Tampa Bay Street Team

“After the drum circle, everybody head to the back for cupcakes,” Joran yelled from the stage Sunday at Skipper’s Smokehouse. [ed. Joran Oppelt is the marketing and promotions director for Creative Loafing]

He wasn’t joking, nor was he stoned and yelling to a bunch of munchy-hungry hippies. He was addressing the kids and parents at Alchemy Fest 3, an amplified birthday bash for Joran’s daughter, Alchemy. Although the fest was child-friendly, it wasn’t that different from a 21-and-up show. Well, aside from the coloring stations, the diaper changing booth, the mattress for midday naps, the cardboard box built in the shape of a VW van for participants to paint and barefoot girls with black soles chasing bubbles, balloons and boys.

  

So maybe it was very different from an adult concert, but adult shows could learn a thing or two from a kid-themed concert, i.e. complimentary juice boxes and cardboard party hats. And to be honest, kids aren’t that much different from drunks — slurring, slobbering, wearing mischievous grins and ready to laugh or cry at any moment. One little girl stumbled into me as she danced wildly, then pulled me onto the dance floor before even asking my name.

Another babbled to me, “What you doing here? You live up there. The sky.”

To which my only response was, “Yeah, sure, guy.”

One huge benefit of children over drunks is there is no danger of them beating you up for being a smart ass, and you can pick them up and tickle them if they get out of hand.

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Have Gun, Will Travel are not nearly as threatening as their name implies, but they are more than ready to hit the road for little more than the chance to do what they do best.

“We just need enough to pay for gas,” frontman Matt Burke reportedly said when asked to play a fan’s wedding.

Soon to be one of the most notorious alt-country bands around, these hired guns deliver clap-along, knee-slapping rhythms layered with Dylan-inspired lyrics that navigate a world of metaphor and meaning. Among the usual weaponry of acoustic guitar, drums and bass, the band’s arsenal also includes viola, harmonicas, lap steel and banjo.

  

HGWT’s release party for their new CD, Casting Shadows Tall as Giants, kicked off Friday night at Crowbar with support from Nessie, The Diviners and Orlando’s Baron Von Bear.

As Baron Von Bear played, couples romantically slow danced to the group’s lite-rock sound — at least as romantically as a couple can dance while still clutching their cans of PBR.

When Nessie took the stage, a fan told me that she’d been watching the band for 10 years.

“Jesus that makes me feel old,” she said, contemplating the second half of her drink.

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Two tapped kegs float in my bathtub, a three-boobed alien blow-up doll slowly deflates on the floor of my efficiency, enough squirt guns to terrorize a soccer team are piled in my dish rack, half of a birthday cake is melting to my stove, a space princess stripped to her silver skirt and furry moonboots is blanketed in my hand-bedazzled flight-suit, and no matter how hard I scrub, I keep finding flecks of glitter on me. These are the spoils one accrues after hosting a party for a hundred astronauts and aquanauts.

  

Secretly, I’ve always wanted a surprise party. I’ve spent most of my birthdays hoping to walk into a room full of lovely women yelling surprise, someone to crown me with a tiara so everyone knows it’s my day and enough beer to sink a ship. I’ve spent just as many years being disappointed. The only time I’ll ever have a surprise party is when I’m old and too senile to remember it’s my birthday. Lesson learned: If you want to have a kick-ass birthday party, you have to throw it yourself.

So that’s what I did. I was overwhelmed by all the prominent space and sea adventurers who showed up: Dr. Spock, Poseidon, Kuato from Total Recall, a crew of pirates, a parrot fish, a clown fish, an intergalactic hitchhiker, a merman with a starfish bra, a space cowboy and more space sluts than you’ll find at an interstellar truck-stop. Those who were too cool to dress up had the option of buying uniforms printed by Blue Lucy which read, “Team Zissou: Unpaid Intern” or being shot with squirt guns the entire night.

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“Let the other side have the churches. We got the bars,” said Curt Johnson, an organizer for the Young Democrats, who were looking for converts Friday night at Crowbar where Orlando’s The Oaks were releasing their new CD, Songs for Waiting.

