Tampa Calling

Most pop singers from the ’60s and ’70s who are fortunate enough to still be touring resort to what I call vocal cheats. That’s when they get to a point in an old hit that has a particularly high note they can’t hit — a note that especially resonates with the baby-boomer audience — so they either drop it an octave or turn it over to the background singers.

There’s nothing really shameful about these vocal cheats — it would be worse, for instance, if Daryl Hall tried to hit that big release note in “She’s Gone” and failed miserably. Or if Roger Daltrey attempted to render the big scream in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and sounded like a frog.

I tell you all this because I saw Boz Scaggs last night at Ruth Eckerd Hall and he didn’t resort to any vocal cheats. He’s 65 years old. Very impressive. When, on “Lido Shuffle,” it came time for the “Lido, whoa, whoa” part, he was right on it — with the backup singers helping, yes, but not drowning him out and thus protecting him. Scaggs came up a little short or a little thin on some of the high notes, but he went for them all.

It wasn’t just the lack of vocal cheats that made Scaggs’ 75-minute set in front of a near-sold-out crowd a success. His voice still has that full, creamy texture of the old days, and his delivery and phrasing brimmed with nuance. (more photos below; all are by Tracy May)

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Jeff Tweedy doesn’t sound any happier. I’ve always found the Wilco leader’s apparent discomfort in his own skin to be one of the reasons the band was capable of compelling music (although by no means always).

On “Solitaire,” one of the many somber, introspective tunes on Wilco’s self-titled seventh studio album, Tweedy sings in his trademark laconic style, “Once I thought without a doubt/ I had it all figured out/ The universe with hands unseen/ I was cold as gasoline/ Took too long, to see, I was wrong, to believe, in me/ Only.”

Does that suggest that Tweedy is now playing well with others? Or has he finally found the others that are willing to follow his vision. I’m guessing it’s the latter.

In any case, Wilco’s approach on the new album hews more closely to standard song structures than some of the avant-garde-leaning work of the past. Only a handful of songs really stick to your ribs, though, and only one will have you singing it in Read the rest of this entry »

Hip-hop seems adrift, with no particular faction dominating the pop psyche (or the charts). Bling-rap isn’t resonating as much lately, these being trying times and all. The current landscape is perfect for a multi-facted, thinking artist such as Mos Def, whose fourth studio album, The Ecstatic, continues his impressive body of musical work.

The 35-year-old Brooklyn native — who has, perhaps more than any other rapper, made a mark in film, TV and theater — has never had much use for rules. And even though Mos Def is a middling music star, he still approaches his recordings with a decided indie hip-hop aesthetic.

That shows in his choice of producers —Madlib, Preservation, Mr. Flash, J Dilla — who collectively let the rhythm tracks breath, allowing room for Mos Def’s relaxed, conversational flow. Complementing the urban scrapyard of sounds, snippets of found dialogue and arcane samples are various jazz elements like vibes and horns and a handful of Middle Eastern-type chants.

Mos Def, a Muslim, avoids clichéd ’hood themes in favor of utopian ideas (“Revelation”) and commentary about everyday life (“Workers Comp”).

The album has moments of clever irony — like, on the intro the “The Embassy,” where a captain addresses his passengers and describes in detail the guns they have in the cabin. Read the rest of this entry »

Uh oh, the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is about a month and a half away. Did you remember? If not, it’s probably due to the distinct lack of buzz, seeing as there is no official concert scheduled, although boosters keep adding “as yet” in hopes that original co-producer Michael Lang will manage to put together a show in New York’s Prospect Park.

A handful of mostly lame events are planned for different parts of the country, and a tour called Heroes of Woodstock — featuring Mountain, Jefferson Starship, Tom Constanten (repping Grateful Dead) and others — has 16 dates on the books (none in the Southeast). In all, though, it would seem as if folks have other things on their mind than memorializing the watershed cultural event.

That doesn’t mean it’s a complete wasteland. Sony Music has released a well-thought-out group of reissues called The Woodstock Experience, five two-CD packages pairing a classic 1969 album and a complete Woodstock performance. Sony catalog artists Santana, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Jefferson Airplane and Sly and the Family Stone got the treatment.

