The Heartless Bastards, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Band
That’s me, sitting there under a café umbrella with my girlfriend and her sister, drinking a beer, killing time at the one wet spot we could find on the University of Florida campus. Next to us there are a half dozen tables showcasing the parenthetical Diaspora of college freshmen, multicultural clean-cut kids stressing about finals, French manicures, iPhone apps, Ultimate Frisbee. On our other side there’s a four-top of thirty-somethings looking bored with their 8 oz cups of beer, presumably waiting for the Heartless Bastards show to begin, just as we were. The show was free; some sort of college radio promotion or school newspaper bill-filler for students to cap their Thursday night. At the time, the band was in an early-summer sabbatical, having released The Mountain the year before to excellent reviews, Brasky.org included. That album was an organic, slow moving exercise in Middle American blues-rock, at times almost suspiciously like the Black Keys, at others emotionally twee or self-defeating with a twist of old-timey Billie Holliday-style intrigue. It was a big record that I can’t say I saw coming, and maybe the band didn’t either. At this point the band had reached whatever peak of popularity they have yet seen, whether it be “indie darlings” or “relative obscurity” or “generally favorable reviews on metacritic”. They were still two years away from Arrow, their newest release; it’s a record that could be dismissed as formulaic if the band weren’t so damn clever in the execution.
So there I am in 2010, on beer number two, wondering how many of these kids were here for the show… I could discern that there were seven of us at this point: if you were drinking beer, you were here for the Bastards. At some point a couple of unkempt but plain-looking kids come walking around the corner with something almost too tempered to be purpose. They know who the Bastards are and they want to talk. They make the awkward slow approach to the table, and address the band with the Chris Farley Show-style reverent stutter, and the young dudes are in. With their cover now blown, the table of four next to us spends the next half an hour calmly chatting down their new best friends, seeming as if they just want to go back to being the table of people chatting about somebody’s sister’s wedding before realizing that they have some indie-rock duty to be gamely interested in fan banter and not pull some Roger Waters audience-as-cattle-existential-rockstar-meltdown shit. Eventually they defer the conversation, as they now have to head upstairs and play a tight yet awkward show to a transient, tidal crowd that wandered in and out of this high-ceilinged Reitz Union ballroom straight out of a 1980s prom. The band played old favorites, pushed hard for the finish and gave front-woman Erika Wennerstrom plenty of time to prove why she’s one of the most underrated American songwriters at work today. It was nice and loud, and tracks from the Mountain translated well to live performance. Yet leaving the show I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that, fuck, those folks probably have honest-to-god day jobs.
In the view from 20,000 feet, the Heartless Bastards make lemonade of some of the central tropes of garage rock with a wise-but-not-figured-out understatement that earns them plenty of kitsch credit. Upon closer examination, the band takes that sonic familiarity and bonds it with a mythos-less fervor that bubbles up and out from some inner penchant to sing, with an ease of song that stifles cliché. The music works because it’s honest and it’s easy. It’s not the next sub-genre touchstone, it’s not going to wash out Brooklyn basements with torrents of Tuesday night dance sweat and it’s not going to get a Glee send-up, but it’s quality music with the right kind of subtlety.
On the heels of the aforementioned (and terrific) Arrow come the Heartless Bastards back to Florida, with three dates in the Central Florida Area: Tampa 5/15; Orlando 5/16; and Gainesville 5/17. Go see if you can spot them before the show.
Brasky.org officials found themselves in a unique spot this week. Brasky is offering Tampa denizens an exciting PREVIEW of a well-hyped upcoming show… The Mountain Goats, the indie superstars behind one of the most emboldened and passionate acts in music today, have shows in Central Florida on back to back nights. Brasky staff attended the show in Orlando on Tuesday night and are fully prepared to simultaneously discuss the proceedings and TOTALLY SPOIL the Wednesday night show in Tampa. Read on if you dare…
Part 1 – The Band (Skip to part two if you just want to know the juicy show details)
“Why the heck would I go see a band called the Mountain Goats?” This is a question that all those unfamiliar with the group surely will ask themselves. Newcomers are typically puzzled when confronting the M.G.’s didactic lyricism and hustling compositions; “is this folk, or hastily assembled irish sea shanties, or emo, or all three?” The Mountain Goats, to use an obscure cliche, are like licorice. People that like licorice, seriously like licorice. But most people can’t stand the stuff.
