An anonymous blogger named the Straw Buyer has been dedicating a serious amount of bandwidth to bash and ridicule the Miami-Dade Police detective.Apparently, the Straw Buyer became fascinated with Baluja this past October, when the 11-year county cop arrested Coral Gables lawyer Delaila Estefano, John Romney, and Michael Martinez for stealing someone’s identity…
Casey is serving a 12-year prison term for running down and killing an elderly woman in Miami Beach, leaving the scene, and then fleeing the country to avoid prosecution. He has an August 13 court hearing before Judge John Thornton to unseal transcripts of secretly recorded conversations he had with his former criminal defense lawyer, Milton…
With the recession and all, the days of music writers’ snail mail boxes getting stuffed daily with press kits is pretty much over. Most labels and publicists send private download links these days, which is actually an excellent idea. Promo CDs are just going to get put on a music…
I stopped by the old standby Dungeon recording studio in North Miami Beach last week to visit local trio Jacobs Ladder, who were working steadily and meticulously on a new five-song EP. Some people think a rock band’s recording session at a pro studio is some kind of wild party…
Solid Sound Studios is a rehearsal studio in Broward off Powerline and Sample that hosts shows in the bottom floor rehearsal space. These consist of kid bookers basically just renting out the space (as it would usually be rented out), and finding local bands to play for free. The show’s…
Back in August 1988 South Florida had a pretty good line-up of shows at venues from the Hollywood Sportatorium to the James L. Knight Center to the Kendall Town and Country Mall to the Fontainebleau back up to the Button South.The Dope Jam brought together Eric B and Rakim, Doug…
Rewind your Walkman to Friday’s totally ’80s birthday party for aged-to-perfection Brian Antoni and Nick D’Annunzio at the The Viceroy at Club 50. This duo teamed up on a mission to resurrect their ’80s glory days. One of the headline names was enough to drag me across the bridge −…
“Florida,” a single off Miami-based duo (though they tour as a trio) Awesome New Republic’s July release Rational Geographic II, taps kinetic echo-y vocals over New Wave synths and steady drumming for an anthem that is memorable and infectious; you’ll sing it for days. Think dance-pop a la Dogs Die…
Last week Head Spins brought you into the studio of WDNA, site of Gene de Souza’s long-running Café Brasil. As we said in the article, any Brazilian worth his or her weight in music pays a visit to the show when they hit town, and that included Adriana Calcanhotto, who…
Residents at Opa-locka’s Gardens Apartments — perhaps the city’s sketchiest property — endured 5 murders, 656 assaults, 34 robberies, 25 shootings, and 80 stolen cars during one four-year stretch, according to police records. And the apartments remain the hottest spot in the city for cops, says Capt. Rex Galindo, a spokesman…
It was 1979 and punk was being born again in the glitter-flecked primordial muck of Los Angeles. Late-blooming skinheads and bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and the Germs were bashing the West Coast hardcore scene into shape, using little more than blunt force. For most fans of aggro…
Contrary to the way it seems, Riptide does not watch every reality TV show. Our TVs are seldom set to anything involving dance, but perhaps we should have caught some So You Think You Can Dance this season, because 18-year-old Miami student Jeanine Mason won. Yes, she did flamenco, the lambada,…
Broward-based MC Dynas is one of the local hip-hop underground’s stealth forces. He may not perform every weekend at the usual suspect venues, but when he surfaces, it’s always with something worth stopping to listen to. Raised in New York City, his style is stamped with his hometown’s golden-era lyricism…
The Tummy Trilogy, the 1994 compilation of Calvin Trillin’s three food books (American Fried; Alice, Let’s Eat; and Third Helpings), contains enough funny — and brilliant — observations on eating to fill Friday Food Funnies for years. There is certainly no other food writer that can play on the same…
To read past installments of South Florida According to Brooklyn, click here. I attended the local stop of the Warped Tour, on Saturday, July 25 at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, and was disappointed that no one really watched Bad Religion. I don’t get it! These guys are…
To read past installments of Notes from the Soundboard, click here. One constant theme of this column is a fixation on bands and artists that somehow fell through the cracks that occur within pop music’s lengthy trajectory. That’s one hazard of rock’s rich repertoire — so many artists, but so…
As long as we’re talkin’ bout Maggotron, we might as well do the right thing and put some of his sounds in your earholes. Get ready for robot voices, vocoder effects, screw type vocals, movie quotes, scratch noises, more cowbell, and the drum patterns that now define old school…
The last time we checked in with the Weston-by-way-of-Bogota, brother-heavy indie act Old Wives’ Tale was this past June. Then, the band had just released its debut album, and was set to embark on a mini European tour. What we forgot to explain, though, is that the reason for the…
This is just freakin’ awesome. James and Karla Murray, the photographers behind Miami Graffiti, the book showcasing our finest street artists, have inspired a nostalgic acid trip of an art installation featuring local graff legend Crome. For an exhibition still in the works called “MOM & POPism,” artist Billi Kid…
Norman Van Aken, Chef/Owner Norman’s at the Ritz Carlton, Orlando (and soon to be Norman’s 180 in Coral Gables) It seems everyone has his or her own favorite Julia Child story. That’s how well known and firmly entrenched in the American psyche the inimitably voiced gourmet goddess, (of the more…
Boxed In Loved it so much she’s afraid: “Million Dollar Maybe” (Natalie O’Neill, July 30) was great — just crazy-cool. It makes me want to cry to see a woman so strong and determined. You go, girl! Good thing I saw Christina Swanson’s pic, so I know not to mess…
George and Martha of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Burt Pugach and Linda Riss of Crazy Love. Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan of Us Weekly. Pop culture is full of quite literally insane couples who manage to stay together no matter how much we’re secretly rooting for their relationship’s demise…
