✔️ = Critic's Pick
Emery w/Loyals/In Your Memory BadChristianMusic (the record label) comes to Crowbar care of posthardcore outfit Emery, which arrived out of Seattle to please fans of heavy, soul-searching mall-punk driven by the kind of guttural screaming that can make a parent’s face scrunch up in disgust. Expect a healthy crowd to pack into Crowbar, and don’t be surprised if Emery flips the script on fans by playing songs from its new-ish Revival record, where it took old favorites and reimagined them with mixed results. D.C. posthardcore unit In Your Memory opens the show (you may have heard the band’s “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You” Mulan cover on Disney Goes Pop Volume, er, 1,372). (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
Highway To Hell Oh lord. It’s first Friday on First Block, and an AC/DC tribute band is playing a free show at Jannus. The combo would normally be the opposite of a bat signal for most of the general music-loving population, but the recent death of founding AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young is enough to make our antennae go up just a tiny, tiny bit. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg) INFO
✔️ Love, Volume w/Mr. Handsome/Fjshwjfe/Adieux CL occasionally writes about shows just out of the paper’s distribution area, and this one only 30 miles away from HQ is a good reason to do so since it finds Volume — a group of working artists housed in ART/ifact studios of Lakeland — tapping ridiculously fun art-rock outfit Mr. Handsome to headline a pre-Valentine’s party where Tampa experimental act Fjshwjfe opens the show. (ART/ifact, Lakeland) INFO
WHO'S HUM-GRY?
Real ass St. Pete emo dudes Snacking share "Hum" and kick off first tour at The Bends in St. Pete — listen and look
Snacking w/Orion/Haunting/more The Pegasus Lounge, where every local band must earn its stripes at some point or another, has a new location. We can’t believe it either, but the prospect of seeing St. Pete emo band Snacking (self-proclaimed winners of the “Nobel Peace Prize for world peace and the best smooth jazz album of 1997”) might be enough to warrant a drive out to the ‘burbs. (Pegasus Lounge, Tampa) INFO
✔️ Take Me To The River: Memphis Soul & R&B Revue w/William Bell/Bobby Rush/Don Bryant Legendary songwriter William Bell was an architect of the Memphis-born American soul sound, and on Friday the mind behind hits like “You Don’t Miss Your Water” and “Everybody Loves A Winner” brings his pals — Grammy-winning bluesman Bobby Rush, gospel elder statesman Don Bryant — for a performance driven by Willie Mitchell’s legendary Hi Rhythm Section, which was the driving force behind the music of other beloved soul music icons like Ann Peebles and Al Green. (Ferguson Hall at David A. Straz Center For Performing Arts, Tampa) INFO
✔️ Tab Benoit w/Sean Chambers Band/Koko Ray & the Keepers On Friday, Tab Benoit kicks off his two-night Skipper’s stand by welcoming South Florida bluesman Sean Chambers to open the show. The Saturday gig finds the 50-year-old Louisiana guitarist, songwriter and activist joined by Koko Ray & the Keepers, but expect both nights to be filled with hearty servings of the bayou-born musical gumbo Benoit has been cooking up since his debut album, Nice and Warm, dropped 25 years ago. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) INFO (SAT INFO)
WORDPLAY
Deezy Wee’s local flavor is the key ingredient of Pickled Oranges
✔️ Deezy Wee The Reaper Album Release Shows Pelican State guitarist Tab Benoit isn’t the only guy doing a two-night run in the Bay area this weekend. After some delays, gravelly-throated Tampa rapper Deezy Wee The Reaper is finally set to share his Pickled Oranges EP by staging two release shows on both sides of the bay. This one in Ybor City finds him joined by Swavor, Tony Handz, Nico Sweet and Audio Artwork, while the February 3 show invites Handz, Ayo Mama, Gat$, and Mari So Dope to the stage at downtown St. Pete’s Iberian Rooster. (The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing, Ybor City) INFO
