Tampa Calling

Creative Loafing’s Sensory Overload bash at the Cuban Club in Ybor City Saturday turned into a wild night that found more 2,000 party people getting down to bands like Latin funk ensemble Locos Por Juana, which I interviewed, and NYC indie glam rock quintet Apes & Androids (pictured left, photo by James Ostrand).

Shortly before midnight, Locos Por Juana stepped out onto the Cantina stage and quickly had asses shaking with their contemporary, horn-laced take on traditional Colombian and reggae music. Then Apes & Androids blew things out on the Courtyard with a futuristic rock pageant replete with guitar heroics, synth spazz-outs, costumes, falsetto vocals, confetti canons and laser lights. More than a dozen acts performed throughout the evening, which also included art installations, performing arts by local theater companies like Jobsite and a rum tasting that had me in the perfect mindset for Apes & Androids’ irony-drenched rock spectacle. Here are some more pics from the evening:

Apes & Androids bringing the Velvet Goldmine vibe at Cuban Club Courtyard. By James Ostrand.

Locos Por Juana singer Itagui performing Saturday at Cuban Club Cantina. By James Ostrand.

The crowd braces itself for Apes & Androids. By Gabe Loewenenberg.

Me and my parents, Robert and Rebecca Tatangelo, getting down at Sensory Overload. By James Ostrand.

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Here’s what I have running in the new Creative Loafing:

Get loaded with us Saturday at our Sensory Overload bash in Ybor City!

• The Urban Explorer’s Handbook 2008 contains a piece I did on South Tampa titled “The Gold Coast: South Tampa East: SoHo, Hyde Park and Bayshore.”

• I managed to work a Harry Chapin title into my latest Bar Tab, “A Better Place to Be … Miss Carol lifts the spirits.”

• Here’s my interview with Sensory Overload headliner Locos Por Juana, a young funk band from Miami that just inked a major label deal.

• Got soul? Soulphonics do.

• Breakdown, Candy Bars, David Dondero and more in Music Week.

• Last Saturday at Skatepark of Tampa’s Pro Party, I reviewed Kimya Dawson’s set and had our intern Jason Kushner cover Band of Horses for our joint piece “Singing in the Rain: Band of Horses and Kimya Dawson weather the storm.”

• Senior Editor Eric Snider reviews Snoop and advances Sam Rivers show.

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Gainesville punk quartet Against Me!, which after a decade-run finally broke through to the mainstream last year with its excellent, power-pop-leaning album New Wave, is scheduled to play the 2008 Vans Warped Tour that comes to St. Pete’s Vinoy Park July 11, reports Billboard.com.

Paramore, Gym Class Heroes (which perform Sunday, April 6 in downtown St. Pete on the Honda Grand Prix stage), Jack’s Mannequin, Pennywise, Cobra Straship and Reel Big Fish are also among the myriad bands scheduled to perform. I haven’t attended a Warped Tour since 2004, when Vinoy Park got so hot kids were jumping in the bay — that is until dolphins were mistaken for sharks. Might have to go this year, though, if only to catch Against Me!’s set.

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WILLIE NELSON: “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground”

Willie Nelson has become such an American icon that people tend to forget his sublime artistry. A distinctive singer with a jazz vocalist’s sense of timing, he’s also one of country music all-time great guitarists and songwriters (he’s penned “Crazy,” “Hello Walls,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away,” among others.) This clip finds Nelson at a concert in ‘92 performing another original, “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” in which he expresses bitterness better than perhaps any pop scribe around.

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Photo of Counting Crows by Danny Clinch.

Plastic soul purveyors Maroon 5 and underrated roots rockers Counting Crows have joined forces for a summer tour that stops at the Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa, Oct. 3, reports Billboard.com. Tickets go on sale April 4 through Ticketmaster and Live Nation. The Counting Crows’ freshly minted album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, their first in more than five years, drops tomorrow. I’m digging the debut single “You Can’t Count on Me.” An earnest, melodic number with tasty guitar licks and pretty piano, it finds singer Adam Duritz in fine voice and recalls the band’s best work. Here’s a live clip:

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Kimya Dawson
Cuban Club, Sat., March 22

Photo by Katie Silbiger (who kindly responded to my request below)

You’d think a lone performer with nothing but a busted-up acoustic guitar and a clutch of “message” songs wouldn’t stand a chance in front of an all-ages skater crowd squeezed together in the rain. Especially when a sizable chunk of that audience wasn’t necessarily waiting for her — 30something folkie and married mother Kimya Dawson — but huddled near the front of the Cuban Club patio stage in Ybor City Saturday for indie act of the moment, headliner Band of Horses. Obscure singer-songwriter-turned-Juno-kinda-star Dawson won over the audience, though, with witty songs about suburban ennui, politics and self-image issues delivered in an endearing, talky vocal style. Plus, she exuded plenty of coffee-shop charisma.

