Pedro Leon with SkYp3r Photography

Thousands of years ago, ancient Celtic and Germanic civilizations celebrated the first day of May -- a month eventually named for Roman fertility goddess Maia - with dancing, drinking, and general merriment. Christians came along and kind of ruined the whole pagan thing, but the tradition of May Day festivities survived.

Fast forward about fifteen centuries to 2013, and we're still getting down and dirty to usher in the warmer days of Springtime. Even though May Day has officially passed, Hypnotic Productions happily announced their eighth-annual Maydaze event at Club Cinema. Bass, lasers, and dancing beauties will all honor yet another joyous season of fertility.
They know that it's the fans that make their party dreams come true, and in order to please them, they must continually top each prior party with more lights, more sounds, and more energy.

"We always try to bring something unique and different to the table," said organizer and headliner Danny "DJ Xta-C" Colica.

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A popular Season 9 episode of South Park titled "Die, Hippie, Die" depicted jam-band culture as a bunch of bleary-eyed people who mumble about saving the world while not ever doing much besides bobbing their heads to "crunchy grooves," all spaced out on the reefer.

If psychedelic-flavored concerts these days are nothing more than ignorance fests, as the episode suggests, then maybe it was irresponsible for David Phipps to devote his life after college to playing music with electro-rock band STS9 instead of pursuing a career in industrial design. That was what he was all set to do when he made the decision to jam.

"There is kind of a generic description of jam culture," Phipps says. "The stoned activist. I could see where people could think that. But not every kid at our concert has got a hemp necklace on. And the fan of jam-based music is one of the most open-minded fans out there."

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Brothers Stephen and Lee Tiger grew up making music on what is now the Miccosukee reservation. When the two were boys, a pile of toys was delivered from Orlando to distribute to the kids in their village. "We found two plastic guitars that were actually tunable," Lee Tiger says. "So we tuned them up and we started learning to play off those things. It worked." A few years later, at age 13, he got his first wooden guitar. He put a pickup in there, and he began playing at skating rinks and sock hops.

Their first gigs were in the Everglades, where their audiences were straight-faced Native Americans who never abandoned the boys as they rocked onstage like the Beatles, but the villagers also never expressed pleasure in the music either. Tiger calls growing up out there a "different world," explaining, "When I grew up, we didn't have bathrooms; we didn't have lights. We just had lanterns. But that was all right. Man adapts to what's around him, and that's what we had."

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Deciphering which band to catch between the multitudes of acts performing at this weekend's inaugural Block x Blog festival is one a tall order. With three stages and a tally of 30 odd bands on the bill, you could really use a personal assistant to help maximize the experience.

County Grind is here to help though, if you are a fan of the hook-heavy synth pop sounds of bands like Depeche Mode and the Junior Boys, circle one band on the list that you must see: Krisp. Based out of Miami's artistic hub, Wynwood, this four-piece's glimmering electronic indie rock has garnered a sizable following in the Magic City.

Although currently residing in Miami-Dade County, most of the quartet is familiar with gigging in Broward. Previously, three of the four that make up Krisp played in a Pompano Beach group, under the moniker Prospect Road.
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Feeding in the dark corners of the room, Afrobeta want to make you make love. Two home-grown beat slaves set on dance floor domination, if Afrobeta bothers to make a sound, it's going to be the kind of hyphy-groove your body can't deny.

Tucked away in a shed behind their Miami home sits beat-master Tony, a.k.a. Smurphio. His hair grows wildly out in a brown, fuzzy dome with glimpses of white. You couldn't miss this guy in a crowd of hundreds. He jokes that if he's the "afro" in Aforbeta, his partner Cristina, stage-name Cuci Amador, is the "beta half."

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Vimeo.com

Who ever said white boys don't have soul?

Take it from David Bowie, the Bee Gees, Hall & Oates, George Michael -- all these guys have defied the odds and earned permanent slots in our booty-shaking, baby-making playlists. Even our reigning Prince of Dirty Pop, former boy band heartthrob Justin Timberlake, has broken stereotypes and crossed genres with his sizzling, soul-infused hip-hop and R&B mega hits.

When a group of just-out-of-college white boys comes together to make music, people normally wouldn't expect to hear a sound like that of the Politix, a funky, old school-inspired hip-hop five-piece from Miami who've been booking shows at some of the city's most respected venues.

The Politix will play a show at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale as part of the inaugural Block x Blog Music and Arts Festival. In anticipation of the event, the guys took a moment to introduce themselves to New Times and give us a small taste of the band's soulful, funk-flavored hip-hop.

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Photo by Jacob Katel

With Lil Wayne just out of the hospital after a series of seizures and a Codeine relapse, no one's fronting about the role drugs play in the world of hip-hop. The EDM scene is also deep into intoxicants, and no one's going to tell us otherwise.

We spoke with rapper SpaceGhostPurrp after his hip-hop performance at the massive Ultra Music Festival about Molly, sizzurp, changing trends in rap, and Lil Wayne.

See also
- SpaceGhostPurrp, Like Horus, Will "Rise Over My City and Give My City That Power" (VIDEO)

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Photo by Jacob Katel

SpaceGhostPurrp runnin' the live stage at Ultra Music Festival 2013.

SpaceGhostPurrp can be a prickly dude. He's so young, smart, and deep. And all that online attitude. You can't help but envy him his complexity and talent and resent what sometimes comes off as a sense of entitlement.

But when we met up with the Carol City rapper at Ultra Music Festival where he performed a Sunday noon set, we definitely didn't meet a guy who thinks the world owes him something. It's hard to get onstage, at noon at a rave, and take it all very seriously and professionally, but he did.

Purrp seemed shy or hesitant when we started bombarding him with questions about the sexual attractiveness of Scooby-Doo characters, his tattoos, and April Fool's Day, which is his birthday, also known as Purrp Day to those of the Raider Klan.

See also
- SpaceGhostPurrp on Sizzurp: "It's in the Air Down South"

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When you can woo an Indigo Girl over dinner one night with just your vocal talents, it's clear you've got it good. The Shadowboxers did just that and ended up the backing musicians for the "girls" on a handful of tours. But this trio isn't just a bunch of good pipes; this band is ready to show the world it has a bigger niche to carve and many more fans to win over. 
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Starting at the end of this week, the Winter Music Conference descends upon Miami like a chubby kid on a double-cheese burger. DJs and partiers will be coming from across the world to get a bit of Miami EDM action. For the most part, if you want to get in on the mayhem, you're going to have to haul your ass down to Miami.
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