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1 week ago | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
If you, like I did, find yourself wondering what “Sessanta” means, the explanation is simpler than expected when considering the oddity of the players involved with the large-scale alternative metal tour that found its way to Hard Rock Live on Tuesday night.
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3 weeks ago | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Sometimes, and especially at heavy shows, the smell emanating from the venue precedes the noise that escapes it. A steamy, slammed and sold-out metal gig on a Thursday night may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but make no mistake—it’s an interesting excursion regardless of the music on display.
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Feb 3, 2025 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Please do not expect me to reference actual song titles in this concert review. That’s partially because Molchat Doma is a band whose show conjures more of an enveloping vibe than a scrupulous set list of tracks, but it’s mostly because I don’t speak Russian. Molchat Doma (Russian for “Houses Are Silent”) is a Belarusian post-punk act that evokes a murderer’s row of genre touchstones—think Joy Division, New Order, Nitzer Ebb and other dark synth acts that were prominent in the late 20th century.
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Apr 30, 2024 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Scene 1: I’m a little kid in the backseat of my dad’s car, and a Bad Religion song comes on the radio. He tells me that they’re kinda like Green Day, if Green Day were “a real punk band.” It will shape my perception of both bands and the genre as a whole well into adulthood. Scene 2: A friend texts me in the days leading up to the show: “Are you going to the boomer punk gig on Saturday?” I do not need to ask what gig he’s talking about.
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Apr 3, 2024 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Or: Trying Not To Be A Poser at the Descendents ShowIf a poser goes to a punk show and doesn’t post it on Instagram, were they really there?
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Feb 22, 2024 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
One could be forgiven for overlooking Philadelphia’s Digable Planets when reminiscing over the hip-hop groups that defined the 1990s. The era was, after all, dominated by heavyweights like A Tribe Called Quest, Fugees and Wu-Tang Clan. But even within the rich tapestry of the genre’s breakout decade, this trio of Philadelphia MCs has proven to have a lasting impact.
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Jan 30, 2024 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
It can be easy to become jaded as a music writer—when you’re lucky enough to have access to lots of shows, they can quickly stop feeling like capital-E “Events.” But this was a big one, and it felt like it in advance. After all, we’re talking about a musician with just under 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify, ranked as the No. 75 most listened-to artist in the world. To put that in perspective: Phoebe Bridgers has just over 10 million. Boygenius has around five.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Heavy music isn’t for everyone, but for the genre’s most ardent fans, allegiance to the discipline seems to know no bounds. What else could explain the devotion of Tool fans? Attendees at the first of the band’s two shows at Hard Rock Live last week—unusually intimate performances for a group primarily accustomed to selling out arenas and headlining large-scale rock festivals—seemed to have come from far and wide for a chance to see the quartet up close and personal.
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Dec 5, 2023 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
I’ve long been curious about the impetus behind the glut of radio-sponsored music festivals that pepper calendars around the country at the end of each year. In many major markets, they’re holiday-themed—Y100’s annual “Jingle Ball” is taking place at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise in a few weeks, for example—and regardless of the genres they cater to, these events seem to be ubiquitous each December.
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Nov 17, 2023 | 
bocamag.com | James Biagiotti
Imagine having the audacity to invoke one of the greatest composers in the history of music by calling your record “Wolfgang Amadeus [band name].” The French indie pop outfit Phoenix has never been bashful, especially not during its imperial era, when 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was instantly hailed as a modern classic LP and a benchmark of millennial indie music.