Dawson appeared genuinely surprised by the crowd’s enthusiasm when she took the stage at 9: 10 p.m., more than an hour late due to the weather. The rain came down in a steady drizzle —sometimes harder. “Wow, you guys are crazy,” said a bemused Dawson. “I feel bad under here while you guys get wet.”

Despite the dreary weather, a significant portion of the crowd of reportedly 2,500-plus braved the wetness for Dawson’s quirky tales. The performer wore her hair in a big, unruly fro, had on a grey hoodie and cut-off, floral-print shorts. Basically, she looked like many of the tweenage concertgoers gazing up her and screaming: “I love you.” Interestingly, Dawson, who is a gifted lyricist, surveys some extremely dark subject matter — drugs, alcohol, sexual harassment, suicide — but laces her songs about “how living in a small town sucks ass” with just enough juvenile and absurdist humor not to scare away the kids who shop at Hot Topic. The parents in attendance? Maybe they didn’t notice. But one mom did look concerned when Dawson mentioned cocaine in a song and it received such a loud, positive reaction from one concertgoer that the singer giggled mid-song and had to start the verse again.

For the finale, Dawson invited female audience members on stage to dance. While they grinned and twirled blissfully Dawson smiled and sang: “Fuck Bush and fuck this war.”

We had camera issues Saturday night during Dawson’s set, so if anyone has pics of her from the Cuban Club that they are willing to post here please email me at wade@cln.com (and also “cc” me at wtatangelo@hotmail.com, we’ve also been having email issues lately.)

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I’m stoked. The only grunge band that still matters, Pearl Jam, announced late yesterday an East Coast tour that will bring them, with Kings of Leon, to the the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, June 12. If you were a teen in the early ’90s, chances are Pearl Jam made an impression on you. At age 14, they were my favorites. In eighth grade I wore a black Pearl Jam Ten T-shirt — the one with the stick figure on the front and piece of legal-pad paper on the back — at least once a week. Pearl Jam and I had a falling out in my mid-20s; just wasn’t feeling the whole hard rock, introspection thing. But in recent years, I catch myself going back to their CDs quite often, perhaps it’s a nostalgia thing, perhaps it’s just that Pearl Jam is the best rock band to come along in the last two decades save for maybe Radiohead.

Anyway, the last time I saw Pearl Jam in concert was August of 2000 at the St. Pete Times Forum back when it was called the Ice Palace. That was during my wild college days and about three dozen of us met up for the show, swapped contraband and made our way into the venue just in time to catch the tail end of opener Sonic Youth’s set. A few of my friends were flopping around like fish by the end of the night thanks to all the pre-partying but I had a well-calibrated buzz. My memories of Vedder taking slugs from a wine bottle in between singing his ass off are vivid. Pearl Jam turned in a mighty performance that evening.

Before becoming a critic, I never checked set lists online before attending shows — which is really the best way to attend shows but not a viable option if you’re reviewing on deadline — so it was the Pearl Jam cover songs that night proved to be the most pleasant surprises. The band segued from “Daughter” into “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2″ and me and the other 15,000-or so in attendance gleefully sang along to the infamous chorus of “We don’t need no education.” Pearl Jam returned for three encores with the final being a rabble-rousing rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” a song I first became aware of when PJ and Young played it at the MTV Music Awards together in ‘93 (see clip below).

In 2000, Napster was alive and well. The day after the Pearl Jam show, I skipped class and went on a downloading frenzy, determined to find what other songs the band covered in concert. I still have burned CDs containing all those performances, which can be found on YouTube or the official “bootleg” discs Pearl Jam has released.

Top 10: Pearl Jam cover performances

1. “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Neil Young

2. “Baba O’Riley,” The Who

3. “I Won’t Back Down,” Tom Petty

4. “Redemption Song,” Bob Marley

5. “Let My Love Open the Door,” Pete Townshend

6. “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding

7. “One Step Up,” Bruce Springsteen (I think the version I have is Vedder solo, pre-Pearl Jam, it’s killer.)

8. “Fucking Up,” Neil Young

9. “Everyday People,” Sly and the Family Stone

10. “All Along the Watchtower,” Bob Dylan

WHAT DID I MISS?