Thirty-three acts performed at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair from Aug. 15-18, 1969, including such long-forgotten names as Quill, Sweetwater, Keef Hartley Band and Bert Sommer. (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Byrds and a handful of lesser-knowns declined invitations. Jeff Beck, Iron Butterfly and Joni Mitchell canceled.)

Only a handful of the performances have been immortalized, mostly via the 1970 film Woodstock and its soundtrack. And Sony can legitimately boast three of them in this collection: Sly, Santana and Joplin. Winter did not make it into the movie and while Jefferson Airplane were represented with two songs in celluloid, their set has not earned the same historical cachet as the top three.

Let’s have us a closer look at these twofers. I’ve ranked them on their merit as live performances. Read the rest of this entry »

First Levon Helm survived throat cancer, then, improbably, he started singing again. And then, astonishingly, he returned to form. While his voice is thinner than during his days with The Band — he is 69, after all — Helm still brings the grit, that marvelous blend of Ozark country, blues and gospel.

His first album after recovering, 2007’s Dirt Farmer (Vanguard), was a treasure, an absolutely genuine slice of Americana that won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album.

Its followup, Electric Dirt, is another triumph, extending the reach of Farmer while retaining its rustic character. The new disc, released Tuesday, June 30, is not simply a plugged-in extension of its predecessor. Although electric guitars pop up now and again, it’s still largely an acoustic album. The addition of horns on four tracks — two arranged by Allen Toussaint and two by Stephen Bernstein — gives the new one an added dimension, some extra oomph.

The horns get into the act right way with a springy version of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed,” which has a decidedly Band-ish feel and kicks off the disc with a great deal of exuberance. Read the rest of this entry »

A band of Florida traveling bards and minstrels aka the Citrus Circuit Tour made a stop at New World Brewery on Saturday, featuring Lake Worth’s Truckstop Coffee, Daytona’s Lauris Vidal, Gainesville’s The Takers and Bradento-based Have Gun, Will Travel.

Have Gun, Will Travel

With three new songs and a Tom Petty cover, Have Gun, Will Travel (HGWT) continues to innovate at each show. Accordingly, HGWT’s set had New World Brewery dancing up a storm and singing their hearts out to old favorites like “When We Were Kings” and “Blessing and a Curse” (affectionately know by fans as “Bop Ba Da” after the chorus that stays in your head all the way home). Read the rest of this entry »

A delightful and talented band of troubadours, Cory Branan, Jon Snodgrass (of Drag the River/Armchair Martian) and Joey Cape (of Lagwagon), stopped in at New World Brewery on a balmy Thursday evening last June 25. The concept behind this tour was to get these three alt-country musicians together on a stage and see what happens in a casual format, kinda like the Revival Tour.

Jon Snodgrass and Cory Branan (pictured above) kicked off the festivities by alternating songs and occasionally performing duets - check out “Born Apart.” The audience enthusiastically joined in on their performance, singing along to their favorite tunes like Sondgrass’ “Song for Gibson” and Branan’s “Prettiest Waitress In Memphis.” (MORE PICS AFTER THE JUMP.) Read the rest of this entry »

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
Dark Night of the Soul

From the first reports of a new project by artist/producer Danger Mouse and singer/multi-instrumentalist Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous), to the freaky 16-second video revealing filmmaker David Lynch’s hand in its artistic direction, to its Internet leak after the dispute with EMI turned into a permanently unresolved issue, Dark Night of the Soul has been generating a shadow-shrouded hype that reflects the album’s own bewitching eeriness.

The 13 songs were written by DM and SH in collaboration with a noteworthy cast of nearly a dozen guests, who not only provided vocals but helped compose and produce their respective tracks. Each one retains its own individual feel, but all remain within Dark Night’s moody boundaries and feature DM’s skilled multi-layering production techniques. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s about time Incubus graced us with their musical presence again. For the past three years we’ve had to make do with listening to their 2006 album Light Grenades. Don’t get me wrong — my ears thoroughly enjoyed it (It was, after all,  No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200), but after a good week of replaying the CD in my car, I carelessly tossed it in the back seat and retrograded back to my faithful Led Zeppelin collection.

I almost forgot all about my long-time love of Incubus. But I have good news friends; They’re back! Monuments and Melodies hit stores June 15th and it has been playing in my car and on my laptop ever since. The two-disc album showcases their greatest hits and new favorites to add to your list. For fans, this disc a must-have.

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After repeatedly hearing this new disc hyped by The Mars Volta leader Omar Rodriguez-Lopez in recent interviews as their “acoustic record,” TMV fans might be a bit surprised when they finally get to hear Octahedron.

Acoustic guitars highlight only a couple of the tracks on the new album, primarily the single “Since We’ve Been Wrong,” the over-7-minute “With Twilight as My Guide,” and “Copernicus.” The rest of the songs feature as much of the bombastic guitar and keyboard-driven rock as their fans are used to.

A special five-on-the-floor shout-out goes to track 2, “Teflon,” where vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala wails, “Let the wheels burn/ Let the wheels burn/ Stack the tires to the neck/ With the body inside.”

What strikes me as particularly “acoustic” about Octahedron is the lack of dense, arpeggiated guitar overdubs that typically define the Volta’s sound. In fact, the only guitar “solo” is placed at the end of “Luciforms,” the last song on the record.

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Six months after she triumphantly joined forces with Jon Bon Jovi on Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” at the Obama inaugural, Bettye LaVette drops this 23-minute digital-only EP, which includes a studio version of the Sam Cooke milestone and five other classics that she’s performed over the years.

The 63-year-old vocalist, whose career was rescued from obscurity by 2005’s I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise (Anti-), breaks songs down to their narrative essence. Her voice is weathered, full of cracks and breaks, kind of like Tina Turner in bad need of a lozenge. It’s a lived-hard voice that, while not adept at soaring melody, is capable of communicating a song’s deeper meaning.

LaVette has the uncanny knack of making you consider anew lyrics that you’ve heard hundreds of times (and perhaps forgotten) . When she sings, on the title track, “I used to go the movies/ And I’d try to go downtown/ Somebody was always there tellin’ me/ ‘Little girl, you cain’t come around,’” stretching the words as a pleading lament, it personalizes the song in a way that I’d not heard before.”

Backed by a piano/bass/drums rhythm section and subtle strings, LaVette rounds out the program with some challenging material, mostly because the songs have been so often rendered and their definitive versions established. She interprets “’Round Midnight,” “God Bless the Child” and “Lush Life” as blues-drenched jazz ballads, her voice pulling ears closer with pregnant pauses and conversational asides.

Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” backed only by percussion, sounds like she’s walking down a city street telling a girlfriend about her romantic woes. The set closes a lighter note, with a strutting version of Jimmy Reed’s “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby.” Read the rest of this entry »

The crowd cheers as a tattooed man with shaggy hair and a British accent belts out Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath tunes. An hour later, a blonde singer tears through a set of Motley Crue classics while his bandmates pound their instruments into submission. An hour after that, a grown man in a schoolboy outfit duck-walks across the stage and his cohort growls from under his cap while AC/DC riffs blast through the speakers.

Is this a dream team concert lineup of rock ‘n’ roll legends? Not quite, but the crowd is enthusiastic and it sounds pretty close to the real thing. In fact, the only part that’s completely unrealistic is the price, since admission to see all the bands ($10) cost less than parking at major rock concerts.

On June 30, three tribute acts performed at Jannus Landing at the Monsters of Mock show while fans sang along to the familiar sights and sounds. It’s not the real thing, but according to Martyn Jenkins, frontman for AC/DC tribute act Highway to Hell (and the evening’s headliners), the next best thing is pretty satisfying in its own right.

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This album looks great on paper:

Legendary organist and Stax Records session mainstay Booker T. joins forces with the Drive-By Truckers, whose Patterson Hood is the son of Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood. Add Neil Young’s lead guitar into the mix, and the result? Gritty instrumental R&B gold, right?

Not really. Potato Hole sounds like a set of 10 rhythm tracks in search of songs — melodies, vocals, that sort of stuff. As a result, while some of the music has a certain scrappy energy, the whole affair ends up being tedious.

