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 »

Listen to “Radiate,” from the band PontiakListen to “Radite” now.

Imagine you’re one of three brothers four years apart who ride around the country in a van that’s tricked out with a sleeping loft. You stay at campgrounds and cook out most nights. You pull the van over on a whim for a hike or to check out whatever catches your attention, be it the Grand Canyon or a roadside taco stand. Now imagine that most nights you get to turn your instruments up real loud and play your own heavy music in front of people who paid to see you.

That’s touring the Pontiak way, and doesn’t it sound like a pretty good time?

Pontiak @ New World Brewery, Thurs., June 11. $7

Somehow van tours have become synonymous with misery, but the three Carney brothers — drummer Lane, 26, aptly named guitarist Van, 29, and bassist Jennings, 30 — see it more as a chance for nonstop discovery. And fun.

“We get along really well,” says Lain by cell phone while driving the van. “There’s the usual bickering. Any time you get three men in a moving capsule, you might fight over the last four Cheetos. But we get on real well. And we smell pretty good.”

Video after the jump

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Sunday night rock ‘n’ roll shows: difficult to book, annoying to promote and hard to get people to leave their comfortable homes and come out for bands they may not have heard about. My band Blast and the Detergents last played a Sunday night show a couple months ago at Crowbar opening for amazing touring band, Pontiak, and “gets more Tampa shows than I do” Orlando band Kingsbury.

(Another band played and I can’t remember their name — kind of Hootie and the Blowfish-sounding singer songwritery stuff… not my bag).  Anyway, the show turned out great because the DJ played some really great classic punk and rock ‘n’ roll junk, Pontiak owned and I got to play, which I always enjoy regardless of crowd size or reception.

However, I always feel bad when I fail to deliver the promise of beer drinkers for these dive bars that put up with my crazy sound. Sundays, this memorable Crowbar night included, challenge the notion of profit for these beer holes.

On the other hand, touring band always need a place to play on Sundays, and with the notorious Atlanta tour cutoff we usually cry about down here, I am satisfied when a band I like plays any night of the week down this way in our chatty little twin cities.

Chapel Hill underground rockers Americans in France destroyed the Emerald last year (I think it was a Thursday) with one-man garage-rock  band Pinche Gringo (he covered The Gories, for Christ’s sake) and now they are returning to our fair sprawl. I am bringing them into bombed-out downtown Tampa’s little bar/venue Kelly’s Pub this Sunday, May 17 around 8 or 9 p.m.  (you know how these things go).

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A selection of CDs, EPs, LPs, Digital Releases, DVDs and Box Sets that dropped today.

Arcade Fire, Miroir Noir DVD (Merge)
The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, When Sweet Sleep Returned (Tee Pee)
Bat for Lashes, Two Suns (Astralwerks)
Black Dice, Repo (Paw Tracks)
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Vs. Children (Tomlab)
Crystal Antlers, Tentacles (Touch & Go)
Del the Funky Homosapien, Funk Man: The Stimulus Package (digital self-release)
Doves, Kingdom of Rust (Astralwerks)
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, A Stranger Here (Anti-)
Erasure, Total Pop! (Rhino) [box set]
The Felice Brothers, Yonder Is the Clock (Team Love) Read the rest of this entry »

Guitar World recently offered up a list of the “Top 10 Stupidest Band Names of All Time” and I gotta say, it doesn’t look like they put a lot of thought into it, like someone had a good idea but didn’t use enough brain power to carry it out properly. Here’s the list:

1. The Beatles
2. Limp Bizkit
3. Boy Parts – Throbbing Gristle, Revolting Cocks, Iron Sausage
4. Girl Parts – Nashville Pussy, Bush, Pussy Galore, Hot Tuna
5. Scatological Names – Butthole Surfers, Fudge Tunnel, Butt Trumpet
6. Place Names – Nantucket, Boston, New York City, Europe, Asia, Chicago, Wakefield, Landale
7. Yes
8. Toto
9. The Presidents of the United States of America
10. The Band

First off, it’s not even an authentic Top 10 (see numbers 3 through 6). Second, The Beatles? You’re a writer at a marginally well-known rag that covers music, solely, all the time, and you can’t come up with a better bad band name than The Beatles? And you stick it up top, in the number one slot, as if to say it’s the worst band name of all time, even though the list is supposed to be in no particular order. And if it really is in no particular order — The Beatles were the first band you thought of? Really? I don’t want to judge, but I am. So I’ve made my own highly subjective, somewhat thoughtful list of awful band names in response. In no particular order: Read the rest of this entry »