✔️ Vagittarius w/Two Dollar Pistol/Comrades Vagittarius makes snarky, Oklahoma-reared cowpunk engineered to dismantle the patriarchy. Formed initially by friends Liz Greuel and Jillian Holzbauer, the band has since added drummer Braden Franklin and bassist Gray Hightower en route to working inklings of grunge into its forever-sarcastic Sooner State songs. (Planet Retro Records, St. Petersburg) INFO
Dilla Day w/DJ Cub J Dilla was a revolutionary producer who changed hip-hop and left the world too soon. Today, DJ Cub and The Bricks celebrate the life of the late James Yancey, who would've turned 44 on February 7. (The Bricks, Ybor City) INFO
✔️ Van Eggers Art Opening: Painting & Illustrations at The Bends w/Boytoy/Loose Talk Boytoy — Big Apple purveyors of grungy, ‘60s surf rock — join St. Pete rock and roll group Loose Talk in providing the soundtrack for an art opening featuring illustrations from Cocoa Beach pen, paintbrush and skateboard pusher Van Eggers. Stimulate your eyeballs by checking on Mr. Eggers via Instagram (@van_eggers), and be happy that this show (and pretty much every single one that’s ever happened at The Bends) is free to attend. (The Bends, St. Petersburg) INFO
VINTAGE SERF
Jensen Serf Company announce new 12-inch EP, hear some of Triple Freaks A Beach now
✔️ “Soft Hoagie Rolls” Video Screening w/Jensen Serf Company/Blestian/Charles Irwin Last year saw St. Pete garage-rock duo Jensen Serf Co. quietly release one of the year’s best, and loudest, records. By our count this is the first chance fans have to see the scuzzy and fuzzy songs from The Fall played in real life. This one at the Skatepark of Tampa doubles as the premiere of a new “Soft Hoagie Rolls” skateboarding video, so bring your wheels if you’re into that kind of thing. Listen to Fall below. (Skatepark of Tampa, Tampa) INFO
✔️Martin Sexton Our Spidey sense tingles whenever former CL music editor Eric Snider raises his hand to review a show, and we’re excited to read what he thinks about a performance by this original figure from the ‘90s “new folk” movement whose vast vocal range and eclectic tastes earned him slots opening for the likes of John Hiatt, Art Garfunkel and Jackson Browne. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg) INFO
ALSO PLAYING
Rock
Bendy Straw and Russ Van Cleave (Ella's Americana Folk Art Café, Tampa) INFO
Dead Sells w/The Damnsels/Whack & Love Songs for Junkies (Brass Mug, Tampa) INFO
Essence Ov The Worm w/Merciless Scum/Pyre/Deathcrown (Fubar, St. Petersburg) INFO
G.W. Souther Band (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO
Jeremy Thomas Band (Ka’Tiki, Treasure Island) INFO
Funk/Bues
Jon Cleary Trio w/Shaun Hopper (Murray Theatre at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater) INFO
Mama’s Batch (The Ale & the Witch, St. Petersburg) INFO
EDM/DJ
February 2-5 Diritybird Campout Florida (Forever Florida, St. Cloud) INFO
Malaa (The Ritz, Ybor City) INFO
Left Lane Ent. Presents: The Bashment (Subcentral at Iberian Rooster, Tampa) INFO
Singer-songwriter
Leon Majcen w/Olivia Romano/Napoleon the Wilderness (The Blue Note, Tampa) INFO
Pop
Lana Del Rey (Amway Center, Orlando) INFO
Tribute/Cover
The Pure Zeppelin Experience (Central Park Performing Arts Center, Largo) INFO
Jazz
Dixie Cats (Friday Morning Musicale & Federated Clubs, Tampa) INFO
Blues
Betty Fox Unplugged Live Recording (Hideaway Café, St. Petersburg) INFO
Classical/Chorale
St. Petersburg Opera: The Magic Flute (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO
The Florida Orchestra: The Music of Pink Floyd (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) INFO
This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2018.