John Darnielle, the longtime frontman of the group, is a journeyman songwriter. He is a man that has lived in all corners of the United States and takes great pleasure in shining a light into the deepest corners of mundane human experience. He has the ability to bring staggering insight and craft musicianship together in a way that ties Neutral Milk Hotel to Bruce Springsteen while daftly stepping over the pitfalls that consumed Dashboard Confessional and Neil Young. The Mountain Goats have never seen full-blown indie success outside of college and XM radio, but their stunning catalog established the band as giants of the genre well before the Decemberists picked up their mandolas and accordions.
The newest album, All Eternal’s Deck, finds the band at their tightest, cleanest, and most incisive. The tunes move along with a confident swagger punctuated by snappy drumming and percussive guitar playing. The real jewel in all of the M.G.’s hard work is the bare-hearted lyrics. Darnielle’s gift is encapsulating the one moment per year when a person feels the most solipsistic; in this reverie the songwriter fashions breathless humanity into something no less stirring than a brutal personal memory, sung in a voice that sounds like a friend standing an arm’s length away, in the most dire of confidence. The narratives are a particularly visceral description of soaring highs and crushing lows that contain cutting conversational humor which evokes John Updike, Virginia Woolf, and, dare I say, David Foster Wallace. From the new album we have gems like “sometimes the sickness howls and I despair of any remedy” and “anyone here mentions Hotel California dies before the first line clears his lips”. If you, as a reader, take one thing to this show with you, it should be this: the lyrics are everything, and more than a few people will know all the words to the songs. And they will sing along. Hard.
Part Two: The Live Show
Nurses
The Mountain Goats are supported on this tour by Nurses, a Portland indie outfit with solid bass lines and simple Modest Mouse-like flourishes that punctuate relaxed three minute carousals. I must admit that they sound much more thin en vivo than on recordings. Your humble reviewer considers himself a relatively objective critic, yet he is none the less having a hard time not completely dismissing Nurses. I will simply refer back to my notes from the event: “Man, is that guy gonna sing like that the whole time? Inconsequential; nothing discernible to say; an even quieter Vampire Weekend, or better yet, a hipster UB40. The band works hard and sounds pretty good but it’s insanely forgettable. The set ends not with a bang but with a whimper: they just stopped playing what sounded like mid-song and packed up their instruments. About a dozen people really, really liked them.”
The Mountain Goats
As soon as MG hits the stage, expect intimacy with authenticity. As the band picked up their instruments, it felt distinctly like your cool uncle just showed up to Thanksgiving and the day was taking a turn for the better. Darnielle exists at the intersection of John Lennon and Stephen Colbert; unlikely rock star, comfortable demagogue, unrepentant bad boy and a sponge for gratitude. The man is a garrulous host who effortlessly ad libs and tells emphatic stories that wrap up with clever pay-offs and the opening chords of an interesting song. Repeatedly he effortlessly downplayed the hoots and taunts of drunks in the crowd with wit and elegance. The whole show lacked the sensation that the band was on a stage performing for paying guests, yet it was still quite easy to maintain the meek, inner thrill of being entertained. Darnielle is a consummate professional that often requests total silence and IPA’s (Harpoon, but he conceded that he would take a similar product) so that he may work within his comfort zone; keeping the frontman in the right mindset is in everybody’s interest. There were moments of grandeur but also an unsettling amount of errors and misfires. Several times Darnielle asked the audience for help remembering lyrics, and during a couple of new songs he had to consort with his band mates mid-song before he chuckled to himself and muttered things like “BFlat, yes…” and promptly picked up where he left off. Darnielle came very close to losing control more than twice as people began to talk and grow restless, but the songs always wrapped up quickly enough to rekindle interest. The crowd seemed fairly grown-up and difficult to impress. A dense cluster of passionate fans formed an island deep in front of the stage, and Darnielle’s frequent Florida references clearly delighted the faithful. The fact of the matter is that he is a better entertainer than a musician; there are quiet moments where he visibly decides whether to be funny as hell or darkly profound. Darnielle is a self-admitted well of energy that will settle for rambling diatribes that are well received by the crowd so long as they are willing to forgive his frequent lapses of memory; “I feel guilty but I can’t feel ashamed,” he sings in “Prowl Great Cain”. His backing band helps create a full sound but never seems like anything more than veteran practice mates. The musical support works for most of the show but lets Darnielle go solo for a few songs so that he may indulge in mid-set requests, rarities and one-man piano ballads. When they close with “This Year”, the crowd that had been patiently waiting to sing their hearts out released some great cathartic energy that was mitigated by knowing that it was going to be the last song… or was it amplified by the very same sensation? The encore came as a certainty, perhaps due to the fact that each song in their catalog plays like an encore. The Mountain Goats are innocuous yet mature: frightening no one, delighting a few and satisfying all. Verdict: exciting, fun, but not quite worth the bar tab.
