The Sketchy Halloween Party at Awarehouse last Saturday was a mash-up of live art, live music, booze, and dry blood. To get a feel for the scene, check out this video by Beached Miami videographer Francisco Moraga with footage of Arboles Libres rocking the Casbah and several of the night’s featured artists working the canvas.
You can keep up with Nevermind Miami throughout September on beachedmiami.com/nevermind-miami -- Art by Robby Campbell
This is the last installment of Nevermind Miami, a tribute to the generation-defining album Nirvana released 20 years ago today, on September 24, 1991. To commemorate the occasion, we asked local musicians to cover each of the 13 songs on the original release.
Intended as a tribute to Nirvana’s pièce de résistance, Nevermind Miami is also a testament to the local music scene, both its vibrancy and its generosity. All of the bands/musicians we asked to take part responded with a hearty “hell yes” and crafted their covers with intense sincerity and prodigious badassmanship. Thank you to all of them for making this series — which you can stream in its entirety at beachedmiami.com/nevermind-miami — an enduring work in its own right, and keeping the ghost of Kurt Cobain off our backs.
First up we have Lil Daggers yanking “In Bloom” out of the studio and dragging it by a fraying rope through the swamp. Proceeding at a chain-gang pace, the eerie rendition starts with a crackling crack of distortion and ends in a house (a hideout perhaps) on the bayou. To get more Lil Daggers in your shamelessly sunny life, check out their self-titled LP, released in April, on bandcamp.
From right to left, Anthony Genovese, Juan Londono, and Eddie Moreno of Arboles Libres.
After our on-the-fly filming of “In Search of Waldo Pepper” to meet the Borscht Film Festival submission deadline, we decided to also leave the confines of the studio for this week’s podcast. On Wednesday night, we interviewed Eddie “Spaghetti” Moreno, Juan “Nacho” Londono, and Anthony “Probably has a food-related nickname but I don’t know it” Genovese of Arboles Libres outside of Sweat Records before the band’s second-anniversary show. We also recorded a song from their approximately 30-minute set to rock us out of the podcast and into the weekend.
At Churchill’s last night, Arboles Libres did me two good turns. First guitarist Eddie Moreno tracked me down to give me my phone, which I’d left on the bar out back and didn’t even know I was missing. Then, Moreno and his two band mates — guitarist/vocalist/harmonica player Juan “Nacho” Londono and drummer Anthony Genovese — roused the folk rocker who slumbers in my soul with their brand of sincere, crescendoing, simple music.
Like another great rock trio, the Violent Femmes, Arboles Libres combine the raw energy of rock-n-roll with the sonic clarity of a jazz combo. Their music passes freely from slow and soothing to jumpy to raucous as their lyrics flow from Spanish to English and back again. Within a song or two of their roughly 30-minute set last night, they had breathed oxygen into the small crowd (as arboles, or trees, are wont to do) and moved two chicks, drunk on alcohol and tight tunes, to dance on the stage. (It resembled dancing.) Playing between Jesse Jackson and Rachel Goodrich, Arboles Libres injected several doses of adrenaline into the lineup of top-notch Miami talent and more than held their own. Here are some photos from their set and a video of Arboles Libres — one of the few gems on the Miami Music Festival roster — playing “Comienzos.”
Arboles Libres singer Juan “Nacho” Londono, with dancers at his back
