Daily Loaf

If AC/DC has fired its last cannon in Florida, the fans at Amway Arena in Orlando enjoyed a raucous final salute on November 19.

The 35-year rock veterans with Hall of Fame credentials put on a fast-paced two-hour set — no room for ballads at an AC/DC show — featuring classics (four songs from 1977’s Let There Be Rock and four from 1980’s Back In Black) and newer songs (four from last year’s Black Ice). And although they’ve been on tour for more than a year, the band seemed no worse for wear: Guitarist Angus Young was a blur as he ran from the stage to the catwalk and back again, legs pumping to the rhythm provided by the near-motionless Malcolm Young on rhythm guitar, Cliff Williams on bass and Phil Rudd on drums. If not for their occasional strolls forward to sing some background vocals before retreating back into the shadows, you’d think AC/DC was a two-man operation.

If Young was all sweat, lead singer Brian Johnson was all smiles — shaking hands, pumping his fists and belting out classics with a sharper growl than he had at last year’s show in Tampa. There were no angry scowls on stage; the mood was more of a friendly gathering or a reunion of sorts. And by the looks of greybeards with dated concert gear mixed with younger fans wearing new purchases from the souvenir stands, it was clear that many in attendance had seen the band before. No doubt they had heard them many times, as nearly every song had the entire arena helping out with the chorus. Not so with openers Megaphone, a local band that performed a capable set and probably deserved a bit more recognition than they received from the crowd. Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend proved to me once again that I am getting too old to party like a rock star two nights in a row. [All photos by Nicole Kibert.]

The self-abuse began this past Friday night, when I set out to, and I quote myself here, “get Lucero drunk.” [Frontman Ben Nichols pictured at left.] I am happy to report that my mission was a complete success. The trade off, though, is that my recollection of the show is slightly hazy. A lot of the reviews I read leading up to Lucero’s Tampa show were about the crowd, that the frat boy concentration levels were reportedly getting dangerously high. I didn’t really notice it being a problem here, though my only complaint about the show was the crowd — a completely expected complaint all things considered. See, as a band’s popularity and attending crowds grow, the devotion level of the crowd begins to get diluted. While there was no shortage of people at Czar who where there to be seen rather than to see Lucero, they didn’t hurt the quality of what was happening on the stage, so let’s talk about that … and the horns. Read the rest of this entry »

Formerly bearded weirdo Devendra Banhart releases another album of strange folk with What Will We Be (Reprise). Problem is, his major label debut sounds overproduced and commercialized, with none of the organic charm of previous albums. It’s an unfocused grab bag of tracks ranging from Banhart as R&B crooner on “Baby,” to Banhart as Cut Copy-inspired DJ on “16^th and Valencia, Roxy Music.”

“Can’t Help but Smiling,” though, has the refreshing, invigorating feeling of waking up after a mid-day nap. It’s a lively, tropical folk song with Spanish undertones. Depressingly, the production tarnishes the tune with a sheen that wouldn’t be out of place in a commercial for Levi’s or iPod, or some other corporation trying to lure in a hip demographic. The appeal of previous Banhart albums were their lo-fi intimacy. Who wants a musically airbrushed folk singer? Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Waits concerts are real events: phantasmic orgies of twisted, postmodern vaudeville and rag-and-bone blues. Unfortunately, his last world tour does not translate all that well to a strictly audio format.

Sans visuals — the weird, low-tech theatrics, Waits’ demented carnival-barker stage persona — the music on Glitter and Doom Live comes off as strident and lacking in nuance.

The iconoclastic artist, closing in on 60, now sings almost exclusively in a low, guttural bark that would make a cranky Rottweiler blush with envy. And when Waits is not barking, he occasionally emits banshees shrieks that would cause that Rottweiler to hide under the bed.

All of this gets rather tiresome after awhile. And it makes me wonder what happened to Waits’ other vocal gears: the whispery rasp, the craggy croon, the barroom moan. Those textures crop up occasionally in this 17-song set, but not enough. Read the rest of this entry »

A sold-out show full of high school kids was not what I expected to see at the Say Anything show this past Friday night at State Theatre. It’s what I got, so I went with it. With barely any room to maneuver, I decided to walk around to the back of the theater and work my way through the loading dock. While everyone else was crammed shoulder to shoulder, I was standing comfortably on the side of the stage without anyone bothering me.

