Big Guava is back, and while it’s not as big this time around, it will have a noticeable impact on the agendas of some local festhusiasts. Live Nation’s summertime music festival is taking over the shed we’re still calling “Gary” for two days, May 8 and 9, which happens to be the same dates that Bay area community radio station WMNF will stage the 34th installment of its long running summer’s eve bacchanal, Tropical Heatwave. There’s obviously not a lot of crossover between the Heatwave crowd (think Paul Thorn, Joseph Arthur) and Big Guava attendees (last year’s headliners included Outkast and Haim), but Heatwave is known for bringing in a whole slew of up-and-coming acts before they break big (see: Elephant Stone, Carolina Chocolate Drops). Both fests are still months away from any lineup announcements, so the potential effect on attendance at Heatwave is still too vague to even try to predict. Stay tuned here and here.
A festival that did make a recent lineup announcement is Coastline. The “musiculinary” event relocated across the bay to St. Pete’s Vinoy Park (it was at that old Gary in 2013) and has announced that the Flaming Lips, Tove Lo, the AIrborne Toxic Event and Future Islands are just some of the bands headlining along with the rest of the Sat., Feb. 21 lineup, which also includes Echosmith, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Mister Wives, Knox Hamiilton, and the Colourist. There are still more bands to be announced (in fact, the poster above has “Special Artist TBA” listed among the performers). An almost identical lineup heads to Pompano Beach the next day. Tickets are $39.50-$149.50 and more information is available here.
If you’d rather not read news and just listen to good, local music, then Gatsby has your solution. The Tampa-based emcee is streaming his new LP, #starshipJERICHO, and the 11-track effort will easily stand as one of Tampa hip hop’s best releases of 2014. The songs and production jump from abrasive (“Undisputed”) to introspective (“Lonely”) on a dime and there’s just enough stoner flavor (“Trapping Will Kill You”) to warrant repeated spins while you sit on the porch (or cubicle) with earbuds in. Have a listen to that bad boy below, and check out more Gatsby via Bandcamp. Grab a free download of #starshipJERICHO here.
