soundcheck

Loretta Lynn coming to the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg

You're running out of time to see some of country music's biggest legends.

You might know that 80-year-old Willie Nelson recently performed at Ruth Eckerd Hall, but that was only after an original concert date was postponed due to illness. Perhaps you know that George Jones performed at the Lakeland Center in February, just a couple of months before his passing. Merle Haggard was at the Mahaffey Theater in February, and Alabama will be at Ruth Eckerd Hall in July.

So here's another one to put on your calendar: Loretta Lynn is coming to the Mahafffey Theater on Sept. 14. The original Coal Miner's Daughter is celebrating 50 years in music with a tour this fall, and her St. Pete tour stop promises not only hits like Fist City and One's On The Way, but maybe even a couple of songs from her Grammy-winning Jack White collaboration Van Lear Rose.

Tickets to Lynn's Mahaffey Theater show start at $29.50 and they go onsale June 7. Click here to get them. …

Everclear's Art Alexakis talks '90s nostalgia, Summerland Tour and more

Everclear's Sparkle and Fade was one of those albums that your humble Soundcheck editor wore out in high school, due in no small part to the fact that his car only had a tape player, and Sparkle and Fade was one of the few albums he owned on cassette.

So we'll definitely be at the Mahaffey Theatre on May 30 for the 2013 Summerland Tour -- co-founded by Everclear singer Art Alexakis, and named for a song on Sparkle and Fade -- featuring Everclear, Live, Sponge and Filter.

Granted, these bands look much different today than they looked in the '90s. Alexakis is the last member standing from Everclear’s heyday. Ditto for Filter singer Richard Patrick and Sponge singer Vinnie Dombroski. Last year, Live replaced longtime frontman Ed Kowalczyk with new singer Chris Shinn.

But when we got Alexakis on the phone recently to talk about the Summerland Tour and our own infatuation with '90s nostalgia, he said each of these bands is doing new and creative things, even if modern music fans don't realize it. …

Video: 'American Idol's Randy Jackson visits, performs at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base

He may no longer be the top dawg on American Idol, but Randy Jackson still has plenty of irons in the fire. He's in Tampa Bay this weekendto promote his American Tribute Edition guitar collection on HSN. And on Thursday, he stopped by MacDill Air Force Base, where he took a tour, met with soldiers and performed alongside Staff Sgt. Aisha Davis, the 2011 Air Mobility Command Icon winner. Check out the video above.

Review: Steve Martin mixes bluegrass, comedy at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg

Lara Cerri

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers perform with Edie Brickell at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg on May 23, 2013.

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers stopped by St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater Thursday night for a sold-out, much-anticipated night of bluegrass with guest star Edie Brickell. And while much has been made of Martin's transition over time from revolutionary comic to acclaimed bluegrass performer, Thursday's show at the Mahaffey actually featured -- get this -- more than a little comedy!

As Sean Daly writes:

Martin and his Rangers excelled in bluegrass and Western swing and folk balladry, working through cuts from their first two intricate albums, 2009's The Crow and 2011's Rare Bird Alert. "I don't think of the Steep Canyon Rangers as my band — I think of me as their celebrity," he deadpanned, then added: "This next song is a sing-along, but it has no lyrics so good luck!"

Some ditties were heartbreaking, especially Martin's solo performance of The Great Remember, a wistful instrumental written for a friend. Others were hilarious, including the robust sorta-gospel harmonizing of Atheists Don't Have No Songs and the wicked breakup slag Jubilation Day, both of which would have fit perfectly in Martin's old '70s standup act. …

Japanese-British supergroup Muddy Apes visit Tampa to record new album, shoot a video and see the sights of Ybor City

Eve Edelheit

Japanese rock star Inoran, a member of the Japanese-British supergroup Muddy Apes, records a music video at Relevant Church in Ybor City.

Inside Relevant Church, in front of the congregation’s vinyl folding chairs, a Japanese rock star in a fedora hunkered at the base of the stage.