Now keep in mind, I’ve been a fan of the band since their first album dropped, and to be honest, that’s all I really wanted to hear. I’ve seen SA a few times in the past couple of years and have enjoyed their dynamic sets every time. Friday’s show was no exception. [Lead singer Max Bemis pictured at right.]

I was a bit concerned about their choice in attire that night. All six band members were clad in dress shirts, dress slacks, and yachting shoes. I have never been a fan of bands with members who all dress alike — don’t ask me why, I just haven’t. But I pushed all judgment aside, laughed it off and sang along to all my favorite songs. I kept finding myself bobbing to the songs I grew up with while still trying to maintain a steady frame in the camera. Let me give all you photographers a word of advice, don’t do it. It did not work well. Read the rest of this entry »

Poor Pete Yorn. He deserves a fate better than the hand he was dealt last Thursday night at Push Ultra Lounge, a hip downtown St. Pete nightclub. The New Jersey native has built quite a name for himself since the release of his excellent 2001 debut, Musicforthemorningafter. He’s slowly but steadily racked up a solid fanbase thanks to his consistent string of impressive albums, appearances on a slew of film soundtracks and constant touring. Adding to his notoriety is his latest effort, a critically-acclaimed album of duets with actress/singer Scarlett Johansson entitled, Break Up. For all his glowing achievements, all Pete Yorn got from the trendy St. Petersburg crowd was noise. A lot of it. And I don’t mean the between-song noise associated with appreciation and adoration for each number performed. I mean that devil-may-care, incessant conversation type of noise. And damn, was it annoying. [Photo by James Ostrand.]

While I’m no prude and no stranger to the trappings that come with a bar show, I certainly wasn’t prepared for the complete and utter lack of respect and interest in Yorn’s performance. It seemed as if paying attention to him was the last priority of most of the attendees. Talking, to each other and on cell phones, texting, taking photos of each another — activities that most were fully immersed in for the bulk of the night.  My friend Kim put the evening’s ridiculous scenario into perfect pop-culture perspective. She said it felt like we were in a nightclub scene from a Melrose Place episode, hanging out, talking and looking cool while some nameless, faceless, innocuous singer was on stage plugging away. The difference was, of course, that some of us who were jammed into the club were actually there to see (and to TRY to hear) Pete Yorn. And boy, did we try. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dunedin Wines the Blues Festival wrapped up its 18th year on Saturday with an old school blues show by John Lee Hooker, Jr., son of the legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker.  John Lee, Jr. hit the stage in true blues style, dressed in a dark hat, sunglasses and a vest, and quickly brought the at-capacity crowd to its feet. Backed by a four-piece band, Hooker started the set with “The People Want a Change,” from his Grammy-nominated release, All Odds Against Me, and continued to turn out the blues for nearly two hours. In addition to a wide variety of originals and blues standards, Hooker also managed to squeeze in a song or two by his famous father, which brought the crowd to its feet again. Caught up in the excitement, several women even felt the urge to join Hooker on stage, which John Lee seemed to enjoy. In all, this year’s blues festival set a new bar for musical quality, due largely to the inclusion of John Lee Hooker, Jr. It will be interesting to see how festival organizers plan to keep up this level of quality entertainment in the coming years.

For more Tampa area concert info, follow Jeff on Twitter.

It didn’t matter that she played to a crowd of 225, slightly more than a half-full house at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater — Laura Izibor comported herself as a star Saturday night. She danced, she strutted, she belted out her neo-soul tunes with thorough conviction. And she smiled. Beamed, actually. The 22-year-old Irish artist displayed an easy charisma during her Bay area debut, part of her first American tour. She told stories (in an adorable brogue) to set up the tunes, offered profuse thanks after each, and, it’s safe to say, charmed everyone in the audience. [Photo by Jeff O'Kelley.]

