THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14
The Michael Ross 5 CD Release Party: Ginger Esteemed local jazz musician Michael Ross presents a new seven-song recording, Ginger, that finds the choppy upright bass player bouncing around airy grooves in a quintet lineup. He’s joined by a very similar set of musicians on this concert — sax and flute player Danny Jordan, guitarist LaRue Nickelson, and drummer Walt Hubbard, with pianist Patrick Bettison taking the spot that William Evans filled on the album. (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg)
New Kingston w/Root of All/Leilani Wolfgramm Three sweetly harmonizing Brooklyn-based musicians — brothers Tahir and Courtney Panton (on keys and drums respectively) and Jamaica-born guitarist/lead vocalist Stephen Suckarie — along with bass-playing patriarch Courtney Sr. make up New Kingston. Their sound is R&B-imbued reggae that can get a little cheesy when it strays from more roots-oriented territories. (Local 662, St. Petersburg)
Crush Capital EP Release Party Rhyming his way up from Brandon’s live music wasteland is emerging emcee Crush Capital, who re-located here from Queens, NYC in 2010, and has been practicing the art of hip-hop for the past few years here. “Hip-hop, it ain’t dead, it’s a mockery, and we tryin’ to bring back what we call a dying breed,” he claims in the self-assured “Dreamer (It Came True),” and admits he began as a dreamer before his dreams came true. This show celebrates the launch of his new EP, Smooth Sail to the Finish. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15
American Aquarium w/Will Quinlan & The Holy Slow Train Singer-songwriter B.J. Barham stopped by New World in July to play a solo acoustic date and makes his way back with full band in tow supporting 2012’s Burn.Flicker.Die. American Aquarium’s fifth full-length finds the North Carolina quintet brewing up a pedal steel-soaked brand of easy-striding heartland-touched folk-roots rock, whiskey-hued alt country and Muscle Shoals-inspired blues, all driven by the coarse twangy vocals of Barham and expertly produced by Jason Isbell. (New World Brewery, Ybor City)
GMFridays w/Ketchy Shuby/Florida Night Heat/J.T. Brown of the Groves A new free monthly concert series hyping Gasparilla Music Festival and featuring a range of fiery talent along with Sweetwater Brews, prizes and giveaways. The inaugural edition — which also serves as an informal press conference announcing the first confirmed performers at the third annual GMF — is headed up by Miami’s percussive, brass-plated funkadelic soul sextet Ketchy Shuby, fronted by vocalist/guitarist Jason J. Hernandez-Rodriguez, who has a wild mane of hair matching and falsetto-reaching croon and howls. Power grime trio Florida Night Heat and roots rockin’ singer-songwriter JT Brown (of The Groves) support. (Grand Central at Kennedy, Tampa)
Chet Faker He hasn’t dropped a full-length album as yet, but Chet Faker (the nom de plume of Aussie electronic music maker Nicholas Murphy) is already making ripples; his downtempo groove-hop production and soulful husk-rubbed vocals were both found on collaborations with fellow countryman Flume (“Left Alone” off Flume’s first album) and Swedish/Australian duo Say Lou Lou (“Fool Of Me,” which earned a “Best New Track” nod from Pitchfork.com), while his slinky cover of “No Diggity” went viral on YouTube (currently 2.9 million hits and counting). Sexy languid new single “Melt” featuring Kilo Kish offers a taste of what’s to come from his debut full-length due out sometime in 2014. Chet Faker has been supporting Bonobo the past several nights, but breaks off to play this local date while the British producer heads up to Bear Creek Festival. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
The Chariot w/Glass Cloud/Birds In Row/To The Wind “Having enjoyed 10 wonderful years of playing shows, it just feels like the right time to cross that finish line,” The Chariot frontman Josh Scogin said in his announcement of the Georgia-bred mathcore outfit end. The split is amicable; the four musicians accomplished what they needed with The Chariot and are ready to move on to fresh endeavors. (Orpheum, Ybor City)
Joe Bonamassa Last year proved to be particularly busy for blues-rock guitar whiz Joe Bonamassa. He issued a record with his ’70s/’80s funk-jazz fusion project Rock Candy Funk Party, We Want to Groove, and dropped a third studio album (Afterglow) and live CD/DVD release (Live Over Europe) with Black Country Communion, the classic rock ’n’ roll revivalist supergroup he plays in with bassist Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), drummer Jason Bonham (son of the late John), and keysman Derek Sherinian (Alice Cooper, Dream Theater). If that weren’t enough, he also delivered 11th full-length Driving Towards The Daylight, and DVD/Blu-ray release Live From New York. He returns to the Ruth Eckerd stage for a two night Friday-Saturday stand. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)
