Tampa Calling

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 »

So — right off the bat I wasn’t there on time to see the Mojo Gurus. Sorry gurus. Then, as the rain poured down, the next band went on. That band was Thomas Wynn & the Believers, and they had a real good time at Tropical Heatwave. I didn’t get to see them have that good time because the fire Marshall wouldn’t let me in.

Sigh. But Mr. Wynn said the folks at WMNF were nothing but nice, the crowd was responsive & “wonderful”, and that it was really great to be able to play in an environment that was so supportive of the occassional 7-minute-long version of a regularly 3-minute song. Sure wish I would have caught ‘em. Actually, this is the second time in as many months that I have accidentally missed them. Lucky for me they’ll be back on June 5 at New World Brewery with the Beauvilles & Shawn Fisher. Read the rest of this entry »

Green Day
21st Century Breakdown
Reprise

It may be a quaint notion in the download era, but I still think of the Album as a distinct artistic statement. Green Day obviously agrees, because 2004’s American Idiot was a rock opera and their new one, 21st Century Breakdown, out today, is a 70-minute, three-part song cycle.

And therein lies the problem. 21st Century Breakdown, as an artistic statement, is ultimately too much of a good thing. Listening to all 18 songs becomes, at some point, burdensome — an exercise in pop-punk overload.

That the disc is essentially a big slab of agitprop set to catchy hooks and big guitars only compounds the problem. As if the title “Know Your Enemy” wasn’t evidence enough, here’s a sample lyric: “Bringing on the fury/ The choir infantry/ Revolt against the honor to obey.”

Angry, alienated sick-and-tired Green Day rail against religion, conformism, complacency, consumerism, media overload, all the usual tropes. Americans are little more than zombies. Did you know, for instance, that according to Green Day, “You’re the victim of the system/ You are your own worst enemy?”

Maybe I’m cranky, maybe I’ve heard it all, but I’m not of a mind to be preached to and berated by Billie Joe Armstrong and his wingmen. Read the rest of this entry »

I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into Friday’s concert at Mahaffey Theater featuring an un-costumed, un-amplified-to-11 Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Maybe I was thinking too hard about it? After all, when you go see a band, they play their songs.  When you go see a comedian, he does his material. With Guest, McKean, and Shearer, reality lay in between — a hilarious, two-hour multimedia jaunt down memory lane complete with stories, clips, and songs predominantly from two classic film satires about seemingly disparate genres of music. Read the rest of this entry »

Thx Mgmt hosted yet another fine show this past Wednesday, May 6 — Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit with Red Cortez at Crowbar.

One thing is certain: Americana fans are a committed group. From the moment the music started, the outside patio emptied, people practically sprinting inside. The audience actually watched Red Cortez, unusual for a relatively unknown opening act. As soon as Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit started setting up, people rushed the stage so they could be assured a spot up front. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve struck gold. Well actually my friend and colleague Wayne Garcia struck gold and passed it along to me.

It’s a full concert by Stevie Wonder — easily downloadable online — from Jan. 31, 1974 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, recorded after Inner Visions came out, but before Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Allegedly, the show was taped for official release, but scrapped, which gives this bootleg remarkably good sound quality.

It’s easy to hear why the tapes were filed away. Stevie’s set is sloppy, random and unfocused — and that much more interesting for it.

The 23-year-old, in the early stages of a hot streak that made him probably the most important artist of the ’70s, is backed by the three-piece rhythm section of guitarist Michael Sembello, bassist Reggie McBride and drummer Ollie Brown, along with a couple of woman background singers.

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Nostalgia is a powerful emotion that drives you to do things like spend hours looking up people you haven’t spoken to for 20 years on Facebook, or periodically dust off your yearbook to page through notations ranging from sentimental to inane. For those of us growing up in the hardcore straightedge music scene, nostalgia makes us do things like fly to Chicago for an Unbroken reunion.

The Unbroken reunion was the main event of the Burning Fight music fest held in Chicago at The Metro, May 2-3, featuring 22 hardcore bands as well as a pre-show at the Subterranean on May 1. Burning Fight was first conceived as a celebration of the publishing of Brian Peterson’s new book, Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound. Norm Arenas had a similar concept when he published his own book, Anti-Matter Anthology, and hosted two Snapcase reunion shows in New York (also featuring 108, Triple Threat and Supertouch). A testament to how hardcore/straightedge scenes work, both shows were benefits: the Anti-Matter shows raised funds for Cal Robbins, the sick son of rock artist J. Robbins, while the Burning Fight shows benefited Rock for Reading and PAWS Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

This review was written by CL Political Editor Wayne Garcia.

