Tampa Calling

In three short years, the Reax/ThxMgmt Hot Dog Show has established itself as a must-attend event of the summer, providing a great opportunity to see a diverse group of bands, catch up with old friends, make some new ones, and of course, witness a hot dog-eating contest. This year, the Hot Dog Show took place on Friday, July 3, at Crowbar. I arrived just in time to see the first female victory in the hot dog eating contest (sorry – I didn’t catch her name!), which was followed by an animated performance by Bealsville/Plant City-based Shunda K of Yo Majesty! Bringing the evening to a dance party conclusion was Sunbears! (Jacksonville).

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It’s a holiday weekend, which means one extra day of partying down and supporting the local music scene without fear of a hangover-filled workday to follow. Here’s a quick breakdown of your best live music bets. For a more comprehensive schedule of concerts, check out our Upcoming Events page.

Thursday, July 2
Mike Dunn & the Kings of New England (pictured at right)/Will Quinlan/King of Spain Winter Park singer/songwriter Mike Dunn makes music that evokes freedom and wind in your face. His grabby, anthemic tunes send out a whiff of Americana, but at core they are pure, pop-infused rock ’n’ roll. Dunn pulls from a list of 11 confederates to make up his backing band, the Kings of New England, on any given night. No word on how many will show up at New World for this gig, but the safe bet is it won’t be all 11. Atlanta’s Rick Brantley was formerly on the bill but has been replaced by local one-man experimental rocker, King of Spain (Matt Slate). And Quinlan, well, we all know Quinlan, the dour dean of Tampa Bay’s Americana scene. Thurs., July 2, 9 p.m., New World Brewery, Ybor City, $7. —ES

Michael McDonald + Boz Scaggs Two of the most popular vocalists of the 1970s join together in a co-bill at Ruth Eckerd. My strong preference is Scaggs, with his round, throaty soul croon. His Silk Degrees (’76) is an unmitigated classic. Lately, Scaggs’ has added standards from the American Songbook to his repertoire, so his show will be a compendium of material over several decades. (Concertgoer alert: He’s going on first; to read more about him, check out the CL feature here.) When McDonald joined the Doobie Brothers in 1975, they went from a guitar-oriented bar band (albeit a slick one) to a Grammy-winning pop outfit dominated by McDonald’s keyboards and syrupy voice. He had a solid solo career in the 1980s, despite the blemish known as “Yah Mo B There.” Thurs., July 02, 7:30 p.m., Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, $62.50-$103. —Eric Snider

Friday, July 03
Starlight Mints/Evangelicals (pictured at left, photo by Sarah Cass) You might want to take a break from the Hot Dog show and stroll up the street for Starlight Mints, a band out of Norman, Okla. (home of Flaming Lips) that would make a proper co-bill with Sunbears!. The quartet of “pop mutants” brings plenty of whimsy and weirdness to their sound, but never strays from tried-and-true rock verities: hooks, tuneful vocals, muscular rhythms. The band is backboned by synthesizers, but adds playful twists — like the cartoon horns on “Zoomba” from their new album Change Remains. Evangelicals are also from Norman, and sound as if they might’ve been to a few barbecues at Coyne’s house. Fri., July 3, 9 p.m., New World Brewery, Ybor City, $8. —ES
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Two years ago, Jonathan Berlin was in a bad place. He was the lead singer and songwriter for a band called Bernard that had a distribution deal through East/West, a division of Warner Bros. The trio, whose drummer was his longtime collaborator and best friend Jared Bowser, had played 300 shows on tour.

Photo: Ian Witlen

So what exactly was the problem, you might wonder?

“With Bernard, we worked our asses off to make it happen,” Berlin, 25 (at right in photo), says in a phone interview. “As it turned out, it just wasn’t fun. I always loved writing songs, but after we got hooked up with Warner Bros, I started writing and I couldn’t do it. It was like, ‘I’m writing a record for Warner Bros. This has to be good.’ The whole thing wasn’t really awesome.”

Given those circumstances, a lot of artists would’ve continued to flog it, but Berlin decided to walk away. The Bernard split led in part to a four-month rift between him and Bowser, 23.

Berlin decided to rethink this whole music career thing. And he came up with something of a novel solution: He had to basically stop trying. So Berlin retreated to his loft in downtown Jacksonville and started making music for himself.

Videos after the jump.

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Where to begin? Last Thursday seems like so long ago, the start of a very long weekend of incredible music. With the Harvest Of Hope festival bringing bands by the boatload to Florida, many of them played shows throughout the state before and after the weekend. I (with my girlfriend and a few other friends) went to four shows in six days across the state. I did my best to document all of this with pictures and video; and even managed to score a short video interview with Bryce Dessner of The National. Read the rest of this entry »

After several days of family togetherness and gorging on Thanksgiving leftovers, Saturday evening at New World Brewery was a welcome respite brought to us by THX Mgmt.  The show featured a diverse group of Florida bands: Beardsley,  Incredible Crisis, Zillionaire, and Sunbears! I got there a bit late after being distracted playing trucks with my friend’s three year old so I missed Beardsley… but I did manage to capture the rest of the bands.

Incredible Crisis

This was my first time seeing this band and I look forward to seeing them again in the future.

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