The Set List:
Yeah Right. Brasky doesn’t remember the names of any songs. Except the two already mentioned above. Okay, and he also played “Jam Eater Blues”, which features the line “Life is too short to spend of the rest of it down here in Tampa…”
PRO-TIP! Yell and scream for them to play The Alphonse Mambo. It’s also about Tampa, fools.
Disclaimer: Don’t take what we say too seriously, just go to the show! Do it! Support excellent music!
In light of America’s last shuttle flight, Aaron weighs in on the legacy of the most familiar of space-faring vessels and a true Florida Icon, the Space Shuttle.
In 2011, mankind witnessed the conclusion of America’s grandest technological odyssey: the final launch of the Space Shuttle. STS-135, a four member mission of the space shuttle Atlantis, is the ultimate mission within a thirty year old campaign of scientific exploration and intrepid posturing by the most powerful, free nation in the world. For me, a young man that can recall standing outside in shorts and long socks, waving a tiny American flag and watching the shuttle arc into the sky while the glass doors on our patio shook with the unbelievable thrust of booster engines, this completion foreshadows too many ceilings to adequately name. There is the dearth of jobs to be snagged after NASA’s jettisoned workers enter the job market, the festering of the county that bore my youth, and only a lingering dream of being awakened by the twin thumps of orbiter re-entry. This is the series finale, the funeral of some beloved celebrity, of a distant acquired part of my identity.
But what does the final shuttle mission mean for everyone else? For the dreaming child who looks to the sky, imagining his or her waving coattails are some sunny manifestation of flight, it’s nothing more than a page in a history book. For a meddlesome twenty-something, it’s a drunken annotation that yet another memory from childhood no longer exists, just like Fraggle Rock or Marcy Playground. For the late career suburbanite, it’s another phase transitioning, a tightening of America’s belt; these are all visions of the same objective reality. America has changed.
Once the prerogative of an innovative country, the American space program is a galloping horse pulled up by the reins of global uncertainty. The palpable excess of missiles and mission commanders has been examined by the elected officials in charge of the nation’s compass, and from the halls of congress down to the hermetic recesses of NASA headquarters comes the executive orders that we no longer are to continue critical maneuvers. Behind the backs of American heroes, the rest of us turned away from the glory of testing the impossible and focused our gaze on simply what possible was left. Shaking hands became shaking heads, and there’s nothing that Bill Nelson can do about it anymore.
What is the media’s onus in this case, beyond covering the physical act of spaceflight and the thrill of escaping the itching beckon of being earthbound? We interview those involved, we highlight the science, and we even decide to cover the human stories behind the communities that stand to lose the most from the contraction of NASA. But can any story describe the feeling of looking upward only to know that science fiction is becoming more fiction than science? I could recount all of the personal memories of growing up on the space coast, as shuttle-centric as the nineties was, but none of these will be as poignant as the main idea of this essay: exploration is too costly for a nation that is selfish enough to cease to invest in efforts that the least common denominator can no longer see as beneficial. We all must accept that America agrees to a different promise with each and every citizen.
When we raced the Russians to the moon, there was a marked mission. It was America’s largest homework assignment. The message and intention of the space program was of a dynamic and mysterious import. It was America’s best doing America’s best. In the newspaper and telephone age, the space program was a narrative that paralleled the American ideal, something like the stock market or movie ticket sales. It was a marketable commodity, a risk and reward that every man and woman could look to as a measure of the capability of the empire in which we Americans most dearly believed. In this age of hyper-cognizance, the space program must seem like some boring, under-sexualized waste of money. We crave the launch and digest the photographs of Earth’s majesty, but have somehow been desensitized to the point that an honest effort to study the rigors of the universe seems like PBS when we have fifty channels of HBO. If only each person in America could stand in evening light and have their pant-legs ruffled from miles away by the outrageous power of launch, if only policy-makers could cease glad-handing for long enough to see the Earth as that tiny blue ball that direly needs that distant perspective… but alas, the space program’s death knell was already sounded nearly a decade ago.
