Spotted recently in a park in St. Petersburg: this amazing performer who was set up with an accordion and xylophone, both miked and run through an effects rack. Sometimes he would play the xylophone with his right hand while playing accordion with the left, and then sometimes he would use a device to sample himself on the xylophone and set it up in a loop while he played accordion with both hands. Brilliant stuff. I was tempted to stick around and ask him if he wanted to join The File Clerks.
What is it about this peaceful place that inspires so many lugubrious young-uns (and maybe not so young-uns) to form angry little bands that wail, scream, growl, bitch and moan about the darkest, doomiest things they can think of? Is it the Hydrogen Sulfide? The insidious unseen influence of the Hand of Death cult? For reasons unguessed at by this author, Florida has more than its share of major metal bands - and particularly so-called "death metal" - just the sort of cheerful music that people like Rod Ferrell's vampire clan loved to listen to.
Morbid Angel, singers of such catchy tunes as "World of Shit", "God of Emptiness", and "Where the Slime Live", are from Tampa. Don't forget to send Tampa a thank-you card.
Atheist is a great name for a band, I guess, if you think atheism is cool, and I did too, for about a week when I was thirteen years old. They're from Sarasota. They actually employ some jazz fusion with thrash-death metal, which is no doubt a combination the world has been longing to hear.
Cynic is from Miami, and they dabble with jazz fusion as well, and are highly regarded as "progressive" death metal. I actually find some of it listenable, albeit puzzling.
Deicide (whose singer famously admitted to killing small animals for fun and vowed he would kill himself when he reached the age of 33 but then quietly changed his mind) is also from Tampa.
And then there's Death, who broke up when their lead singer, well, died. But we still have their records, like "Bite the Pain", "Scavenger of Human Sorrow" and "Spirit Crusher", to treasure their legacy. (They were from Orlando, so I can't fault them for being very very depressed.)
Hate Eternal, fronted by Erik Rutan, formerly of Ripping Corpse, is from St. Petersburg.
Assück is another of St. Pete's fine contributions to popular culture, and with a name like Assück, you know you've got to be in for a pleasant evening, right? Wikipedia describes their act as a "low-calibre battery of brooding, malicious, doom-ridden grind pitched somewhere between early Napalm Death and even earlier Bolt Thrower". Well then, there you go.
I actually kinda like Tampa's Nocturnus, though, mainly because they've got a science fiction vibe goin' on, and were an early pioneer of using keyboards in death metal. Still, one feels rather foolish sitting amongst palm trees sipping a blue thing while listening to songs called "Apostle of Evil", "Standing in Blood", and "Subterranean Infiltrator".
Monstrosity! Who remembers Monstrosity? They're still around, actually, but some say they're just not the same since their founding vocalist, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, went off to join Cannibal Corpse. Monstrosity was formed in Fort Lauderdale, where I'm sure tourists and beachgoers swooned over their snappy songs like "Immense Malignancy", "Vicious Mental Thirst" and "Final Cremation". Woo!
Fort Lauderdale, I'm afraid, is also responsible for unleashing upon an unsuspecting world the impenetrably named Kult Ov Azazel. You know, those nice boys who croon that hep pop classic "Bloodstained Path to Victory". And also other exciting numbers like "An Eternity With Satan" and "Trampling the Cross". The band members all have names like "Azagkur", "Hag", "Hammer", "Hellspawn", and "Archangel Sin Scythe". I dunno.
I've never heard of Acheron but they're somehow simultaneously from Pittsburgh and Tampa at the same time. Says on Wikipedia that their lead singer, who calls himself Vincent Crowley (clever, no?) "was appointed a priest in the Church of Satan and began spending a lot of his time debating local televangelists, limiting Acheron's output for a time." Sounds like a real fun guy. Don't these dopes realize Anton LaVey thought "satanic" metal was the stupidest thing ever to come out of the 20th century, and that he frequently stated with absolute seriousness that Rudy Vallee was the real sound of Satanism?
Tampa also gifted us with those little charmers called Obituary. You know, those happy-go-lucky guys with hummable albums like "Cause of Death", "World's Demise", and "Slowly We Rot". I bet these guys are real fun at cocktail parties, especially after they start throwing away the olives and eating the glasses.
Savatage is from Tarpon Springs, and they were a serious MTV-level force to be reckoned with in the 80s and 90s. I'm not sure what they're up to lately. While not as overtly negative and silly as most of the bands listed here, they're still not quite my cup of tea these days. Hall of the Mountain King was a pretty classic album though. (I grew up with all this music same as you probably did, dear reader, so don't flame me for outgrowing it. Why, some nights, when the moon is just right, I even put a little Candlemass on the hi-fi.)