His name was Inoran, a.k.a. Kiyonobu Inoue, a 42-year-old guitarist from famed Japanese glam rock band Luna Sea. He had sold out the Tokyo Dome several times and recently sang the Japanese national anthem for the president of Slovenia. But in April he was staying quietly in Tampa, recording in a local studio and filming a video in the Ybor City church.

Why Tampa?

Inoran is part of Muddy Apes, a band that includes Dean Tidey, former support guitarist for the British rock band Feeder. Some years ago Tidey married a woman from Plant City and moved to Tampa, where he now teaches Rock School at the Patel Conservatory at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts. The move exposed his international musical friends to Sunshine State recording opportunities — cheaper, more secluded, more vacation-y. …

This week in Tampa: Sunset Music Festival, 97X Backyard BBQ, Summerland Tour and more

What better way to kick-start your Memorial Day weekend than with three festivals -- one pop, one electronic, and one alternative -- on Saturday? The biggest of the three will no doubt be the Sunset Music Festival at Raymond James Stadium, with David Guetta and others, but don't sleep on the 97X Backyard BBQ with Twenty One Pilots and Coheed and Cambria, or 93.3-FLZ's Memorial Day Live with Jason Derulo, Iyaz and others.

If you want the full scoop on the Sunset Music Festival, including the lineup, set times after parties and more, click here and here for our previews.

Other big shows happening this week: The Summerland Tour with Everclear, Live, Filter and Sponge; John McEuen, The Rascals, Shock G, Daddy Yankee, Drowning Pool, Rebecca & Fiona, Yngwie Mamlsteen and more. Here to walk you through it all is Ray Roa... …

Toni Braxton coming to the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg

There are plenty of cracks to be made about Toni Braxton announcing a show at the Mahaffey Theatre. For example: Maybe she needs the money? Or: Maybe after all these years of reality-TV stardom, she finally decided to try her hand at singing?

But we thought, no, let's go the classy route, and remind everyone that before the bankruptcy, before Braxton Family Values, before Dancing With the Stars, before the Las Vegas fiasco, before the lupus, Braxton was one of the top R&B divas of the '90s, a massive sex symbol and six-time Grammy winner whose breathy Un-Break My Heart was one of the decade's most indelible singles. No, kids, it's true! She really was a big deal back then!

Braxton hasn't exactly stopped performing in recent years, but she hasn't toured frequently around these parts (unless you count her 2009 Dancing With the Stars tour stop at the Tampa Bay Times Forum).

So it gives us a nice little back-in-the-day feeling to learn she'll be performing at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg on Aug. 28. Tickets are $45.50-$99.50, and they'll go onsale to the public on May 31. Click here for details.

Ticket Window: Kevin James, We the Kings, Breathe Carolina and more

It's a super slow week for Ticket Window. Only two notable concerts have tickets going on sale this week: We the Kings (above) at Jannus Live on July 6, and Kevin James at the Mahaffey Theatre on Aug. 24. But at least we can tell you the full lineup for the We the Kings show, which also includes Breathe Carolina, T.Mills and The Ready Set. So that's something!

Click here for this week's edition of Ticket Window.

97X Backyard BBQ set times: Twenty One Pilots, Coheed and Cambria, New Politics and more

The set times for the 2013 97X Backyard BBQ are out, so if you have a free ticket burning a hole in your pocket, and there's one act on your must-see list, here's the scoop.

But first: Don't forget that on Friday night, rising alterna-hip-pop act Twenty One Pilots, above, will be signing autographs and taking pictures at Club Detroit in St. Petersburg. There won't be a performance, but the event is free, and they'll be giving out Backyard BBQ tickets, too. Click here for details.

The main event begins at noon at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg. On to the 97X Backyard BBQ set times:

8:35 p.m.: Coheed and Cambria

7:05: Twenty One Pilots

5:55: New Politics

4:45: The Features

3:35: The Virginmarys

2:25: The Unlikely Candidates

1:30: 2nd Day Broadcast

12:45: Beautiful Corpses

Noon: Freelow

Click here for all the details on the 2013 97X Backyard BBQ.

