SoundCheck: Beach Boys, Tone Loc among top live music picks

The Beach Boys

Details: 8:30 p.m. July 18, Hard Rock Café, 5223 Orient Road, Tampa, $69 and up. (813) 627-7757.

Last year, all of the surviving Beach Boys reunited and converged on the Straz Center in Tampa for a Brian Wilson-led show sprinkled with moments that our own Sean Daly described as "nothing less than magic." The Boys will indeed be back in town for this gig, but the cast of characters won't look exactly the same, since Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks will be notably absent. Fans will be graced with the presence of Bruce Johnston and Mike Love, however, and (depending on whom you ask), this is still a legitimate Beach Boys show. Wilson may have been the pained mad scientist behind gems like Pet Sounds, Sloop John B and Don't Worry Baby, but Love's name is also permanently etched into more than a few great hits — and he's probably going to prove why at this show.

Pitch for Pink Postgame Concert

With Tone Loc, Rob Base

Details: Friday after Clearwater Threshers versus Charlotte Stone Crabs (first pitch at 6:30 p.m.), Bright House Field, 601 N Old Coachman Road, Clearwater. Free with game ticket. (727) 467-4457.

The Clearwater Threshers have booked a lineup that the Rays should be jealous of. The shindig will benefit breast cancer research, but the eighth annual Pitch for Pink fundraiser's main draw is a bill that finds one-hit wonder Rob Base (sorry, but you probably can't name another song besides It Takes Two) joining another late '80s hip-hop icon, Tone Loc (above left), who will help all in attendance go way back with scratchy-throated performances of his hits Funky Cold Medina and Wild Thing. It might be the minors, but this is a big-league nostalgia trip for sure.

Micah Schnabel

With Booker & Norton

Details: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Yeoman's Road Pub, 236 E Davis Blvd., Tampa. $5. (813) 251-2748.

His bass player (Shane Sweeney) recently passed through the Hub to deliver a solo performance of downtrodden, booze-soaked country, and Two Cow Garage frontman Micah Schnabel is set to bring a similarly sorrowful set of tunes to another one of Tampa's storied watering holes, Yeoman's Road Pub on Davis Islands. Expect a few more upbeat tunes (the uber-literate My Great Gatsby, or maybe the sing-along worthy Skinny Legged Girl), and more than a few tearjerkers (Sadie Mae and The Wall Against Our Backs come to mind), but keep your fingers crossed for previews of Two Cow Garage's new LP, The Death Of The Self-Preservation Society, due in September.

Lemuria

With Feral Babies, DieAlps!

Details: 7 p.m. Saturday, Crowbar, 1812 N 17th St., Ybor City. $8-$11. (813) 241-8600.

Lemuria is a Buffalo, N.Y., band named after a mythical lost continent in the Pacific and Indian oceans, but it has a deep connection to the Sunshine State, too. They're regulars at Gainesville's storied punk-rock bacchanal Fest, and the cover art for their latest LP, The Distance Is So Big, features a photograph taken by Tampa's Nicole Kibert. That affinity for our state won't be the reason Crowbar is full of warm bodies, though, as Lemuria's take on pop-punk has only gotten better since a knockout debut LP, 2009's Get Better. Maybe it's frontwoman Sheena Ozzella's heart-aching vocals on Gravity and Dog or the bounce delivered by the rest of the band on a track like Chihuly, but there's something irresistible about this sound.

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Authority Zero

With Ballyhoo!, Versus the World

Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jannus Live, 16 Second St. N, St. Petersburg. $10. (727) 565-0550.

Frontman Jason DeVore is the only Authority Zero member left from the Arizona band's genesis. And while the rest of the lineup showing up at Jannus on Friday has fewer than five years of collective experience in the nearly 20-year-old outfit, fans will still come out in droves. Blame it on Authority Zero's commitment to making tour stops in Florida (an oft-ignored U.S. region), a ridiculously low ticket price (can you even buy CDs for less than $10 these days?), and a brand-new LP, Tipping Point, that finds DeVore and company updating the band's synthesis of punk and ska in a refreshing way.

Times correspondent Ray Roa can be reached at suburbanapologist.com.