 

Johnson argued for mixing politics with drinking just as the Right had married politics with religion. It was clever, considering that churches and bars often serve the same function, though for two different sides of life. This is why a town is not a town without at least one church and one bar. Both act as meeting places for the like-minded. Just as many people meet their spouses in bars as in churches. Weddings often begin in churches and end with an open bar. Both serve as sanctuaries where souls go to relieve the stress of a rough work week. Above all, both utilize the cathartic power of song — the meaning of which is often lost in rhetoric while the emotions of the crowd or congregation are whipped up and dictated by a pounding rhythm.

Acho Brother did just this by opening the night with fast-paced, Latin-infused tunes that alternated between English and Spanish. With drums and an acoustic guitar, the duo produced as much sound as a six-piece band.

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I’m not sure how, but I found myself listening to two girls describe how they got kicked out of a strip club for repeatedly making out with each other and trying to climb on stage. I wasn’t used to conversing with classy girls in sun dresses about their first lap dances or how one recently received an expandable stripper pole for her birthday. I thought the only time I’d ever hear talk like this was over the phone for $5 a minute. Far from trashy, these gals were career women who liked to let loose after hours, and they were not alone. Friday night found them at Skipper’s, packed in with other young professionals partying like they were back in college to the grooves of MIGGS and the Chris McCarty Band.

  

The same feisty crowd showed up the next night at the Cuban Club for CL’s Sensory Overload. Walking in, I joined a stream of people who were lost in a literal labyrinth of multisensory art. Performers from Hat Trick Theatre Productions were set up in one alcove tap dancing, juggling, and doing a bit of magic. An installation by Calavera Comics featured two masked Mexican wrestler cutouts in a scaled-down wrestling ring. One of them stood with a hole between his legs where the other wrestler’s head should have been as partygoers took turns inserting their faces and posing for pictures. Marina Williams handed out 3D glasses, further disorienting patrons before they even made it to the bar. 3D glasses or none, Marina stood out like a piece of living art: patent leather red boots with more zippers than a Michael Jackson jacket, horn-rimmed glasses lined with rhinestones, and a sparkly fanny-pack.

Just outside the maze, on the courtyard stage, Tres Bien set things in motion with the swagger and sound of a headlining act. I wanted to stay for the whole set, but duty called, and I was off to cover the Polished Palate International Rum Festival. The fourth floor was a tangle of bodies stumbling and scrambling between tables lined with mini-shots of top-shelf and midrange rum. The promoters all tried to coax me into smelling and swishing their rum like this was a wine tasting. I wasn’t used to rum that didn’t burn like I was swallowing turpentine, but I still didn’t have the self-control to nurse the tiny shot glasses. (more…)

Someone made the mistake of giving me VIP credentials for the Skatepark of Tampa’s 2008 Pro Party Saturday, but I’m not one to complain. Other than bucket-loads of free Redbull and Vodka, and the absence of a bathroom, the VIP section was just a smaller version of the Cuban Club’s courtyard: an alternative crowd buzzing around the bar and huddled under umbrellas against the rain.

The only way I could tell it was VIP was because our cameraman Joey kept pointing to guys in hoodies and whispering vaguely familiar names. I recognized a few names, like Eric Koston and Reese Forbes, from the copies of Thrasher I used to cut up and tape to my walls during my era of skating, but their identities were always masked behind the tricks they were turning. Paul Rodriguez explained how the majority of pro skaters were rarely recognized outside of skateparks or contests. This was a bit surreal coming from a guy who had his own signature brand of Nike shoes (which Joey happened to be wearing). Most of them just looked like the skater kids in every high school, except their diamonds were real and their skate brand clothes were free. I was surprised how eager many were to be interviewed. Of course, they may have mistaken me for an obscure TV personality who hosted a show in some place like Australia. 

“We’re astronauts” a scruffy man named Casey said grabbing his buddy in a matching plaid blazer who he called The Captain. The previous day I caught the pair skating in the VIP street tournament in blue jumps suits that looked suspiciously like janitors’ outfits ornamented with iron-on NASA patches. It turned out they host a program on Fuel TV called The Captain and Casey Show that’s a cross between Wayne’s World and a skate video. Of course, being the thorough, and relatively snockered, interviewer that I was, I just assumed I was talking with two lunatics who seriously thought they were astronauts. Regardless of who they were, the interview covered several pressing issues regarding space travel: the ethics of sex with aliens, the secret to training for zero-gravity (beer) and the pairs’ involvement in a revolutionary scientific study regarding condoms in space.

