Tampa Calling

The Faint by by Tom Haslinger.

The next seven days promise a shit-ton of killer concerts starting tonight with former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Buckethead at The Garage and Los Lonely Boys at Jannus Landing. I’m super stoked about going to see Neil Diamond at the St. Pete Times Forum tomorrow.

I have always liked the Jewish Elvis and his recent Rick Rubin-produced albums have only increased my appreciation of the man. Something tells me St. Pete Times Pop Music Critic Sean Daly and I will be singing along up in the press box and, if I’ve had too much to drink and he lets me, embracing when it comes time for “Sweet Caroline.”

Anyway, the next seven days also find The Faint, Tampa’s own Jarvik 7, Ben Kweller, City of Ships and many more quality acts playing our local venues.

Read about all these upcoming shows and find links to all the bands mentioned above in the labor of love we call Music Week.

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London-born, San Francisco-based Sylvie Simmons is a famous rock journalist/critic best known for her work in MOJO magazine, regularly contributing to The Guardian and interviewing everyone from Jagger to Beck to Ozzy to Cash. Simmons, who published the acclaimed short story collection Too Weird for Ziggy in 2004, is also a big fan of Tampa’s own Ronny Elliott and has seen him perform at Skipper’s Smokehouse. When I sat down to have dinner with them before Elliott’s gig she made fun of me for ordering a Newcastle. “That’s what the old people in North England drink,” she scolded.

I was honored to be criticized by Sylvie Simmons.

Simmons’ latest endeavor is launching a Million Ukulele March. Which might be the coolest thing she has done — ever. And that’s saying quite a bit considering this is a woman pictured below interviewing Tom Waits! Because, really, who thinks of something like a virtual ukulele rally? Click here to join her uke brigade on MySpace and to hear Simmons perform the “Million Ukulele March” theme song (or go to the homepage linked to above). Here are the words if ya wanna sing along.

“The Million Uke March” (Key of F)
(Sylvie Simmons)

Raise your ukes for Obama
Pluck ‘em for the USA
And while you are strumming
A new day is coming
To wash the Republi-cons away
We all know McCain ain’t Mc Able
To organise a party in a bar
If you want your country back
You gotta vote for Barrack
Obama for America
Yes you and your mama
Go and vote for Obama
Obama for America!

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OK, I’m totally stealing this idea from my coworker Anthony “Sal” Salveggi, aka The Cranky Copy Editor. Earlier today he bitched about the song selection at Tropicana Field. Whenever the Tampa Bay Rays homer, strike someone out or do something else cool, like win, which is what we all dutifully expect to see ‘em do tonight, they’re greeted with a shit song.

And you know that ain’t right.

Considering the sunshine theme of the nickname, the songs should speak to the big yellow ball in the sky, warmth, heat, light, etc. Like Sal, I also agree the tunes should be known by most folks. With that criteria in mind, which I totally ripped from my pal Sal, here are my picks:

Top 10: Songs to be played at The Trop

1. Heatwave, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas

2. Sunshine of Your Love, Cream

3. The Heat Is On, Glenn Frey

4. Good Day Sunshine, The Beatles

5. Hot in the City, Billy Idol

6. Skies on Fire, AC/DC (it’s new but it’s still vintage AC/DC, which means it sounds like half their past hits)

7. Sunshine Superman, Donovan

8. Blinded by the Light, Bruce Springsteen

9. You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Stevie Wonder

10. You Are My Sunshine, Ray Charles

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Oh, the wonderfully weird stuff that lands in my mailbox. In the book Time Flies When You’re in a Coma, author Mike Daly harvest heavy metal-mocking laughs from actual lyrics - which, as anyone who has ever listened to Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, etc. already knows - are some of the hilariously worst ever committed to record.

The book, about he size of a double-CD, and destine for my coffee table, is divided into “meditations,” “Zen questions,” “daily affirmations” and “words of wisdom.”

Sample jewel: “Wanna kiss your lips / Not the ones on your face,” from Quiet Riot’s “Let’s Get Crazy.” Photog Mark Weiss stills are as fabulously cheesy as the text.

What are your favorite awesomely bad metal lyrics?

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Acafool, the rapper behind the regional smash “Hatablockas,” has teamed with Tom G for the new single “Trop Boys.”

It’s a catchy little ditty that manages to name-check just about every starter on the Tampa Bay Rays roster.

Check it out.

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AC/DC, at its best, makes you feel like championing fun: be it via booze, blow, high-speed driving or three-way fucking. On Black Ice, the Aussie outfit reclaims its status as king of good times. The band is back swinging — heavy and hard — in a way that percolates the pelvic region and vaporizes inhibitions.

The disc erupts on Track 1 with the refreshingly ferocious “Rock ‘N Roll Train,” which, with its killer Angus Young guitar riff, assured Brian Johnson-doing-Bon-Scott-shriek and sing along chorus, would sit well next to the best of Highway to Hell or Back in Black cuts — no small feat, for sure.

Much more for the better than the worse, the band follows the same time-honored, terrifically predictable formula for the rest of the record. There is one exception, toward the end of the full-length. Angus busts out some savage slide playing on “Stormy May Day” that’s straight from the Jimmy Page playbook.

Unoriginal? Yeah. Maybe. So? What fool decided it necessary to complicate a style of music named after screwing? AC/DC may be the smartest rock band of all time — they figured out what moves people and stuck with it. And that, like fucking, is what life is all about. 4 (out of 5) stars.

