THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6
St. Paul and The Broken Bones w/Nervous Turkey/The Sh-Booms Takin’ it to church one explosive performance at a time and generating hype big enough to fill every pew is St. Paul & The Broken Bones, which hasn’t actually released debut full-length Half The City (it drops February 18 via Single Lock/Thirty Tigers), but has been garnering a ridiculous amount of praise for songs that have hit so far, namely “Call Me,” with pale bespectacled frontman Paul Janeway howling gruff and booming pleas over fast and funky brass-fused grooves, his previous career aspirations in the clergy informing his explosive live presence. The Alabama sextet has warmed-up the stage for the likes of Bettye LaVette and Drive-By Truckers, and are riding fast towards fame in the same vein as fellow home-state comrades Alabama Shakes. (Crowbar, Ybor City) —LP
Rock the Park w/Early Forms/Fowler's Bluff/Indigenous Ways Downtown Tampa’s eminently worthy ongoing public entertainment-slash-local-music-showcase series keeps rolling along with another great bill. Tampa’s Early Forms balance skewed college rock with engaging melodies and dynamics; Pinellas favorites Fowler’s Bluff do an excellent job of blending jazz-core and Southern rock while staying catchy and concise; and another Tampa act, Indigenous Ways, fuses hip hop and rock without getting too heavy or sacrificing its sincerity. The latter band also headlines a gig at Skipper’s Smokehouse on Friday. (Curtis Hixon Park, Tampa) —Scott Harrell [More after the jump...]
[jump]The Witch's Three-Year Anniversary Party w/UNRB Can you believe superior downtown St. Pete watering hole The Ale and The Witch is already three years old? Seems like just the other week, we were all saying how we were going to get around to checking out the new place, and not doing it. You can make up for your youthful callowness now by helping the place celebrate its anniversary, and get in on some unique hometown jammage, courtesy of ska-punk outfit UNRB, while you’re at it. (Ale and the Witch, St. Petersburg) —SH
Big Head Todd & The Monsters w/Martin Sexton Arguably one of the most well-known blues rock acts to come out of Colorado, Big Head Todd & the Monsters have been wheeling and dealing their muscular rootsy driving sounds as led by namesake Todd Park Mohr for more than two decades; he has a deep n’ crusty soulful vocal style and his instrumental know-how includes guitar (choppy playing and sliding on resonator and straightforward electric), sax, harmonica and keys. This year marks the 25-year anniversary of his band’s debut full-length Another Mayberry, and they’ve marked the occasion with a just-released album (Black Beehive, their 11th) and this tour behind it. (State Theatre, St. Petersburg)—LP
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7
Roy Schneider Duo w/Brian Smalley & Kristopher James Eclectic Americana singer-songwriter Schneider transcends the usual twangy tropes in terms of both style and substance. His tunes can range from the jazzy to the simple and earthy, without ever resorting to cliches so often associated with the genre. Plus, the guy used to be a syndicated cartoonist. I know, right? (Hideaway Cafe & Recording Studio, St. Petersburg) —SH
Side Door Celtic: Cassie & Maggie MacDonald The homepage of this Canadian sibling duo’s website is, at present, basically a long, long list of all the award nominations they’ve earned over the past couple of years. This pair manages to provide an energetic, entertaining and contemporary-feeling show without sacrificing any reverence for the traditions of the Celtic styles that form the basis for its sound. The sisters hail from Nova Scotia, a region with a rich history of U.K. heritage, and have built both a loyal following and impressive chops by touring North America and the Continent — that’s mainland Western Europe for you uncultured types. (Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg) —SH
Town Mountain With an upbeat bluegrass sound hewn from the Appalachian hills, raw tunefully-drawling backwoods country vocals, and a few wins at the 2013 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Momentum Awards (for “Band of the Year” and “Vocalist of the Year”), NC string band Town Mountain is putting itself on the map and gathering fans and acclaim along the way. Robert Greer (vocals, guitar), Jesse Langlais (banjo, vocals), Phil Barker (mandolin, vocals), Bobby Britt (fiddle) and Jake Hopping (upright bass) have issued four well-regarded albums; the last was 2012’s Leave the Bottle. (Craftsmen House Gallery, St. Petersburg)—LP
Inland Traveler w/Rec Center/Oxford Noland A three-band bill with out-of-town flavor provided by Brooklyn-bred trio Inland Traveler, which finds singer-songwriters Gerald Edward (guitar), Lucas Madrazo (guitar, percs) and Katie Locke (keys) blending Americana and folk influences into a melodic ‘70s-inspired sound not unlike Fleetwood Mac, but with a more modern stripped-back sensibility. (New World Brewery, Ybor City)—LP
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8
WMNF Rockabilly Ruckus w/Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Boys/Jason D. Williams/Rocket 88/Sara Rose Band/Hairdresser On Fire/The WildTones/Hot Rod Hornets We’re now on the 11th incarnation of community radio 88.5-FM’s Rockabilly Ruckus, and, unlike some of the station’s other super-familiar live-show programming (*cough* tribute shows *cough*), this one always proves a joy, every time out. Many of the names on the bill are Ruckus alums, but everything here is really top-notch, whether you’re looking for true rockabilly, earlier proto-rock n’ roll or something in between. ’MNF said the last Ruckus would be, you know, the last Ruckus, making this one a bit of a bonus, so don’t miss out. (Skipper's Smokehouse, Tampa) —SH
