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Best of luck in the future to Brian McCabe. Have a safe trip, sir.
Sure, every artist has said, at one time or another, “God, I’d do anything to work with Smokey Robinson”, but does “anything” really include a Hardee’s commercial? Gary Polecat has denied any wrongdoing with regard to late-night telephone buffoonery (as earlier reported). He did, however, cop to planning all sorts of bizarre shenanigans for the next couple of Rancid Polecats gigs at The Mug, scheduled for April 20 and May 5. They’ll also be purveying their own, particularly odoriferous brand of offense at Hyde Park’s Penalty Box (on Howard Avenue, formerly Clawd’s and MacDinton’s, one-time home to Nickel Beer Nite madness and truly abysmal cover-band action) on, like, May 13…possibly the loudest Bay area band to ever play The State, Neurotica recently completed a six-week US tour in support of their second disc, Living In Dog Years. The following gigs are slated for our neck o’ the woods: April 7, Club More; April 8, Culture Room (Fort Lauderdale); April 13, The Orbit (Fort Myers); April 14, Siesta Key Beach Club. Will they be doing Livestock this year? If you’ve gotta ask, just stay home and listen to your REM cassettes, ya damn art-femme. Find out everything there is to forget at www.neurotica.net …Rhonda K dropped us a line to thank those who made the last installment of verbal delivery, GNAW, so rantingly successful. She’s still looking for a venue to host future evenings of NakedPoetry…what’s up with Spurs, Ybor City’s premier Ground Zero for line-dancing and boots made of dead animals, hosting rawk giggage? Who cares, don’t ask, don’t tell, you’ve got another place to play, grunts. Greed Engine, Low2TheLeft, and a multitude of others have recently graced their stage. Call, demand, harass. GE takes part in a 98Rock Liquid Lunch Friday, March 31 at the inimitable Mugs & Jugs, from noon until, er, whenever. They’ll also be at St. Pete’s Straub Park on Sunday, April 2, as part of Star 95.7’s PierFest. Who knows who else is playing, nobody else could be bothered to inform us, the information source of choice for at least six or eight pundits…Mike O’Neill, stalwart headmonger for Nailbiters, took some time off from his burgeoning solo career to actually invite his bandmates to do a show with him. New World Brewery, April 6, Free. Cocktail Honeys provide opening ruckus, between an April Fool’s Day shindig at Tarpon Springs’ Neptune Lounge with suited pawp quartet Spiller and the impending KISS Tribute Show at The State on April 8. Gotohells, Futureman, Barely Pink, and Sage, along with the aforementioned brothers in beer (Spiller and the Honeys, halfwit), and quite possibly any number of surprise extra-special guests, will regurgitate classic Fearsome Foursome material in their own respective images. Rare videos, prize giveaways, and the probability of numerous humiliating situations will ensue, as well. Five bucks, seven pee-em, all ages…Clearwater’s Club More will be hosting a benefit for American clean-ocean coalition The Surfrider Foundation on Saturday, April 1. Entertainment will be supplied by reggae outfit Scholarsword, postpop, after-the-jazz trio The Boats (winners of this week’s “Nicest Guys In The Scene” award, and consider yourself reminded about drummer Sam DJ’ing at New World), and Natural Blend, the new project from Club More proprietor/ex-Pundits frontman ‘Flash’ Gordon. Gordon describes NB as “original jam rock with influences ranging from Dave Matthews, Rusted Root, and Phish, with some early Traffic thrown in for good measure”. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Foundation, but you should really go for the rad surfing videos. Be the first to see the first…The Flapcats have taken on some extra guitar ballast with the addition of Ron Bales. WMNF has been spinning tracks from the band’s debut disc; witness the sound at The Mug (April 1), Neptune’s (April 6), and Spurs (April 21)…all kinds of weird technology-related half-truths make up the latest e-newsletter from Ed Furniture; hit www.edfurniture.com, you either get it or you don’t, but if you do, please contact me with an explanation…whose new bass player, Manny Yanes, has toured with Powerstation, Robert Palmer, and Patti LaBelle? Who’s going to Nashville to demo songs with Ben Fowler, a man whose credits include Clapton, Alanis, and Bad Company? Who’s going on tour with Wang Chung? Who’s opened for Matchbox 20, Paula Cole, and Fastball? Who’s playing at Sarasota’s Five O’Clock Club every Tuesday and Wednesday, providing a jarring contrast to all of the above information? Why, Clearwater’s Dreamtime, that’s who! www.dreamtimeband.com …former Death and current Control Denied headmaster Chuck Schuldiner has released his first direct press release since he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from the base of his brain, thanking everyone for the support, and blasting those who made a tense time worse by spreading rumors of his imminent demise. Expect tuneage and tourage as soon as Chuck, who’s back in Florida and recovering nicely, gets up to one hundred percent…Zappaphiles Bogus Pomp are back from Buffalo, New York (as opposed to Buffalo, Chile, right?), where they performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Florida Orchestra leader Thomas Wilkins). Apparently, they rocked. Well, not rocked, exactly, you know, that kind of style and all, but they did them real good up there. Anyone interested in purchasing the new live BP video (filmed in January at Mahaffey Theater) can contact Jerry Outlaw at, concidentally enough, JerryOutlaw@webtv.net …buzzy postpunk outfit Althea (don’t use the ‘e’ word) have a new website (http://welcome.to/unshared), a new mp3 link (www.mp3.com/althearock), and are currently gearing up to record what will turn out to be two new seven-inches and a full-length CD. But first, there are the tours with River City High and Piebald. Oh, and they’re shooting footage at local shows for a documentary about indie touring, tentatively titled Gear Jammin, and hopefully, that’ll change. Catch them at The James Joyce (Ybor City) with Secret Service (not the jeans-bulge rockers of yore, but some new band from Miami) and Pilots VS Aeroplanes on April 2, at New Port Richey’s Veterans Village Activities Center with For Your Girlfriend, As It Stands, Mitchell, Cooper’s Ligment, and 16Hours on April 8, and at Sarasota’s Atari Info Shop with Sean Na Na on April 9…another benefit for pirate radio station 87X is in the works for April 21 at Orpheum. More on that when we get more on that… This month’s Writer’s Night lineup (April 18, Orpheum) includes Paco (acoustic blues from Gainesvilles), Shana, Maggie Council, Halcyon, Ronny Elliott (who still owes me a beer), and, of course, Fran Snyder…The Gita has been “experimenting live with the percussion sections of Freaks Rule and the now-defunct Fat Antenna”; we don’t really know if this means they’ve been jumping onstage to strangle a bongo from time to time, or what: Friday, March 31, Java Lounge; Saturday, April 8, Java Styles Warehouse (on Hercules in Clearwater); Saturday, April 29, The Second Annual Downtown Cigar-B-Q (who thinks this shit up?!), Cigar Central (Clearwater). The band also needs volunteers and vendors for their upcoming May 19 G-Spot shindig at The State – interested parties can contact Joran at 727.462.5304…oh, yeah. Apparently, Fat Antenna are now defunct…Honeyweed Shawn left a rather interesting message with the service to other day, detailing The First Annual DJ Convention scheduled for this weekend in Tampa. You know, who, what, when (April 1), where. Oh, yeah, where. See, that’s the part I didn’t catch before I hit the wrong button, so, I guess just drive around from club to club until you hear the sound of no guitars playing…The Beauvilles will be at St. Pete’s Cockney Rebel this Saturday, April 1. Check their website (members.aol.com/thebeauvilles) or contact them about bookings at thebeauvilles@aol.com …the lines are drawn, the combatants chosen. Twelve young bands from Bay area high schools are set to take in place in Reindeer Records’ annual assign-a-numerical-value-to-art-a-thon competition, FLARO. Here they are, sorted by date (all sets will be at Gasoline Alley, and kick off at 2 PM): April 9 – Cold Fusion (Back To Basics), Empty Tomb (Manatee HS), Sweet Meet (Gulf HS), Desperate Cry (Dixie Hollins HS), Last Chance (Largo HS); April 16 – Golden Vanity (Blake HS For The Performing Arts), Magadan (Pinellas County Center For The Arts, Gibbs HS), Zodiac Sundaes (also PCCFTA), Blindside (Lakewood Ranch HS), Mortal (also Lakewood Ranch), Out On A Limb (Southeast HS), and The Dogs (Osceola HS)…PBJQ is a new Tampa-based jazz quintet (bassist Philip Booth, guitarists LaRue Nickelson and Corey Christiansen, drummer David Via, and trumpet player Dwayne White); some of those guys, like Phil, are also in Greenwich Blue, dontchaknow. The project will debut at this weekend’s Child of the Sun Jazz Festival, at Lakeland’s Florida Southern College…groove-laden rawk combo Noble Jones have replaced bassist Al Kumic with new kid Jason Pollner. The band will head into the studio this weekend to record tracks for their next full-length – expect 13 to 14 tunes around late May. NJ will be at Gasoline Alley on April 7…last Wednesday, The Other Place over in Daytona Beach hosted the Millennium Entertainment/Sony Music Showcase. Ten Florida bands were selected from submitted demos, and invited to play a ten-minute showcase. Fully forty percent of the stable were from the Bay area, with Koncrete Kite, Ramona Hates Pink, E3, and Soul System representing and hooking up the connections, connections, connections…in related news, Koncrete Kite’s disc, Grounded, is now available online at www.amazon.com and www.cdnow.com, as well as at their shows, such as a looming April 21 date at Gasoline Alley…“The Slacker Conspiracy is shifting personnel. Bassist Joe Jenkins has left the group, and a new member will be announced soon. We are also amassing material for the followup to our debut CD, Trust No One. The new CD should be completed by the end of the year and will most likely be available for digital sale immediately after it is recorded, before you can get it physically. Visit The Slacker Conspiracy online at http://www.geocities.com/slackerband. For booking, e-mail razehell@castlegate.net or call Scott Winders at 321-799-4404.” Well. There you go…manic engineer Saucerman, of Saucer Studios, naturally, has been linked to all kinds of recording activity of late. Producing for techno compilations, tracking with Banned From Society, who knows? We have confirmed S-man’s involvement in the Inspected By 13 project – the first of their anticipated 13-CD series (!?), Marijuana Picnic, is out there infecting the general public as we speak. Expect the full skinny next issue.
Noted local bluesman G. W. Rose, a gifted guitarist, singer and songwriter who shared the stage with John Lee Hooker, Lucky and James Peterson, and various other luminaries, died of a heart attack on March 21. He’ll be sorely missed by lifelong friends, peers, and fans alike. The Suncoast Blues Society will be organizing a memorial in Rose’s name; parties can contact Alberta Pizzolato at apizzoll@tampabay.rr.com for more information. Andrew Bryan, founder of WMNF’s Above-Ground Circus and once New Music Director for the community radio station, died last week in Australia. All condolences/prayers/kind words may be sent directly to Andrew’s father, Doctor L. Wayne Bryan, at lwbryan@bellsouth.net.
Ask, ponder, fret. Have Pulling Birds really called it a day? New rumblings claim not, alleging that the Clearwater quartet is holed up somewhere fleshing out a rather serious change in musical direction. Somebody knows somebody who slept with somebody whose bass player said he saw Goddess Mooncar mastermind Kenny Watts buying guitar picks the other day. What does it mean? Was former Mooncar drummer/current Paper Stanleys drummer/really suave dude Brett Sherman really contacted about possible jammage? What did he say? Are Sarasota trio The Chase Theory booking shows again? Is a certain world-renowned hardcore act truly planning to play a surprise gig in a tiny venue south of the Skyway? Could Kool Keith really, seriously be on the Foo Fighters/Red Hot Chili Peppers bill? Joy! Was former Silver vocalist Kole Kruger recently spotted rehearsing with a new crew? Is former bandmate Byron Sellers an official member of Ironic Daze?
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