Kick Bright Zine's End of March Weekend Music Marathon. |
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This was a crazy weekend for shows. Kristin and I were all over town, drinking more than we should and saw a bunch of great bands and some movies. Saturday was the beginning of the end. Two Miami bands invaded Central Florida in celebration of one of the bands record release on Orlando label Florida's Dying, which also hosted the show at their record store in the Milk District. Both bands had a common element: this guy Eric Lopez Zareno who plays in both bands. He's also in the The Electric Bunnies. The first band to play was Melted Sunglasses, with four members. They were super loud with a driving rhythm section. It was almost a little shoegazey with snotty vocals. I don't know too many punk shoegaze bands. I like this one a lot. Tee Pee is a newish solo project from Eric. It seems to be a purposely focused project with few parts, constant drum machine and keyboard/sampled drones over distorted guitar and vocals. You might even describe it was improvisational punk. It was interesting. Pictures:
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I am totally counting watching The Rock-afire Explosion as seeing a band play a show. Sunday afternoon we went to the Enzian, the independent movie theatre in town, to see the only Florida showing of the documentary movie about The Rock-afire Explosion. It was part of the Florida Film Festival, held every year. I've been dying to see this movie since I first heard about it. One of the greatest untold stories I've not told on Kick Bright is the story of when I visited the Creative Engineering building. It's a warehouse smack dab in the middle of downtown Orlando and has been home to inventor Aaron Fetcher and his Showbiz Pizza animatronic band. I swear it is one of the most amazing places I've ever been to. It's all in the movie. You have to see it. After the film, there was a question/answer session with the two directors as well as Aaron. If that wasn't enough outside in the parking lot was a trailer with the full band. They gave a concert! They did the White Album and some boy band (NSYNC or Backstreet Boys-not sure which) among others.
After the movie we trekked over downtown Orlando to Back Booth where we caught the wonderful Emma Jean Branch. She opened with a few songs just by herself on keyboard and electric guitar. After her was Tampa's own Geri X. She's pretty popular in Tampa- maybe not so much here. Her band was tight and had a good drummer but the whole act wasn't too convincing for me. Too over the top and too cute it wasn't cute. The whole while I was thinking how Emma Jean would blow her off the stage if she had a full band. Closing the night was The Black Rabbits, who if I said they were a cross between The Strokes and The Jonas Brothers they would probably kill me. I kid those Black Brothers, Skylar and Jetson. They have a cool guitar pop sound and are one of the areas most underrated bands. Pictures:
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It's been more than three years since Black Lips made it to Orlando, or Florida for that matter. They got famous so that translates no Florida when we can to to Spain or Brazil. They played an impressive set list of about thirty songs, with a light shows and fog machines. As cheesy as those things are I love that kind of visual behind bands. Though lacking from previous Orlando performances there were no firecrackers and no one made out with each other. By the way, that new song sucks. You know the one about the Postman. I just wanted to point out that Postmen deliver the mail. Openers Gentlemen Jesse and his Men were pretty awesome as well. There seems to be a shortage of current power pop bands that deliver the goods. I like the video below where the Black Lips cover them with silly string. Pictures:
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