Tampa Calling

The Roots, rap’s greatest live band, didn’t bring M.I.A. on stage Saturday at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (big rumor going ’round town) but did an innovative rendition of “Masters of War” that left me spellbound. The Philly hip-hop ensemble mashed the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s classic anti-war screed — sung in a clear, high tenor by Roots guitarist Captain Krik Douglas — to the “Star Spangled Banner” melody. Roots drummer/bandleader Questlove banged out a military style march rhythm and then engaged in killer interplay with sousaphone player Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr.” Bryson . I was able to watch/photograph The Roots’ performance at the Congo Square stage from backstage thanks to my Crescent City buddy Tommy hooking me up with an invitation from Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu to the “My Louisiana Hospitality Center.”

Here are some pics. Gotta run to catch the Raconteurs and Big Easy ambassadors the Neville Brothers, which will be closing Jazz Fest and making their first performance in New Orleans post-Katrina.

Roots’ guitar hero Captain Kirk Douglas.

Hip-hop’s best drummer, Questlove.

Douglas and Black Thought (The Roots’ MC).

Questlove with sousaphone player Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr.” Bryson.

War Chief Juan & Young Fire Saturday at the Jazz & Heritage stage.

Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas Saturday at the Fais Do Do stage.

The food at Jazz Fest is as good as the music, especially the pheasant-quail-andouille gumbo.

The mud didn’t stop folks from dancing at the Fais Do Do stage.

New Orleans residents (left to right) Tricia Doud, Ashley Vigil (formerly of Tampa) and Amy Henke, chilling at the “My Louisiana Hospitality Center.”

Hard at work this morning at my brother Joel’s place in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood. Photo by Joel Tatangelo.

Arielle Stevenson went to Ministry at Jannus Landing on Wednesday night. She came back with this:

I got my first tattoo while Ministry’s “Lay Lady Lay” played in the background. So naturally I had to watch the masses of black-studded industrial metalheads cheer the now-50-year-old Al Jorgensen last night at Jannus. The iconic mic stand, cattle head, handle bars etc. were placed behind three chain-link fences.

Jorgensen’s performance was studded with the signature multimedia affects, including wild video clips that targeted the Bush administration. One showed Dick Cheney hunting. A young guy, maybe 22, was carried out by security, his freshly punched face oozing blood, proving that Ministry can still bring the mayhem.

The lineup may not be entirely original Ministry men, but guitarist Tommy Victor played some incredibly face-melting solos. Also noteworthy was bassist Tony Campos.

For the first encore, the band busted out with “N.W.O.” The crowd went wild. The second encore kicked off with a cover of ZZ Top’s “Just Got Paid” off of 2008’s Cover Up. The show ended with a Ministrized version of the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb,” and sent concertgoers off with a ringing in their ears.

I have to wonder though: On Ministry’s next “final” world tour, will Jorgensen’s famous mic stand be his walker?

While 16,000 fans at the St. Pete Times Forum stood on their feet, silent, basking in Bruce Springsteen’s ballad “Racing in the Street,” I was sitting with my face in my hands, pleading for the song to end. Several times he finished that dreary chorus and I’d think “Racing” was coming to a merciful close, only for Bruce and company to creep back into another verse. “Does everything have to be an epic?” I wondered, cringing.

Just so you know: I never drank the Kool-Aid — which, I hasten to add, is not the same as being a hater. I’ve had my periods of appreciation for Springsteen, but over the years it’s more been an admiration for some of his better work than genuine fandom.

And just so you know: I’m not looking down on Brooooooce fans who commune with their hero. I have a similar relationship with a handful of other acts.

That said, the show demonstrated how redundant Springsteen’s songs are. (I’ve seen him maybe six or seven times previously, and this is the first time it hit me.) He has maybe four basic compositional conceits that he returns to again and again. (What is “Livin’ in the Future” if not “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” 30 years on?)

So, yes, the concert got dull.

But it’s also why “The Rising” is such a great tune, Springsteen’s best in, oh, two decades. It’s a roof-raiser that sets itself apart from the others — a respite from the doldrums, if you will. The ensemble’s performance of the song Tuesday was particularly spirited.