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Alt-country queen Lucinda Williams lost her way for a while there. More specifically, she misplaced her mojo, her sass, her joy. After climaxing with the1998 commercial breakthrough Car Wheels on A Gravel Road, Williams detoured down a path of sorrow until dead-ending into the rote despair of last year’s West. The Louisiana-native finds her feisty muse on the satisfying libido-at-large Little Honey (Lost Highway) its very title a wonderfully base reference to man sugar.

The album, though, is by no means a honky-tonk take on the tacky Madonna game of menopause horniness - Williams is too damn wise for that high-risk routine. The record is as much about finding a good-time guy, and true love, whatever that is, as it is about being left in the dust by another modern-day drifter.

For too many albums, the singer/songwriter groaned and warbled about being alone over melting steel guitars rather than plugging in and rocking a barn-burning kiss-off like “Changed the Locks,” from her highly underrated self-titled 1988 album. On Little Honey, Williams strikes the fierce balance that made that disc, 1992’s Sweet Old World and 1998’s Car Wheels a holy trinity of alt-country releases.

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Photo by Jayson Matteucci.

Credit Dolly Parton for being one of the few humans alive who can bridge the gap between Democrats and Republicans, grandmothers and daughters, good ol’ boys and gay boys. All were in attendance Monday night at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Parton performed her hits and the same timeworn comedy routines she’s done for decades. The stories— like the one about her admiring the town whore and saying she wanted to grow up to be what her momma deemed “trash” — often lasted longer than the actual songs.

The diverse crowd, though, gobbled it up like it was cotton candy, laughing at every one of Parton’s Poconos-worthy routines. The iconic 62-year-old Country Queen — decked out in a sequined dress that kept her most famous attributes at chin-level throughout the evening — poked fun at her boobs, wig and fruit fly status, even bringing up a strapping young man in nothing much more than tight-fitting overalls. “Eat your heart out girls,” Parton cracked, “and some of you guys.”

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North Carolina acoustic rock outfit the Avett Brothers have postponed their Oct. 23 WMNF gig at Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa Cuban Club in Ybor City.

I’m usually irked at this kind of shit, especially since my advance piece for the show already went to print for the edition that hits newsstands Wednesday.

But the reason the band gave is solid. Singer/banjoist Scott Avett and his wife are having their first child. Congrats, y’all. Here’s the interview I did with Scott last December.

Avett Brothers playing Skipper’s Smokehouse, Dec. 2007.

11:08 Update from WMNF:

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Editor’s note: Pictures and text by Nicole Kibert.

Palantine’s Melee CD release party at New World Brewery in Ybor City on Sat., Oct. 18, proved a bit frightening (see haunting Halloween decorations).  Luckily, the evening did not turn into an actual melee, affray or fracas. Rather, it was a night filled with some of the best rock Tampa Bay has to offer.

The Gleaming Amoebas opened the show (sadly I missed their set - I heard they were good and really how could a band that mixes flamenco and indie rock not be?).

Next up, The Semis (Billy Summer, Matt Simmons, Don Butler and Cristian). The foursome delivered a high-energy set of rad hair metal and winningly dirty power pop!

As Palantine (live: Vinnie Cosentino, Brian Johnson and Jeff Fox) took the stage, people gathered around in expectation of a catchy, melodic-yet-guitar-heavy set.  As their MySpace suggests, the band is best enjoyed at full volume, and this act showed they were well worth the effort to make it out on a drizzling Saturday evening, even while the Tampa Bay Rays battled in the playoffs.

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Photo by Melanie Rice.

It was a long, rough weekend and I have the scars to prove it. It all started last Friday with a four-beer lunch at The Bungalow in SoHo, followed by a trip to the Courtney Campbell Causeway where I joined coworkers (and a cheap ass) for too many mojitos (and a $260 tab!) at Oyster Catchers. Next came too many beers at Whiskey’s Joe’s. Finally, wine was consumed back at my apartment because, y’know, what’s a good night of imbibing if you don’t hit at least three of the major liquid food groups?

Those wounds I refer to in the first sentence? They’re on my forehead. Scraped my big head against the bottom of a pool while trying to do a handstand. Twice. Yeah, I took a dip late Saturday after Creative Loafing’s terrifically hedonistic Beer Fest, held in downtown St. Pete at Jannus Landing.That’s CL publisher Sharry Smith standing next to me. She didn’t join us for the swim. Thank gawd. There are some things your boss just really shouldn’t witness — no matter how cool she is about the off-the-clock shenanigans of her “alternative newspaper” employees.

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Remember when Radiohead released In Rainbows and told everyone to pay whatever they thought was appropriate? It subsequently came out in more standard retail formats. A little more than a year after the album’s Oct. 10, 2007 initial release, sales figures have been made available for the first time. Here are highlights from a press release distributed by Radiohead’s publicist, Nasty Little Man:

• In Rainbows has sold three million copies thus far, a figure that includes downloads from Radiohead.com, physical CDs, a deluxe 2-CD/vinyl box set, as well as sales via iTunes and other digital retailers.

• The In Rainbows deluxe edition sold 100,000 copies via Radiohead fan service W.A.S.T.E.

• Radiohead made more money prior to In Rainbows‘ January 2008 physical release than its total take on 2003’s Hail To the Thief.

• The physical release of In Rainbows entered both the US and UK charts at #1 in January, despite having been freely available since October 2007.

• In Rainbows was the first Radiohead album available on iTunes, where it went in at #1 in January, selling 30,000 in its first week.

• In Rainbows also owns the singular distinction of being the first record widely regarded as album of the year in advance of its actual physical release: By the time TBD/ATO released In Rainbows to retail on January 1, 2008, the digital version had already topped the 2007 year-end lists at NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK TIMES, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, NPR, TIME, PEOPLE, ROLLING STONE, BLENDER, SPIN, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES and many more.

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