eddie. So it's good to see that Eddie is doing what he loves and singing with the O'Jays again.
Above is a video for one of my favorite O'Jays songs of all time, "Let me Make Love to You." When Eddie starts it out, the first 10 words alone are sung more powerful than 95% of R&B today. They don't make songs like that anymore, and you've got to have a hole in your soul not to feel this one. Check out the wall of Afros in the front row of the video LOL.
And follow the jump for one of the best ex-boyfriend songs in the history of soul music. If only R&B groups would dress like this below and use syncopated dance steps again, the genre would be in much better shape.
So I just got off the phone with blues singer Shemekia Copeland, who'll be performing at the Hollywood Clambake on September 26 and, as far as I could tell, she's really looking forward to coming down to South Florida. She's going to be working out some new songs off of her upcoming album and promises to put on a great show like always.
Not long after I got off the phone with her, I realized that today is blues legend BB King's 83rd Birthday. I head over to YouTube looking for a video to post (natch) since it's Throwback Tuesdays, and the first thing that pops up is this swinging performance listed above of both Copeland and King performing together from the David Letterman show. It must be fate! Check it out.
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