THURSDAY, JUNE 19
The Doppelgangaz w/Temp/LB Legalize The Dopplegangaz is a cloak-sporting indie hip-hop duo made up of two rapper/producers from Orange County, N.Y. — Matter Ov Fact and EP (pictured right), who set grimy, cheeky rhymes with unexpected and clever references (like twisting the slang for money even further from cheese to gorgonzola) against eclectic sample-strewn production and raw beat-dropping that dips into dark trip-hop and golden-era aesthetics. They have four albums out right now; the latest, Peace Kehd, dropped in February. (Orpheum, Ybor City) —Leilani Polk
Flow Tribe w/Gwan Massive If your dirtiest in-the-closet secret is that you still watch MTV’s The Real World (29 seasons and counting), you might be familiar with Flow Tribe; the funk-jam rock band from New Orleans was heavily featured in 2010’s NOLA redux (the 24th season), when one of the cast members performed with the group and embraced her confidence as a singer. Real life lessons here, folks. Own your shit. And Flow Tribe certainly does with bright, horn-bumping sounds dredged in the soulful flavors of their home. Tampa’s own funktastic hip-hop collective, Gwan Massive, warms the stage. (Crowbar, Ybor City) —LP
FRIDAY, JUNE 20
Oscar G Usually, Serious Soul features resident Brian Busto, another local talent of his choice, and a nationally known player (when it’s not an all-locals showcase). On this night, he gives up the booth entirely to Oscar G, a Miami house DJ, resident of nightclub hotspot Space and member of the Murk production team who’s put out music on Nervous Records. Oscar G spins for four straight hours on this night. (Hyde Park Café, Tampa)—LP
Andy Grammer w/Andrew Ripp Pushing insidious hook-riding pop rock that he pilots with R&B smooth n’ sweet vocals is LA singer-songwriter Andy Grammer, whose fare ranges from mushy uplifting odes (“Keep your head up, and you can let your hair down”) to anthemic stomping choruses á la latest single “Back Home” off forthcoming not-yet-titled sophomore LP (“It don’t matter where we go / we always find our way home”). Piano-banging balladeer Andrew Ripp opens Grammer’s current tour. (Capitol Theatre, Clearwater) —LP
Goo Goo Dolls & Daughtry w/Plain White T’s A big bill of run-of-the-mill alt rock co-headed by Goo Goo Dolls, a band that enjoyed platinum success in the post-grunge 1990s and quickly transitioned to Adult Contemporary realms with charters in the early-to-mid-‘00s, and Daughtry, the namesake band of American Idol rocker alum Chris Daughtry. Both tour behind 2013 LPs; Goo presents their 10th, Magnetic, while Daughtry backs album No. 4, Baptized. (MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater, Tampa)—LP
The Mix Up: Summer Edition w/Val/?nowledge/Prince Golden/Jonte Devon/Solive & Generation Changers/Tripp Alderman & Dessasore/Lord Kass/Hometown Hero/Shawn Boland The local hip-hop showcase of veteran and new-school talent lands in Ybor with a summer edition that features Wally Clark spinning jams throughout the night while a succession of emcees cycles on and off the stage, spitting, flowing, rhyme-slinging, vibing, and in some cases singing, too. (Market on 7th, Ybor City) —LP
Drastic Fall Album Release Party Citing Primus, Mr. Bungle and Buckethead as influences, Clearwater-bred quintet Drastic Fall hits hard with propulsive funk-metal marked by dual shredding and soloing guitars, funky basslines, heavy-hitting rhythms, and occasional growled-shrieked vocals or aggressively rapped lyrics. This date celebrates the release of their first self-produced CD, Everything, All the Time, All at Once. (Crowbar, Ybor City)—LP
Lil’ Boosie w/Yo Gotti/August Alsina “Now we finna rap it up, you know what I’m sayin’ / welcome to the mind of a maniac.” So says high-toned Southern rapper and recent media darling Lil’ Boosie. Straight from an abbreviated prison sentence, the Baton Rouge, La.-based gangsta wastes no time kicking off an ambitious tour for his upcoming sixth studio effort, Touchdown 2 Cause Hell. With a relentless live schedule and several albums slated to drop on his Bad Azz imprint (distributed by Warner Bros.), Boosie knows how to play up his near-superhuman work ethic. Yo Gotti returns to Tampa to open along with Trinidad James collaborator August Alsina. (Tampa Bay Times Forum, Tampa) —Cody Smith