The Patients/Killmama/Broke Mr. Jones Local rock n’ roll is once again on display at one of downtown St. Pete’s cozier noise crevices. The Patients are a trio from St. Petersburg — wish I could say more, but they want me to “like” them on Facebook before I can hear some tunes, and fuck that. Deerfield Beach duo Killmama, on the other hand, gave me unfettered social access to some jams, and I’m glad, because they are awesome — sleazy and sultry and bluesy, like a female-fronted White Stripes on sizzurp. Broke Mr. Jones comes to St. Pete by way of Satellite Beach, and have a melodic, slightly angular and No Wave-y sort of thing going on. (Fubar, St. Petersburg)—SH
The Tell Sign CD Release show w/Hollow Tides/False Narrative/more Tampa’s own The Tell Sign celebrate the physical release of their latest opus, Light A Match, Tell A Story with this raucous Pegasus Lounge shindig. The group has that taut, melodic, edge-of-emo sound that could definitely make national waves with Generation Warped, so come see ‘em now, and later you can be all like, “The Tell Sign? Oh, I saw ‘em at this little bar in Tampa, you’re just now catching on?” People love that. (Pegasus Lounge, Tampa) —SH
Skinny Puppy w/Army Of The Universe The eternal kings of unsettling industrial weirdness return to one of the regions of our beloved nation that really, really, really embraces unsettling industrial weirdness. Who knows what the group is going to get up to onstage this time around, but it will undoubtedly be worth seeing and hearing. LA’s Army of the Universe builds on classic elements of the industrial scene’s more accessible sounds — wronked synths, stabby guitars — with downright danceable grooves and more. (The Ritz Ybor, Ybor City) —SH
Kenny Loggins The soft rocker and former one-half of Loggins and Messina hits the Hall with a catalog of hits in tow spanning the 1970s and ‘80s —“Whenever I Call You Friend” (with Stevie Nicks), “I’m Alright,”“This Is It,”“Footloose,”“Danger Zone,”“What a Fool Believes” (with Michael McDonald) and various others. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)—LP
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9
Jeff Rupert & The Jazz Professors A Sunday afternoon presentation featuring a quartet made up of faculty members from Orlando’s University of Central Florida, who issued one of the top-rated and charting jazz releases of 2013: Do That Again, also a year-ending favorite of WUSF’s All Night Jazz program. UCF Jazz program director Jeff Rupert (saxophone) is joined by pianist Per Danielsson, bassist Richard Drexler, and drummer Marty Morell. Show starts at 3 p.m. (HCC-Ybor Mainstage Theatre, Ybor City)—LP
Ol’ Dirty Sundays: Breakbeat Lou Louis Flores aka BreakBeat Lou, came up as a DJ in 1970s NYC until he set his sights on production in 1981. He’s spent the past three decades establishing himself as a significant presence in the hip hop industry beginning with the Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilation series that he created with the late Leonard "BreakBeat Lenny" Roberts; basically, the 25 comps (issued from 1986 to 1991) put together breaks and beats from recordings issued between 1966 to 1984, and these comps have been used by Large Professor, The Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, Dr. Dre and Marley Marl to name a very few. If you dig hip hop, this is probably a show you don’t want to miss. (Crowbar, Ybor City)—LP
Pat Metheny Unity Group A famed jazz fusion guitar virtuoso with one of the most distinctive (gently weeping and singing) guitar tones in the genre along with the most distinctively terrible hair. (We know you play instrumental music, Pat, which means a male-dominated fanbase, but you gotta do something with that frizzy crinkled mess before another decade goes by, all right?) On a more apropos note, he hits town behind brand new release Kin with his Unity Band — saxophonist Chris Potter, drummer Antonio Sanchez, and bassist Ben Williams. (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) —LP
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11
The Slackers w/The Duppies Some folks like to joke about ska in terms of zombies, an undead genre cursed to shamble across the earth on tour forever, looking for gullible new kid-brains to devour. It’s much nicer to think of ska as a phoenix genre — one that dies a pre-ordained natural death every several years, only to be born anew from its own ashes and repeat its life-cycle once again. Anyway, The Slackers ably represent the energetic, punky ‘90s origins of the NYC Third Wave movement, while New Millennium Gainesville septet The Duppies introduces rawer rocksteady and some reggae into the mix. (Crowbar, Ybor City) —SH
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12
BBQ Wednesday Acoustic Series w/Jon Shain There may not be a better way to kill an early mid-week evening in Tampa than to head down to the New World for some ’Q and tunes. This week, the tunes come courtesy of Durham, N.C. singer-songwriter Jon Shain, whose style is less heavy on the rawer alt-country sounds many of us are used to hearing ‘round these parts; it’s more informed by true East Coast folk and post-folk, earnest and catchy with just a touch of twang and not half-bad. Go get some. (New World Brewery, Ybor City) —SH
Tony Bennett There’s really nothing to say about this astonishingly vital crooner that hasn’t already been said about a dozen times in these pages, because the man simply will not stop. Bennett will turn 88 freaking years old this August; he’s the Energizer Bunny of the big-band/Vegas set. On this tour, he’s joined once again by his daughter, singer and actress Antonia Bennett, who has shared the stage with her father off and on since the age of four. (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg) —SH