Tampa Calling

Phish reunion? Phor real? Anybody give a phuck? (Actually, this is pretty exciting news, especially for a large chunk of Creative Loafing’s editorial department. Let’s just hope this doesn’t inspire a similar move from those jamband hacks String Cheese Incident.)

• Michael Jackson touring? For real? Anybody give a f—? (From MTV.com.)

• New Order finished? For real? Anybody give a f—? (From Pitchfork.com).

• CL Political Editor Wayne Garcia reports “Vicki Santa steps down at WMNF.”

• Blac Soap to open for Flo Rida June 28 at Club 360 in Ybor City. Look for my Blac Soap interview in the CL hitting newsstands June 25.

• Lil Wayne rules. Los Angeles Times explains why.

• U2 remasters first three albums. Do I detect a healthy whiff of irony in the CMJ headline “Oh, Boy!”

• Really, more Ryan Adams songs should be under 2 minutes long (Aquarium Drunkard).

• The Chicago Reader (aka Creative Loafing Chicago) dares to ask “Oh yeah, chicks play guitar too, don’t they?”

• Billboard reports Bruce Springtseen to extend tour, play Hershey, PA, which means it’s time for me to visit my hometown, aka “The Sweetest Place on Earth.”

• I’m totally feeling Sean Daly’s blog post, “Brother, Can You Spare a Song?”

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When we went to press with my profile of Summer Jam 4 headliner, Dennis “Dow Jones” Shaw (South Rakkas Crew),  it had yet to be determined exactly which acts would be playing Crowbar  and New World Brewery on Saturday. On Wednesday, I received an email from the promoter that straightens everything out. Should be good times. Here’s the email:

NWB NEW WORLD BREWERY]
8-830 – DISH
845-915 – JINX
930-10 – PETROGRAD IN TRANSIT
1015-1045 – DYNASTY
11-1130- XOXO
1145-1215 – THE BASIQS
12-15 - ??? – POSITIVE RESPONSE
+ DJ TERAS, SCOTT IMRICH, JOLAY & DJ COLONIC

CROWBAR
8-830 – JUICE CITY
845-915 – KING OF SPAIN
930-10 – HARD TARGET
1015-1045 – TIDES OF MAN
11-1145 – BIRD STREET PLAYERS
12-??? SOUTH RAKKAS CREW
+ DJ SANDMAN, SOFT ROCK RENEGADES, MIN.E HORSE & DEACON
FREE BBQ & LIVE MURAL BY: NOAH DELEEDA

Saturday June 21

Summer Jam 4 w/ South Rakkas Crew, Bird Street Players & Much More

$7/$10/$12 » 18 and Up

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

Bar Tab: Bern’s, baby, Bern’s: steaks, bad shirts and sexy strangers.

Dennis “Dow Jones” Shaw is money.

The Sugar Oaks, Mark Chesnutt and more in Music Week.

Foxboro Hot Tubs (Eric Snider), The Veronicas (Amanda Schurr) and The Beach Boys box set (WT) reviewed in Spins.

Reckless Kelly takes a shot at Skipper’s Smokehouse.

Rooney set to simmer at State Theatre.

My Morning Jacket’s “Evil Urges”: greatest pop/rock song since “Crazy.”

Or just peruse the entire Music section.

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Wade just published his Top 10 favorite CDs of ’08, so far, and I figured I’d piggy-back. But I’m not going to do 10. I’ll do that in December, but for June I’ll keep it to five. Two of the five are on Wade’s list, and I have to admit that that troubles me in some vague sort of way.

In no particular order:

• Al Green, Lay it Down (Blue Note)
The Rev’s best album of the 2000s. Producer ?uestlove lays down a seductive bed of sounds, and Al really struts his vocal chops on a series of sensuous, mostly mid-tempo songs.

• Firewater, The Golden Hour (Bloodshot)
Tod A made like a Bedouin, wandering through the Mediterranean/Middle East for three years and coming back with an exotic musical travelogue — that rocks. Full review

• Was (Not Was), Boo! (Ryko)
The R&B wackadoos return for their first album in 17 years, and pick up where they left off: Witty, irreverent lyrics, passionately sung, over organic funk and soul. Full review

• My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges (ATO/Red)
I wasn’t too familiar with MMJ before hearing this one, and it took a few listens, but now I’m completely hooked. Terrific songs that brush up, but aren’t anchored to, a variety genres. There’s rarely anything overtly obvious here. An engaging mix of feels, tempos and instrumentation. Strong vocals.

• Shelby Lynne, Just a Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway)
The fetching songstress delivers a subdued and sexy set of tunes by one of her heroes, the late Dusty Springfield. Full review

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This year is flying past like they all tend to do. In fact, we’re more than halfway through, which means time to assess the year in music (so far). It’s difficult to compare one year’s crop to another’s, but I do feel 2008 is shaping up to be one of the strongest of recent memory. Anyway, here’s what I’ve dug the most.

Top 10 Albums of 2008 (so far)

1. Evil Urges (Ato Records/Red), My Morning Jacket (Photo by Danny Clinch)

At my editor Eric Snider’s suggestion, I just bumped my MMJ review from a 4.5 to a perfect 5 (it will run in next week’s Creative Loafing.) While still at USF, I started doing freelance CD reviews for CL (back when it was the Weekly Planet) in 2001 and during my two stringer stints with the paper plus my current full-time gig have easily written hundreds of CD reviews for the ‘Loaf. But this marks the first time I 5-starred a new release. Read my MMJ review here.

2. The Odd Couple (Atlantic), Gnarls Barkley

Dark, cerebral and highly danceable, this batch of spaceflight soul is pure brilliance. And by the way, complaining that it doesn’t have a “Crazy” equivalent would be like knocking Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy for not featuring another “Stairway.”

3. Robyn (Konichiwa/CherryTree/Interscope), Robyn

This Swedish star still hasn’t blown up here and that’s a shame. The pop world would be a far better place if Madonna, Spears, etc. could pen lyrics this poignant and implement beats this fresh. Read my review here.

4. Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop), Fleet Foxes

Debut albums really have no right to be this fantastic: dreamy organic pop, perfectly recorded so that the band sounds like they’re playing your living room; close, gorgeous vocal harmonies that will melt your ears. Read my (mini) review here. My proper review will run in the CL that hits newsstands July 3.

5. Accelerate (Warner Bros), R.E.M.

It’s official: R.E.M. has made its best album in more than a decade. Nothing new here, just a first-rate collection of the band’s finest attributes. Read my review here.

6. Casting Shadows Tall As Giants (self-released), Have Gun, Will Travel

My favorite Americana album of the year happens to come from right in our backyard (well, Bradenton). Read more about HGWT here.

7. From the Reach (Landfall), Sonny Landreth

Slide guitar master turns in a soulful album of swampy charm that also features sly prog touches. Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Dr. John are among the guests who sweeten the deal with low-key cameos. Read my review here.

8. Warpaint (Sony BMG), Black Crowes

The most promising rock ‘n’ roll band to emerge post-GNR returns from a jamband haze with Luther Dickinson, focus and their best album in years. Read my review here.

9. Asking for Flowers (Rounder), Kathleen Edwards

Like Lucinda Williams but with a sense of humor, Kathleen Edwards’ latest is a winning combination of adroit storytelling, touching confessionals and folk-rock fun. Read my review here.

10. Lay It Down (Blue Note), Al Green

The teaming of the good reverend and The Roots’ ?uestlove results in greatest Al Green album since the 1970s, a rich slab of classic soul. Read more about Al Green here.

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I can’t believe I missed this til now, being the devoted Macca fan that I am, but Sir Paul McCartney turned 66 today. On June 14, he played before over 350,000 fans in Independence Square in Kiev. One of the show’s highlights was undoubtedly “Mrs. Vandebilt,” (off Band on the Run) which was the top song requested by fans at a Ukrainian website. It also happens to be one of my favorite songs off the album, particularly for its cheeky refrain “What’s the use of worrying/ What’s the use of hurrying/ What’s the use of anything?” Check out the stellar performance for yourself.

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Oakland Coliseum Arena 05.09.77
PINK FLOYD
WolfgangsVault.com
Pink Floyd, at the height of its creative and commercial powers, delivers a stellar set featuring material from the as-yet-unreleased Animals (“Pigs”) cuts from Dark Side of the Moon (“Money,” “Us and Them”) and Wish You Were Here in its entirety. That right, all nine parts of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-9” (35 majestic minutes total) and a chills-inducing Waters (sounding slightly hoarse but impassioned) reading of the title-track are on display. Don’t have anything to do for the next 8-12 hours? Swallow that tab you have tucked away and enjoy.

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Creative Loafing’s marketing wing (aka Joran) continues its concert series focused on spotlighting purveyors of original local music. The roster for the Sat., July 5, installment at the State Theatre will feature five acts ranging from punk (Car Bomb Driver) to alt-country (Have Gun, Will Travel) to math rock (Military Junior; pictured). Should be a great evening so don’t get too wasted the night before and be careful with those bottle rockets, which can prove hazardous when you and your buddies are stumbling drunk, firing the missiles at each other, indoors.

