This was a concept for a book, but as with all things that emerged back then at the close of the analogue world -- stillborn.
Forward
The country was relatively quiet. The U.S.S.R. had fallen, and "The Bear" behind Castro had made the 90-mile buffer between Key West and Cuba an occasion for sentimentality. It was a time when the preoccupation was for the best cafesito amidst the thriving Cuban population in Miami rather than a concerted effort to redress their flight to the U.S. as refugees. To be sure, it still rang in the rhetoric, but if anything had been resolved through the The Mariel boatlift it was that they had conquered Miami with a navy of rafts and without a single gunshot.
They owned the place. Alex Penelas was the presiding mayor, and the lingua franca of the police force, judges, firefighters, tow truck drivers, and the like was "Spanglish." If there had been a lingering current for them to assert their own brand of Zionism it came in a short but brief incident in 1999 with the fate of the young boy, Elian Gonzalez.
Bill Clinton had charmed Gen X-ers with his saxophone solo on The Tonight Show, and by 1997, his second term was charming the pants off their parents by the seemingly boundless prosperity of the Dot-coms.
Fortunes were being made with every mouse click, Enron had yet to fall, and the United States presided over its hegemony as the first and only state in history to enjoy unequivocal world dominance. Things were good, and if there was a war to be fought, it was the so-called "War on Drugs."
Miami at this time had made a breakthrough as it approached the millenium. At last, it had secured its position as a cosmopolitan, global city. During the late 1980's, South Beach had continued to fester as a desolate, run-down relic of the days when Jackie Gleason had made its beaches a playboy paradise. Its economy, built on Social Security checks, sweltered in the Coppertone atmosphere and underwritten by the memories of scores of elderly sitting quietly gazing into the vast beyond of the surf and sun, had given way to its restoration.
By the mid-nineties, South Beach had made a great turn around. Art Deco was "in" as an institution. Gallon after gallon of pastel paint had been used to bring color and life back to the mold and rot -- a place now befitting Sunny Crocket and Tubs. The polka and shuffle board lessons were replaced by loud speakers, liquor and neon, and by 1997, South Beach had resoundingly taken its place amidst other thriving nightlife and cultural districts such the French Quarter in New Orleans, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and Greenwich Village in New York City. The party was raging, and in South Beach, it was raging all the time.
Meanwhile, the so-called War on Drugs had been waged unsuccessfully -- or brilliantly depending from whose perspective it was told from. Within the city limits of Miami proper, the retreating threat of Cold-war Cuba had made the drug trade remarkably easy. Miami -- the downtown and financial district -- witnessed the explosive rise of opulent skyscrapers and infrastructure such as the Citibank Building, The Miami Center, and Bayside -- all of these structures widely recognized as built with "drug money." Miami was now recognized as the capital city of Latin America, and the disastrous landfall of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 coupled with the storm surge of prosperity in the mid-90's, didn’t represent a set-back. Instead, it paved the way for broad-sweeping development of Dade County as a whole, especially west of the Palmetto Expressway and up to Krome Avenue, the last paved road before one encountered the levee that kept the swamp of the Everglades out from sprawling suburbia and the newly minted gated communities. As such, In 1997 the county was renamed to represent the glory that radiated throughout South Florida’s shores thus making Dade County officially rebranded as "Miami-Dade County."
In the midst of this domestic prosperity and tranquility, the Gen X-ers and creative-types were presented with a troublesome dilemma. It was one wrought, not from a lack of talent, training, or community but of geography. That is, while the city feverishly tried to establish its artistic identity with the likes of public works that propelled Romero Britto; and, while new "districts" emerged as if by proclamation -- all tracing their etymological naming from something having to do with the fine arts, areas formerly considered the stuff of “Bonfire of the Vanities,” were re-branded as "The Design District," or the "Art Deco District."
With every vibrant flag affixed to light poles along Biscayne Boulevard, the city tried to inspire its citizenry to embrace Miami's identity in the arts. And it worked ... except for the unfortunate problem that Miami was the last stop on the Florida peninsula. There was but one road in and one road out, I-95. Alligator Alley had only recently been re-purposed into I-75 -- a direct route to the western coast.
As such, once you arrived in Miami you were presented with three choices: to go on to that string of islands, The Florida Keys, that had tried to secede from The Union and had declared itself a sovereign nation, The Conch Republic (fallout and collateral damage from the hit their tourism industry took from the so-called War on Drugs); or, one could double back and trek endlessly through the swaps for the next oasis of something resembling a cosmopolitan arena: Orlando.