Like Corinne Bailey Rae, Alicia Keys and artist of that ilk, Izibor — the Dublin-bred daughter of an Irish mother and Nigerian father — makes music that blends contemporary R&B stylings with old-school principles of songcraft and musicianship.

Izibor was backed by a versatile quartet — drummer, bassist, keyboardist and trumpeter — and played her own keyboard for about half the show. After the band warmed up with a groove, she took the stage with supreme exuberance, clad in a leopard print top and black latex pants that looked to be sprayed on. Her trademark big Afro was accentuated by a headband.

While Izibor issued a very winning performance Saturday night, she could use some seasoning. Her voice is powerful and brassy, and thus every song ended with a towering crescendo. She’s clearly more comfortable with the big, showy gesture, and she would do well over time to develop a sense of introspection on stage. I’m not talking Billie Holiday, but some added nuance would help. Read the rest of this entry »

This Friday at the 21st edition of Ribfest, JET proved once and for all that they are no longer a garage rock band but full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll professionals.

The Aussies headlined opening night of the three-day waterside barbeque at Vinoy Park, wordlessly hitting the stage in T-shirts and jeans, kicking off their set with the chart topping “Cold Hard Bitch,” and generally pumping up a crowd of both diehard JET fans and spectators simply there to enjoy a side of music with their racks of ribs.

After “Bitch,” lead singer Nic Cester (third from left) thanked the audience with a boyish grin and asked, “Alright, people, how ya doin’!?” And we were doin’ good, because we knew we were about to be treated to some more of JET’s classic-rock inspired music. Read the rest of this entry »

With absolutely no idea of what to expect, I headed into the Orpheum this past Thursday night to see Captured by Robots. Now, truthfully, I did take a few minutes to check out the band’s website so I could prepare myself for the performance, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Taking the stage in chains, a leather bondage mask with protruding eyeballs and disemboweled entrails hanging from a bloody t-shirt, robot abductee JBOT conducted his Teddy Bear Orchestra while whipping the crowd into a motivationally-charged frenzy. In addition to JBOT, the band consists of GTRBOT66 (who plays a double-neck Flying V), percussionist AUTOMATON, drummer DRMBOT0110, The Headless Hornsmen, The Ape Which Hath No Name and finally Son of Ape Which Hath No Name.  Bear in mind that JBOT is the only living creature on the stage; the rest are “real” robots. The band’s set consisted of 80’s rock and pop covers, including a decent rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” As for JBOT himself, he was kind of like a cross between Andy Kaufman, Jim Henson and Dale Carnegie. Believe me, it’s a frightening combination. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, Bradenton-based quintet Have Gun, Will Travel caught the attention of NPR with their stylistic and thematic take on Old West-flavored Americana in Casting Shadows Tall as Giants, their sophomore full-length.

The band’s self-released third effort, Postcards from the Friendly City (out Nov. 17) maintains the dusty trailblazing charm of its predecessor with rambling melodies, rustic musical textures — banjo, lap steel and acoustic guitar, viola, harmonica, percussive frills from cowbell to shakers — and the vivid storytelling of lead singer/songwriter Matt Burke, his lyricism continuing to draw from different moods of times long past.

The pervading call of crickets and other rural evening sounds open the ominous “Wolf in Shepard’s Clothes” as the underlings of a toxic leader plan a revolution: “We got the number while the captain slumbered, and we’re gonna cut him down.” Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Wollard & The Ship Thieves made their Tampa debut at Crowbar this past Friday, November 6, with support from Mike Hale and How Dare You.

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Meet NYC resident and frontman of The Strokes, Julian Casablancas. On his solo debut, Phrazes For The Young, he has replaced all your expectations with synths straight out of 1984. Listen closely. Pop waves too polished to be considered prog echo shades of Duran Duran’s “Rio,” Madonna’s “Borderline” and “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince. Within this palette of ’80s-style synths, a secretly danceable album bubbles up. Nagging speculation about how the songs would sound if guitars replaced the shiny textures, or if some feedback and grime were swapped for the forlorn tropical vibe glistening across “11^th Dimension” and “Glass,” is senseless and unnecessary, for solo albums serve as outlets to indulge those musical urges normally suppressed by a group dynamic.

