Creative Loafing Tampa: Leilani Polk

The Jewell of Alt Country

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 MST

Eilen Jewell talks about her evocative roots music, her buskering background, and her latest album, Sea of Tears.... By Leilani Polk The inspiration for the title track off Eilen Jewell's 2009 album, Sea of Tears, came to the alt-country songstress while she was sleeping. "I had this dream about these two people in a marketplace, an open air space, and for some reason, they happened into each other," Jewell explained to me via phone as she was gearing up for a co-headlining tour with friend and fellow Boston-based roots music rocker, Sara Borges. "He pretended like he didn't see her, and

The Genitorturers frontwoman and metal provocateur celebrates her band's new album with a hometown show

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk The siren wails of ascending notes, the speedy electro hammering of programmed drums and a fat and sinister guitar riff open Blackheart Revolution. And then the bestial growl of Genitorturers frontwoman/namesake Gen aggro blasts onto the track and demands your undivided attention: "Well no one cares about the rock star illusion / No one cares because the mystery is gone / Well, I know it's time for evolution / Now I'm a savior and I've got a solution / I've

Upcoming concerts

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk <--Go back to the music site. NOVEMBERSaturday, Nov. 21 The Revival Tour feat. Chuck Ragan (of Hot Water Music) w/Jim Ward/Frank Turner/John Snodgrass/Chad Price/The Zydepunks Apparently, last year’s tour featuring several punk and garage frontmen performing solo and collaborative sets of material in an acoustic roots format was a success. Ragan (Hot Water Music) returns for the second round, and is joined by (among others) Drag the River’s Snodgrass and Price, and Ward (currently of Sparta, formerly of At the

Junior Boys groove

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 MST

Indietronica duo Junior Boys bring their sexy sounds back to Ybor.... By Leilani Polk You catch the mid-tempo beat as the night fades to black and the lights on the dance floor fall in saturated reds and blues, your body slipping into a supple, hip-shaking groove, ass grinding lightly against the anonymous partner moving at your back, then not so lightly as he draws you closer, and suddenly his breath is on your neck and in your ear and you can smell the musk of invitation on his skin. The music has loosened you

Spin these new albums

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:00:00 MST

Four hot albums released during the past four months. Check it.... By Leilani Polk The Dead Weather Horehound (July 14, Third Man) White Stripes frontman Jack White takes a behind-the-scenes role in his latest project, The Dead Weather, which brings together lead singer Alison Mosshart (of London-based lo-fi post-punk duo The Kills), Raconteurs' bassist Jack Lawrence and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita. The foursome involved weren't fucking around when they went into the studio to produce the 11 tracks on Horehound. Written and recorded in a mere three weeks, the hard

CD Review: The Dead Weather, Horehound

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk White Stripes’ frontman Jack White takes a behind-the-scenes role in his latest project, The Dead Weather, which brings together lead singer Alison Mosshart (of London-based lo-fi post-punk duo The Kills), Raconteurs’ bassist Jack Lawrence, and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita. The foursome involved weren’t fucking around when they went into the studio to produce the 11 tracks on Horehound (released July 14 on Third Man Records). Written and recorded in a mere three weeks, the hard rock

Review: Phish, Joy

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk Phish announced they were calling it quits a month before dropping their 10th official studio album in 2004. Their last release under Elektra, Undermind was a brilliant work, moody and driving psyche rock studded with upbeat pop and the odd goof-off. But its dark and melancholy moments were too much a reflection of Phish’s own unhealthy state at the time and the shadow of their imminent demise hung over the music, making it easy to appreciate but hard to enjoy.