One more complaint and I’m out: Springsteen has always favored a wall of sound, but his on-stage instrumentation of four guitarists, two keyboardists, bassist, violinist, saxophonist and drummer turned crescendos into sludge.

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.

During her concert last night before an ecstatic near-capacity audience at Ruth Eckerd Hall, k.d. lang sang “The Valley” by Jane Siberry, complimenting her fellow Canadian singer/ songwriter for her combination of “passion and equanimity.” That’s a rare combination, but it’s one that lang can claim, too. As she demonstrated in number after number, including “The Valley,” she can go from soaring to intimate to down-home friendly all in the space of an evening – or sometimes even within one song.
Her voice is better than ever. It’s richer and darker now, yet she can still hit and sustain high notes as pure and lovely as a mountain stream. Barefoot, dressed in a velvet-and-satin vest and baggy trousers, she seemed supremely relaxed. She flirted with the audience on the pop standard “Smoke Rings”(“puff, puff, puff”), and plumbed the anguish in Leonard Cohen’s all-too-familiar “Hallelujah Song.” She found new colors in her mega-hit, “Constant Craving,” breaking up that familiar fluid refrain and smiling wryly on the line “It’s always been,” as if to acknowledge that we’re all victims of love, gay or straight or whatever. And on one of her two encores she broke out a banjo; she started playing it this year, she explained, “because I realized it is a chick magnet.”
The songs from her latest album, Watershed, made a strong impression. There’s a grounded ruefulness to the lyrics — “It’s sad to me how quickly we define what’s wrong with yours is right with mine/ You think that we could learn to let things slide?” But the melodies, and the musicianship of her fine five-man band, kept everything percolating.
“I promised myself I wasn’t going to get political on this tour,” she said at one point. But that didn’t stop her from dedicating a rollicking bluegrassy rendition of “Pay Dirt” to “the boys from Halliburton,” complete with a knee-slapping, butt-kicking jig.
The Halliburton crack (and a few others) was what probably provoked a disgruntled concertgoer I overheard after the concert.
“Shut up and sing!” he fumed. “I didn’t pay to hear your politics!”
He was in the minority, I suspect, when it came to the politics. And, really, lang sang a lot more than she talked. Yet even after 90 minutes and 15 songs, she still left you longing for more of that addictive voice.

There was quite a bit of chatter in my living room about 15 minutes before the BCS Championship Game kicked off last night. Suddenly, the TV caught my attention: A swarthy John Waters look-alike — with spiked, shoe-polish black hair — was butchering the National Anthem.

I’ve seen a lot of games, and I’ve seen a lot of National Anthems. I’ve never seen a worse rendition in a big game with a huge national audience.

The perpetrator was named Clint Maedgen. He’s a New Orleans jack-of-all-trades type who fronts a wacky cabaret-style act called the Bingo Show!. He’s been a guest singer for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for three years, and he does his own rock material. Even sings some gospel, but not well.

I get that the organizers of the bowl game, played at the Louisiana Superdome, wanted to present the “Star-Spangled Banner” with some local flair. Better than an American Idol retread. And to that end, they had a few fellas from the Preservation Hall band backing Maedgen up. But, despite being from the Crescent City, Maedgen’s singing is not representative of its music or culture. His voice is thin and reedy, with limited range, and lacks innate soulfulness.

The crucial moment in any National Anthem performance is that “the la-and of the freeeee” part, where the singer has to really reach to hit that long, high note. Some do so with easy aplomb, others with rousing passion that prompts a cheer from the crowd, some add silly frills that annoy me. Still others reach that spot and can’t hit the note, so they go into some melismatic spazz-out or overblown wail. That’s what our boy Clint did.

Hey, he scored a good gig, but was in over his head.

I can say from second-hand experience that singing the national anthem in a stadium is some really difficult stuff. Several years ago, a newly signed pop singer, her name long forgotten by me and just about anyone else, was tapped to sing the anthem at a Monday night Bucs game. I stood next to her as she sound-checked and close by as she performed to the packed Tampa Stadium.