On the morning of February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia failed catastrophically on re-entry and killed all seven members aboard. I recall visiting a friend that afternoon whose father worked for NASA. It was early in the day, yet this man was sitting on the floor, back against the couch, drunk beyond his ability to stand, clutching a photo of him in the cargo bay of the lost shuttle. He pointed feebly at the photograph, mumbling that it was ‘fucking done’. I couldn’t have known then that that cool afternoon would echo sonorously eight years later. That sensation of twisting, nauseating confusion, that slow, dying certainty must pervade upbeat news reports from the space coast. This mission must feel somewhat like failure no matter the outcome. Many will blame Obama, although it was Bush in 2004 that enacted this inevitable doom, and even in that case, we are all complicit. In an age of fear and domestic turmoil, how does leaving the Earth remain a concern?
I personally believe that the wide-eyed desire to test the bounds of our planet will burst and bloom into a remarkable age of new exploration sooner rather than later. The setting sun is always followed by the starry canopy of night, and then again by the glowing rise of a hopeful sun; for us here on Earth it occurs once a day, and for those in orbit it occurs once every ninety minutes.
Man will continue to explore the universe. This is inherent in our wandering, ingenious souls. But the grievous hole left by one of America’s dearest icons cannot go unaddressed. I have known many of the men and women involved in this most noble of tasks, casting a light into the hulking void of space. These contemporary Magellans are lifting the tons of hopes and thoughts of all mankind into the sky as they travel, for the final time, on America’s most meticulous and successful systems: the space shuttle. From all of us here on Earth: Godspeed, Atlantis!
The Tampa City Council will be voting on our zoning requests for the new store location, (4500 N. Nebraska Ave.), this Thursday, June 9 at 6:00 in the City Council Chambers, located on the 3rd floor of City Hall, 306 E. Jackson St. Aside from a parking waiver, we have requested zoning allowing us to sell beer, wine and liquor on premise and to go. Our vision behind this is to open a small brewery and winery to compliment our homebrewing and winemaking shop, which will use half of the building. Wine and beer making hobbyists can experience the whole range of the craft by observing a professional brewing and winemaking operation, tasting artisanal beers and wine, interacting with the brewer and winemaker and shopping for equipment and supplies, all under one roof.
Our hopes are also to contribute to the revitalization of Seminole Heights by giving our newly purchased building a face lift and further establishing the neighborhood as a destination point for craft beer and wine enthusiasts.
So please show your support by attending the meeting or by sending an email to the Council members below. And if you are able to support us by attending the meeting, please join us at Tampa Bay Brewing Company afterwards for some great beer and wine.
BRSKY wants to see your magnanimous emails to the elected officials below:
In light of the upcoming Craft Beer Week, we here at Brasky are looking to shine a light on how to correctly enjoy the fruits of fermentation in the Tampa Bay area. So, in volume 1 of our new series ‘Go Here, Drink This’, we decided to showcase some of Tampa’s finest music venues. As Brasky knows firsthand, drinks at major venues are typically overpriced and underwhelming. They’re usually clear, yellow, overfizzed and nine dollars a pop, sometimes citing a ‘souvenir’ cup as incentive to overpay. Every cup is a souvenir cup if you take the damn thing home with you!
Luckily for you, it turns out that some music venues in the Tampa Bay area do strive to promise tasty and affordable brews for the nuanced imbiber. Brasky knows that there are times when a show that piques one’s interest may teeter on the brink of your attendance, requiring some intangible last push to get you out to see live music you may live to regret missing. For most of us here at Brasky, beer is that glorious shove. Each venue below gives an idea of the venue’s vibe, and of course, a GO-TO BREW to enjoy during your next visit.
Perhaps Tampa Bay’s best place to catch hot up-and-coming touring groups, Crowbar has gone from ‘that bar on the side street next to the scientology place’ to a must-stop for bands like Caribou, Bonobo, and Maserati.
With multiple bars, good ventilation and plenty of vantage points,
GO-TO BREW: HopDevil IPA
Crowbar has proven itself to be a worthy stage for next level national artists and low-key weeknight jams. Even though the beers may come in a plastic cup on nights with big attendance, it doesn’t hurt the fact that the daddy juice you’re throwing down is top-notch.
In mother Ybor, you drink beer! Czar has recently been booking bigger acts and supplying tastier beverages to enjoy while doing so. The full Brasky.org crew attended a recent set by experimental beat-god Daedelus, and members could be seen drinking top notch Vodka, tall, frosty $2 PBRs, and Dogfish Head 90-minutes. The main ballroom is a baroque mosh pit, and the red velvet rope feel of the staff and setting would make Bill Brasky yearn for his days in Moscow VIPs
GO-TO BREW: Rogue Mocha Porter
with beautiful disinterested zhenshchinas pouring Baltic Porter into his waiting mouth. All Brasky aside, Czar is a class act with a solid bottle list and an excellent list of upcoming shows including Phantogram and Glitch Mob.