CD Review: Islands, Vapours

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk Montreal rock ensemble Islands made an indie splash in ’06 with their breezy, mellifluous popadelic debut, Return to the Sea. The adventurous and progressive second effort, Arm’s Way, followed on a wave of dramatic symphonics in ’08. The third, Vapours (out Sept. 22, today, on Anti-), finds the band moving in a New Wave-wheeling and dance music-dealing direction. Vapours also marks the return of drummer and founding member Jamie Thompson, who split shortly after the release of Sea. “I wanted

Peter Bjorn and John have taken their music in unexpected directions

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk The stickiest whistling of the 21st century was conceived in Sweden, nurtured in the collective musical subconscious of three Stockholm musicians, shaped by their distinct creative personalities and love of New Wave, alt rock and '60s pop, and born several years later in a catchy, charming pop ditty, "Young Folks." By that time, Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John -- singer/guitarist Peter Morén, singer/bassist/keyboardist Bjorn Yttling and singer/drummer/percussionist John Eriksson -- had enjoyed some minor fame, but still worked day

Fall Arts Guide 2009: They will rock you

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:00:00 MST

The fall's top rock/pop tours and trends... By Leilani Polk Florida isn't a pass-through state. Artists tend to skip our peninsula in favor of easier routes across the South. Fortunately, the Tampa Bay area has plenty of reasons for bands to make a detour: several colleges' worth of students, a prime location in the middle of the state and a generous measure of great venues. This fall's visitors range from big-name talent to random rock-and-rollers to electro experimenters; here are the season's top trends and don't-miss concerts. Rock/PopI love the

Leilani Polk introduces herself as Creative Loafing's music editor

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:00:00 MST

Creative Loafing old hand Leilani Polk offers her offical introduction as the newbie music editor... By Leilani Polk Who the fuck is this person? you think with disgust as you read my apathetic reaction to Steely Dan’s performance at Ruth Eckerd Hall. You find yourself compelled to school me on my apparent lack of knowledge, compose an angry response listing all the reasons I am wrong, berate my abilities as a journalist and my failure as a music critic overall. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW AND WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I CARE? you conclude in all caps

Black Moth Super Rainbow puts the "psych" in psychedelic, though frontman Tobacco thinks of his band's music as pop

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk Pennsylvania experimental rock ensemble Black Moth Super Rainbow hit retro and modern notes all at once with their day-glo vibrant electro-dance melodies, fizzadelic folk shambles and made-for-space jams. It's some of the headiest music you'll find out there right now, but songwriter/frontman/creative conscience Tobacco (real name Tom Fec) doesn't consider his music psychedelic at all. "I think everything I do is pop," he told me a few weeks ago during a phone interview before the second leg of the band's

A conversation with Eugene Hütz, maestro of the gypsy punksters Gogol Bordello

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk Google "gypsy punk" and most of the dozen or so results relate back to Gogol Bordello. While Gogol's Ukraine-born visionary/composer Eugene Hütz isn't interested in taking credit for spearheading a whole new movement in American music, his band's influence is undeniable. Gogol grew out of NYC's underground music scene, just as much a melting pot as the city itself. Hütz immersed himself in it and assembled a motley crew of talented, multi-ethnic musicians to create his gypsy punk orchestra and

Texas five-piece band Dignan is unsigned, unencumbered and happy to stay that way

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk Dignan w/ Look Mexico/XOXO?Alexander and the Grapes, Fri., July 17, 9 p.m., Crowbar, Ybor City, $6 in advance/$8 dos (ages 18 and up). You'd imagine Dignan's music is conceived somewhere cold and snowy grey and stunning in its starkness, a place for thinking meaningful thoughts and contemplating life's everlasting mysteries. Not a Texas town located a mere five miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border and boasting a significant Hispanic community. "There's not much of that in the music," bassist and

Review: Regina Spektor, far

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:00:00 MST

By Leilani Polk It’s been three years since Soviet-American songstress Regina Spektor first enchanted us with the soul-pop perfection of Begin to Hope and proved herself a storyteller with a keen sense of detail and drama, a confident singer with a broad vocal range — from high and pure to low and sensual — and a poet with a unique use of words and an alluring inflection, not as if English were her second language, but as if she’s established a whole new