Here’s the info with listening links to each band:

Independence Fest

Saturday, July 5
State Theatre
687 Central Ave. St. Petersburg

Doors 8 p.m. / Show 9 p.m. / All Ages

$8 DOS / $5 with Voter ID / $2 Drafts

On-Site Voter Registration

$50 Gas Card Giveaway

Military Junior (9 – 9:30)

Grey Market (9:45 – 10:15)

Have Gun, Will Travel (10:30 – 11)

Mouse Fire (11:15 – 11:45)

Car Bomb Driver (12 – 12:30)

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Gogol Bordello at State Theatre; photo by Philip Bardi.

The floor was overcrowded with a seething mass of bodies, arms alternately waving and pumping to the vigorous musical spectacle that shook the State Theatre stage last night. The band, NYC’s Gogol Bordello, played the sweaty sold-out show with such amped-up enthusiasm that the audience responded in kind, pushing and moshing and crowd surfing like it was the end of the gypsy punk world.

With his thick but charming Ukrainian accent, clad in tight and garishly colored trousers, shirtless and with sweat pouring down his pale chest and dripping from his thick handlebar mustache, frontman/Gogol visionary Eugene Hütz encouraged the unruliness, flirting and dancing with the young ladies who surfed onto the stage, good-naturedly tolerating the young men who inevitably followed, and leading everyone through boisterous sing-alongs that lasted throughout the night.

The multi-ethnic ensemble played a supercharged 80-minute set and 35-minute encore of lively numbers that set ska, punk-metal, rap and even some funkified grooves against brisk gyspy two-step rhythms marked by lively accordion and some of the most fast and furious fiddle-playing I’ve ever seen by a man who was old enough to be the grandfather of most of the people in the room. The spectacle was topped off by the energetic performances of Gogol’s pair of attractive lady entertainers, who alternately sang, danced, and played marching band-style percussion throughout the show.

Overall, a dynamic, highly enjoyable concert with a surprisingly large turnout for a Monday night, seeming proof that an interesting and multi-layered genre of music is successfully making its way to mainstream (read: young) audiences.

–Cross-posted from BlurbEx.com.

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Evil Urges
MY MORNING JACKET
Ato Records/Red
Pundits have been trying to define My Morning Jacket since the band first arrived on the scene a decade ago. In the beginning, people filed the reverb-loving rockers under “alt-country” and even “southern rock” thanks to the band’s Bluegrass State homebase. A galvanizing 2004 performance at Bonnaroo and subsequent, more experimental releases, especially 2006’s live album Okonokos, landed My Morning Jacket in the “jam band” bin.

But none of the labels truly did the quintet’s music justice and MMJ’s latest release, Evil Urges, is the band’s most gloriously eclectic studio album to date. It’s also the band’s finest, with each stylistic leap serving the song rather than sounding like hubris-driven experimentalism. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than on the title-track that opens the disc, a thick-yet-fluid hybrid of futuristic funk, precision prog and dream pop that serves as a genius update on the free love and tolerance ethos of the 1960s. Frontman Jim James adopts a sexy falsetto to winningly deliver memorable lines like, “It ain’t evil, baby, if ya ain’t hurting anybody.”

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During the 27 years that I’ve been writing about music, I’ve certainly hogged my share of hookups and swag. But last weekend took the prize. Ben Eason, CL’s CEO, asked if I would come down to a swank resort in Key Largo to help out during a retreat he takes with his business society, the Florida chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.

Come on down, stay a couple nights. My task: Lead a panel Q&A with The Bangles on Saturday morning and introduce them from the stage before their concert that night.

Um, I thought (for a millisecond), I could do that.

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Who: My Brightest Diamond (aka Shara Worden)

Seven-word description: Diva-voiced singer/songwriter delivers operatic pop.

Should appeal to fans of: Joanna Newsom, Dresden Dolls, Regina Spektor

Isn’t she pals with Sufjan Stevens? Yes, she appeared on his Illinois tour. You might also know Worden from her first two My Brightest Diamond full-lengths, 2006’s Bring Me the Workhorse and last year’s Tear It Down. Both were released on Stevens’ label Asthmatic Kitty.

Breakout CD: A Thousand Shark’s Teeth

Release date/label: June 17/Asthmatic Kitty

Listen to the track “Inside a Boy.”