Take “4 Chords of the Apocalypse.” The song’s slowed-down tempo makes it feel really out of place to Strokes fans, a knee jerk reaction and possible obstacle for those expecting another “Last Nite” because the track celebrates the despondency of Otis Redding and Solomon Burke-era soul, and not the dissonance and recklessness of CBGB. Read the rest of this entry »

4:30 p.m. – Yin

Driving into the parking lot of Ruth Eckerd Hall this past Friday for a late afternoon “meet & greet” with blues/rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Admittedly, I wasn’t that familiar with his work and I felt a bit unprepared. Beyond recent media blips about his appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, and some hasty Internet research, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have a single intelligent thing to ask. I resigned myself to keeping my mouth shut and taking pictures.

As I waited in the Green Room at REH with about a dozen avid fans, I noticed they’d come prepared. Most had tickets, t-shirts or magazines ready for an autograph, while one guy even clutched a limited edition Joe Bonamassa Gibson Les Paul in a case that looked as though it had never been opened. I wondered if spending nearly his entire life in the public eye would make Joe one of those rock stars who take all of the attention in stride or if it had made him intolerant of rabid fans, autograph seekers and the media. Since I wasn’t sure which way it would go, I slid my camera backpack around to the front, in order to block any crazed, Britney-like attacks on the paparazzi that might be forthcoming. Read the rest of this entry »

Your enjoyment of Raditude is entirely dependent on your feelings about Weezer’s brand of pop music — sing-a-longs, whoa-OH choruses, and inane lyrics that you can’t get seem to get out of your head.

Lead singer-songwriter Rivers Cuomo seems to have given up on writing the sort of lyrics he did back on Pinkerton, an album cherished by many Weezer fans for its self-reflective, interesting verses. Now, listeners are stuck with songs that come off as jokes.

Take “Can’t Stop Partyin’,” which features the studio work of well-known hip-hop producer Jermaine Dupri (Jay-Z, Usher) and guest vocals by, of all people, NOLA rap artist Lil Wayne. In the track, Cuomo sings about how much he loves Patrón and jewels, pretty girls and “bottles of the Goose.” It’s hard to reconcile the lyrics with their creator, a skinny, nerdy Harvard English graduate. The opening single, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To,” is similarly simple-minded and features such oy-inducing lyrics as “I swear it’s true / without you / my heart is blue.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ritz Ybor’s website boasts a capacity of 1,150 for its concert hall. I would call that a conservative estimate for Brand New and Thrice as I politely pushed through the throng of mostly teenage girls clogging the stairways leading to the pit. All the ”Excuse Me’s” I could muster made no difference when I bumped a girl’s flip-flopped foot and received a flat, condescending “Ow” in reply. Here’s a novel idea — don’t wear flip-flops to rock concerts and don’t stop in the middle of a stairway to watch a band. Unless you’ll permit the rest of us to pee on you instead of pushing through to the facilities.

Following a false start, Thrice (pictured right, all photos by Mike Wilson) hit the stage around eight and overcame some early technical problems to deliver a ten-song set of competent, mostly mid-tempo post-rock with intermittent lite-hardcore breakdowns. Guitarist Teppei Teranishi’s backup vocals created some pleasant harmonies with frontman Dustin Kensrue’s otherwise bland leads. Thrice didn’t perform as if very excited, and aside from a pinch of hardcore fans singing every word they elicited little more than head-bobbing from the crowd. It took a cover of “Helter Skelter” — a song that pre-dates the birth of every bandmember and most of the audience — to finally evoke some movement. “Silhouette” off their major label debut, The Artist In The Ambulance, received the best fan reaction, and enough people caught onto the “We are beggars, all” chant from their new LP’s title-track as Thrice finally forged a connection before ending their set. I heard more than a few Thrice supporters object the lack of ‘hits.’

