Get loaded with Creative Loafing at our Sensory Overload festival at the Cuban Club in Ybor City, Sat., March 29. Here's info on all the music acts playing that night:
LOCOS POR JUANA Multi-racial ensembleâs distinctive funk tropicale brilliantly incorporates the Columbian folk-dance music Cumbia, reggae and the contemporary club sounds that this group of 20somethings encountered while growing up in the immigrant-intensive South Florida community Kendall. The Miami-based bandâs previous album was nominated for a Latin Grammy. Machete Music, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, will release Locos Por Juanaâs new full-length La Verdad May 13. The vocals are in Spanish but the smoldering, horn-laced grooves should translate easily enough. See next week's Creative Loafing for my interview with Locos Por Juana guitarist Marc Kondrat. (11:45 p.m., Courtyard stage)
APES & ANDROIDS Glam-metal heroics replete with falsetto vocals play alongside 1980s-sounding synth freakouts on Apes & Androidsâ gloriously hedonistic debut disc Blood Moon. The NYC quintet is all over the music map, slyly biting from Ennio Morricone and straight-up quoting The Doors â hey, whatever it takes to get the party started. (12:15 a.m., Cantina Stage)
TRÃS BIEN Clearwater garage rockers channel British Invasion bands of the 1960s while injecting enough young sass to win over the Facebook set. The quartet reached the top six last year on the Fox reality television series The Next Great American Band. (9:45 p.m., Cantina Stage)
BAND MARINO Orlando indie rockers salt power pop with twangy numbers featuring mandolin, violin and banjo on their album The Sea and the Beast, a dynamic, catchy set of country-rock realized through an emo filter. (11:15 p.m., Cantina Stage)
HISTORY Also based in Orlando, History offers a melodic brand of indie-metal in which keyboards and heavy guitar riffs augment growled vocals that are occasionally Vocoder-ized. (10:30 p.m., Cantina Stage)
ACHO BROTHER Tampaâs Hector Mayoral (vocals, guitar) and Orlandoâs Zak Byrd (drums) are a duo that deftly combines traditional Latin sounds with experimental flourishes. (10:20 p.m., Courtyard Stage)
LAWS Tampa underground hip-hop luminary surveys everything from Bush-era politics to matters of the heart â with more wit and panache than most. Heâs also a dangerous free-styler. (9:20 p.m., Courtyard Stage)
PROTOMAN Like most hardcore rappers with pale skin and more skill than Vanilla Ice, this Fort Lauderdale emceeâs rhymes and flow have clearly been influenced by Eminem. Unlike Marshall Mathers, though, Protoman spits over jazzy, old-school, boom-bap beats. (11 p.m., Courtyard Stage)
JOE STU Atlanta MC has a direct, articulate flow that he issues over laidback beats that recall the golden era of hip-hop (EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest). (9:50 p.m., Courtyard Stage)
DJ BLENDA w/CRATE BROTHERS/SLOPFUNKDUST/SOUL NIGHT DJS Popular local turntablist splits Mike Blenda his time with the reggae band Tribal Style and solo gigs like this one. Tampa DJs Christopher Robin and Oprah Spinfrey of the Crate Brothers spin a dance-ready mix of mostly old-school hip-hop and new wave spiced with more contemporary concoctions like their killer mash-up of M.I.A.âs âPaper Planesâ and the Goodie Mob classic âCell Therapy.â (Various times, Courtyard Stage). Also on the music lineup to spin between sets are Slopfunkdust (Courtyard Stage) and Soul Night DJs (Cantina Stage).
Click here for ticket info and here for links to all the music acts' websites and artists' schedule.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2008.