Versions of “Hey Ya” and Tom Waits’ “Get Behind the Mule” fare best, mostly because the aggregation has a melody to dig into.

Booker T. is not an improviser, a soloist of any particular skill. (Just listen to the Booker T & the MG’s 1962 hit “Green Onions” — it’s a quick, grabby riff with a good groove, and little else.) Read the rest of this entry »

I — probably like most interested parties — didn’t have high expectations for Dinosaur Jr.’s 2007 disc, Beyond, the first since the late ’80s to feature the original Dino trio of vocalist/guitarist J Mascis, bassist/vocalist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph.

Sure, I was excited about the band getting back together, and seeing them at Lollapalooza was fun, but few of these indie- and punk-rock reunions ever produce much in the way of exciting new music. Toss in the legendary bad blood between Mascis and Barlow and you had to figure Beyond was a one-and-done cash-in between the musicians’ other projects.

I’m glad I was wrong. Beyond turned out to be that rarity: a late-career album that fully captures why people loved a band in the first place, but that also displays a natural growth and maturity. The Weirdness it wasn’t.

But finding that spark again doesn’t necessarily guarantee a durable second act.

Mission of Burma’s second post-reunion disc, The Obliterati, despite my early high assessment, didn’t quite end up with the legs of the band’s first get-back-together album, OnOffOn. And I wonder if the same fate might befall Farm, Dinosaur Jr.’s good-not-great Beyond follow-up. Read the rest of this entry »

Frodus Conglomerate International (1993-1999) resurrected on June 18, 2009 at Redlight Redlight, Orlando, FL, continuing what has been an outstanding ’90s hardcore reunion year (most recently the unbroken/split lip reunion at burning fight). Supporting the resurrection was Tampa’s Guiltmaker and Orlando’s Hurrah.

Frodus Read the rest of this entry »

Dad’s dig music. I’m a dad, and if I didn’t work at THEE record store (and already have them), these’d be on my Father’s Day list:

Booker T - Potato Hole
This album has it ALL. The funky soul of classic Booker T, rocking guitar of Neil Young and it grooves to the backing of the Drive-By Truckers, poignantly tying together the fact that Patterson Hood’s father, as a Muscle Shoals studio musician, was an integral part of the southern soul sound, that Booker T. spawned.  See how this Father’s Day gift has several levels to it?!

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott - A Stranger Here
This is an album of blues covers. I thought I never needed to hear some of these songs again (they’d been covered SO much!), but they’ve absolutely been made fresh by Jack’s gut-bucket voice, the
musicianship of Van Dyke Parks and David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) and Joe Henry’s production.

From the liner notes of A Stranger Here, Henry writes: “I pitched the idea that he interpret country blues music from the Depression era of his birth… songs as dark, funny and strange as is he and the times that produced them, and also ones that still resonate in these turbulent days.” It’s amazing how someone nearly 80 years old can interpret these aged classics in such a contemporary manner. I guess that’s why we call them “artists.”

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Pontiak galloped into New World Brewery this past Thursday, June 11, the exceptional headliner of History’s last show in Tampa supported by King of Spain and Glasgow. Another splendid Thx Mgmt show - thanks Joe.

Pontiak

To get the downlow on Pontiak, check out Eric Snider’s interview with the brothers who make up this band. Live, Pontiak delivers a constantly evolving performance, its members switching instruments (who doesn’t love the impact of double drum sets?) and keeping even the most jaded scenester interested. These mistral brothers are a talented family garnering positive media attention from sources as diverse as Pitchfork and Wired. Read the rest of this entry »

Taking Back Sunday return with New Again, the follow-up to 2006’s Louder Now and they are, in fact, new again. Following the departure of guitarist/vocalist Fred Mascherino in October of 2007, TBS found a new guitarist named Matt Fazzi to fill his shoes, leading the band in a new direction.