Thankfully, Brand New (pictured below) left little room for similar complaints. (Setlists for both bands after the jump!) Read the rest of this entry »

You people out there give us
something more than just record sales.
You give us something to hate.
And we hate you,
you brainless mutants.

So begins Dethklok’s traditional closer “Fansong.” I suppose when you’re (fictionally) the world’s seventh largest economy you can take your fans for granted. After all, Dethklok represents creator Brendon Small’s metal nerd wet dreams. He creates the Metalocalypse cartoon series following the end of Home Movies‘ five-year run. He takes his cartoon metal band on increasingly successful tours with the use of touring musicians and a giant video screen. He made death metal history with the release of The Dethalbum, which temporarily became the biggest-selling debut in the genre until The Dethalbum II came along.

In reality, Dethklok exists because of its fans — socially awkward, maladjusted metalheads ignored and derided by most until Metalocalypse came along. The silly plots, vulgar characters and heavy metal parody lured not only metalheads but the rest of the weirdos that find Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup funny. Dethklok also attracts an increasingly improving pedigree of support bands for its tours. This time around they bring stoner-metallers High On Fire, metalcore veterans Converge, and the incomparable Mastodon. (Setlists and videos for Mastodon and Dethklok after the jump!). Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled upon one of my favorite area bands while meandering through Ybor City several months back: Asilo, a Lakeland-based fivesome whose music caught my ear, stole my heart and rocked my socks off. The show was not enough for me. I was addicted and needed a daily Asilo fix. Thankfully, they granted my wish and self-produced an amazing album that I’ve been spinning nonstop for the past week.

Fine Goods is their debut full-length that features 12 unforgettable songs. Pop it in and be prepared to be taken back in time to the late ’60s classic rock era. (Think Pink Floyd meets The Doors flavored with hints of jazz, blues and Motown; you can thank Sean Thomas and his trumpet for that.) Musically, the album starts out with lazy bass lines and jazzy piano intricately dispersed in and out of a slow-moving guitars riff. The song picks up along with frontman Ben Strok’s vocals. At one point, he sounds so much like Jim Morrison that he makes me feel like singing “Break on Through.” Classically trained, but very experimental and jazzy, Walter Gutowski adds so much to this band, his piano playing mimicking that of Ray Manzarek from The Doors, but with his own twist. And he plays barefoot, which is awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point in time, nothing that Bob Dylan does should surprise anyone. His satellite radio program Theme Time Radio Hour pretty much laid all his cards on the table and pegged him once and for all as a mischievous kidder with a wit drier than any Sunday in the Bible Belt. Back in 1966, it was irresistible to the international press to try to pin him down into a shape that they could get a grip on. But by now (and thanks in large part to him), no one seems to care much about what motivates a pop star anymore. They do what they do and we like it or we don’t.

But when you see the cover of Christmas in the Heart (Sony), with its apparently sincere wintry scene of a couple enjoying a sprightly two-horse sleigh ride, a certain level of WTF creeps into your psyche, no matter how much you want to believe in Santa. You know that, yes, on one level Bob Dylan would not make a 15-song Christmas record as a complete joke, yet you also know that he would not do it completely seriously either. And when you open the jewel case you see that you are correct. Because right there, Bettie Page is perched in an immodest Christmas get-up, smiling at you like she wants to open your presents. Christmas in the Pants is more like it. Read the rest of this entry »

Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox has recorded under the pseudonym Atlas Sound since he was a teenager, and on his second proper solo release, Logos, he submerges the divine and ancient reason that tethers the universe into an inebriated kaleidoscope of pop memories. Cox is a smart enough pop music aficionado that he effortlessly fuses catchy with a DIY aesthetic of drone, loops, lo-fi, and ambient interludes to create his own vision of ballads riddled with despair, alienation, and forlornness.

