By EVELYN MCDONNELL


MIAMI - On a balmy November night here, Rachel Goodrich was playing to a rapt moonlit crowd in a courtyard of Churchill’s Pub. The ramshackle space in the Little Haiti neighborhood was full of fans and fellow musicians, who sang along with Ms.Goodrich’s gin-clear voice as she led her band through the kind of controlled hootenanny that has made her the queen of the Miami indie rock scene.

Her handcrafted songs stand out in a town known for machined bass and dance beats, but she is not alone.

“Rachel has everything: the band, the look, the sound,”said Nick Scapa, 25, a local musician and one of several young entrepreneurs trying to put Miami on the musical map.

Thanks to talents like Ms.Goodrich, Miami’s reputation as a dead zone for live music may be changing. A spate of CDs by Miami artists, propelled by local promoters and backed with national tours, are poised to raise the city’s profile. Ms.Goodrich released“Tinker Toys,” her charming debut album, on her own Yellow Bear label in October. Rough Guide has compiled the independent CDs by the Spam Allstars, the Latin-funk band that is a veteran of the international festival circuit. Jacob Jeffries, a 20-year-old pianist, bandleader and singer-songwriter, is recording the final disc of a trilogy. And record labels and music publishers are starting to pay attention.

Miami is “striving to find an independent music scene,” said Barbara Cane, vice president and general manager for writer and publisher relations at BMI, who is working with Mr.Jeffries.“It’s going to take one little person like Jacob to open doors to all those other Jacobs down there.”

The indie music scene is also getting a lift from the increasing reputation of Miami’s visual arts scene.“I have faith that eventually the international respect being paid to the art scene will carry over to the music scene,” said Michael-John Hancock, the singer of ANR.

It may not seem surprising for a metropolitan area the size of South Florida to have a thriving rock scene. But Miami has never been a typical American city; as the joke goes,“It’s lovely, and so close to the U.S.”While Miami has countless dance clubs, there are very few establishments that support live local music. For bands the city’s physical isolation presents obstacles. It’s about an 11-hour drive to Atlanta, the next musical mecca.“Geographically it’s a struggle to get out of South Florida,”Mr. Jeffries said.

And the transient nature of a city full of tourists and immigrants fosters a nightlife that’s built around partying. The music that D.
J.’s spin in local clubs is heavily beat driven: hip-hop, techno, trance. Until recently, the primary outlet for the alternative crowd was the experimental electronic genre called intelligent dance music.

Fortunately for Miami rock fans there is Churchill’s. In 1979 David Daniels, an expat veteran of England’s northern soul scene, founded the club that - from its grotty interior to its Bowery-esque surroundings - is the CBGB of Miami. Mr.Daniels rents the adjacent space to Sweat Records, a store and coffeehouse whose owner, Lauren Reskin, is a funnel for information on the local art and music scene.

“Everything happens at Churchill’s,”Ms.Goodrich said.“It’s so real. It’s old and it’s magical, and there’s a lot of secrets there.”

Ms.Goodrich is eager to hit the road and see the world, but she always wants to come home, to thrive on the ambience of a metropolis that is still rapidly becoming.

“I love being here,”she said.“It feels so free outside. I don’t have to put on a million things to get around. I enjoy the blue sky and the rain. I go to the beach. The colors here are amazing. And the characters down here. There’s a constant flow of people.”