Neil Young
Fork in the Road
(Reprise)

Neil Young seems to toss off discs these days like a bad blogger: quick and topical, without much depth or time to think deeper thoughts. That’s a shame, because Young still sounds great, still has a fire in the belly to make hard-grungey music and now has the wisdom of the Old Man that he once wrote so famously about.

Fork in the Road is the latest near-throwaway from Young, a cross between his heavy-handed political genre efforts (Living With War) and the thematic/cinematic concept discs (Greendale). It is ostensibly about his beloved LincVolt, a Lincoln that Young converted to run on electricity. He uses the car as his metaphor for a lot of things that are wrong with the old U S of A, including our addiction to oil. “Fill ’er up/ She’s not the car that she used to be” he intones in “Fuel Line.” Har-har.

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Gomez: A New Tide (ATO)
Being a Gomez fan can be lonely. It can also be confounding. The British quintet has never broken through in the States, despite making hooky, dynamic rock music that splits the difference between Britpop and American roots, and boasts one of the best singers in the biz in Ben Ottewell.

His otherworldly voice is husky yet warm, coming at the listener in stacked textures. The perfect delivery system for emotion. To the band’s credit – or detriment, depending on how you see it – Ottewell splits lead vocal duties with Ian Ball, an appealing singer but one with a more conventional tenor.

A New Tide, the band’s sixth studio album since breaking onto the English scene in 1998, sort of carries on, offering neither revelation nor disappointment. But the sorry state of ProTools rock that rules the airwaves these days makes A New Tide sound pretty damn good.

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Saturday found a distilled presence at New World Brewery!

Whiskey & Co. headlined a fine evening of Americana along with Will Quinlan & The Diviners and Matt Butcher this past Saturday, April 25. The show was hosted by Thx Mgmt. (More pics and info about the show after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

The new 3-DVD set Streisand The Concerts is being marketed as the perfect Mother’s Day gift, and it’s true that in the two live concerts captured here — “Live at Arrowhead Pond/July 1994,” from a multi-city tour that marked her first public concert appearances in 27 years, and “Live in Concert 2006,” recorded in Fort Lauderdale — there are more than a few moms (and a few gentlemen, too) swooning in the audience. But this package is of interest not just to fanatic Babs fans but to anyone interested in the art of singing.

Because what this set confirms is just how extraordinary a singer Barbra Streisand is. You knew that, of course, but over the years the sheer size of her public persona — the mannerisms, the speechifying, the self-aggrandizement — has tended to obscure the talent. Tracing the arc of her career from the groundbreaking ’60s TV specials (excerpted here on the third DVD), it’s clear that her musical intelligence was not only there from the beginning but has only improved over time. It’s also fascinating to see the development of Streisand the entertainer, from wacky ingénue to ultra-polished diva to the woman we see in 2006 — relaxed, open, wryly humorous. And all the way through there’s That Voice, with its tonal purity, bang-on pitch and astonishing power; even at 64 (her age at the 2006 concert) she can still hold a note like nobody else, soaring up to a big finish that leaves audiences awestruck.

Celine Dion, eat your heart out. Read the rest of this entry »

Dead Confederate headlined an eclectic evening of psychedelic, experimental electronica, soul and straight up rock this past Friday, April 24, at Crowbar in Ybor City with support by The Future on Films in Space, The Beauvilles and Palantine.

Dead Confederate, which hails from Athens, Ga., is hard to describe … their stage set-up suggests metal while their stage presence more like grunge, but the music itself is decidedly clever. The Onion suggests that Dead Confederate is forging a new genre of music … check them out and decide for yourself! Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Dylan
Together Through Life

Despite leaning heavily on the signature instrument for the bratwurst-and-polka crowd, Bob Dylan’s new album, Together Through Life, manages to wring rhythm and soul from an overgrown squeezebox.

David Hidalgo of Los Lobos plays accordion on each of the album’s 10 tracks and much of the backing band’s beat reminds us of the best work by Hidalgo’s group. Hidalgo adds great Flaco Jiminez touches to Dylan’s new songs, and at times Together Through Life sounds as if we’ve wandered into a Ry Cooder album.

