Tampa Calling

A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, July 13: Kelly Clarkson (Pictured, to promote her new album, All I Ever Wanted)
Tuesday, July 14: Wilco with Feist (who will perform their collaboration from Wilco the Album, “You and I.”)
Wednesday, July 15: Paul McCartney (hopefully he’s be yakking and playing)
Thursday, July 16: Grizzly Bear (to make up for their non-appearance a few months ago, when they got bumped because GM’s Bob Lutz went over. Will likely play something from Veckatimest.)
Friday, July 17: Metric

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, NBC
Monday, July 13: The cast of Hair (all the way from Broadway, NYC)
Tuesday, July 14: Sugar Ray (Why, oh why, did this shitty ass band have to come back? Wasn’t it bad enough they gave Mark McGrath a job over there at Extra!?)
Wednesday, July 15: Kris Allen (American Idol)
Thursday, July 16: Daughtry
Friday, July 17: Demi Lovato Read the rest of this entry »

A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, July 6: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (pictured)
Tuesday, July 7: Rob Thomas
Thursday, July 9: Levon Helm
Friday, June 10: Maxwell

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, NBC
Monday, July 6: Death Cab for Cutie
Tuesday, July 7: Andrew Bird
Thursday, July 9: Playing For Change
Friday, June 10: Ray LaMontagne Read the rest of this entry »

He’s been called introverted, intensely private, interview-shy, even reclusive, yet here is singer/songwriter Ray LaMontagne talking to me by phone from a Cleveland hotel room. I’m asking questions, he’s answering. With pauses. He speaks just above a whisper, a sort of gentle murmur that belies the raspy bite in his singing voice.

LaMontagne, who plays Tampa Theatre on Wed., April 29,  attributes much of his social awkwardness to a childhood that was transient and impoverished. His mother, he says, “had a really, really, really, really difficult childhood — horrific, really. She was completely unprepared for life.”

She regularly moved Ray and his sisters to new towns, to Tennessee, Utah, Minnesota, New York, Nebraska, New Hampshire and elsewhere. His father, a musician with a tendency toward violence, left the picture when Ray was very young.

As a result, he was the perpetual new kid, bashful and reluctant. “It was hard,” he says. “I think you just become an observer, always stay on the outside of things. It’s funny how that stuff sticks with you. I don’t like to go to shows ’cause I don’t like crowds. I don’t like festivals. They bring something up. I don’t know exactly what it is, maybe the fact that I’m not the one dancing in the sprinklers with my shirt off. Funny how that stuff stays with you.”

The solitary child did not seek solace and meaning in music. “I was more of a reader,” he says. “I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but we moved so much that we didn’t have a stereo. We didn’t have anything as far as those kinds of possessions go. I was sort of in my own world.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, Feb. 27 Malcolm Holcombe (Dave’s Aqua Lounge, St. Petersburg)

Saturday, Feb. 28 The Farewell Tour featuring T.I. and Friends (St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa)

Saturday, March 07 Snoop Dogg *CANCELLED* (Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg)

Saturday, March 07 K’Naan (Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg)

Saturday, March 07 William Elliot Whitmore (pictured at right, State Theatre, St. Petersburg)

Sunday, March 15 The Terry Adams Crazy Trio w/The Vodkanauts (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)

Sunday, March 29 Blues Blast feat. Damon Fowler Group/TC Carr/Jimmy Griswold/Greg Poulos’ Angels from Hazard (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)

Sunday, April 05 Old School Tampa Reunion Party and Concert feat. Beanstalk/Joe Popp/John Wesley/My Little Trotsky/Maggie Council (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) Read the rest of this entry »