And lastly, those Limp Biskit boys, a band I don't particularly like, come from Jacksonville, a city I don't particularly like. Whew.
Maybe I should do a post on Florida's contribution to the world of Dixieland Jazz next, just to cleanse the palate, eh?
My previous attempts to dig up some dirt on my enigmatic obsessions with obscure Florida musicians of the past haven't panned out too well. Take Norbert, for example, or Mitzi Joyce, or Joe Peppy the Singing Bartender. But this one, I think I've got a lead.
The late-70s newspaper ads for the Aztec focus on, of course, the big local star - comedian Don Sebastian (who I should probably get around to blogging about one of the days). But in tiny letters, the ads also mention in passing the Aztec's "Mardi Gras Piano Bar" hosted by someone called simply... The Colonel. The imagination reels.
As with the other aforementioned lounge acts, search engines haven't provided much edification on the subject. But I did find, lo and behold, a post made to forums.miamibeach411.com by a user named "Canefan", who says:
Oooooooh, that's a BINGO! Now all we have to do is find this "Canefan" and let him spill all he knows about the good old days. Clicking on his username brings also his introductory post to the forum:
Any man calling himself "The Colonel" and running a piano-bar-lounge in a seedy Miami Beach motel in the 60s and 70s qualifies for canonization as far as we're concerned here. Got more info on him? Speak up!
In January 1923, the baby who would become known as Slim Whitman was born in Tampa, Florida, under the given name Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. (What is it with Florida and people and buildings named Ottis?)
He was right-handed but lost a finger on his right hand in an accident, so taught himself how to play guitar left-handed and string his instrument accordingly. (Years later, a young left-handed Paul McCartney would observe Slim Whitman on TV, and learn how to do the same, and fellow Beatle George Harrison acknowledged Whitman as his initial guitar inspiration.)
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His big break came in 1948 when he hired Colonel Tom Parker as his manager; the Colonel immediately got him a contract with RCA records. It's perhaps regrettable that the Colonel didn't put Slim in three dozen B-movies as he did with Elvis; I'd be faithfully watching every one of them now.
Slim's 1952 single "Indian Love Call" was #2 on the U.S. charts and 1954's "Rose Marie" was #1 in the UK for eleven weeks. Other hits included "Cattle Call" (1955), "More Than Yesterday" (1965), "Guess Who" (1971), and "When" (1980). He released his final album, Twilight on the Trail, in 2010 at the age of 87.
Whitman bought a lavish (but still modest by superstar standards) estate in Middleburg in 1957, calling it Woodpecker Paradise and living there for the rest of his life. Rather than being made a national shrine after Slim's passing, however, new owners inexplicably chose to tear it down in 2014, with the same disregard for history as the demolition of Jim Morrison's house in Clearwater.
Unlike many performers - especially in country music - who had a shtick or a gimmick, Slim didn't really have one. He's just this guy, you know? Like Marty Robbins, who I suspect was also profoundly influenced by Slim, he was just a nondescript nice guy (even though his sharp mustache and arched eyebrows made him look more like one of the bad guys in an old western movie) who yodeled haunting melodies in three octaves.
What, you were expecting some weird, wild angle or some wacky, crazy anecdote? There isn't one. Slim Whitman just rules, that's all. And if you didn't know, now you've been told. Thank you and goodnight.
(Other favorite Slim sides: "The Wayward Wind", "Pearly Shells", "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain", "From a Jack to a King", and the first Slim 45 I had as a child, "Birmingham Jail". And then there's this.)
He's out there somewhere on the road in Florida at any given moment, waiting to strike again and perform for you - The Wandering Madman lives in a repurposed food truck that he sits inside, performing songs on his keyboard for anyone who happens to walk by.
He's not only a first-class nut in the greatest American individualist tradition (and I mean that as a compliment), he's also a fantastic singer and pianist; I mean like mega-professional quality. And, like your humble chronicler here, he seems to have an encyclopedic appetite for songs of all styles and eras. I think he just might be my new personal piano hero.
And he's also a profoundly nice guy: he regularly donates his proceeds to local non-profit no-kill animal shelters. According to his website, he recently raised $768 for them, despite having his truck burglarized and his bike stolen. He's a class act.
His bio, according to his website:
He travels the country, spending his days creating music and the nights learning from the people, places and sounds of this magnificent planet. There is no physical destination in mind but rather a state of awareness that he hopes to one day achieve.
He is simply a man who can no longer ignore how precious life is and how important it is to set your sights on something extraordinary. He traded in a life of comforts for the confines of a box truck that he now calls home.