At one point, New World Brewery produced its own beer and sold it to swilling consumers by the mugful, and while that’s no longer the case, this 8th avenue mainstay does its best to keep Ybor’s widest selection of craft brews and rare suds. Recently Bill Brasky caught some regional garage thrash-core chick rock while throwing down some Old Rasputin at an outdoor picnic table. He then drank a 3-liter bottle of Val-dieu while a bunch of tatted up fixed-gear babes tried to act like they weren’t impressed. That not enough? He then sipped a Great Divide Tripel between rounds of Foosball while pumping tunes on Tampa Bay’s highest rated jukebox. Though you and I may never be able to look at Bill Brasky
GO-TO BREW: Anchor Porter
face to face, New World Brewery’s bossness is in no way exaggerated, and the site may in fact be the seminal Tampa Bay beer mecca. Regional acts are king at this venue, so the covers are never too heavy and the talent is always surprising and off the wall.
The most irie place on our list, Skipper’s is the only venue to sport live oak trees, TVs with the game, an oyster bar, and the best bathroom wall graffiti in Tampa Bay. Tempered by year after year of oppressive Florida heat and chill reggae jams, Skipper’s is outdoor music paradise, and if you’re fortunate enough to be around in February, it is also the annual location of Brewer’s Ball,
GO-TO BREW: Magic Hat #9
the Florida Brewer’s Guild’s huge post-judging party and beer tasting. From blues acts like Joe Bonamassa and the Black Keys to weekly Grateful Dead tribute shows, Skipper’s is a great place to meet old friends and new buddies under the smiling fizz of delicious beach-worthy brews.
Tampa Bay’s lovable little shithole deserves a spot on this list if just for the fact that they’re out there putting their neck on the line every night, whether it’s pornaoke, death metal, or a band some college kids made up last week called ‘Kevin’s Mom’s Taint’. Living in the shadows of Busch Gardens roller coasters, the Pegasus Lounge has been the
GO-TO BREW: Pabst Blue Ribbon
site of decades of bad decisions, cigarette bumming, and beer partakery. Yes, I know Brasky left off the Orpheum off of this list, but hey, in a ‘whose place is smokier’ contest, no one beats the Pegasus Lounge, folks.
It’s been a full year since our last Publix Beer Cheers segment, and boy has a lot gone down. Our favorite local grocier, Publix, has begun a full-scale roll-out of delicious craft beers that has spilled over into end caps and coolers, bringing top notch libations to the free world and beyond. In honor of the bombers, six packs and finely packaged Belgian treats that we see on a weekly basis, Brasky would like to highlight five beers that you, the local hero that you are, can get at your neighborhood Publix. If you live in another part of the country, well, try Wegmans, Raleys, you get the drift. Publix is based in Central Florida, ok? Alright, now. Go on, read the beer cheers. Git!
Bell’s Brewing is a Michigan mainstay. While this beer may prove intensely hoppy for the light lager crowd, this is the kind of brew Brasky drinks at 11:00 AM on a Thursday: clean, fragrant, and feisty. Citrus hops bite first while a welcome bitterness coats the top of your tongue, all washed down with a fine, creeping alcohol response. A balanced amber body makes this guy just too easy to get attached to, perhaps you should pick up two six packs? Oh, but keep your eyes open: Two Hearted may be available in a mini-keg at your local Publix… but don’t get your hopes up.
Two Hearted Ale is a nice, country IPA with a kind soul and and gentle demeanor. On the other hand, Hop Devil is an ass kicker, a real mean dude with up front hops, an ale sweetness and an unabashed bitterness that suits the beady eyed Devil bastard on the label. This is for Intermediate beer fans looking to get into the real hoppy shit. Victory Brewing, a Pennsylvania purveyor of pale ales, is on a meteoric rise to brewing prominence. If you think you can hang with the hoppiest, they are notable also for Hop Wallop, which you should have to sign a waiver to obtain. When Hop Devil tastes like Old Milwaukee, then you’re ready for Hop Wallop. Until then, you are bound to be a slave to the Devil. Praise be to Hops!
In less than a year since our last Beer Cheers, Cigar City has blown up on the brewing scene. We at Brasky have worn out our fingertips writing about our love for Cigar City, but this robust porter is just the Cat’s Pajamas. Full of a gingerbread-thick body and a satisfying coffee sweetness, the Jose Marti Porter is a startlingly drinkable brew, brown, thick and delicious. And at 8% alcohol, this quaffer will bring that special joy more quickly than your average ale. Jose Marti is Cuba’s national hero, a revolutionary that became famous for being an instrument in blah blah blah google it. This brew may only be available for a limited time, so seek it out!
