LINEUP CHANGE: Rock the Park w/Small Reactions/Bangarang/Someday River/Shua [Update: Small Reactions cancelled its Florida dates — Bangarang will play instead.] Georgia’s Small Reactions has a St. Pete stop at Green Bench Brewing Co. on Friday, but it doesn’t mean that catching the post-rock quartet at downtown Tampa’s free Rock the Park concert series isn’t going to be mesmerizing. Press play on the East Atlanta Village boys’ new video for “Cowboy Up” — where bolo’ed bloodlust plays out under a pink light that’s just as hazy as Small Reactions’ style of drone-y and nervous “situational pop” — to see why a new LP (RXN_002, released one month ago) is one of the best Peach State releases we’ve heard this year. Greyson Charnock’s Someday River psych-folk project opens the show alongside St. Pete songwriter Shua Harrell. (Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, Tampa) INFO
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Orphaned Land w/Voodoo Kungfu A 2010 LP, The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR, may have set the bar way too high for Israeli metal outfit Orphaned Land. The band, which hadn’t released a studio LP since 2004’s Mabool, and its unique blend of Middle Eastern-flavored extreme metal was in peak form on ORwarriOR, which found singer Kobi Farhi vocalizing three languages (Arabic, English and Hebrew) while the band showed no mercy toward metal purists uninterested in the genre evolving. All Is One came just three years later and left a legion of the band’s apologists trying to explain that the relatively short lag time between albums was to blame for the music’s lack of punch or purpose. A new album is due in January 2018, and Farhi has assured fans that a return to form is on its way. “Growls are back as well as killer melodies that will break your hearts!” he wrote in a statement this summer. Voodoo Kungfu from Beijing — fronted by Berklee-educated singer Nan Li — opens the show. (Crowbar, Ybor City) INFO
Jon Ditty 30th Birthday w/BC/Stick Martin/more Pubs are only as good as the people they employ, and on Thursday Dunedin Brewery’s popular prince of positivity — Mr. Jon Ditty — will celebrate his 30th birthday by welcoming all of his regulars to see Ditty the emcee and an eclectic lineup featuring longtime Tampa rapper (and host of WMNF’s Hip-Hop Flavors) BC, Monkey House Music’s Stick Martin and more. (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin) INFO
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Love and Solidarity w/Bangarang/TRC/79 Sorcery/Badda Skat/Pedro El Poeta Jarquin/Kofi Hunt/more One of the questionable things to emerge out of the dumpster fire of 2016 (and its baby brother 2017 so far) has been heightened internet advocacy. My cynicism doesn’t stem from the idea that some woke-AF kid is speaking up online, but from the reality that so much of the anger and prognosticating really never leaves the realm of www-dot-(insert cause here)-dot.org. That’s why it’s pretty cool to see Iberian Rooster putting its money where its keystrokes are with this show that’ll benefit the Tampa Bay Dream Defenders, who are “building a powerful, deep, local, organization and movement for freedom and liberation in Florida.” The group’s vision is pretty radical (nonviolent resistance as a means to destroy capitalism, imperialism, the Patriarchy), and it’s sure to make your bluest friend scream, “all lives matter,” but yelling is a little necessary these days, isn’t it? Hip-hop, rock, reggae and poetry come together at this one where a $5 cover and some of the bar sales go toward the cause. Not sure If there’ll be a broflake protest area available outside, though. (SubCentral at Iberian Rooster, St. Petersburg) INFO
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September 7, Nick Boutwell (InVision Cafe, St. Petersburg) INFO
CANCELLED: Infinite Third Consuming kava is supposed to create a calming feeling for the user, and anyone downing the Piper methysticum extract at this St. Pete shop can expect to enjoy a nice sonic side effect care of Billy Mays III, who’ll bring his Infinite Third ambient music installation to play. (Grassroots Kava House, St. Petersburg) INFO
CANCELLED: Creatio w/American Songbox/The Chemical Lizards/Luck You Years of unreleased demos have found a home with Creatio, a blues and rock trio featuring a pair of Winston-Salem guys (frontman Stephen Mabe and drummer Zakk Dixon, formerly of Skyway Airlines) who’ve linked up with Bay area guitarist Mark Connelly as the band readies a new EP, Ex Nihilo. The effort is buoyed by an acoustic, melancholy single (“Triage”), and Creatio is supporting it by playing 16 shows throughout Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Carolinas and more. (Brass Mug, Tampa) INFO
This article appears in Sep 7-14, 2017.