The Rough & Tumble An ambient indie-folk duo from Nashville, The Rough & Tumble is undeniably charming and (disclaimer: impending use of the “Q” word) quirky. Their sole album, The Rough & Tumble’s Holiday Awareness Campaign (released last year) is a soft and sweet 24-track-long Odyssean adventure through the U.S., stopping through New York and Philly, Chattanooga and Birmingham, MLK Boulevard and countless tollbooths. They’re awfully reminiscent of The Weepies, and their feathery vocals carry a classic Tennessee drawl, making for calm, easy, back-porch-sitting-with-a-mason-jar-full-of-sweet-tea listening. (Hideaway Café & Recording Studio, St. Petersburg) —Jackie Braje
JT Money w/Strizzo/T-Quest World Famous/Dutch Dirty/Skin The Hustle/KT The Legend You likely know Miami emcee JT Money from his 1999 No. 1 Rap charts hit, “Who Dat?” with Sole, though possibly you’d also recognize the material from his Poison Clan days, namely “Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya.” He has a Juvenile sort of groaning rhyme delivery. (Local 662, St. Petersburg)—LP
SATURDAY, JUNE 21
The Danny Piechocki Birthday Experience 2.1: Ahleuchatistas/Jitters/Zulu Wave/Wolf Face/Samurai Shotgun/La Lucha/Early Forms/Bees And Enormous Tigers/Lions After Dark/Eight Million Kami/Snacking/Ophelia/Sam Wolter/Hollis Smith/Direwood/Mark Castle Danny Piechocki is a local drummer in multiple bands, most notably seething alt rock outfit Zulu Wave, but also Jitters, a newer heavy wheeling and churning math-prog two-piece featuring Piechocki with guitarist Nathan Corder. This date doubles as his birthday party and the bill touches on several high quality genre-spanning local and regional talents along with out-of-town headliner, Ahleuchatistas, another mathy duo delving into jazzier avant territories. (The Venture Compound, St. Petersburg)—LP
The Radarmen/Meat Wound/100 Car Pile Up Not to be confused with those psychos from Philly The Radarmen, this trio of hometown scene vets plies an earnest and dynamic brand of post-rock that hews closer to the best traditions of rock and pop than one might garner at first listen — without sacrificing originality or a definite experimental edge. Good stuff. (New World Brewery, Ybor City) —Scott Harrell
A Well Respected Man: the WMNF 70th Birthday Tribute to Ray Davies w/Four Star Riot/Coco and Homo/Funny Bunny/Scone Train/Ronny Elliott Band/Soul Purpose/Rich Whiteley Band/Ricky Wilcox and the Moonsnakes/Doll Parts/Ed Woltil and the Loaded Question/Joe Milligan Project/Jun/more If you read these pages regularly, then by now you should know what you’ll be getting out of a WMNF tribute show: experienced local musicians of wildly varying styles, playing the tunes of the tributee with equally disparate degrees of respect for the original cuts. You’re also gonna get one hell of a party; it’s been said that the usually excellent music is as much a soundtrack to a good time as it is the main attraction. This time around, it’s The Kinks and their leader getting the treatment. (Skippers Smokehouse, Tampa) —SH
Camp Kidneys/Mushmind/Won’t Be Arsed/Can’t Do It/Lipschitz If you grew up on house shows and all-ages punk-rock matinees, a gig at St. Pete’s Planet Retro will make you feel 15 again. If you didn’t, you may be confused and frightened and hate the bands, but God hates a coward, and you might actually have the time of your life, and in any case there’ll still be plenty of shopping for vinyl to do. Great, aggro-melodic female-fronted Gainesville pop-punk act Camp Kidneys heads up a worthy lineup of the sweaty and loud. (Planet Retro Gallery, St. Petersburg) —SH
SUNDAY, JUNE 22
Eyehategod w/Ringworm/Enabler/others Back in ‘88, New Orleans sludge-metal outfit Eyehategod got the jump on about a dozen metal subgenres that would come along later, from the stoner-metal renaissance to groovecore and beyond. The group created a rabidly loyal cult following and has nurtured it ever since, through multiple lineup changes and hiatuses, influencing an entire scene of peers along the way. (Orpheum, Ybor City) —SH
Couples Counseling/PariAh/JuJu Sigh/No Milk/Lovebrrd Feeling adventurous? We all should, more often, and get to Venture and see and hear some things we haven’t before. This time ‘round, dreamy, glitchy Boston electro/experimental/sonic collage project Couples Counseling is at the top of a diverse and aurally complex bill that also features acts from Miami and the Bay area. (The Venture Compound, St. Petersburg)—SH