But it’s Bob Dylan, of course. That blown-speaker growl of his is unmistakable, and although this is an album of purported love songs — what else would the title Together Through Life suggest? — nothing is ever so simple or straightforward in Dylan’s world. And, for that matter, when was the last time he wrote a conventional love song?

Case in point: “My Wife’s Home Town.” A stock-in-trade tuneslinger from Tin Pan Alley might come up with a rhapsodic reverie about visiting the place where his beloved grew up. But not Dylan. The refrain on this tune is “Hell is my wife’s home town.” And then . . . and then . . . a couple of times during the song, Bob . . .  cackles.  In his 47-year recording career, has he ever cackled before?

In short, Bob’s having fun here.

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Prince
Lotusflow3r (NPG)
The good news is that Lotusflow3r is the best Prince album since 2004’s Musicology. It’s his most guitar- and rock-oriented in years — perhaps ever — and includes a few songs that deserve consideration for the upper echelon of the Prince canon.

The not-so-good news is that Lotusflow3r is inconsistent and acts as a general reminder that Prince’s genius appears to be a spasmodic proposition. Lotusflow3er, part of a three-CD set sold at retail through an exclusive agreement with Target, is further proof that we’re not likely to get anything like a masterpiece from the mercurial artist again.

Let’s quickly dispense with Lotusflow3r’s sidekicks: Prince’s MPLSound is a collection of mostly brainless dance-funk, only partially redeemed by a couple of seductive soul ballads. Elixer, a Prince-produced disc by the latest of his ingénues, Bria Valente, is destined for the dustbin of R&B divas.

It’s worth noting that the three-disc package costs just $12 at Target, so if Lotusflow3r is the only one worth spending time with, it’s not exactly a rip-off.

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Let’s start with the obvious: James Brown was among the two or three most incendiary performers of the rock ‘n’ roll era. He presaged the likes of Michael Jackson, Prince and all the other brothers with soulful voices and slick dance moves who came after them.

In the 1960s, Brown didn’t cross over to a white audience; the white audience crossed over to him. He achieved widespread commercial success without ever sanitizing, without ever suppressing the essential African-Americanness, of his music.

Yet as much as white folk listened to Brown on the radio, bought his records and watched him on TV, attending his concerts remained a shaky proposition, one that brought out the pervasive fear and distrust of the black inner city — because most of the time that’s where you had to go to see James Brown in concert.

Many a white JB fan walks the earth today having never seen the man on stage in his prime (me included). That ship has sailed, of course, but the loss can be mitigated a little with the release of a three-DVD set titled I Got the Feelin’: James Brown in the ’60s (Shout! Factory).

Actually, the set’s title underplays its value. These DVDs do more than show an extraordinary entertainer on stage, they capture a fascinating slice of American micro-history. Spring of 1968. James Brown’s status as a figure in the black empowerment movement is on the rise. He is not a believer in Dr. Martin Luther King’s policy of passive resistance; neither has he aligned himself with strident black militancy. But he respects and supports both.

Then King gets shot down in Memphis. Riots beset many American cities.

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Austin-by-way-of-Orlando’s New Roman Times were on their best game this past Saturday, April 18, at New World Brewery as they celebrated the release of their full-length, On The Sleeve, on New Granada Records. Frequently compared with indie greats like The Pixies, Versus and Sonic Youth, NRT successfully fuses quality songwriting with dance-worthy guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll.

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A little more than halfway through their set at the St. Pete Times Forum last night, Fleetwood Mac played “Say You Love Me.” A Christine McVie song. She is the only member of the re-assembled (yet again) Fleetwood Mac who opted out — she departed, apparently for good, in 1998 — and to these ears her presence was sorely missed.

Photo: Jamie Ostrand

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham traded verses on “Say You Love Me,” and although it was nice they included the song, this version lacked the airiness of the original pop gem. Buckingham played the brief guitar solo note-for-note, which made the performance seem obligatory.

“Say You Love Me” was also a reminder of all the McVie songs Fleetwood Mac did not play last night. And seeing as Chrissie was always my favorite of the combative quintet, to me the concert was left lacking.

Fleetwood Mac — which also included drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, two sidemen and three female backup singers — ran through a compendium of their mostly impressive songbook, touching on some obscure stuff (“I Know I’m Not Wrong”) but mostly sticking to such recognizable tunes and monster hits as “Dreams,” “The Chain,” “Monday Morning,” “Gypsy,” “Sara,” et al.

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