Tampa Calling

(All photos by elawgrrl)

This past Saturday night, the Cuban Club Bandshell played host to a long awaited and twice-delayed show by the Avett Brothers. Once for the birth of Scott Avett’s daughter, the other due to a scheduling conflict as the North Carolina foursome opened for the Dave Mathews Band earlier in the summer. Accordingly, fans packed into the charmingly-neglected Cuban Club awaiting a trademark, knock-you-on-your-ass Avett Brothers’ performance — and they delivered.

The Avetts opened with a track from their upcoming release, I and Love and You (September 29, American Recordings) — “Laundry Room,” an entrancing song with a refrain I still can’t get out of my head. Then the band traversed through their entire catalog, with highlights that included “Distraction #74,” “Gimmeakiss,” “I and Love and You” and “Shame.”

As NPR’s Bob Boilen recently pointed out, Scott Avett sings as if he swallowed an amplifier. The long-haired, banjo thrashing hillbilly yells love songs at the top of his lungs. It’s a sweaty mess, but still ends up being captivating, raw and beautiful. The younger (and only other brother), Seth Avett, plays George to Scott’s John, Paul and Ringo, as the older Avett will sometimes take to the drum kit and keyboard. Often when drums are interspersed within a set, the music lacks punch and suffers inconsistencies — but the energy of Avetts made up for it. Not to mention the brothers, along with Bob Crawford on upright and electric bass and Joe Kwon on cello, pound the hell out of the back of their respective instruments. (Setlist and more after the jump…) Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been many weeks since I’ve made it out to a show in Tampa. I blame travels, nonspecific busyness and a lack of excitable summer concerts in the Tampa Bay area. It took Georgia’s Perpetual Groove (pictured, photo by Phil Bardi) — a band I’ve always somehow managed to miss even though they play the area frequently — to get me out of the house.

By the time the four-piece (drums, bass, guitar, synth/keys) took the stage just after 10 pm on Friday, July 10, a few hundred of Tampa’s finest heady brahs and chicks in sundresses crowded Ybor’s Crowbar Friday night. PGroove’s first set held true to their name — flowing from one disco rock groove to the next. It worked for most of the set, but I grew bored, craving more interplay, energy and stronger melodies. Read the rest of this entry »

by Denis Baldwin

This year’s Homemade Music Symposium played out over the weekend at the Ybor HCC campus, bringing together musicians, singer-songwriters, music industry professionals, entertainers, writers, photographers and most every other aspect of the music industry to discuss the state of music, the nature of creating and marketing musicians and give a taste of things to come.

Overall, the symposium was a great success. Saturday opened with “Poets of Popular Song, The Lyrics and Lyric Writers of the Great American Songbook,” featuring the piano work of Paul Wilborn and the 107-year-old Rosa Rio. After their performance, many of the attendees broke for the lunch while the rest of us sat at our tables and handed out free swag and met with people.

More pics after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

@autopsy4: Made it to Ybor. Have I mentioned how much I hate driving to Tampa?

I arrived to Ybor late and famished due to the traffic jam the rest of the world refers to as Tampa. After getting my access secured and a whiskey inside of me I started to settle down and headed to the Cantina for some of the Southern rock sounds of Mojo Gurus. I only managed to catch their last 3 songs but that was all I needed. The blistering rock mixed with the whiskey were getting me where I need it to be and all I needed at this point was a hot dog and I was gonna be fixed.

On my way out of the Cantina I bumped into some old friends and decided a double whiskey and catching up was gonna have to suffice as food. While the double put a beating on my wallet, it was exactly what the head was wanting and I was exactly where I needed to be as Thomas Wynn & The Believers took the stage. 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 »

This Monday, April 20 (yes stoners, it’s 420), AES and New World Brewery welcome Omaha’s Beep Beep and The Show is The Rainbow along with Tampa’s own Win Win Winter and DJs Mini Horse and 2C opening. The electro-rock of Beep Beep alone is worth a trip to Ybor, which is now touring in support of its second album Enchanted Islands. Hell, Win Win Winter and the NWB bartenders are worth the drive.

But I have a feeling the second act is going to steal the show. For a sneak peek and some wicked videos, check out TSiTR’s YouTube channel. Last fall, The Show is The Rainbow came to St. Pete and opened for The Faint at Jannus Landing. Here’s what I to say about that particular performance: Read the rest of this entry »

Pictures by doubleHH

Friday night saw the return of Diplo — the DJ also known as Thomas Wesley Printz — to Ybor’s Czar Bar. Friday nights at Czar are better known as Pulp the Party, an electro hip-hop dance party hosted by the Orlando-based DJ Pauly Crush. It’s a quite the scene, though not your typical Ybor douchebag nightclub. Czar Bar has some style and every 30 minutes or so, it’s open bar. When you hear a horn and see the yellow sirens going off above the bar, it’s drink time on them.