Ah, Belgium. The beer drinker’s paradise. Chimay is the most accessible Belgian brew stateside, and the Grande Reserve is a fine example of the intricacies of flavor and texture that these classic brews serve up. Grande Reserve is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, which if your experience in Belgian beers is slim to none, I have no way of explaining to you what it tastes like. But, Brasky will give it a shot. It will have a tangy alcohol effervescence, with a color that will belie its body and taste; in other words, it will be crisp, spiced, and robustly fruity rather than big and stout. The sugars and unique strains of yeast present in Belgian beers provide esters (products of acids and alcohols) typical of various fruits that make beer geeks pontificate ad nauseum… but let’s just say you’ll get notes of fruits like fig, plum, hell, maybe banana. This guy is special, and if you give it a fair shot, it may open the door to a wide world of beer styles that pay dividends if one wishes to explore.
Now we’re talking! This Oregon brewery has a whole cast of savory characters. The Shakespeare Stout is a full bodied brew that straddles the line between porter and stout, bridging the gap with a sturdy hoppiness yet teasing the palate with sensations of chocolate malt. This is a thinking man’s brew, a beer to gift the connoisseur in your family/friend group. Brasky also highly recommends exploring the entire line of Rogue products. However, this particular beer is a celebratory aid, a dessert, an appetizer, and if you’re Bill Brasky, a nasal spray.
I will add a final note regarding these beer choices: some of the above listed beers are seasonal, and are thus not available all the time. Also, each Publix is fairly unique as to what beers they carry. I select these posts based on what is available at the Publix on Fowler Avenue in Tampa, Florida (near the University of South Florida). That being said, quit yer whinin’ and get to sippin’!
Brasky staff was treated to an excellent surprise on Tuesday, when at a regional beer club meeting, Joey Redner from Cigar City Brewing showed up with a brand new case of 2011′s Hunahpu Imperial Stout. In addition to being subject to a sample six weeks before the official roll out (more info below), Brasky was privileged to pop tops in the company of some of Florida’s most distinguished beer aficionados. But wait a second, what’s Hunahpu? Don’t worry, son. Brasky will tell you.
2010′s Bourbon Barrel aged Hunahpu was the number 3 beer in the WORLD, according to RateBeer.com. The regular version? Number 17. No big deal. Not for a brewery in its second year of production. In 2011, Hunahpu and its various incarnations make up three of the top 32 entrants into best beer in the world, including #10 and 12 in the US, and #2 in the world for Stouts. What is it that makes this brew so unbelievable?
Take an award winning Imperial Stout recipe, add Mayan cacao nibs and Madagascar Vanilla beans, and you’re getting into uncharted territory. But top it off with a perfect dosage of Ancho and Pasillo chilis, take the ABV up to 11.5%, and this beer clearly has something special going on.
It pours flat, big black cocoa diesel fuel, clinging to the side of the glass with viscous alcohol legs. The nose is chocolate sweetness, and the first sip is an exploration of texture, as slight carbonation seeps out of a rich, savory thickness. The vanilla is more evident after the initial cacao explosion subsides, and just as one notices the alcohol linger the chili peppers match the tone with a numbing sparkle. Each sip is novel, and the intensity is so balanced and natural in flavor that even the most experienced tasters grasp at terms wise enough to encompass this taste. What amazes us is the sheer body of this beer; Russian imperial stouts and Baltic porters are notorious for their inky black thickness, but Hunahpu is something special. The sheer cojones it takes to dream of this beer are noteworthy, but to make it work, kudos. Kudos.
Cigar City will release the 2011 Hunahpu March 12 at the Cigar City Brewery in Tampa Florida. The Brewery is on Spruce Street just west of Dale Mabry Highway.
*NOTE* Limit four bombers per attendee… there are allegedly only 3,000 bottles available for the event. Plan your trip accordingly! Join the Event on Facebook!
The Beauvilles are a Florida-based group that have been heating up stages across the country with their blues-rock-jam songcraft for nearly a decade. In fact, if you live in the Sunshine State, and haven’t somehow stumbled across the Beauvilles, you apparently have been quite content with hiding in the safety of your own home. Brasky caught up with Shawn Beauville, the once-and-for-all frontman of the group, and he offered some insights into the music biz, the religion of music, and why Florida holds a special appeal for their kickass brand of rock and roll.
Brasky: Recently we’ve decided it was due time to start covering some regional music, and our first thought was ‘Gotta get the Beauvilles in on this.’
Shawn Beauville: Rock and Roll.
Brasky: It certainly seems as if The Beauvilles have been busy lately, logging seven shows at SXSW alone. That seems to be the requisite way to get noticed these days: head to CMJ or SXSW, play until you bleed, get signed. How many separate gigs at an event like that do you think it takes to get people talking?
SB: We really were not playing that many shows in that amount of time intentionally, I think they set us up to do so many shows to keep us busy so we stay out of trouble. With any ‘industry’ music event the main allure is that you have a captive audience of industry, media, and general music lovers who made the trek there from all over the world. But both CMJ and SXSW are drastically different than their legends tell at this point. Both have become media frenzies, with music writers and the like trying to figure out what the labels are pushing, and occasionally stumbling upon a band that no one has ever heard of.
For us, we don’t really have any secret motives of becoming famous or anything, if we are invited and it seems like a wild time, we will travel cross country to be there, especially to Austin and NYC; both cities and the people there have been really kind to us in the last year. As far as getting people talking, I think one show alone can do that, I would rather have one true lover of the music that we convert at a warehouse party than a packed club of trendy people who would forget about you tomorrow. But I don’t really think much about this sort of thing, I am just a guitar player.
Brasky: Indeed. Your rock and roll sensibilities have been compared to the likes of Robert Plant and Jack White…what sets you apart from the ‘iconic’ version of a rock star?
SB: Iconic means different things to different people. There are certain musicians that I love and still listen to on vinyl when I am back home. T-Rex, David Bowie, Thin Lizzy, the Byrds, Eddie Cochran, Otis Redding, Nico & the Velvet Underground, and of course Led Zeppelin and may more from that era all represent a particular kind of music that was as uncompromising as it was authentic. I think now more than ever, people need that sort of music. But, I have no real perspective on what I am actually doing at this point or how we are viewed… If you are in the middle of a river and may drown, you stop thinking about how you look trying to keep above the water.
Brasky: According to your biography, you list music as your religion. Who do you think is the sitting pope of the church of music?
SB: That’s a really funny question. At this point, probably Willie Nelson. He seems to have the cleanest soul out of all of the legends left alive.
Brasky: You’ve been playing around the bay area for as long as anyone Brasky can think of (except maybe Mike Tozier)… What keeps you in Tampa?
SB: I grew up in suitcase city in northern Tampa, and in and around the historic district of Ybor, which until recently was a pretty damn dangerous place. I was lucky and didn’t wind up in jail or worse. At first I was a painter, and then a glassblower, and involved in some of the undergrounds arts collectives that started to spring up at the time. I had a few great loves that lived here. I left and went out west for a little while and wandered back, met some musicians that were set to tour, signed on, almost got a big record deal with them, didn’t, got offered to move to Austin and join an act on a major label that had a hit single, chose not to because their music was horrible… when I recorded my first EP in 2005 all the band lived here in Florida, we were living in a house that was recently demolished, and it was our recording studio, with vintage guitars and such piled everywhere, when we were invited to perform for the Grammy foundation because of it, we couldn’t believe it. There was a time around then that I thought about relocating, but right before I got to the point to pull the trigger, I would be offered some sort of opportunity, and I would be back on the road or back in a studio or back on an airplane. And yes, I still live here, I sleep here most of the time, but that doesn’t mean that it is limiting. And in reality the sort of music that I do, it wouldn’t help me to be in LosAngeles, I can’t remember the last time I heard a good band come out of LA.
Also, I like soul food. You can’t get soul food in Los Angeles or New York.
Brasky: Yeah, I seriously doubt Los Angeles can put greens on the table that would impress anyone from the South. One last question: You’ve already kicked off the festival season with an appearance at Harvest of Hope in St. Augustine… anything big on tap for the summer?
SB: We do have a summer tour that is getting worked on. How far out we are going to go, I am not sure… we have already been tapped for CMJ again in New York this coming October, and the PlaySTL festival in St.Louis for September, so we may be doing a southeastern tour for summer and then the East coast in September-October behind our upcoming record. I have been trying to get the agent to book us at only house parties for a tour, just to get our heads straight. We love playing these big stages, but it is more fun to be packed into a crowd. No separation between the audience and us. That’s rock and roll.
