music in miami

so, they sells cds and vinyl, plus incense, bowls, candles, stickers, posters, sheets of shiny contact paper, things you hang on your porch that twirl around and look pretty, gimmicky t-shirts and hats, scarface posters, turntables, cigarettes, and candy. although you wouldn't know they actually wanted to sell anything judging by all the printed labels telling you DON'T OPEN THIS RECORD or DON'T TOUCH THE WINDOW or NO BAGS AT ALL or NO SMOKING (even though the place absolutely reeks of incense) or NO REFUNDS EVER every-fucking-where. you'd think they were doing you a favor letting you in their shop. that and you have to give them a driver's license to listen to records on their turntables. and the clerks themselves were pretty unfriendly.

the vinyl is organized into dance classics (just a bunch of records called, literally, DANCE CLASSICS with eg. a madonna track and a michael jackson track, no trax or transmat type stuff like you might expect), imports (aka uk house), domestic (american prog house and dnb, absolutely nothing i had ever heard of besides a moodyman record) and hip-hop/rnb. their "pick of the week" cds (which are usually a pretty good microcosm of the store's taste) were all tiesto-esque trance mixes and tribal/prog stuff DO NOT WANT

i eventually found a melchior 12" to make the trip out there worthwhile, but i didn't see a single other record i would even consider buying.

grade: D+ (being charitable because i love thomas melchior)

Incense
Shirts
DJ Bags
Bags
Hats
Sunglasses
Lunchboxes
Jewelry
Patches
Posters
Bobbleheads
Candles
Fairy Statues
Belts
Belt Buckles
Needles
Candleholders
Collectibles
Dunny dolls
Headphones
Body Cleansers
Wallets
Scarface Stuff
Slip Mats
Guitar Accessories
Bongos
Djimbes
Body Jewelry
Die-Case Toys
Lamps
Gum, Candy & Cigarettes
Energy Drinks
Hooka Accessories

lady sov i couldn't care less about but is that mayday aka derrick may? anybody know?

RASIN FESTIVAL 2006
When Sat Nov 25 9:30pm - Sat Nov 25 10:30pm
20061125T213000/20061125T223000
Where: BAYFRONT PARK, Miami, Florida

Created By"EchodHaiti.com Calendar"
r5lne50q4nc533mh91bpavhva0@group.calendar.google.comDescriptionC.H.S & KAMIKAZ INC.
Present

The 13th Annual
Haitian Roots Music Festival
RASIN FESTIVAL 2006

SAT. NOV. 25, 2006
(Thanksgiving Week end)

BAYFRONT PARK
Miami, Florida
(Direction - Map)

Featuring
T-VICE, DJAKOUT, BOUKMAN, AZOR, NU LOOK, KANPECH AND REV

Info:786-290-1069

GROOVEMAN MUSIC

1543 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, FL 33139; (305) 535-6257; e-mail [email protected]; Web www.groovemanmusic.com, noon to 10 pm

store and label run by george acosta, miami's most famous house producer(?), on the beach. seems to specialize in prog/funky/tribal house. worth a trip i guess.

IMPACTO
flagler and sw 47th ave, mostly latin stuff? i don't think it's my scene but i might check it out.

here is that tech man 1 song i was talking about in my last post. it's called Get Into The Music and it's from this record.

SATURDAY MARCH 22 at RED 737
737 Washington Blvd, South Beach

James Pennington[!!!!!!]
Blake Baxter[!!!]
K Hand
DJ Bone
Derrick Thompson
Mike Clark
DJ Genesis
John Collins
Reggie Dokes
Norm Talley

Him and Charlie the Quaker... who I guess is back on the air in Champaign/Urbana (for those who remember him).

I think that there are almost no good "new" record stores left in the world.

i hit up blue note records yesterday and they are moving!

new address:
Ravenswood Warehouse
4931 Anglers Ave
Building A #11
Dania, FL 33312

dude at the store said they should be open by next saturday.

where is dania?

north of the old location, near the coast. another 30 minutes driving, i guess.

That's really far (from downtown Miami or south of it). It's getting harder and harder to find good music stores, here.

Sweat Records changed its hours, too, which is also frustrating. Now it opens at 6 p.m., making it very hard for me to ever get there. It's also become a bit harder to place orders for delivery (for me it has, at least).

a record store that opens at 6 pm? jeezus, no wonder the lfam orders most of his stuff from forced exposure. that's some weird ass shit.

also btw, it's no great shakes up here in philly, either. we have more record stores, but other than one new/used and one all-used, the quality is horrific.

i think sweat changed their hours to get more of the bar crowd

Yeah, I think that's right. But it's not even a reliable 6 p.m. I once sat around for 20 minutes waiting for them to open, with only a "Back in 5 Minutes" sign on the locked front door. I don't mean to dump on Sweat Records; I've shopped there a lot and it's the best record shop I've ever seen in Miami (in my musically sheltered life, mind you). But that opening time is just very difficult to accommodate.

I had a good friend who worked there about a year ago; he'd get to Churchill's and see three or four people queued up outside.

It's rather embarrassing that a city this size has only one independent record store.

Haha. I might have been one of those people.

Normally I'd never wait 20 minutes for any store to open. I only did so because I want to patron them (I like locally-owned businesses), I was there and I knew I wouldn't be back anytime soon.

Now it will be mail-orders only from Sweat, for me. I just can't afford the time to get there during their hours.

also, yesterday & today records has a big sale this week. like 50% off on most items.

wait, 50% off vinyl except for "new LP's and certain collectibles"

10% off everything else (cds? i don't know what else)

Amazingly, in case you're in that neck-of-the-woods, I was in a Borders bookstore in Aventura that had a not-so-terrible music section, for a bookstore. It had a healty reggae section (including the new Trojan Lee Perry disc, The Upsetter Selection), lots of old-time blues, and a lot of decent new rock stuff.

Uhh . . . I meant "healthy" reggae selection.

i checked out the new blue note location yesterday. it's a lot easier to get to than i expected, mostly because it's right off I-95. it took me about 25 minutes to get there from coral gables. that place is is awesome. they keep the kraftwerk in the soul/funk section. lots of stuff on sale, too. i picked up a horace andy digital dancehall single.

i had a hard time finding their phone number. here it is: 954-961-3928

also, i had their address wrong.

corrected:

Ravenswood Warehouse
5931 Anglers Ave
Dania, FL 33312

it's in the warehouses behind the wachovia bank.

I forgot that you guys (elan and Daniel) are local. It's partly my fault that we haven't tried to hang out.

We should. Elan, you're in the Gables? I live basically across the street from the University of Miami.