THURSDAY. OCTOBER 10
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C.) w/Restavrant San Francisco’s chugging and grinding garage-blues-psych rock trio Black Rebel Motorcycle Club hits town with their guitar-howling sounds behind sixth studio full-length Specter at the Feast. The album was inspired by the untimely death of mentor/producer Michael Been (also father to bassist Robert Levon Been), and the album’s dark catharsis is interspersed with surprising spells of melody and poignant melancholy. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
Fedde Le Grand A Dutch producer/DJ known for his electro-house remix of Matthew Dear and Disco D’s 1999 track “Hands Up for Detroit” (re-dubbed “Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit”); his 2006 take is dance-floor ready and carried on fat bouncing synths. Currently, Le Grand has been diving in and out of a noisier house sonicscape amid the usual pulse-pounding beats. (Amphitheatre, Ybor City)
Mishka w/Jahguar/NoNeed Google “Mishka” and you’ll come up with two artists — an electronic sound magician, and an island-vibing singer-songwriter. (Ignore the YouTube video of the talking Husky.) The latter, Caribbean-area native Alexander Mishka Frith, aka Miska, was the one briefly championed by actor Matthew McConaughey. He has a warm, resonant, lightly accented vocal, his swaying island soul imbued with acoustic folk and roots reggae overtones. His lyrics range from romantic to political, though he keeps it mellow in new Ocean Is My Potion EP, even bringing Jimmy Buffet in to sing on a few tunes, including his Buffet cover, “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season.” (Orpheum, Ybor City)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11
The English Beat w/Johnny Cakes & The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypso Veterans of the 2 Tone ska movement, The English Beat (led by Dave Wakeling in its U.S. incarnation) have maintained a loyal fanbase and steady live touring schedule on the strength of three studio albums all released between 1980 and 1982; “Mirror in the Bathroom” was their highest charting single in the UK, while the only two tracks that broke the U.S. Top 40 dance charts were “Hands Off … She’s Mine” and “I Confess.” (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)
A Loss For Words w/Handguns/Major League A traveling showcase of pop-punk sounds featuring A Loss for Words, a Boston area quintet with driving melodic hardcore tendencies, and Pittsburg-based outfit Handguns. (Epic Problem, Tampa)
Doctor P The rising British EDM producer otherwise known as Shaun Brockhurst just issued a new dubstep-rooted tune “The Champagne Böp,” that drops a scattering of spliced, skewed and chewed vocal samples over bump-bouncing beats, high-whirring synths and steppin’ womp-fizz breakdowns. (Amphitheatre, Ybor City)
Nikki Hill w/Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones She’s earned comparisons to Etta James with her gritty howling pipes while her modern punk-powered drive has been likened to the Detroit Cobras. But Nikki Hill’s twist on roots music is all her own, as is her modern-day pin-up girl style, her feminine pompadour usually wrapped in a turban that feels more like a hair kerchief when paired with her high-powered Southern soul, blues, roots and R&B sound. She and her band staged an attention-grabbing set at WMNF’s Rockabilly Ruckus in February. They serve up a full helping on this latest ‘MNF/Skipperdome bill. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)
Kellie Pickler American Idol former Pickler has been enjoying country music success far beyond her placement on that particular reality competition show. Seven years later, she has three studio LPs under her belt, two of those peaking at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums charts, and a fourth, The Woman I Am, due out in November. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)
Voodoo Glow Skulls/The Toasters w/Left Alone/UNRB/Jay Tea While The English Beat throws down 2 Tone at the State, Local 662 welcomes the Third Wave generation as headed up by NYC’s reigning leaders of the movement, The Toasters (est. 1981). Voodoo Glow Skulls have been dosing their own ska sounds with punk rock kick for going on 25 years now, and issued their ninth studio album last year. (Local 662, St. Petersburg)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12
Come Back Alice w/Jonothan Boggie Long A few months back, I was tooling around downtown St. Pete when a local jam band scenetress I’ve known for many years grabbed me and hauled me into the Emerald to see Come Back Alice. The Sarasota quartet has been building up an impressive fanbase here, based on the packed mass of gleeful people getting down to their sounds that night and apparently most nights they play here. Singer/guitarist Tony Tyler is joined by petite, flowing-haired partner-in-crime Dani Jaye on spirited fiddle and songbird co-vocals that are a lovely feminine counterpart to Tyler’s lower tenor. Her stringwork adds an unexpected level of maturity to arrangements that leave the space for improvisation and are pre-disposed to genre-hopping, from bouncy twangy folk rock to more prog-leaning rock forays to grooving hard bass-bumping funkadelia, all colored in shades of reggae, blues, jazz and electro-rock. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa)