David Gans David Gans, the modern-day Renaissance man perhaps best known as a leading Grateful Dead historian and record producer, is currently touring in support of his ingeniously titled new disc Solo Acoustic. He's found a perfect venue to play, methinks, in The Pharm. Gans' dreamy, inventive-yet-accessible style is undeniably colored by his association with the Dead, but it's still something all his own, influenced by artists ranging from Neil Young to Jackson Browne. He intersperses his live set (and his album) with clever covers from the likes of Gram Parsons, Martin Mull (!) and, of course, The Band That Didn't Need A Drummer, But Had Two Anyway. Come and see the music, man. (Oct. 11, The Pharm)
Miles Tillman/Stillife/Gaijin An evening of trance-inducing electronic music for the chillout heads in the scene. Chicago's Miles Tillman is kinda like Amber-era Autechre, sez Jack, while Atlanta's Gaijin features former members of Rosewater Elizabeth/
Underwater. Expect ambient, mesmerizing ethereal grooves with female vocals. (Oct. 11, Orpheum)
King's X/Moke Venerable Texas trio King's X continues to sidestep the retro cash-in by quietly returning to town every six months or so and playing to the same people who've loved 'em since Faithhopelove. And why not? Shit, they were too old, and too talented, to be hip even back in their heyday, facts that led to their iconoclastic but extremely listenable sound. Moke is that rarest of British bands — the kind that relies more on muscular rock riffage than tried-and-true pop songwriting. They've flirted with mainstream attention for years, never quite breaking through, but never quite fading away. This could be an enjoyable bill, depending upon how sick of indie rock you're feeling today. (Oct. 12, State Theatre)
Tab Benoit The overly commercial bent New Orleans resident Tab Benoit brings to the whole Big Easy blues/funk/nasty-jazz thing garnered him a respectable amount of airplay and notoriety in years past. Though his star has faded a bit, his inimitable vocal delivery and way with a pentatonic lick (Oh! Oh! Guitar-head jargon!) are as on-point as ever. Recommended for aficionados and casual blues listeners alike. (Oct. 12, Skipper's Smokehouse)
Rod McDonald w/Mike Jurgensen The Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa's UU Dome is sort of the anti-Rocket Dome (anybody remember the Rocket Club?); instead of a caricature of all that is wrong with rock, you get earnest American roots music. This time it's Rod McDonald, who the Boston Herald said may be folk's greatest under-recognized musician. After years as an itinerant player on the coffeehouse/folk festival scene, McDonald settled down in Delray Beach. Mike Jurgensen, member of local folk group Myriad, won the Best New Florida Song Award at the 1998 Will McLean Festival and provided two songs for the Edward R. Murrow Award-winning 2000 radio documentary Apalachicola Doin' Time. (Oct. 12, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa)
Five-Eight w/Unrequited Loves/
Diaphragments /Bite Size Angsty Athens trio Five-Eight might well be the best live rock 'n' roll band since The Who, or at least Guided By Voices. They flirted with commercial success via the major-label release Gasolina!, got screwed horribly, and bounced back with the CMJ-charting The Good Nurse late last year. Melodic, compelling and suffused with manic energy, their live set has been the stuff of legend for years now. Unrequited Loves along with now-regular Music Menu squatters Bite Size provide quality local support, and bold new outfit The Diaphragments, about whom many cool people are saying many cool things. Early reports that Closure would be on the bill now appear false. (Oct. 12, Brass Mug)
David Cassidy Partridge Family heartthrob and vintage male Pop-Tart David Cassidy comes to Ruth Eckerd to … what, exactly? Play a really, really, really long version of I Think I Love You, perhaps. Or maybe tell some racy behind-the-scenes stories from his stint in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Were you aware that David Cassidy has sold more than 25-million albums worldwide and has made 18 gold or platinum recordings? Somebody shoot me in the face. (Oct. 13, Ruth Eckerd Hall)
Cursive/Sorry About Dresden/
Gasganno/Suspended Oh, how the kids go nuts for stuff like Cursive. Super-dynamic indie rock, the kind that slams from that insidious mumbled verse into the world's biggest, most dissonant and screamy chorus, with no warning except for that they did it in the last song. And the one before that too. Tourmates Sorry About Dresden, from North Carolina, will likely take a similarly over-the-top emo approach. Gasganno, where Tampa and Orlando meet, and our own Suspended provide something a little less predictable, if no less wrenching. Good stuff, all. (Oct. 13, Orpheum)
Underoath/Sleeping By The Riverside/
Usaraserene/Sevenstar/Figure 4 This is hardcore. All schools, from the lockstep mosh-groove to the blazing and melodic, will be represented. If you don't know what the big black Xs on everybody's hands mean, you probably shouldn't be here. (Oct. 14, State Theatre)
Ani DiFranco w/Bitch & Animal The First Lady of punk-folk returns. Supporting her latest, the double-disc Reveling & Reckoning, DiFranco is bringing a five-piece band along to help flesh out that album's more eclectic influences. Music/performance art duo Bitch & Animal opens; DiFranco describes them as raw, sex-positive hyper-beings. They describe themselves as tribal chick hoedown funk poetry with a political wedge and bass line edge. Um, OK. They incorporate everything from violin and ukelele to tap shoes and nails into their politically charged and frighteningly weird sounds. Eternally Hard, the pair's debut, is handled by DiFranco's Righteous Babe label. (Oct. 14, Mahaffey Theater)
Larry Keel Experience The Progressive bluegrass/acoustic newgrass ensemble hits the Bay area for a couple of shows before their appearance at this year's MagnoliaFest up in Live Oak. Two-time Telluride Bluegrass Festival flatpicking guitar champion Keel and his equally lauded lineup have made quite a name for themselves on the roots-music circuit, playing with such luminaries as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Leftover Salmon, Donna The Buffalo, Yonder Mountain, Keller Williams and Tony Furtado, to name but a few. If you've never witnessed the instrumental mastery of talented bluegrass musicians in an intimate live setting, well, it's just something you gotta do at least once — they can make Yngwie Malmsteen seem like an uncoordinated double amputee with a bad case of the DTs. (Oct. 16, Orpheum; Oct. 17, The Pharm)
—All entries by Scott Harrell
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2001.