Diplo — who spent time at UCF and had the unfortunate duty of dating M.I.A. for awhile — took the stage just after 1 a.m. His more than two-hour set had the packed dancefloor in a non-stop, booty-shaking throw down. Only a few cuts from Top Ranking , his ‘08 release that prominently featured Santigold, were played.  Highlights from the night were a remix of the Beastie Boys’ “So Watcha Want,” a tease of the melody from Santigold’s killer track, “Creator,” and a remix of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.”

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Ybor’s Czar bar is set to host a promising indie rock show tonight with Atlanta’s stellar Deerhunter headlining. Also on the bill are the highly underrated Orlando band Summerbirds in the Cellar and the final show for local faves Giddy-up, Helicopter!

Deerhunter was all over the best-of lists with 2008’s wonderful Microcastle – an often ambient, but gorgeous indie/post-rock album.

It’s a shame that Giddy-up Helicopter! is ending.  They just released an album (see the review here) and truly have an authentic style hard to come by in so many local bands.

$12, 9 p.m.

The last time Dr. Dog played Tampa was Halloween ‘07 to a light crowd with only a few fans singing along. Though it was only a year-and-a-half ago, it was must have felt like a small lifetime for the Philly fivesome. Since then, the band has been on several “Best of” lists, put out a well-received album, ’08’s Fate, and eevn appeared on NPR a few times, too.

Just before midnight last night, Dr. Dog returned to the stage at Ybor City’s Crowbar and played to a packed house, tearing into “The Ark” first, following it up with an excellent rendition of “The Way the Lazy Do,” then filling the room  with warm melodies and three- and four-part harmonies as they performed almost all the tracks from Fate as well as a few cuts from 2005’s Easy Beat, like the grating “Fools Life.”

A guy in a dog costume replete with lab coat and stethoscope joined Dr. Dog for some dancing and clapping during “Oh No,” the the band closing the set shortly after with a haunting rendition of “The Beach” and “The Rabbit, The Bat and The Reindeer.” The crowd roused the band for a two-song encore, “Say Something” and “My Old Ways.” The show ended somewhere around 1 a.m.

Here’s the complete setlist: Read the rest of this entry »

Los Campesinos!

Comfortably packed and full of sweet hipster coats, the Orpheum hosted a Tuesday night show with New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus (see Gabe’s review and pics below) and from across the Atlantic, the Welsh band Los Campesinos!.

Two lead singers, Gareth and Aleksandra, each played a small glockenspiel and microKorg synths – Gareth’s with a floor tom and snare.  Neil and Tom shared guitar duties, volleying chords, leads and noise in a Pavement-inspired ethos, though Ollie, the bare-chested and pasty Ron Weasley look-a-like behind the drum kit, kept the tempos faster than typical ’90s indie rock.  Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, which was one of coldest nights of the year in Tampa, Los Campesinos! and Titus Andronicus shared the stage at The Orpheum in Ybor and warmed the crowd with blisteringly hot tunes. Its rare for Tampa to get a chance to see two young bands in the early stages of their careers on the same bill. Read the rest of this entry »

I have always been a terrible skateboarder. Lord knows I’ve tried: the aesthetics of physical activity, reckless abandon and risk of personal injury appeal to me on an ideological level, but my lack of skill and commitment caused many bad and embarrassing falls. I even listen to semi obscure hardcore punk bands like Big Boys, who’s fast rhythms and anarchy driven lyrics characterized skateboarding (in the 80s at the very least). Regardless of my personal abilities, celebrating 16 years of the Skatepark of Tampa seems very worthwhile, especially since SPOT along with Transitions Art Gallery remains one of the safest and best places for the kids of Tampa to hang out and spend their time instead of raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets or just being bored to death with TV brainwash.

Walking into the Czar on Saturday night with a friend, we navigated ourselves through three rooms of schizophrenic, non sequitur rooms filled wall to wall with scenesters and club personalities of all ages. In the third and decidedly more “rock n roll” room, I walked into a band playing generic sounding punkish music with those whiny vocals that I don’t really associate with very easily. The voyeur in me snuck back into the second room and watched all the people at and around the bar acting silly and trying to get to know each other. Amazing how many senses these places tickle in such a short period of time.  Flashing lights, red walls, perfume, sweat, hairspray, flesh, pounding beats and the buzz of constant chatter flourished all around the room while my friend and I yelled at each other about art and crap.  Not wanting to miss the bands No Age or Les Savy Fav, we meandered back into the third room, got some free Pabst and settled into the much more boring people watching of scensters and hipsters who looked more or less the same as one another…

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday night, Orlando’s Matt Butcher debuted his new album, Me and My Friends, with a perfomance at Ybor’s New World Brewery with support from Will Quinlin and the Diviners and North Carolina-based Bombadil.

The diminutive troubadour Butcher (who sounds more like a young Neil Young with each listen) and crew of six knocked out some great harmonies, especially on the title track. Lead guitar and pedal steel work filled things out nicely. As a friend commented, “it’s just enough country, but never too much country.”

Bombadil overcame some questionable wardobe choices to knock out really tight set of twee pop/Indie/Irish sea chanties for children.

Matt Butcher:

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