On New Again, TBS moves farther away from the original, raw sound that put them on the map with 2002’sTell All your Friends; the difference can be heard in the opening seconds of the album. Where the band once kicked things off with an escalating chord progression, New Again’s title track opens the album with a fuzzy, electronic bass beat. And that isn’t the only difference longtime TBS fans may notice. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, Elvis Perkins in Dearland is probably a good choice musically to open for Bon Iver. The band is low key, but not low energy, and they built the show up well, especially having Bon Iver come on stage for the last song. That really hyped up the crowd. They started off slowly, though, and I wasn’t sure I was going to catch on. My notes through the first three songs read like strange musings: “Elvis can somehow pull off white jeans & a jingle bell necklace…” “Trombone guy has played like 4 instruments already, is hot, but has a huge hole in the crotch of his jeans…” Song number four picked up the pace and I got more involved. This is another really talented group of musicians, several multi-instrumentalists, and one local guy named David who was someone’s uncle and did a nice job even though he stuck out like a sore thumb (well, he was older and not dressed like he was from 1974). Anyway, they were a good time. When they successfully threw in a gospel tune that led into a sort of doo-wopish buddy holly kind of jam, things really got interesting. I enjoyed Elvis Perkins in Dearland, and they really seemed to be having fun, and it was sort of a love fest with Bon Iver (who said they were all now the best of friends). Happily ever after at The State. (Sigh.) (Photo of Perkins by Sam Goresh)

This weekend, I determined that the quality of your back-up singers determines the cheese factor of your show. Steely Dan’s were a trio of lovely ladies straight out of 1989, whose vocals were overshadowed by bad hair and fashion, and badly choreographed dance hands. Yes, I said it — dance hands, those theatric gestures all the drama club kids make when singing in musicals, the ones that don’t really express anything but keep your arms from hanging down at your sides like wet noodles. So, yes, I was distracted by the trio, but I was also just not that into the music, either. (Photos by Phil Bardi taken from the soundboard.)

Full disclosure: I am not among the loyal legion of Dan fans. I can understand and appreciate the influence of the progressive jazz-rockers, and I like some songs from their catalog, although they are guilty of recording one of my least favorite songs, ever, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” (I’m a hater on “Deacon Blues,” too.) There’s just something about the Steely Dan sound — its slick production quality, Donald Fagen’s vocal tone — that rubs me wrong. But my mind has been changed by greater things and music is oftentimes different when consumed in a live setting, and since my husband is a devotee and has never seen them live, and since I’ve never seen them perform live, either, I took us both to the show at Ruth Eckerd Hall this past Friday, June 12. The Florida leg of the “Rent Party ‘09″ tour was a sort of warm-up for the upcoming series of special bigger-city bills where the band will play one of each of their classic albums in its entirety at each show. Read the rest of this entry »

All photos by Sam Goresh.

To be totally honest, I went to this showing knowing only one Bon Iver song and a short version of a story about a guy who went into a cabin for the winter with a broken heart and came out in the spring as a rock star — kind of an indie Eric Carle tale. Maybe I was showing bad music journalism manners, setting out to review a rock show with no idea what I was about to get myself into (and I probably shouldn’t have admitted to it just now). I thought seriously for days about doing some homework in advance, but I really didn’t want to. The thing is, I love to hear something for the first time live, at the show, before I’ve ever laid ears on the album. So, if you tell me I just have to hear someone, I’ll Google them first to see if they’re coming to town. I’ve fallen in love with some great music that way, and here I am again, head over heels for Bon Iver. (Pictured: Justin Vernon)

The set-up between bands took a while. Maybe it just seemed like half my life because I was sweating it out on the railing at the back of the room downstairs. (Is there any club in town with really great A/C, even in summer?) When Elvis Perkins in Dearland performed (more on them in another post), there was this huge mass of band in the middle of the stage. After Bon Iver’s instruments were finally put in order, it looked like there were four separate stations. Almost as if four one-man-bands were going to play. Okay, I thought, this should be interesting. (More pics after the jump) Read the rest of this entry »

For nearly an hour last night, the New York Dolls played to type as an aging, reunited rock ‘n’ roll band living off their legacy: solid but not inspired, willing but a little fatigued. Then something kicked in. “Muddy Bones,” from their new album Cause I Sez So, a song pulled from the early Stones playbook, seemed to energize David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and the other, newer, Dolls. The shoulder-to-shoulder crowd on the floor of the State Theatre picked up on it. (Photo by Tracy May)

For the show’s remaining 40-or-so minutes, the New York Dolls conjured up their rambunctious early-’70s selves, sans the drag attire and the heroin and with far better chops. Extended versions of early tunes “Jet Boy,” “Personality Crisis” and “Trash” — which alternated between the early punk version and the reggae take on Sez So — brought the set to a loud, satisfying crescendo.

