✔️ = Critic's Pick
Sinners & Saints Is your only friend the bottle? Do you have a kick-drum heart that melts at the sound of sweetly plucked banjo and sorrowful steel guitar? You might might want to scrape up a few dollars and spring for a beer at this Thursday-night, no-cover show in Seminole Heights where Perry Fowler and Mark Baran — collectively known as Saints & Sinners — play songs from the band’s March release, The Other Side, which marries the rootsy sounds of Charlie Louvin to the aesthetics of bands like Avett Brothers and Drive-By Truckers. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based duo has shared stages with Shovels and Rope, Robert Earl Keen and St. Paul & The Broken Bones, and that means it’ll be interesting seeing them squeeze into the less spacious confines at this neighborhood spot. (Ella’s Americana Folk Art Café, Tampa) INFO
✔️ Quintron & Miss Pussycat w/Pleasures German-born American composer and musical inventor Robert Rolston (aka Quintron) will play avant-garde-grade warlock rock alongside his wife and puppeteer Panacea Pussycat (“Miss Pussycat” if you’re nasty). Rolston is famous for his one-of-a-kind instruments and live show, and if you don’t believe him, then watch him play a mechanically rotating, five-oscillator, light-activated drum machine called the Drum Buddy from behind the facade of an old car he uses to encases his organ (and Fender Rhodes). (The Bends, St. Petersburg) INFO
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Rittz w/Sam Lachow/Eric Biddines/Drop-D Low and behold, it’s been a year since Jon McCollum was in town to play Orpheum, and while the room the 37-year-old Georgia rapper better known as Rittz played got smaller, don’t expect him to let a return to Crowbar (where Rittz played in 2015) keep him from unleashing the best from a new album (Last Call), which is his fourth and last for Tech N9ne’s Strange Music imprint. McCollum’s work for the label was an upbeat, positive foil to the off-kilter sounds Tech N9ne tended to explore, and this performance should reflect that. Seattle rapper Sam Lachow supports his own 2017 release (Play/Pretend) to open the show. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
Dokken Drummer Mick Brown has a new project working with former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson (the group, called Super Stroke, also features ex-Dokken guitarist George Lynch). That doesn’t mean the once-raved-about Los Angeles hard-rock outfit will be any less glam-tastic at this nostalgia set where all the excess of tracks like “It’s Not Love,” “Dream Warriors” and “Alone Again” will be on full display. Despite a short Japanese reunion tour and the possibility of 2018 dates, this won’t be the classic lineup of the band, but plenty of fans think guitarist Jon Levin is a better fit for the group anyway (Editor’s note: HERESY! —Scott). (State Theatre, St. Petersburg) INFO
Fr33dback w/Penny Grune-Fae/Terrapin/more Things will get a little weirder than usual within Iberian Rooster’s Subcentral basement when Nick Capone’s synthwave project (Terrapin) opens a show that includes the musique concrète experiments of Penny Grune-Fae and and the audio-visual orgasm that is a performance by Tampa producer Fr33dback. (SubCentral at Iberian Rooster, Ybor City) INFO
✔️ Nate Najar’s Jazz Holiday w/John Lamb/Chuck Redd/Jeff Rupert/Betty Fox They may be two jazz musicians from different generations, but 84-year-old bassist and Duke Ellington Orchestra alum John Lamb and 36-year-old guitarist Nate Najar have developed an unspoken chemistry after performing together for more than a decade. Expect the bond to burn bright like a yule log for all to see and hear at this Palladium show, where Najar will share songs from a brand new holiday album (Christmas In December) while hopefully also letting Lamb run all over the place during plenty of non-Yuletide jazz jams. An all-star band featuring Chuck Redd on vibes, saxophonist Jeff Rupert and singer Betty Fox alongside longtime musical companions James Suggs (on trumpet) and drummer Mark Feinman makes this a must-see holiday concert. (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO
92.5 Maxima Parranda al Maximo w/Tito Nieves Puerto Rican salsa singer and Héctor Lavoe collaborator Tito Nieves — who cut his teeth in New York’s Orquesta Cimarron before finding success with Conjunto Clasico — heads to Ybor City, where he’ll hopefully tap into Conjunto’s commitment to honoring traditional Cuban orchestration (think trumpets, conga, bongo, scraper, bass, piano and the Cuban guitar). (Skye, Ybor City) INFO
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ALSO PLAYING
Earphonik (Ringside Cafe, St. Petersburg) INFO
Uncle John’s Band (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) INFO
Burt and Sassy (Buckets Tavern & Tap, Tampa) INFO
John Reese Project (Largo Community Center, Largo) INFO
Anclote Symphonic Winds presents A Christmas Celebration (Richey Suncoast Theatre, New Port Richey) INFO
Florida Jazz Express (Dockside Grille, New Port Richey) INFO
This article appears in Dec 14-21, 2017.