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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSpam Allstars will perform at ZeyZey on Thanksgiving Eve. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSpam Allstars will perform at ZeyZey on Thanksgiving Eve. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Photo by Jill Kahn<\/p>\n
For years, Spam Allstars<\/a> maintained an unintended tradition of playing Thanksgiving<\/a> night, a byproduct of their weekly Thursday night residency at Hoy Como Ayer<\/a>. Those early shows in Little Havana became their own kind of Miami ritual: a mix of people ditching family dinners early, locals escaping the bougie scene, and musicians rolling in after their own gigs. If it was Thursday, they played. Even on Thanksgiving. Now, 30 years later, they\u2019re taking the stage Thanksgiving Eve, bringing together old friends visiting home for the holiday and new fans alike.<\/p>\n Spam Allstars could\u2019ve only been born here: a city where salsa, sound-system culture, Power 96 freestyle, Cuban timba, and electronic beats all spill into each other like cafecito foam. Band founder Andrew Yeomanson says Miami shaped the band long before the band shaped Miami. \u201cEverybody here grows up hearing everything; salsa, bass, freestyle, Cuban music, whatever\u2019s coming out of a storefront,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no other city like that.\u201d With such a diverse pool of influences, the band\u2019s ability to seamlessly blend them all together is a natural survival technique.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s origins trace back to the mid-\u201990s, when Yeomanson (aka DJ Le Spam) began blending vinyl, live percussion, and various other musicians, like a mad scientist assembling a rhythm lab. \u201cAll that stuff together, the turntables, the sampler, the mixer, that\u2019s my instrument,\u201d he says. His trusty rig gradually formed a nucleus around which the band grew. The horn section expanded, percussionists and improvisers rotated in and out depending on the gig\u2019s budget and needs, with the sound shifting accordingly. Eventually, they landed their Thursday residency at Hoy Como Ayer, allowing them to regularly experiment and hone their sound, building on the foundation of countless random gigs across the city and beyond.<\/p>\n These days, Yeomanson\u2019s other life as founder of the City of Progress studio<\/a> has him knee-deep in Miami\u2019s musical past. Le Spam doesn\u2019t just honor musical history through his own work; he archives it, digitizes it, studies it, and keeps it alive for future generations. Whole archives sit in danger of vanishing through humidity, decay, or the next construction disaster. He\u2019s preserving multitrack tapes and forgotten catalogues from the Caribbean, Latin America, and South Florida. \u201cWhen you see a room full of tapes that haven\u2019t been digitized, it hits you,\u201d he says. \u201cAnything can happen. And if it hasn\u2019t been preserved, it\u2019s in peril.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhen news happens, Miami New Times is there \u2014 \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If\u00a0Miami New Times\u00a0matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n He becomes especially animated when discussing the 2008 fire at Universal Studios, which destroyed a vault containing an unconfirmed but undeniably massive quantity of unreleased masters. \u201cWe\u2019re never going to hear some of that music. It still kills me,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the best thing I can do for the future of music is save what I can now.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as he\u2019s archiving the sounds that built Miami\u2019s musical identity, Yeomanson remains grounded through the band he\u2019s been shaping for decades. A tight, ever-evolving ensemble held together by horns, a deep percussion core, and the kind of chemistry that only comes from family-level bonds. Familiar faces anchor the group, but a new generation is quietly finding its place in the ranks. Afrobeta\u2019s Smurphio (Tony Laurencio) often stands beside him now, able to sync his instruments to the samplers and go off into unique electronic avenues. AJ Hill\u2019s daughter has begun exploring mallet percussion, a development that clearly lights Yeomanson up. \u201cIt\u2019d be amazing to do something with that one day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t force the idea of legacy, but he\u2019s not blind to it either. \u201cOnce you let the music go into the world, it has its own life,\u201d he says. \u201cIf future generations pick it up, that would be the most gratifying thing.\u201d The band has already outlived three decades of Miami reinvention, surviving scenes rising and collapsing, neighborhoods remade overnight, DJs and venues disappearing as fast as they arrived. In a city obsessed with the next thing, Spam Allstars has become something rare: a constant. A beating heart. A reference point.<\/p>\n Through it all, their philosophy hasn\u2019t changed. The music expands and contracts depending on who shows up to play, the truest expression of a Miami band raised on improvisation, mutation, and collective energy. Which is why their Thanksgiving Eve set at ZeyZey feels more like a reunion than a concert. The band that accidentally created a holiday ritual is stepping back into it with a fresh lineup, a few surprises, and that signature chaos that only happens when Miami musicians return home for the season.<\/p>\n If you grew up here, if you left and came back, or if you\u2019ve never seen Spam Allstars light up a courtyard under the Miami sky, this is the night.<\/p>\n Spam Allstars\u2019 Homecoming Show. 8 p.m. Wednesday, November 26, at ZeyZey Miami, 353 NE 61st Street; zeyzeymiami.com<\/a>. Tickets are $30 via Shotgun<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spam Allstars will perform at ZeyZey on Thanksgiving Eve. Photo by Jill Kahn For years, Spam Allstars maintained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226,2310,13470,2311],"class_list":{"0":"post-46609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news","11":"tag-interviews","12":"tag-latin-music","13":"tag-local-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Spam Allstars performing at their 30 year anniversary party at ZeyZey on January 2025.<\/p>\n