Bret Michaels The bandana-sporting power ballad crooner and longtime Poison frontman is on tour supporting his fifth solo studio album, Jammin’ With Friends. As the name suggests, it’s a record full of collabs that find Bret Michaels performing original material and covers with various peers. Some choices are predictable (two versions of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” one featuring Loretta Lynn and Aerosmith axe-slinger Joe Perry), while others are a bit more surprising (like “Nothing to Lose” featuring Miley Cyrus). (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg)
Le Castle Vania Bleach-haired, Atlanta-based DJ/producer Le Castle Vania (the dance music moniker of Dylan Eiland) hits town hot on the heels of issuing his first recording on Deadmau5’s Mau5trap label, the four-track Prophication EP. (Amphitheatre, Ybor City)
Sizzla A modern Jamaica-brewed Rasta-minded reggae music maker with a throaty sing-jay style of vocalizing and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of 4/4 grooves, with something like 70 albums to his credit. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
Kayo Dot w/Red Room Cinema/set & setting Intense, bizarre, chaotic, discordant, ominous, profound — all describe the dark sonicscapes arranged and executed by Kayo Dot, an avant metal septet from Brooklyn. Seventh full-length Hubardo finds Kayo Dot turning up the charred and experimental quotient in tracks like “Thief,” a clash of guitars, horns and palpitating time signatures broken up by more deliberate roiling stretches of psychedelia, vocals jumping from harsh guttural outbursts to echoing barely-held-together layers of streaming consciousness to subdued soothing murmurs; while “And He Built Him a Boat” touches on gothic gospel and progressive aesthetics with shades of spaghetti western drama and drawn-out doom. (Fubar, St. Petersburg)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16
Instruments Of Change: “Play It Forward” Benefit Concert w/Caroline Kole Nonprofit organization Instruments of Change makes a difference to the lives of disadvantaged youths by providing them with musical instruments, instruction and performance opportunities. This particular “Play It Forward” fundraising event is offered in two parts; a music camp with guitar, bass and drum clinics taught by national recording artists followed by an evening concert featuring warm-up sets by the camp students along with Daniel B. Marshall, Ken Apperson and Bars & Guitars. A performance by national country songstress Caroline Kole caps off the evening. (Ferguson Hall at the Straz Center, Tampa)
Os Mutantes w/Capsula Four years ago, Os Mutantes landed in town after releasing their first album in 35 years and packed the Skipperdome with reverential musicphiles. The place will likely fill again for their triumphant return behind ninth and latest album, Fool Metal Jack. A dominant force of the 1960s psychedelic rock movement in Brazil, Os Mutantes filtered their fuzzy, tribal-percussive avant sounds through a tropicalismo filter, adding funk, folk, samba and bossa nova flavor. Guitarist/vocalist Sérgio Dias Baptista still leads the visionary band; in fact, he’s currently living in Las Vegas and Fool Metal Jacket features more English-speaking lyrics than any other previous release as well as some lyrical musings on U.S. affairs. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
Mike Doughty w/Moon Hooch In his memoir last year (and in our interview that followed), singer-songwriter Mike Doughty claimed he’d never have positive feelings about the material he produced with long-defunct former band Soul Coughing because of all the shit (band strife, label BS and bureaucracy, drug problems) he endured while producing it. Which apparently got him to thinking, “Can I go back and re-approach those songs I wrote, and try to recapture who I was when I wrote them, what sounds I was trying to incorporate, what I wanted them to be in the first place?” His latest, Circles Super Bon Bon …, is an obvious yes. He’s joined by a full backing band to support it, and they will, indeed, be playing Soul Coughing material — which makes for a very different experience from the last several shows he’s played in town. Get there early enough to check out Moon Hooch, a post-jazz, post-roots group composed of two saxophone players and a drummer. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
Gram Parsons Tribute Despite passing away in 1973 at the ripe young age of 26, Gram Parsons managed to make a significant impact on country music both as a solo artist and as a member of The Flying Burrito Brothers, taking the twang into rock ’n’ roll terrain and influencing a ridiculous amount of artists that came after. Grams Place hostel stages the third annual tribute to its namesake this Saturday at Florida Avenue Ales, with a big bill of local performers (including Dirty Spoons & Trash Revue, Ronny Elliott, Leigh Humes Band, John Clark Band, the Tattered Saints, and Unpainted Souls) joined by Nashville songstress Donna Frost. (Florida Avenue Ales, Tampa)