This geographical aspect of Miami had some significant consequences. First, national acts -- artists, musicians, theatre shows, et al -- were the only culture to venture to its sandy shores. Those indie, up-and-coming acts that kept live music alive in college campuses across the heartland of America did not make a stop in Miami. It was a simple logistical problem to plan a tour going to or leaving out of South Florida. If there were live performances, it was more often than not at the Miami Arena, and the acts performing there were the most established in their trade. National, emerging acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the early 90's who could have infused a fresh sound to the local artists and creatives were, generally, relegated to mid-sized venues like the Cameo Theatre on Washington Avenue. David Byrn, a titan of music, used the venue in the mid-90's. The Who used the newly built Joe Robbie Stadium. In short, Miami was artistically isolated from the rest of the country.
While the local brood of young musicians and artists made ample use of this lack of competition, their small, local following could not support the pubs and the truly local performance centers, especially in an environment where prosperity was dripping like sweat in every other sector. In 19XX, Rose’s, the South Beach equivalent of New York's CBGB's closed its doors, and the opportunity for local musicians to perform simply dried up.
What was “hot” and “in” were acts that could be shipped and transported in and out of the peninsula by freight, not buses -- electronica. With good reason, South Beach as a whole turned its backs on local musicians, preferring instead to establish itself as a mecca for anything that could make people shimmy and shake with a turntable and, possibly, a microphone. Lincoln Road Mall, Downtown proper, Coconut Grove, and The Art Deco District did the same for local artists who, in other artistic markets, might have been able to gain enough notoriety to be represented by local galleries purveying and pricing for the bourgeoisie.
Regardless, the native cultural creatives pressed on. Several troupes managed to organize into loose confederations, and there arose a small but vibrant scene of artist co-ops, most of them comprised by large spaces that were also the dwellings of the artists. Of the most notable, a group had secured a warehouse along the Miami River and branded a series of bacchanals under the banner of “C-Roc.” Another group established what were dubbed “Agape parties” at a house in Lemon City, near Downtown, where the curtained windows featured Fellini-esque silhouettes of dancers costumed in angelic wings; several stages set up in the house’s patio ushered up a roster of music, dance and conceptual exhibitions. Rehearsal spaces in Hialeah became a locus for film screenings, and North Miami warehouses were opened up as venues as well.
Performance at C-Roc
Others made liaisons with out of the way lounges, establishing grass-roots, DJ-inspired gatherings such as Pop Life that spun British retro-pop vibrations rather than what had become the country-wide mainstream performing on stages during the Winter Music Conference. Others had tried to embrace the nation-wide hip-hop movement, but recasted it outside the Miami Hip Hop Weekend at a desolate, dockside pub in Aventura named Thunder Alley. The event was by the locals and for the locals. Just north of Miami-Dade, some had sought to re-create a South Beach-like strip in Hollywood Beach that, itself, was trying desperately to create its own mystique by renovating its Main Street. Pubs such as Club M or the Billabong Pub, and The Abbey Brewing Co.,, continued their hospitality to local artists, but their footing remained tenuous at best.
Perhaps the last and only bastion for a cross-pollination between local acts such as The Laundry Room Squelchers and emerging national acts was a dive called Churchill's Hideaway. It continued to be a stop for travelling acts while embracing local productions such as Sticky Stuff Wrestling. However, it was situated well off the beaten path of Miami's self-ascribed artistic districts - Downtown and South Beach. It was, instead, situated in Little Haiti, tucked away in what was still considered a marginalized community. Truly, that was the reality for those who had been raised and fed by the Florida sunshine with a penchant for expressing their experience in some form of artistic medium; marginalized despite the overt assertion by Miami that it had raised its bar of standard for the arts.
Nonetheless, the cultural climate became a crucible for a strange sort of artistic movement. At the same time, in New York City, an authentic, thriving movement had emerged. It’s ethos is encapsulated by the 2008 documentary, Beutiful Loosers, which chronicles early career and influences for the now renown figures in modern art such as Shepard Fairy (Barack Obama “Hope” poster; Obey Giant), Harmony Korine (Gummo (1997)) , and Mike Mills (Thumbsucker (2005)). To some extent, one could say that a concurrent analogue was happening in Miami with as much virtuosity, but in a market destined to remain in obscurity.