(The show’s latter portion was powerful enough that only once did I slip out into the lobby to check on the Magic/Lakers game, and thanks to the Dolls hitting the stage just after 9, I was able to catch the fourth quarter on my couch in front of the 57-inch.) Read the rest of this entry »

Thx Mgmt brought an all-star Florida rock n’ roll show to New World Brewery last Friday, June 5, featuring Tampa darlings The Beauvilles, Orlando-based Thomas Wynn & The Believers and Jacksonville’s Shawn Fisher & The Jukebox Gypsies. The master plan was a mini-weekend tour with stops at each of the bands’ hometowns while rotating the headliner spot and introducing the out-of-town bands to new audiences. A grand idea!

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For the last dozen or so years, Elvis Costello has switched genres like he was trying on shirts at the outlet mall: orchestral works, New Orleans R&B with Allen Toussaint, stately ballads with Swedish messo-soprano Anne-Sofie von Otter, a writing collaboration with Burt Bacharach and a jazz summit with Bill Frisell. He even managed to squeeze in a bit of rock ‘n’ roll.

While his musical bed-hopping sounds like fun, it has served to render his artistic vision a bit fuzzy. The “what will Costello come up with next?” question started to grow tiresome a few outings ago.

Which brings us to Secret, Profane & Sugarcane — his first for Starbucks’ Hear Music imprint — wherein he calls on producer T Bone Burnett and gets the full-on T Bone treatment. Yup, acoustic guitar, Dobro, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, banjo, accordion, mountain music arrangements, the tunes configured into contemporary takes old-timey Americana (matched by the CD packaging).

You may recall that Burnett was at the helm for Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand, a serendipitous convergence of talent that went Grammy wild. Read the rest of this entry »

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Sonic Youth — average age: 50 — had mellowed in recent years. 2006’s Rather Ripped found the band working some of the most subtle grooves of its career, and the results were spectacular, a continuation of the second act SY began staging with 2002’s excellent-if-spotty Murray Street and 2004’s just-damn-perfect Sonic Nurse.

In case you worrying, though, track one of SY LP number 16, The Eternal, will cure you of any illusions that this band has gone soft. Titled “Sacred Trickster,” the song is two minutes of no-frills punk rock, with an angry vocal turn by bassist Kim Gordon and a fat bottom end that comes courtesy of new fifth band member Mark Ibold (formerly of Pavement).

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Ed Lowery and friends (which includes the Tampa Two Stroke Scooter Club) threw a benefit concert in support of Mike Formato, a friend injured in a serious scooter accident, at New World Brewery this past Saturday May 30. It was a eclectic evening of music featuring sets by Magadog, Light Yourself on Fire and The Boozers.

Magadog

Magadog is the band that introduced me to ska at the tender age of 16, opening up a parallel universe to the SXE/hardcore scene. When I moved to DC for college, I was surprised to find that the hardcore and ska scenes didn’t interact in any purposeful way like they do here in Tampa. When Magadog broke up, it was very sad … my friends and I had so much fun through the years with them at shows with Checkered Cabs, Skavoovie and The Epitones, The Toasters, The Pietasters and many others. When Magadog reformed in 2007, we were psyched to have them back and so far, we haven’t been disappointed! With one new record out, Sunrise…, and another on the way, Ybor City, Magadog is firmly back in the skank of things. Saturday evening’s performance had the crowd skanking the night away… who doesn’t love a little skaerobics? Read the rest of this entry »

City of Ships sailed into Ybor City last Friday, May 29, and headlined a New Granada Show at New World Brewery with Tampa favorites Guiltmaker and Gainesville-based Liquid Limbs.

