CUBAN CLUB BALLROOM
6:30 p.m. THE LOST BAYOU RAMBLERS The Cajun entry for this year's Heatwave hails from the cradle of the music, Lafayette, La. The young, fresh-faced Ramblers sing in French and bring a vibrant, swinging feel to their infectious roots music. This is pretty pure Cajun stuff, not splashed with zydeco or rock.
8:10 p.m. PAPA GROWS FUNK NOLA's Times-Picayune has called Papa Grows Funk "the most consistently satisfying funk-based band to percolate up from the New Orleans club scene in the past five years." The five-piece outfit came of an informal Monday night jam session headed by keyboardist John "Papa" Gros and eventually led to a regular (200-plus shows a year) gig. Current members include saxophonist Jason Mingledorff, guitarist June Yamagishi, bassist Marc L. Pero and drummer Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander, who replaced Russell Batiste, Jr. in 2005. —Leilani Polk
10 p.m. THE LEE BOYS This Florida-based family ensemble plays the roof-raising style of Southern gospel known as sacred steel. The central instrument is the pedal steel guitar — more rockin' than country. The Lee Boys regularly play jam-band and blues festivals, and routinely deliver the sanctified goods.
11:50 p.m. THE ELEMENTS The multi-racial reggae quintet hails from Louisiana and also has members from the Caribbean, Britain and Latin America. The band's music is silky and melodic, skewing toward the sweet sounds of Studio One.
CUBAN CLUB BANDSHELL
ON THE PATIO
6 p.m. LOCOS POR JUANA This crazy Miami ensemble, nine members strong, includes members from around South America and the Caribbean, and the mix of Latin cultures shows in the music. Locos Por Juana stir up a mess o' ska, reggae, cumbia, salsa, rock, hip-hop, funk and other stuff into a wild brew.
7:40 p.m. THE MAMMALS Call 'em hot-blooded folkies. The quintet, which includes a bass/drums rhythm section, covers the acoustic waterfront, from adrenalized bluegrass and mountain music to pensive narratives to the folk-music equivalent of power ballads.
9:20 p.m. SAW DOCTORS Like contemporaries The Frames, Ireland's Saw Doctors play Celt-tinged rock 'n' roll influenced by a variety of different styles, and, apart from pockets of cult-loyal fandom here and there, are relatively unknown outside their homeland. It's a different story back in Ireland, where the group packs stadiums, boasts some of the best-selling singles in the history of Irish pop, and is considered to be on a level with the likes of U2.
11:10 p.m. THEODIS EALY The Mississippi R&B artist not long ago scored a major regional hit with the playfully salacious "Stand Up In It." Along with funky R&B numbers, Ealy can also rip up a standard shuffle blues, sing a moving gospel-tinged ballad and thrown down stinging licks on his guitar.
12:30 a.m. BOBBY BARE JR. The son of C&W legend Bobby Bare first caught the ears of alt-country fans in the mid-'90s with the swaggering, underrated Bare Jr., a bar band's bar band on a major label. Since then, BBJ's largely indie-centric solo career has found him maturing and branching out as a roots, pop and rock songwriter without sacrificing the balls, humor and humanity that set him apart.
CUBAN CLUB CANTINA
6 p.m. HAT TRICK HEROES This Tampa three-piece, which rose from the remnants of Squirrels Gone Wild, brings the heavy rock (shades of The Cult, The Who, Zeppelin) with a modern spin. Thick slabs of guitar battle it out with soaring vocals.
7 p.m. SAFETY Tampa ska-punk outfit Safety fuses the Third Wave hooks and melodies of the late-'90s trend with the energy and sense of fun that permeates the all-ages ska scene these days.
7:45 p.m. CARNIVOROUS VEGANS It's an oxymoron, get it? Another young Tampa-bred ska-punk act — one with a reputation for spectacularly chaotic live shows.
8:40 p.m. GANDALF MURPHY AND THE SLAMBOVIAN CIRCUS OF DREAMS The DIY collective out of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., has been labeled "Hillbilly Floyd" for its mix of folk, dreamy psychedelia and '60s-flavored idealism. A rising festival favorite, Gandalf Murphy is one of those bands that sets tongues to wagging after the gig.
10:10 p.m. IKE REILLY ASSASSINATION This NYC group has amassed a pile of fawning press clips courtesy of various hometown media, from Time Out to the New York Times. IRA turns the bar-band clichés inside out, applying the loose, easy intensity that characterizes the best watering-hole veterans to an unpredictable sort of attitude-laden, post-punk-informed R&B stomp.
11:40 p.m. SAY HI TO YOUR MOM See sidebar.
1 a.m. FLAT STANLEY This long-running Tampa punk 'n' roll act has done more touring in the States and abroad than many of the seminal groups that influenced its fast, muscular sound. Flat Stanley splits the difference between pop-punk and harder, less melodic fare without losing either the former's catchiness or the latter's impact.