Regardless, the local creatives, left to their own devices from the broader picture of art in America, had managed to galvanize into an intimate community that continued to put forward their humanistic vision for modernity. The scene oozed with the stuff of the Burrows and Kerouac of the 50s; their subterranean musings inspiring each other and waxing at every turn into philosophical dirges inked into ratty sketchbooks, simultaneously waxing with contemporary themes, but remaining well within the tropes and forms that had dominated art historicity.
Art was wherever and whenever it could be. The community flowed and ebbed by its own mechanism and in loose confederations possessed of an uncommon unity in the closely knit scene. There was no one to compete against; there was only the small but vibrant places to convene and perform. Self constructed venues became the places to congregate, and the roster of artists constituted a broader cross-section of the local Miami scene as a whole. In-bred as it was, a cross pollination of ideas, techniques and aesthetics did manage to occur if only at a local level and for a local audience.
And yet, while there was an air that something or someone would break through or spill over into the broader picture of the aesthetic discourse in America, the movement continued to grind on its own gears. The products of self-expression remained unpublished in the piles of sketchbooks, demo discs or tapes; a memory of a significant breakthrough the night before continued to be worked out at a Dunkin Donuts or at a Denny’s , through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke or a hangover, but never at the conference table where it might have proliferated to a broader audience.
But, if one is to define an artistic movement as a group of individuals dedicated to inspiring one another towards new avenues of expression, at that time and in that place -- in Miami, a sketchbook was enough. The yearning to loose it upon the world at-large was an aching presence, and that urge forged strong, enduring friendships that, to this day, remain intact, if not somewhat estranged in the post-analogue, post-9/11 world. The sense that the period would reap an authentic voice for Miami’s artists; that its labor to legitimize those orgys of shared moments of inspiration seemed palpable and within reach at the time, but, eventually would wane down to nothing. The kingdom was at hand, or at least it seemed to be just before the Twin Towers went down and just before the Neo-Liberal regime that had begun during the Reagan/Thatcher era was sussed out as the failure it turned out to be for the citizenry of the Global North.
More than twenty years later, hindsight says that the movement was, squarely, still-born. That is to say, the body of work produced during that time remains in sketchbooks and on cassette tapes. It resides in the hearts and minds of those who lived through that period. It continues to live as a dream unfulfilled, and as a memory of what could have been but didn’t -- a loose end, a longing, an itch for those who were there.
Soon after the millennium turned, the lustre of common purpose seemed to pass, and as if a spirit of hope for local artists slipped away the scene seemed to evaporate not with a bang but with a whimper. By Y2K the proving grounds and venues were places to disclose airplane fare for other artistic markets. Some would choose the west coast while others New York City. Other’s hung up their instruments, pencils and paints and retired alone or with their spouses to la vie quotidienne. In short, by the year 2000 a diaspora of “the scene” had begun for the Miami creatives of the late 90’s.
To be sure the dates for this record, 1997-2000, are arbitrary. The scene, as it were, had its precedents and antecedents prior to ‘97, and the diaspora was (and still is) a long process that continues to unfold. Also, Miami has its scene, as it always will. Also, it could be argued that Miami creatives did, in fact, manage to tease out a unique aesthetic half-way through the millennium's first decade: The Nots. It was epitomized by acts such as The Spam All-Stars — described best as, perhaps, Afro-Cuban Disco.
The dates chosen are merely to serve as a lens to focus and shape the discussion and bracket a much larger process — a process which one could argue is prescient to the “now.” This record, hopefully, can communicate this “last hurrah” of a classical, pre-digital world, unfolding the circumstances which crafted for those who participated the self-same vision that has galvanized every generation, reconstructing In each the fundamental aspirations at the heart of the “human enterprise.”
In other words, this record could, potentially, serve as testimony of recreating the “Millenary Kingdom;” it is a record of youth filled with camaraderie and of the sharing in that abiding memory of Camelot. In short, this volume hopes to tease out and keep at the fore the proverbial Grail for civilization as it undergoes its radical transformations.
Perhaps, it is presumptuous to think that subsequent generations have found it difficult to assert a similar analogue; but, for what it’s worth, this was how it was done in the late-90’s in Miami, Florida. This is the story of that vision and an account of that stillborn revolution.
JC Martinez-Sifre
Brooklyn, NY 2012
Edited and revisited 2020