The two tracks most blogged about this summer in anticipation of the release — “Walkabout,” a collaboration with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear that samples the ’60s shuffle of “What Am I Going To Do?” by The Dovers, and “Quick Canal,” which features the coquette-coo of Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier — are ruins processed inside Cox’s ramshackle rhythms. Tunes like “Shelia,” “An Orchid” and title track “Logos,” are subdued but upbeat, stuttering after bliss, hypnotized beneath brooding lyrics that evoke pop music’s cruel mistress: unrequited longing. Read the rest of this entry »

For a long time I’ve had this funny thought roaming in the back of my mind. Ya know how bands like AC/DC and Kiss are still playing shows 20+ years after they made it big? Well, sometimes I wonder if Paramore will do the same. Maybe in 20+ years, I will be reminiscing on my childhood of listening to and adoring Paramore. At least now I know there is one memory I will cherish forever, and that is Monday night’s show at House of Blues in Orlando.

This show was worthy of the 90-minute joy ride from St. Pete to Orlando, so my friend and I set out on our adventure, blaring the new Paramore album,  Brand New Eyes, the entire length of the trip. Despite a minor bump in the road — I’m terrible with directions and we ended up driving around some residential area of Orlando, trying to find the House of Blues — we finally made it to Downtown Disney, and were immediately greeted with a line that had to be no less than 2 miles long. Great. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine running into a crush from your early childhood. He or she is all grown up and married, and balances out a successful career with a loving family. Though you don’t carry the same torch for your former love, just the sight of that person makes you remember why you fell for them all those years ago.

That’s exactly what happened to me Saturday night with three different childhood sweethearts. Kind of.

The brothers Hanson played what has now come to be their annual concert at Orlando’s House of Blues this past Saturday, October 24, a stop on their “Use Your Sole” tour. While I haven’t listened to their music in years, I was the token Hanson fan as a young girl growing up in Oklahoma, where they were also raised. There was no way I could miss this show because I never got to see them in concert as a kid, and I owed it to the little girl inside me. I didn’t expect greatness from a trio of 20-somethings who launched to stardom in their teenage years, and I was content with the idea that driving to Orlando to see Isaac, Zac and Taylor (pictured from left to right) would be nothing more than a stroll down memory lane. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever heard the creaky noise an unoiled door makes when it’s opened, or the screeching sound of violin strings rubbing against a chalkboard? That’s what most of Sufjan Stevens‘ new album sounds like — jarring and harsh.

Run Rabbit Run recycles material from 2001’s Enjoy Your Rabbit. The new album, arranged by assorted New York composers and played by the quartet Osso, consists of string versions of the songs from Enjoy Your Rabbit.

I’m not sure why this album is released under Sufjan Stevens’ name instead of Osso’s since it’s essentially an album of remixes, but I do know that certain sounds — like the violins, which sound like they’re being played by toddlers at a music store — are obnoxious. Osso’s string players, the same who worked so elegantly on Stevens’ 2005 album, Illinoise, bring a discordant and grating feel to the album. Read the rest of this entry »

Before listening to Life Starts Now, the latest album from Three Days Grace, I couldn’t quite decide how I felt about the Canadian rock band. It’s not that I’ve ever disliked their sound. In fact, lead singer Adam Gontier’s distinctively rough vocals make Three Days Grace stand out on radio stations so often filled with indistinguishable bands, and that’s impressive. But my question was always, “Why so angry, Three Days Grace? Don’t you have any good news to report?”

After playing (and re-playing) their third album (out Sept. 22 on Jive), I’ve made up my mind, and the verdict is in: Three Days Grace is completely rockin’ — but no longer completely hostile.

The opening track, “Bitter Taste,” pairs the band’s signature hard rock sound with their expected “you suck and I’m glad we’re through” lyrics, which initially made me wonder how similar this album would be to their 2003 self-titled debut and 2006’s One-X. But the next track and the album’s first single, “Break,” renewed my hope. This is easily the next big anthem for America’s anguished youth, and even 20-somethings standing at a proverbial crossroads. (You know who you are.) Read the rest of this entry »

The bump-and-groove crew was in high spirits as we enjoyed a brief reprieve from our regular lives and shed the stresses of the week to take a ride on the Junior Boys’ indie train to electro jam land. [All photos by elawgrrl.]