Forget that the anthem’s clumsy melody makes it a horribly tough tune to sing — the slap-back echo was brutal. You know when you get that echo on the phone and can barely keep the conversation together? Imagine that times 10 and upping the stakes by a thousand. As I remember, the young woman did pretty well, and without fancy mini-monitors in her ears. She did look a little shook up afterward, though.

So I won’t beat up on poor Cliff anymore.

But before I sign off, let me turn you on to my favorite rendition of the National Anthem. That would be Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. All he did was radically overhaul, and improve, the country’s patriotic signature song by reworking the melody into his inimitable style (without disrespecting the original) and performing it over an undulating mid-tempo funk beat from a lone drum machine.

He caressed the lyrics, infusing them with new meaning, new feeling. The crowd was mesmerized, and little pockets of cheers and squeals rang throughout the performance, followed by a thunderous ovation at the end.

And when he hit that “land of the free” part, he sailed right through it.

Progressive rock virtuoso Adrian Belew performed much of Friday night’s two-set show with a shit-eating grin on his craggy face, his fingers dancing nimbly up and down the neck of his retro orange guitar, his effects pedals ensuring that the tones he produced were never quite ordinary. To Belew’s right, 21-year-old bassist Julie Slick played with her long curly hair hanging in her face. To his left, her younger brother, drummer Eric Slick, pounded out beats with changing time signatures amidst the occasional danceable grooves and spirited interchanges — dare I say face-offs? — with Belew.

All together, they filled the room with a dynamic stew of electrifying prog rock and played two fun sets of Belew originals and King Crimson numbers that were enjoyed by a mature, mostly male audience. The tremendously short set break was marked by a solo instrumental performance by Belew, the highlight a captivating cover of The Beatles’ psychedelic “Within You, Without You,” in which Belew perfectly recreated the tone of the tambura (a sitar-like instrument from India). It was the type of show that makes it hard to get a drink or take a bathroom break because you’re afraid you’ll miss something good. Belew was clearly having a raging good time with his young cohorts, their interchange spirited and a treat to take in. When the trio came out and encored with “Thela Hun Ginjeet” — a King Crimson standard – the 300 or so attendees who stood rapt and still through much of the show became an energized mass of dancing bodies.

The only thing sadder than a country singer wailing about her dog dying may be a folk singer having to say goodbye to her car’s transmission while on a cross-country tour. If that wasn’t enough, her dog died, too.

Former Orlando resident and Sacred Grounds favorite Amy Steinberg returned to the Temple Terrace coffeehouse last Friday night begging for life to “beat me some more. See if I quit!” About 40 people crammed into the living room-style space, pulling up a patch of carpet when the couch seats ran out.

Steinberg, a one-woman show who alternates between her electric piano and acoustic guitar, began with a new song she wrote for the fans who often put her up when she’s on the road.

A classically trained musician and actor also well versed in slam poetry, Steinberg, 35, is a little Tori Amos, a lot of Ani DiFranco and a big old potty mouth. At one point, she sarcastically apologized to anyone in the mostly under-25 crowd who might have been “fuck-sensitive,” offering that at least she’s helping them find their boundaries.

A former teacher and self proclaimed “cool aunt,” Steinberg’s tune “Let’s Make Love,” is more spoken-word than song, reflecting on the joys of loving instead of fighting: “Let’s have ourselves a spiritually spawned orgasm,” and then she quickly ad-libbed:“In the philosophical sense.” (more…)

Canadian singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith (pictured) has built a strong following in these parts over the years thanks to heavy airplay on WMNF and lauded performances at Skipper’s Smokehouse —performances that found him playing to the kind of alt.country-loving folks who probably wouldn’t be caught dead buying a Toby Keith CD.

But that might change.

One of Eaglesmith’s most poignant tales is “White Rose,” from his 1995 breakthrough album “Drive-In Movie.” Keith, who usually only records songs he writes or co-writes, includes a sensitive reading of “White Rose” on his album Big Dog Daddy, which hits stores June 12.

Listen to Keith’s rendition of “White Rose” here.

Does this mean the ‘MNFers can now forgive Keith for singing about putting a boot in someone’s ass?