Seth Walker Born in North Carolina, currently settled in New Orleans by way of Austin and Nashville, roots-blues singer-songwriter Seth Walker has soaked up the aesthetics of his homes, and his albums have always reflected his influences of the moment – from shiny twang to blues sear to funky NOLA fare. New album Still Sky Blue (out this month on Royal Potato Family) was produced and in part co-written by Oliver Wood (The Wood Brothers), and reflects the musical culture of his current roost. In his statement about the record, Walker explained the Crescent City brought back the rough edge that got “spit-shined” on his Nashville-spawned recordings. “This one's got some gristle on it, some push and pull, some funky stuff, and some of that Caribbean influence that New Orleans has." (Ringside Café, St. Petersburg)—LP
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25
Rebelution w/Iration NoCal-based roots reggae quartet Rebelution celebrates 10 years in 2014 and simultaneously issues a fourth posi-vibing, cannabis-loving, social-and-issues aware album, Count Me In. According to bassist Marley D. Williams, “Our music is meant to move people physically and mentally at the same time. When people are really dancing and really thinking, that’s a double threat.” Hawaiian-bred, Santa Barbara-based like-sounding act Iration opens on both Wednesday and Thursday of this two-night Jannus stand. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)—LP
Agalloch w/Vex In a recent edition of our biweekly tastemakers compilation The Well-Played List (check it on Ear Buds, the CL Music Blog), Orpheum primary Jerry Dufrain couldn’t gush enough about Agalloch’s 2014 fifth full-length, The Serpent & The Sphere, going far beyond a normal promoter’s hype into true love territories as he extolled the virtues of the genre-hopping two-decades-old metal band from Portland, their uniquely individual sound drawing on elements of folk, doom and black metal, among others. Dufrain called Serpent “an epic statement of purpose,” which should, at the very least, pique the interest of the Bay area’s metalheads. (Orpheum, Ybor City)—LP
David Dondero American folk singer/songwriter David Dondero is comparable to troubadour Townes Van Zandt and cited as a significant influence on Conor Oberst, who once said, “It was David Dondero’s voice that made me comfortable with my own” regarding much-acclaimed 2003 release The Transient. After breaking apart from 1990s alt-rock band Sunbrain, Dondero has since released nine solo albums, his 2001 debut Shooting at the Sun with a Water Gun establishing him as a confessional lyricist and ragged-voiced singer. Dondero has toured with Jolie Holland, The Mountain Goats, Spoon and David Bazan among other modern-day folk legends, and is now on the road behind his poignantly autobiographical ninth studio album, This Guitar. (Green Bench Brewing, St. Petersburg) –Jackie Braje
Blackbird Blackbird w/Rude100 As electronic music takes an ever firmer hold in the U.S., subgenres have been splintering off at an overwhelming rate. “Folktronica” may sound like a joke but artists like Blackbird Blackbird deliver a compelling enough sound to make you want to delve deeper. The San Fran-based producer mixes soul, downtempo, acoustic rock and a few others to get to his dreamy sound, made up of hazy textures and chilling bass lines. Pegging just one genre to the multifaceted producer seems nigh impossible, especially in lieu of the second full-length Tangerine Sky, which features delicately produced songs like “There Is Nowhere,” a futuristic R&B ballad that balances spine-tingling croons with high-pitched vocal splices, the result a babymakin’ jam of the future. (Crowbar, Ybor City) –CS
The Voice Live Tour The sixth and latest season of NBC’s vocal talent show is over, but the show goes on … the road, that is. The Voice winner along with second and third place contestants (Sarasota-born Josh Kaufman, Jake Worthington and Christina Grimmie, respectively) are joined by some faves from previous seasons: season five’s victor Tessanne Chin and other finalists from her season, Jacquie Lee and Will Champlin, and Dia Frampton from the first season. (Carol Morsani Hall at Straz Center for Performing Arts, Tampa) —LP
Click here to see a complete listing of concerts for this week and beyond.