Sleepwave w/American Fangs/Jensen Serf Company/Goodnight Neverland Sleepwave is the new project of ex-Underoath frontman Spencer Chamberlin, who strays from the hardcore metallic sounds of his past into more straightforward grinding alt-rock territory, as first single “Rock and Roll Is Dead and So Am I” reveals, its dark lyrical matter inspired by his feelings about the lack of honesty in modern rock. He and Sleepwave co-collaborator Stephen Bowman present some more fresh material as joined by a full band for Sleepwave’s first-ever live show, appropriately held right here in Chamberlain’s own home town. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
Dessa w/E-Turn She’s the only lady emcee of indie hip-hop collective Doomtree, was among the collaborators in Midwestern indie rock project Gayngs, and is on the road in support of a new full-length, Parts of Speech, which find the Minneapolis songstress/emcee singing sultry, low-toned velvet-burnished melodies or flowing literate well-enunciated rhymes over pulsing electro grooves and multi-layered instrumentals with experimental dance music and hip hop production qualities. (Local 662, St. Petersburg)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17
Viva Cal! A Tribute to Cal Tjader A Sunday afternoon Tampa Jazz Club concert that pays loving tribute to the late Cal Tjader, a Puerto Rican drummer, percussionist and vibraphonist of some renown who started out playing with Dave Brubeck and George Shearing, and went on to leave break new ground in Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. Bay Area percussionist Frankie Pineiro (Guisando Caliente Latin Jazz Quintet) leads the “Viva Cal!” program, with back-up from Kenny Drew Jr. (piano), Joe Porter (bass), Hector Mayoral (percs), John Jenkins (drums) and vibraphone phenom Cole Hazlitt, a student at Tarpon Springs High and member of the Ruth Eckerd Youth Jazz Band. (HCC-Ybor Mainstage Theater, Ybor City)
O.A.R. w/Chris Cab People really dig O.A.R. (of a revolution), and the band has built up quite the mighty stronghold of loyal fans. Never really dug their particular brand of AC-friendly pop rock myself, but they do indeed write nice melodies, frontman Marc Roberge has a pleasant tenor, and all five members are most certainly some good looking fellas. Their last release was 2012’s Live at Red Rocks. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
Ol’ Dirty Sundays: DOC D. Tampa’s favorite weekly hip-hop dance party welcomes hometown vet DJ Doc D to the decks; his resume includes gigs working as the official tour DJ for the likes of Field Mob and Grandaddy Souf. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19
Buddy Guy w/Jonny Lang Both of these soulfully singing, guitar-swinging bluesman played Ribfest last year, both scored a No. 1 spot on the Blues Album charts this year, and they share the stage again and back their respective albums on this Clearwater stop. Throaty howling Buddy Guy, pioneer of Chicago blues and favorite of Eric Clapton, is a ridiculously prolific artist who’s issued 27 studio albums (his latest is the double LP Rhythm & Blues) and appeared on scores of others. Smoky-voiced Jonny Lang has been making a name for himself in modern blues rock since he dropped his debut, Smokin, at age 14; Fight for My Soul is his sixth and most recent effort. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)
Travis Garland w/Colby O’Donis If you know Travis Garland at all, it’s from the pop singer’s tenure as leader of the now-defunct Dallas-spawned boy band NLT (Not Like Them). Currently, he’s touring behind a new eponymous debut. His vocals are high-reaching and sweet with a light huskiness, and his saccharine-free production qualities lean more to PBR&B than to radio cheese ala “Cloud,” which is carried on fat springing synths and deep sub-bass pulses filled out with unexpected sample fragments and sonic flotsam. (Local 662, St. Petersburg)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20
Eagles I’m of the opinion that The Dude didn’t really hate the Eagles but rather, heard “Hotel California” so many goddamn times he never wanted to listen to them ever, ever again. That’s how I feel, anyway; been hearing Eagles tunes on classic rock radio without fail for the past three decades, and this lifetime of oversaturation prompts a knee-jerk channel change whenever those peaceful easy twangy country rock melodies creep onto the airwaves. Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit are all present for the latest Eagles tour, which was spurred by the band’s recent acclaimed Showtime documentary, History of the Eagles. (Tampa Bay Times Forum, Tampa)
Rocky Mountain High: A John Denver Tribute Iconic singer-songwriter John Denver may have passed away 16 years ago, but his folk music legacy lives on and for first time ever, gets loving treatment in this special traveling road show. Archival concert footage of Denver playing material spanning his 23-album career (“Leaving on a Jet Plane, “Country Roads,” “Rocky Mountain High” and the like) is paired with live instrumentals by former members of his band (who share stories of life on the road with Denver) and string section accompaniment. (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg)
CLICK HERE to see a complete rundown of shows taking place this week and in the coming weeks.
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2013.