Sunset Music Festival: Set Times, after parties, can't-miss acts and more

On Saturday, up to 20,000 people will descend on a parking lot at Raymond James Stadium for the second annual Sunset Music Festival, featuring David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Knife Party, Krewella (above) and many more. If that many show up, it'll be a huge step up from last year's tally, and could mean this electronic fest has a permanent place on Tampa's concert calendar.

Trying to make sense of the Sunset Music Festival lineup? Looking for set times and after party tickets? Want to know which acts to skip and which acts aren't to be missed? Get some details after the jump.

Full Story

SoundBytes: George Clinton, Fat Joe, Majical Cloudz and more

-- Moody indie outfit Majical Cloudz, above, will open for Grizzly Bear at the group's highly anticipated June 19 show at the Ritz Ybor. Click here.

-- Speaking of the Ritz: The Face to Face show that was scheduled to take place there on May 31 has been moved to the State Theatre in St. Pete. Original tickets will be honored. Click here.

-- Bradenton pop-punk heroes We the Kings will perform at Jannus Live on July 6. Tickets are $19. Click here.

-- Twenty One Pilots will appear at a pre-97X Backyard BBQ party on Friday night at Club Detroit in St. Pete, and you can win a chance to have your photo with the band. Click here for info.

-- Rapper Fat Joe will perform at Push Ultra Lounge in St. Petersburg on May 31. Click here.

-- George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic will perform at the Slice of the Burg Festival, a block party at St. Petersburg's historic YMCA building, 116 Fifth St. S, on June 1. The event will benefit the building as well as All Children's Hospital. Tickets start at just $5. Click here and here for details.

-- Mr. Dream Weaver himself, Gary Wright, will perform at the Largo Cultural Center on Oct. 4. Tickets are $34.50 and they'll go onsale May 30 at largoarts.com. …

Beach Boys coming to the Hard Rock Cafe in Tampa

It may not be a festival, but Tampa's Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino is planning a summer full of musical festivities.

Already announced for what they're calling "Hard Rock Heatwave": A pair of exhibits from the Hard Rock's expansive memorabilia collection, including items from John Lennon, Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain and Elvis Presley. Those exhibits are free and they'll go on display June 12. Click here for details.

Now the Hard Rock has booked a big name for July 18: The Beach Boys.

Before you get too excited, keep in mind that this is NOT the same Beach Boys that reunited in full last year. Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks are absent from this lineup; instead you'll get Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and some others. Still, the Hard Rock can be a surprisingly intimate place to see a show, so if you've only seen any incarnation of the Beach Boys at Tropicana Field or Ruth Eckerd Hall, it might be worth checking out.

Tickets to the Beach Boys start at $69, and they'll go onsale at 2 p.m. June 7 via Ticketmaser or at the Hard Rock Store at the casino. …

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell talk creative collaboration, fun songs, the magic of the banjo and more

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell talked about teaming on a project a couple of years ago. She's married to Paul Simon, a longtime friend of Martin's. Then, lo and behold, it actually happened, with the new album Love Has Come For You.

"I write a song on the banjo and then Edie takes that and puts a vocal melody over that," says Martin, 67. "There are always two melodies going on."

To support the delicate, tuneful album, which has been a surprise hit on the Billboard charts, Brickell will join Martin and his Steep Canyon Rangers band on a summer tour, which stops at a sold-out Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg on Thursday.

The sold-out show promises to bring lots of the chemistry that helped bring the album to life in the first place.

"I've just been so inspired," says Brickell, who many will remember as the hushy, lilty singer of the 1988 hit What I Am with the New Bohemians. "I've had to alter my thinking and just let my imagination flow. The moment I heard his music, I started hearing stories. It took me back emotionally."

For more of Sean Daly's interview with Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, click here.

Review: Ghostface Killah, Adrian Younge fuse funk, hip-hop and theatricality at the Orpheum in Tampa

If you’re a rapper, how do you combat the sometimes fair, sometimes not notion that hip-hop shows are just someone on stage rhyming over instrumentals? Well, how about being backed by a live band and theatrics including masked men, oversized storybooks and ghostly women in red robes?