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Get loaded with Creative Loafing at our Sensory Overload festival at the Cuban Club in Ybor City, Sat., March 29. Here’s info on all the music acts playing that night:

LOCOS POR JUANA Multi-racial ensemble’s distinctive funk tropicale brilliantly incorporates the Columbian folk-dance music Cumbia, reggae and the contemporary club sounds that this group of 20somethings encountered while growing up in the immigrant-intensive South Florida community Kendall. The Miami-based band’s previous album was nominated for a Latin Grammy. Machete Music, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, will release Locos Por Juana’s new full-length La Verdad May 13. The vocals are in Spanish but the smoldering, horn-laced grooves should translate easily enough. See next week’s Creative Loafing for my interview with Locos Por Juana guitarist Marc Kondrat. (11:45 p.m., Courtyard stage)

APES & ANDROIDS Glam-metal heroics replete with falsetto vocals play alongside 1980s-sounding synth freakouts on Apes & Androids’ gloriously hedonistic debut disc Blood Moon. The NYC quintet is all over the music map, slyly biting from Ennio Morricone and straight-up quoting The Doors — hey, whatever it takes to get the party started. (12:15 a.m., Cantina Stage)

TRÈS BIEN Clearwater garage rockers channel British Invasion bands of the 1960s while injecting enough young sass to win over the Facebook set. The quartet reached the top six last year on the Fox reality television series The Next Great American Band. (9:45 p.m., Cantina Stage)

BAND MARINO Orlando indie rockers salt power pop with twangy numbers featuring mandolin, violin and banjo on their album The Sea and the Beast, a dynamic, catchy set of country-rock realized through an emo filter. (11:15 p.m., Cantina Stage)

HISTORY Also based in Orlando, History offers a melodic brand of indie-metal in which keyboards and heavy guitar riffs augment growled vocals that are occasionally Vocoder-ized. (10:30 p.m., Cantina Stage)

ACHO BROTHER Tampa’s Hector Mayoral (vocals, guitar) and Orlando’s Zak Byrd (drums) are a duo that deftly combines traditional Latin sounds with experimental flourishes. (10:20 p.m., Courtyard Stage)

LAWS Tampa underground hip-hop luminary surveys everything from Bush-era politics to matters of the heart — with more wit and panache than most. He’s also a dangerous free-styler. (9:20 p.m., Courtyard Stage)

PROTOMAN Like most hardcore rappers with pale skin and more skill than Vanilla Ice, this Fort Lauderdale emcee’s rhymes and flow have clearly been influenced by Eminem. Unlike Marshall Mathers, though, Protoman spits over jazzy, old-school, boom-bap beats. (11 p.m., Courtyard Stage)

JOE STU Atlanta MC has a direct, articulate flow that he issues over laidback beats that recall the golden era of hip-hop (EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest). (9:50 p.m., Courtyard Stage)

DJ BLENDA w/CRATE BROTHERS/SLOPFUNKDUST/SOUL NIGHT DJS Popular local turntablist splits Mike Blenda his time with the reggae band Tribal Style and solo gigs like this one. Tampa DJs Christopher Robin and Oprah Spinfrey of the Crate Brothers spin a dance-ready mix of mostly old-school hip-hop and new wave spiced with more contemporary concoctions like their killer mash-up of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” and the Goodie Mob classic “Cell Therapy.” (Various times, Courtyard Stage). Also on the music lineup to spin between sets are Slopfunkdust (Courtyard Stage) and Soul Night DJs (Cantina Stage).

Click here for ticket info and here for links to all the music acts’ websites and artists’ schedule.

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‘Tis the season for Florida’s beaches to host bikini-clad beauties, wet t-shirt contests, underage drinking, random hook-ups and other assorted debauchery involving America’s Student Bodies. It’s been more than a decade since my high school buddies and I spent a spring break storming the beaches of Clearwater, Daytona or Panama City. Good times. Real good times. We’ll leave it at that. Anyway, here ya go:

Top 10: Spring break songs

1. “Fight for Your Right (To Party!),” Beastie Boys

2. “Oops! … I Did It Again,” Britney Spears

3. “Wild Thing,” Tone-Loc

4. “Under the Boardwalk,” The Drifters

5. “Like a Virgin,” Madonna

6. “Vacation,” the Go-Go’s

7. “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing,” Chris Isaak

8. “Thong Song,” Sisqo

9. “Barely Legal,” The Strokes

10. “Nasty,” Janet Jackson

WHAT DID I MISS?

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March will be a big month for more than just college hoops fans, with two of the year’s most anticipated releases dropping on the 25th. That’s the day shoppers will be treated to the Raconteurs’ (pictured) sophomore album Consolers of the Lonely. Yeah, Jack White & co. pulled a fast one, literally. They reportedly didn’t finish the album until the first week of March. Click “Read the rest of this entry” below for the complete statement posted on the band’s MySpace page.

Billboard.com also reported today that Gnarls Barkley has moved the release of their second album, The Odd Couple up two weeks to March 18 (via iTunes) . The disc was originally due April 8. The old-fashioned CD version will hits stores a week later, same day the Raconteurs’ disc drops.

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