Tampa Calling

A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing the five-nights-a-week late night talk shows (and SNL); set your TIVOs or DVRs.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, March 23: Bloc Party (pictured)
Tuesday, March 24: White Lies
Wednesday, March 25: Jesse Harris with Norah Jones
Thursday, March 26: U2 (rerun, March 6)
Friday, March 27: Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt (rerun, Feb. 4)

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, NBC
Monday, March 23: Playing For Change
Tuesday, March 24: PJ Harvey and John Parish
Wednesday, March 25: Prince
Thursday, March 26: Prince
Friday, March 27: Prince Read the rest of this entry »

Around 3 p.m. yesterday, I caught Rec Center and King of Spain at the New Granada showcase at Ginger Man Pub. I grabbed a bite with Flee, Laura, John McNicholas as well as Scott Harrell and Mike Delach from the REAX crew. So awesome that the conference was bookended by Tampa-centric showcases. Maybe we can add a Mohawk Bomb showcase to the roster next year?

Unfortunately, I had to jet before Hankshaw took the stage in order to catch Flatstock by 6 p.m. Flatstock is a quarterly exhibit that features artists, concert posters and prints for sale. I got to meet Jared from Mexican Chocolate. I’m a big fan of this guy’s work for the Mars Volta and I picked up a couple more prints for my collection.

Now here’s where my heart starts beating. I left an hour early to ensure I got a good spot for PJ Harvey and John Parrish’s set at Stubbs. I got there in plenty of time - the Indigo Girls and Third Eye Blind fans had no interest whatsoever, so I was able to wriggle my way down front. The only downside – enduring an entire set by Razorlight. Wow.

PJ Harvey on stage at Stubb’s. Photo courtesy of Carol Copfer.

In a rare US appearance, Polly Jean Harvey took the stage looking like a straight-jacketed geisha, and delivered a set of mostly new material - at turns crying, laughing and screaming - one minute delivering lines like “there’s no more laughter in the garden,” with a tiny, childlike voice and the next, snarling “stick it up your fucking ass,” with an empowered roar. The crowd responded with riotous screams and applause, and she humbly, quietly thanked them each time. When she announced that the next song would be their last, the audience loudly protested, and she tried to explain that everyone was being kept to strict time slots. To the chants of “come back soon,” she had no reply.

Afterward, I ran into John Barker and Jennie from MerchGirl. They were headed down an alleyway to catch the DJ duo L.A. Riots. They asked if I’d like to tag along, but I was still a bit shellshocked from the whole PJ Harvey thing and needed to walk it off in the night air for a bit.

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Last night around 9 p.m. Ivan and I hailed a cab into downtown and ended up riding in with the tour manager and guitar tech for 90’s rockers Smile Empty Soul (”I do it for the drugs”). When our driver dropped us off in front of Lambert’s to catch a set by UK artists Little Thief, I realized I’d left my badge back at the house. It’s been a very long week.

When I finally got back into town, we hoofed it over to La Zona Rosa where we narrowly missed Camera Obscura (still pissed about that), but got to see a couple acoustic songs by Scottish phenoms The Proclaimers.

Dinosaur Jr. with Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene) at Cedar Street Courtyard.

I wanted Ivan to check out Red Eye Fly (Tampa residents, try to imagine a smaller, more evil version of Skipper’s Smokehouse) and try a pint of my new favorite beer, Magic Hat #9. As we got in line, we heard the final strains and “Good night Austin!” of Metallica’s closing number over at Stubbs. It seems the DJ Shadow billing was a ruse and they played that secret set after all. Waiting for a drink at the bar, we met Little Stevie of Springsteen and Sopranos fame, who was hosting the show. One of his bands, The Cocktail Sippers was plying their all-girl garage craft on stage, and as they would stop to catch their breath between songs, he would look toward the stage and shout, “Go! What are you waiting for?” Apparently the years of Springsteen tutelage has rubbed off on him.

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I realized this morning that I only have three more nights in my own bed before I fly to Austin for the annual South by Southwest music conference.

I will be covering the event (the showcases, awards, conferences and parties) for CL and starting Friday night (if everything goes according to plan) you’ll be able to read my daily blog right here at Tampa Calling.

In true New Media Douchebag fashion, in addition to the blog, I’ll be Tweeting (@jorantampa, #sxsw) and shooting as much video as I can. So tweet up, bitches, cuz I’m going to be giving the play-by-play on everything from Quincy Jones‘ keynote speech to the PJ Harvey/John Parrish set at Stubb’s, not to mention David Yow’s set with The Dicks at the Austin Music Awards. You can be jealous now. Peep the whole schedule here. 

I’ll also be attending daytime conferences with names like “Bloggers are Now in Control” and “Social Networks for the Anti-Social.” Riveting stuff, I know. What’s more, I also scored a badge for the Interactive portion of the conference where I’ll get to attend workshops with the CEOs of companies like Opera and FriendFeed.

But I’m sure all you care about is me getting wasted with the dude from The Proclaimers or seeing pictures of Juliette Lewis. All in good time, my friends.

But seriously, if there’s something you’d like me to catch – leave a comment. And keep checking the blog for the daily updates starting Friday.

In response to Leilani’s “Top 10 Stupid Band Names,” I’d like to point out that, yes, not only are some band names stupid, or bad - sometimes they’re downright stolen.

We’ve all sat around stoned, drunk (even sober) and thought up – or accidentally stumbled upon - the next greatest band name EVER. There’s got to be a list of those names somewhere, right? I seem to remember someone saying, “We’ve got to write that one down!” 

There are plenty of band names inspired by literate source material or that just make sense (Steely Dan, named after a dildo in William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch or The L.A. Guns and Hollywood Roses combining to form Guns and Roses). But to lift the name of your group straight out of another artist’s catalog instead of establishing a new identity for your sound, your band, your business? It’s like starting up a fast food chain and calling it “Big Mac’s.”

As my wife pointed out, the only time a tribute should be paid to a band’s song is when you’re actually paying tribute to that band – as is the case with “Paradise City: The Guns N Roses Tribute” or ”Strutter: The Ultimate Tribute to Kiss.”

Here’s my list of offenders (in order of offense taken):

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