That’s what rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah brought to the Orpheum on Sunday night, on the only Florida stop of his Twelve Reasons to Die tour.

The name comes from his new album, which tells the tale of crime lord Tony Starks being murdered, melted in vinyl and pressed into 12 records before being resurrected as Ghostface Killah to seek revenge. For someone who started off in a hip-hop group steeped in kung-fu lore, the switch to giallo is a smooth one (it even takes place in 1960s Italy.)

The album was produced by Adrian Younge, who should be a familiar face to bay area concertgoers by now after his Antiwarpt and Guavaween sets. And it’s easy to see how Younge and his band Venice Dawn, who composed the soundtrack for Blaxploitation homage Black Dynamite and feature flourishes of spaghetti-western guitar, might’ve appealed to Ghostface Killah for his genre exercise.

Following openers like Infinite Skillz, Prince Golden and FLA ALL DAY (who played a very apologetic set after forgetting their own CD), the stage time was fairly evenly divided between Adrian Younge’s band and Ghostface Killah performing.

A couple of memorable moments came from Venice Dawn’s 40-minute “journey” to Twelve Reasons to Die, including a long lip-lock between the two vocalists and plentiful shredding on both guitar and flute from member Alfredo Fratti. Certainly, this is the most flute-laden rap show you’re likely to attend this year. (At least until that much-heralded Jethro Tull/Wu-Tang Clan collaboration takes off.)

Then Venice Dawn returned to the stage donned in masks and capes, Younge holding a giant storybook, to introduce Ghostface Killah, who would blaze through tracks like I Declare War and Enemies All Around Me. The lurid red and green lights that bathed the stage periodically only added to the cinematic feel.

Eventually the costumes came off, but the theatricality remained. At one point, Ghostface departed from the stage to signify his death at the hands of the DeLuca clan as Younge held up a red-splattered record. “12 records, y’all,” he said. “This is Tony.”

Then Younge asked the crowd to raise their cell phones and lighters in the air and sing the “la-la-lala” intro to Rise of the Ghostface Killah, as Ghostface came back — flanked by five women cloaked and holding candles — to finish the song.

If anything, the set could’ve used more tracks off Twelve Reasons to Die. There were several crowdpleasing Wu-Tang moments, including an appearance by Killah Priest and renditions of C.R.E.A.M., Tearz and Protect Ya Neck. But songs like Blood on the Cobblestones, with its propulsive drums, could’ve really benefited from the live band setting.

Still, the sheer novelty of the show certainly counts for something. When else are you going to see someone play a guitar solo on Ghostface Killah’s back? Or see him surrounded by a posse of gothic girls in rouge robes? And theatrical to the end, the concert closed by introducing each performer onstage, taking a bow and then departing. …

SoundBytes: Of Montreal, Uh Huh Her, Souls of Mischief and more

-- Electro-pop duo Uh Huh Her will perform at the State Theatre on June 28. It's going to be a huge show, and here's why: This is the weekend of St. Pete Pride, and the group has a strong lesbian following. Leisha Hailey was a cast member on The L Word and was once named the sexiest woman alive by AfterEllen.com. She and bandmate Camila Grey made headlines when they said they were kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for kissing. Tickets to their June 28 show with Daphne Willis are $25-$35, and you can get them here.

-- It's always a massive party when experimental, arty psych-pop collective Of Montreal play Ybor City, so get your tickets early to see them at Czar on July 6. Tickets are $20-$25. Click here.

-- Early-'90s hip-hop colletive Souls of Mischief will perform at the State Theatre on July 25. Tickets are $15. Click here.

-- Two excellent rappers, Sirah and K-Flay, will open for Icona Pop when the duo hits the Ritz Ybor on Aug. 18.

-- Billboard named EDM performer/songwriter/experimentalist Robert DeLong one of its 13 artists to watch in 2013, so be sure to check him out at Push Ultra Lounge in St. Petersburg on June 21. Keep an eye out here for ticket details. …