The stage was bathed in saturated lights and scattered with Halloween trimmings; flickering jack-o-lanterns, a crow perched on the keys, a huge skull and crossbones hanging over the drums, rainbow spears of light shining up and out of the drumkit and into the audience, and occasional blasts of fog for extra effect. Read the rest of this entry »

The quest for free, unfettered creativity can sometimes lead straight over a cliff. And so The Flaming Lips crash and burn with Embryonic (Warner Bros.), a noisy, tuneless “double” album (on one CD) that falls prey to all manner of sophomoric excess and discards the techno-psychedelic-dream-pop that the band brought to sublime fruition with 2006’s At War with the Mystics.

The unfettered freedom bit is not simply my interpretation. In an eloquent essay that’s more interesting and entertaining than the 70 minutes of music it came with, leader Wayne Coyne documents the band’s goal to strip the creative process of filters, premeditation and fear. “So, yes, more free!!! Now at last to be free from the discipline and focus. Free to fail … free to lose ourselves,” he writes.

Indeed. Read the rest of this entry »

In a day and age when glitz and glamour are the necessary ingredients to make it big in country music, it’s nice to be treated to an evening of pure, unadorned entertainment from one of the architects of the genre. For a lesson in “how it’s done,” there’s no one out there nowadays who exemplifies that better than the original Texas outlaw, Willie Nelson. [All photos by Sam Goresh.]

Anticipation was high for Willie’s first visit to the Tampa Bay area in four years … especially since this show was originally supposed to take place last March but was postponed due to illness. Fans were urged to hang on to their tickets purchased for the original date  as they’d be honored for the rescheduled show. And judging from the enthusiastic response from the anxious sellout crowd of the 2,180 packed into Ruth Eckerd Hall, Willie is definitely worth waiting for. Read the rest of this entry »

A veritable dance party erupted at Crowbar this past Tuesday evening during and between splendid sets by Vivian Girls (NYC), and Tampa’s Sleepy Vikings and Hippodrome.

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The super group Monsters of Folk is made up of actual “monsters of folk” Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), M. Ward (of late, the “him” of She and Him), and producer Mike Mogis (Jenny Lewis, Rilo Kiley, Sea Wolf, Cursive, etc).

The foursome first came together as a result of a 2004 one-off gig in Chicago,”An Evening with Bright Eyes, Jim James and M Ward.” Oberst later explained that the unnecessarily long name wasn’t very catchy. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget everything you may or may not have heard about Tiny Tim. If it exists in your mind, erase the memory of his novelty hit from 1968. Now think about him as a human encyclopedia of popular song — a Manhattan native born in 1932 who could convincingly sing any number of otherwise-forgotten tunes once sold on 78-rpm records. When I say convincingly, I mean that the spirit of the original artist inhabited Tim’s soul and came warbling out of his mouth like a phantom. He could render the song in his beautiful, natural baritone or kick it up into a fun-sounding falsetto. He could imitate and interpret in the same breath. All the while, he maintained connections with the hippest of pop-culture recording artists. When making his film about the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967, D.A. Pennebaker was wise enough to shoot footage of Tiny backstage, entertaining the festival performers with riveting renditions of dusty once-favorites. That summer, the Band hosted him at their Woodstock hideout while recording their legendary “Basement Tapes.” (The results are available as bootlegs.) And Bob Dylan himself quizzed T.T. about Rude Valle, knowing that he would glean a gem of otherwise unavailable insider dope. Read the rest of this entry »

The drawn-out instrumental music of Canadian post-rockers Do Make Say Think can alleviate the inescapable tedium drooling forth from the most inane and never-ending idiocies of daily activities.

For their sixth album, Other Truths (out tomorrow on Constellation), the music gets a particularly stylized treatment. Besides having an eponymous track listing (the first track is “Do,” the second, “Make,” the third, “Say” and the fourth, “Think”), each song attempts to represent these sensibilities as extended (eight-minutes-long or more) musical meditations. And somehow, the band captures the restlessness and vastness of a John Ford cinemascope while managing to make the songs catchy and hummable all at once. Read the rest of this entry »

A new Melvins record. A monumental event from a band with a 25-year career that has seen them influence the likes of Nirvana and Mastodon, go through seven bass players (including Gene Simmons and Shirley Temple’s daughter) and release 24 studio albums, three on a major label (Atlantic). The Melvins are nothing if not an outfit deserving of your respect.

