The 4,244-square-mile nation of Jamaica, which had a freaking bobsled team, still doesn’t have a skatepark. Concrete Jungle Foundation — an international nonprofit organization that uses skateboarding as a tool to stimulate positive personal and community development for underprivileged youth around the world — wants to change that and has plans to build Kingston a 10,764-square-foot park early next year.
The group is staging a halfpipe skate contest at Green Bench Brewing Co. this weekend and dishing out $2,000 worth of prizes and giveaways. The event is free to attend, but it’ll cost $20 to compete. Eat some Jam Dish Jamaican food when you get there, and catch St. Petersburg rock outfit Throat Puncher when it makes its live debut at the event.
The opening of the band’s debut LP, The Importance of Hydration, arrives without a hint of subtlety, and the rest of the three-and-a-half-minute track mostly follows suit as Danny Piechocki dispatches hypnotic drums that threaten to go off the rails while Laith Abel (the off-the-wall frontman of Nude Tayne) lays down primal howls through an array of vocal effects. The 14-track album is noisy thanks to contributions from Alastair St. Hill’s Korg MS-20, but Hydration is also full of texture and deeply rhythmic tunes that St. Hill said are pretty much all based off of improvisation.
“We’ve been getting together for years now and practicing how to play off of each other, make use of space and silence, take turns leading the action, and reacting to what’s happening in the moment,” St. Hill said of his work with Piechocki. Abel joined after the duo couldn’t quite close the door on finishing songs.
“Through that process we’ve defined our methods and style, and written some songs. The songs don’t necessarily always sound the same but the album gives a good sense of what our performance is like.”
Listen to more below.
Skate For Jamaica Halfpipe Competition w/Glass House Point/Garden Club/The Venus/Throat Puncher Sat., July 27. 5 p.m. No cover. 1133 Baum Ave. N., Saint Petersburg. greenbenchbrewing.com.
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