EL PASAJE PLAZA
6:25, p.m. NORA JEAN BRUSO The singer hails from the Mississippi delta town of Greenwood, and got her career start in Chicago. She's been hailed as the heir apparent to Koko Taylor. There's nothing demure about Bruso's singing — it's a full-on blues holler with a rib-shaking rasp.
8 p.m. CHUCK PROPHET A Heatwave fave, Prophet was raised in SoCal and seemed to have soaked up the entire pop-music milieu and filtered it through his own idiosyncratic aesthetic. You can't categorize his sound, but it's somehow familiar. Prophet's songs are catchy, full of dry wit and driven by his laconic baritone.
9:50 p.m. THE BLASTERS This iconic roots-rock/rockabilly/proto-cowpunk ensemble hit the stage at the Skipperdome back in January, and proved that two and a half decades and the loss of guitarist Dave Alvin haven't tempered the group's zeal. Expect this set to draw one of the biggest and most appreciative crowds of the evening, and expect not to be disappointed by what's sure to be a fun, rollicking, high-volume performance.
11:40 p.m. GRUPO FANTASMA Based in Austin, Grupo Fantasma takes a wide view of Latin music, mixing everything from Tex-Mex to salsa to reggae and ska into a groove-intensive, bass-heavy sound. A 10-piece band with horns that builds its music around irrepressible rhythms is a recipe for success at Heatwave.
NEW WORLD BREWERY
6:30 p.m. THE REALITY BAND The roots reggae revivalists in The Revival Band blend the genre's social and spiritual awareness with more easygoing Caribbean melodies and a streetwise cognizance inspired by hip-hop.
7:30 p.m. RIVER COVE RAMBLERS This band has been a favorite with local roots/Appalachian-style country fans for at least a couple of years now. The Ramblers respect tradition, but aren't afraid to come at the sounds from a contemporary perspective, playing with and adding new elements to their style.
8:30 p.m. CANDY BARS One of, if not the best, indie-rock outfits currently calling Tampa home. Candy Bars' extremely minimal formats (either guitar, cello and drums or just guitar and cello) don't stop their inventive, textured, confessional music from becoming much more than the sum of its parts.
9:30 p.m. SUMMERBIRDS IN THE CELLAR Always-evolving Orlando underground-pop combo Summerbirds dropped off the Tampa Bay radar for a while, only to return in the last six months or so with an even more ambitious sonic character that's quickly won more fans among the scene's most discerning amateur musicologists. The 'birds incorporate everything from old-school shoegaze to subtle, rhythmic shades of dance-punk.
10:30 p.m. VERA VIOLETS Speaking of old-school shoegaze, Tampa's Vera Violets look back to bands like My Bloody Valentine and Curve in order to look forward with noisy, fathoms-deep layers of effected guitars. Elements of psychedelic rock and Velvet Underground-style poetic cool find their way into the mix as well.
11:30 p.m. DEAR AND GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN Hailing from Tallahassee, Dear and Glorious Physician's taut, catchy, occasionally Pixies-esque fringe-rock has found a number of fans here at the New World — this will be the band's fourth or fifth appearance at the venue in half a year.
12:30 a.m. HOME Psychedelic quirk-pop act Home formed and played around Tampa for years (and helped found the Screw Music Forever collective) before heading off to seek its fortunes in the Big Apple. Now, the band is a nationwide cult favorite with 16 albums — the latest being a concept record about sex called, what else, Sexteen — under its belt.
ORPHEUM
6:30 p.m. REBEKAH PULLEY AND THE RELUCTANT PROPHETS This beloved, quickly rising local act hails from the Pinellas side of the Bay. Pulley's evocative voice rides over a band adept at blending shades of rock, pop, R&B and jam.
7:45 p.m. SANDY ATKINSON AND THE MODEANS Atkinson and her four-piece band, long-time stalwarts on the Tampa Bay music scene, make blues that's at once urbane, witty and down-home.
9 p.m. THE EAMES ERA Rolling in from Baton Rouge, La., the Eames Era is an indie-rock band fronted by Ashley Phillips, who's the antithesis of a shoegazer. The band's sound is hooky and sunny, built around surf-jangle guitars.
10:20 p.m. MAGGIE, PIERCE & EJ The trio mixes all manner of roots, pop, rock and folk styles in a way quite unlike any other, and is a frequent visitor to local venues like Skipper's Smokehouse.
11:40 p.m. MORNINGBELL The band starts with the time-honored traditions of psychedelic pop, then adds rhythmic inflections of reggae and the personalities of musicians who live and play in the age of The Flaming Lips rather than The Beatles.
12:45 a.m. GLITTER GUNS Stylish local act Glitter Guns splits the difference between classic British glam/mod sounds and the early-'90s industrial edge, and comes up with something as new-wave danceable as it is cool.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.