I discovered the band in 1992 and, like Peter Billingsley on Christmas morning, I still look forward to the day a new Melvins record comes out. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high, but I was completely prepared to gush over this CD like Kristina the intern gushed all over The Killers last week.

The hype was in place — Chicken Switch, released last Tuesday, would feature such artists as Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Japanese noise makers Merzbow, longtime Melvins collaborator David Scott Stone and Japanese vocalist/DJ Eye Yamatsuka. They were to be given not just single tracks to remix, but access to entire albums worth of raw material, re-combining the songs into “new compositions.” This had the potential to be one of the greatest compilations ever!

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If you had popped your head in to the Crowbar this past Tuesday night, you would have never known that  the headlining band Neon Indian, was — as the inebriated and prancing band manager stated — “on top of the music world.” Alan Palermo’s latest project had just officially released their debut, Psychic Chasms, and scored a lofty 8.6 and “Best New Music” from the wordy, indie rock staple Pitchfork. I asked Palermo if he smiled or rolled his eyes at the recent good press. He laughed and humbly replied that he thought it was “great news.” Despite his soft spoken, unpretentious manner, Palermo is definitely the electro-rock star the indie press lauds him as. His first project, the short-lived Ghosthustler, stirred buzz with its “Parking Lot Nights” video. Vega, another ongoing Palermo project, has garnered similar praise. No more than 100 or so patrons were in attendance along with another dozen who raged the dance floor during the short, but tight set. Seeing Neon Indian made me nostalgic for a time I wasn’t even around for — it’s like if Billy Ocean took some good drugs and covered Hall and Oates songs for an hour. One thing missing was any visuals. This would have been a problem, but opener SUNBEARS! (pictured) brought enough lights, videos and confetti to cover everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Some reviews are tough to write because you like the record but seriously dislike the people in the band; others are tough to write because you love the album but just can’t think of anything to say about it beyond the simple fact that you love it. And then there are reviews such as this one…

Full disclosure: I like Truckstop Coffee as people. I sent the CD to other blogs in the hopes they’d get some more press and I’ve even helped hook them up with a booking agent. If those facts make reading this a problem for you, skip to the bottom, listen to the songs and to hell with my typing about it.

For the remaining folks, yes, I consider Pete, Caleb and Larry friends, but I also consider them a terrific band. I first heard of them play back in 2006 in the infancy of Ninebullets. At the time they were doing a pretty good Lucero-meets-Drive-By Trucker’s impression in support of their debut, One Damn Thing To Redeem. Throughout the years, they’ve made it up to Tampa a couple or four times, but rarely have they strayed from the tracklisting of that first album. There were rumors of a new album one day, but, as any struggling musician knows, recording, mixing and mastering an album requires money and there ain’t much of that coming in from playing little bars and backyard parties. Eventually, Pete self-recorded a solo acoustic album and I just assumed the eventual next release, For Dear Life, would just be full band arrangements of some of the songs from that release.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

All photos by Tracy May.

Beneath the white Christmas lights dangling from the canopy in the half-filled venue, the hum of anticipation was upset, ruptured by the audience crowding against the stage, hopping and whooping and hugging, the applause thundering as Sergio Dias, age 57, dressed in the immaculate white robe a cleanshaven cult leader would wear, stepped onto the stage at Skipper’s Smokehouse this past Tuesday, October 13, backed by a group of musicians decades younger.

Anyone expecting the Os Mutantes show — the Brazilian band’s first ever in Tampa and in support of their first album in 35 years — to be like the Mike Love Beach Boys Experience, some bastardized Charlie Watts Presents The Rolling Stones, or even the current edition of Lynyrd Skynyrd at your neighborhood strawberry festival, was absolutely mistaken. Read the rest of this entry »