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I doubt Palehorse president and designer, Chris Parks, knew what he was in for when he asked local artists to submit apocalyptic-themed works for the grand re-opening of The Pale Horse Graphic Design Studio & Gallery (formerly Blackout Creations). The gallery, which sits on the crosshairs of Central and MLK in downtown St. Pete, was filled beyond capacity with a tattooed crew dressed in the height of art-school fashion, drinking beer and eating cupcakes.

  

The 2nd Coming art show took its name from the Bible’s Revelations, but many of the darkly comic works seemed to have more in common with Dr. Strangelove. There were plenty of sickles and demonic figures, but most were grinning like deviant comic book heroes. Like Revelations, the works were jam-packed with abstract, obscure and pop-culture symbolism, but with a modern twist. Instead of the doomsday beast being marked 666 in reference to Nero, Chris Park’s henchman rode a horse branded with oil company logos. Instead of a demonic horse, Erik Jones’ sinisterly sexy apocalyptic rider straddled a wicked motorcycle. The cloven hooves were severed pigs’ feet in mason jars, hand-tattooed by Allen Hampton with colorful sailor images.

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Czar was flooded with intoxicating art, people and drinks Saturday for the Heart Show. A DJ spun in every room. Hair models mixed with the crowd, smearing body paint on all they touched. Roman centurions and Greek goddesses styled by Tribeca Salon struggled to stay secured in their togas. A few Derby Darlins skated around the dance floor in neon afros, pulling business cards from bras. Dance groups and musical performers like Bronze wandered around wearing outfits that they’d probably never find a more appropriate setting for. Jay Giroux drew eyes to his canvas with a live painting. Ladies in sparkly clothes danced above the crowd on a catwalk. In a word, the place was happening.

  

The problem was that neither Emma’s nor my name appeared on any of the four door lists being circulated. By my calculations this makes us, at best, F-listers, which might have been a painful realization if my ego wasn’t the size of Mount Rushmore. Situations like this usually occur when my boss speaks to one of several event organizers who have a broad philosophy of who gets into a show for free. These good natured organizers often forget to relay such key information as our names to the infinitely more scrupulous door keepers who deal with jerks like me every five minutes, all claiming they’re on the list. If only I were talented enough to draw the can of Aqua Net carefully holstered in my man purse and expertly swirl Emma’s hair into a coiffure resembling what I imagine Prince’s pubic hair to look like, then we’d have no problem passing as stylist and model. But, like any good F-lister, we stood our ground on the unfortunate side of the velvet ropes until two event organizers escorted us in, having mistaken us for serious CL photographers and journalists. (more…)

“We’re rolling doublewide!” sang Southern Culture on the Skids, Wednesday at Skipper’s. With western shirts and a beehive wig, the threesome blazed through tunes like “My House Has Wheels,” and “Daddy Was a Preacher, Momma Was a Go-Go Dancer.” Although the group pokes fun at down-home culture, they embrace the southern rockabilly style and add some surf-rock flair for good measure.

The crowd was just as rowdy as the band. At the entrance, a handwritten sign read, “No standing on benches or tables during the SCOTS show.” No matter. There was plenty of room on stage for half-drunk fans to dance during the final song of the first set.

The bassist warmed up for the second round by reapplying a coat of lipstick from Beyoncé’s new line while the singer launched into, “I Want to Smell Your Pudding.” The song struck a chord with the crowd, but it just made me kind of hungry. 

  

Thursday, Emma and Kelly stood guard outside Ruth Eckerd Hall for Spamalot’s rendition of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. They made sure all who entered left their coconut-hoofed horses outside and brought a shrubbery to appease the Knights Who Say Ni.

“He sounds like a hundred-year-old black man,” Geri X said, describing Toby Bonar as he serenaded the crowd packing into the Globe Coffee Lounge Friday for the release of Geri X’s new album.

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