(This is a serious article. To see the gag plan filed with the University of Florida, click here)
So it finally happened, huh? You thought all those dorks running around playing Cops and Robbers: Zombie Edition were just wasting their time preparing for nothing. Well, it turned out that Zombies were real. Or, in an effort to be fair to any Zombies reading this page, “individuals suffering from ‘Zombie Behavior Spectrum Disorder’” were real. If you are living in the Sunshine state, and want to keep your tasty little brains in your skull where they belong, then you will heed this list of Survival tips, as suggested to Brasky by survivalist and redneck Patrick ‘Speedy’ Ross.
1. AVOID HOSPITALS. This is where the zombies will most likely begin their assault, and also may be lying in wait for an easy meal.
2. AVOID THE INTERSTATES. This is a no-brainer (lol). Being swamped in Florida traffic (ok ok) leaves you a sitting duck. If for some reason you want to leave the state, we have provided a map with highways in blood red and favorable back roads in cover-of-night black. PRINT THIS. It is a stroke of luck that you still have the internet with this whole Zombie thing going on.
3. ZOMBIES CAN’T SWIM, BUT NEITHER CAN YOU. Zombies may not be able to get to you in the ocean or a river, but you can’t stay there forever. And what about fucking Zombie Sharks? Speedy has a suggestion: “I took the screen offa backa my airboat so I can pop wheelies and shred the bastards.”
4. DISNEY IS A BAD IDEA. So is the Everglades. Zombie Pythons?
5. STOCK UP ON BEER. Speedy seems to think that a few cans of Busch Light will be worth two pairs of shoes and a case of shotgun shells after the apocalypse. Brasky agrees and adds Gin to the list.
6. EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ZOMBIES IS WRONG. You are not a zombie expert and neither are we. Speedy: “I seen them movies got’s the Zombies pukin everywhere. That’s some horseshit.” Bottom line: Everything is going to be weird. Nobody will know what’s going on, and that’s not important. What’s important is not getting eaten.
7. HUMANS ARE NOT NECESSARILY YOUR FRIEND. Studies have shown that 68% of people will use a Zombie invasion as a license to kill whoever they want whenever they want. This is not a movie. It’s not even Apocalypse Now. It’s OH FUCK THERE’S GUTS FUCKING EVERYWHERE.
8. LITTLE TOWNS ARE A GOOD AND A BAD IDEA. Got this idea that some little town on the Suwannee River would make a great hideout til the whole thing just blows over? It probably will. But you’re probably not the first people to think of that plan. And maybe there’s a Zombie IN THE TRUNK OF YOUR CAR! You blew it for everyone.
Speedy was able to give us some final insights into how we can start to prepare for the coming wave of mindless murderers:
“Used t’work with a Haitian sumbitch said they tacked the corpses down with two foot a’rebar when they buried em to keep em from wakin up n’walkin. Sounds God damned genius to me, I told em. He wan’t that bright though, used to mow lawns with em and he couldn’t keep that weedeater off the screen porches. Shit behind someone’s hot tub n left the paper once too. Name’s Smiley.”
“If ya do have to engage em in combat fer God’s sake go fer the head. They cain’t see smell er hear ya afterwards. Ya oughta pick their pockets when yer done with em too.”
At left: Speedy’s cousin String Bean shows off his close range weaponry.
“Ya gotta learn to cook what ya can. They ain’t no ChickFilA after the Zombies eat everythang.”
“If’n ya see one them girls with lotsa tattoos kickin some real ass send her this way, son.”
That’s me, sitting there under a café umbrella with my girlfriend and her sister, drinking a beer, killing time at the one wet spot we could find on the University of Florida campus. Next to us there are a half dozen tables showcasing the parenthetical Diaspora of college freshmen, multicultural clean-cut kids stressing about finals, French manicures, iPhone apps, Ultimate Frisbee. On our other side there’s a four-top of thirty-somethings looking bored with their 8 oz cups of beer, presumably waiting for the Heartless Bastards show to begin, just as we were. The show was free; some sort of college radio promotion or school newspaper bill-filler for students to cap their Thursday night. At the time, the band was in an early-summer sabbatical, having released The Mountain the year before to excellent reviews, Brasky.org included. That album was an organic, slow moving exercise in Middle American blues-rock, at times almost suspiciously like the Black Keys, at others emotionally twee or self-defeating with a twist of old-timey Billie Holliday-style intrigue. It was a big record that I can’t say I saw coming, and maybe the band didn’t either. At this point the band had reached whatever peak of popularity they have yet seen, whether it be “indie darlings” or “relative obscurity” or “generally favorable reviews on metacritic”. They were still two years away from Arrow, their newest release; it’s a record that could be dismissed as formulaic if the band weren’t so damn clever in the execution.
At left: Speedy’s cousin String Bean shows off his close range weaponry.