City of Ships

Currently hailing from Richmond, Va., City of Ships produces a unique brand of heavy yet clever post-hardcore rock. Live, the band delivers a mega sound that is LOUD … the last time my ears felt like this (i.e., as if they were bleeding) was after a Deadguy/108 show in the mid-’90s. With long hair, and some strategic fan placement, the headbanging was ON. But to call City of Ships a headbanging rock band means you are missing the point. Their music is complex and incorporates a variety of musical influences all rolled up in a unique package. They are one of the few bands that you love listening to both on disc and live. City of Ships has a new record due out on July 21, 2009, Look What God Did To Us (Translation Loss Records), and they are touring extensively this summer across the US and Europe. In the meantime, check out their myspace page for teaser songs. Read the rest of this entry »

Pittsburgh experimental rock ensemble Black Moth Super Rainbow produces some of the headiest psychedelic electro-fizz you’ll hear around right now, day-glow vibrant and spaced-out like an acid trip to the moon.

The band tones down the face-melting mania and turns wistfully surreal for its fourth full-length, Eating Us (Graveface), setting blotter paper lyricism against a rich and dreamy orchestra of synthesized sound — dense, swirling textures of synthi-chord, synth-strings, synth-flute and synth everything else. Read the rest of this entry »

Tito Puente
Dance Mania
(RCA/Legacy)

Mainstream America’s embracement of Latin music really took hold in the latter half of the 1950s with the “mambo craze.” Despite its faddish overtones and eventual disintegration into novelty (”Mambo Italiano”), this particular craze inspired some terrific music, none better than Tito Puente’s Dance Mania, which in 2000 was named one of the 25 “most significant albums” of the 20th century by the New York Times.

Puente, a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage, was a brilliant percussionist (especially on timbales), composer and arranger, all of which are on display in this two-CD expanded edition that includes the original album and 1960’s Dance Mania Vol. 2 (both with bonus tracks).

Check out CL’s one-stop music site.

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Akron/Family
Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

Last year, America’s indifferent masses finally acknowledged the country’s desperate need for change and elected a leader who not only represented change but inspired confidence, re-affirmed those freedoms we held so dear, and gave us back our sense of patriotism without making us feel ashamed of it. The dark times aren’t over, but we’ve filled ourselves with enough hope to get by.

You get the idea that Akron/Family is feeling the same sense of re-claimed patriotism before even hearing their new album. The cover of Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free (Dead Oceans) features the American flag, its star-spangled square replaced by a tie-dye swirl of white on faded navy, its broad stripes wrinkled and gaping in spots. But it still hangs proud and defiant, if a bit worse for wear. (Video and rating after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

Willie Heath Neal plays country music. That’s what I’d call it, that’s what he calls it. But if you listen to popular country radio, you’d disagree. You’d call his songs “alt-country rockabilly” or “cowpunk” or “outlaw country” or “hillbilly” or “psychobilly.” Really, there seem to be endless ways to describe the man’s music by tacking “billy” onto the end of a word. But what really matters as we hash it all out is that he knows how to write a good song. That’s all I care about, and that is exactly what matters when you’re in Ybor City on a rainy Tuesday night at Crowbar to see Willie and his gang play. I don’t ordinarily listen to country music (I adore The Old 97’s, but here again, they don’t seem to count), so I had no idea what I was getting into, but I loved every minute of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Having proclaimed 1959 “Jazz’s Greatest Year,” Sony Legacy will release three multi-disc, expanded-edition sets marking 50th anniversaries next Tuesday, May 26: Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, Charles Mingus’ Ah Um/Mingus Dynasty and Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. The label stole some of its own thunder by last year releasing the landmark album of ‘59, Miles’ Kind of Blue in several lavish editions.

This troika of diverse albums certainly belongs in any discussion of jazz classics. Personally, I find Sketches of Spain the least satisfying of Miles’ four orchestral collaborations with arranger/conductor Gil Evans. Its neo-classical centerpiece, the 16-and-half-minute “Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio),” kind of crawls along through atmospheric movement after atmospheric movement.

Overall, the album includes tons of gorgeous horn textures, but never finds much rhythmic traction, and Miles’ trumpet work sounds a bit unfocused outside of a swing setting. An extra disc of outtake does not provide much in the way of revelations.

Brubeck’s Time Out famously explores different rhythm signatures, and includes Brubeck’s signature tune “Take Five.” This disc is not on my list of favorites either, but I admire its chamber-like subtlety, Joe Morello’s simpatico drumming and Paul Desmond arid-toned alto sax. Read the rest of this entry »

WMNF’s 2009 Tropical Heatwave managed to be a scorcher in spite of torrential downpours. The best thing about Heatwave is the ability to see a wide variety of genres in one evening in close proximity. I managed to catch 10 bands this year on 5 stages: The Beauvilles, David Dondero, James Intveld, Johnny Cakes & The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypso, Kinobe & Soul Beat Africa, Magadog, Modern Skirts, Will Quinlan & The Diviners, Roppongi’s Ace and Thomas Wynn & The Believers.

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Last night, Photographer Phil and I played Heatwave Hopscotch, skipping from stage to stage, pausing longer at some than at others though never staying long enough to get comfortable in any one place, and having a grand old time all along the way.

We cruised into Heatwave around 9 p.m., missing the monsoon and arriving just in time to catch a snatch of blues guitarist Michael Burks at the Bandshell before we landed in the Cantina for Kinobe and Soul Beat Africa. (Kinobe pictured, photo by Phil Bardi.)

We were in our spot two seconds and one sip into our drinks before we were befriended by a pair of jolly 40ish Bradenton gals (I nicknamed them Angel and Curly), who immediately pushed a few Ace’s Lounge cards on us, then admitted to being friends with the owner. Angel went on to extol all Ace’s virtues (she called it the “Skipper’s Smokehouse of Bradenton”) and about the hotel conveniently located right across the street, the Jimmy Buffett-themed Parrot Inn. You could virtually make a night of it – see a show at the famed Ace’s, stumble over to the Parrot and get a room, hit Bradenton Beach the next day if your head’s still attached. (Angel admitted she’d already booked a room for Red Elvises in October.) Then she and Phil started chatting about photography and her husband’s new hobby of taking pics of the sky through his mega-high tech telescope, and how Saturn was so clear right now that you could see its moons. When Phil ducked away to take pics, Angel latched onto me, and told me about how excited she was to see some world music, the greatness of what we were seeing while we were seeing it, the lady who scooted into the huge spot in front of us and whether she was a temporary or permanent stopper. I ran into Van, spotted a dude who was a deadringer for Donald Sutherland, enjoyed a few songs worth of the warm and buoyant Ugandan music, then snagged Phil and dragged him to the Ballroom. (Many more pics and tidbits after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

The early evening monsoon that struck Saturday had the bands at New World Brewery running late. No worries, the music never really stopped, and though the rains would let up, the crowd would not. Packed in on the porch, those in attendance witnessed some of the best central Florida music.

The first set I caught was by the so-called “folk experimental” threesome of Lauris Vidal. The instruments may have been experimental and folk based — Vidal played everything from a homemade, wooden slide guitar to an electric banjo — but these guys are a crisp, blues-rock band. What sets them apart, though, is their use of dub & reggae influences to create a more syncopated sound.

Roppongi’s Ace rocked the mustaches off faces with their style of southern rock. I missed Ted Lukas and the Misled for some Cuban Club acts, but got back to catch the start of Will Quinlan and the Diviners’ set. These guys — simply put — are good shit. GreyMarket changed the pace, breaking out a light show & laptops to turn in a quite excellent guitar & drum driven electro rock set. (Pictured: GreyMarket guitarist Cave McCoy; photo by Phil Bardi, no glow added.)

The Sheiks played a solid, but ultimately unmemorable post-rock set giving way to a surprise late-night show featuring Johnny Cakes and the Four Horsemen of the Apacolypso. They opened up Heatwave at the Ballroom stage — I’m not sure how that set went over, but 1:30 a.m. at a still raging New World felt like a better time slot for the high-energy — and highly dirty — ska band. Read the rest of this entry »