His site is also loaded with goodies, like a Google Map that shows you his exact location at any given time, a live webcam, and an offer to put on personal concerts for you via webcam. He also has his own YouTube channel, wherein he covers everything from Todd Rundgren to Trent Reznor.
My dad may know Jackie Gleason as being Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, and you may know him as the sheriff in the Smokey & The Bandit movies, but I know him as the man behind a strange series of super-schmaltzy muzak albums in which he neither performed, composed, nor conducted.
In a somewhat Warholian fashion, Gleason organized the recording sessions and had people compose the songs according to his directions. Sometimes he would come up with melodies in his head and hum them to his staff to transcribe; sometimes he merely gave vague instructions in bold strokes, like "make it silky." Most interestingly, as opposed to the increasingly cerebral jazz, Gleason presented his albums as "background music", something to set a mood in a room, not something to be studied or focused on. He actually went so far as to describe it as "musical wallpaper". I found this idea fascinating as a kid when I scored his albums at yard sales. I still do, in fact.
His album Lonesome Echo, by the way, sported cover artwork by none other than Salvador Dali.
Gleason was born in Brooklyn but moved to Miami in the mid-1960s - primarily, it is said, for the golfing. In addition to his many pursuits, he was an avid researcher of the paranormal, and bequeathed his sizeable collection of books and materials to the local university.
His grave can be found at Our Lady Of Mercy Cemetery, 11411 NW 25th Street in Miami.
It seems there's a rivalry going on between Greenville, FL and Albany, GA: they both lay claim to being the birthplace of music legend Ray Charles. Both have statues erected in his honor. Well, you know us here at Report From The Florida Zone, we're choosing Greenville. That's our story and we're stickin' to it.
You'll find the statue in the park on Broad Street in Greenville, by the lake. You can also find Ray's childhood home still preserved in Greenville, on 443 SW Ray Charles Avenue. (Wow, what a coincidence! What are the odds?)
Weeki Wachee is actually the name of a town in Hernando County, Florida, but of course everybody uses the term as verbal shorthand to mean the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, and even more specifically, the singing mermaid attraction that is the park's centerpiece.
Since 1947, this sexy-yet-downright creepy show, in which suburban families from Ottawa queue up in a hallway overlooking a glass aquarium - has enthralled hundreds of thousands. (Mostly the dads.)
Last night I had the pleasure of watching Dale Williams perform his lounge act at the lavish Peninsula Inn in Gulfport. Sometimes you need a few cocktails to make a small-town lounge act bearable - and the cocktails here were indeed top-notch - but I genuinely enjoyed Dale's show. Gulfport should count its lucky stars that Dale remains here and isn't in Vegas or Atlantic City where he really belongs.
Though his act is based around Sinatra's style, which he has down to a T, I have to agree when his website states that he's not doing an imitation of Sinatra. He doesn't mimic Frankie's mannerisms or come off like an impressionist. He has his own take on the Sinatra style. In fact, in many ways he's even more Sinatra than Sinatra - he uses the "wandering jazz vocalist" trick of Frank's to even greater degree, coming in on the melody at very different points than the ear expects. This was also a key technique used by Willie Nelson in his early years, and subsequently by Ray Price when covering Willie's songs. Back then, it was often misinterpreted by cowan's ears as simply, "ugh, he's singing the melody wrong, he's drifting all over the place and coming in too early or too late." That's jazz, baby, get hip or go home.
Dale also covers all sorts of post-Sinatra-era songs like Van Morrison's "Moondance", which are always a revelation when heard performed in the Sinatra style. At first it may seem like the cognitive-dissonance humor of Joe Piscopo's parody medley in which Ol' Blue Eyes sings incongruous Springsteen and Joan Jett covers, but in fact the man always did have an ear to the ground for the latest tunes to transform with his own magic - witness his covers of Petula Clark's "Don't Sleep In The Subway", Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and "Song Sung Blue", Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leroy Brown", Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree", and Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are".
You can catch Dale's act at the Peninsula Inn every Saturday from 7-10pm, or listen to the audio clips on his website linked above.
This rather Arc de Triomphe-lookin' structure along the Daytona Beach boardwalk is actually an enormous bandshell, built in 1937. It's sufficient to hold a small orchestra, a choral ensemble, or the cast of a theatre production.
The people who put on concerts here have a website which refers to it as "the world's most famous bandshell". I might be able to counter that claim if I thought about it hard enough, but not too many other bandshells come to mind right now.
It's our old friends The Garbage Men, that glorious teenage band that plays atonal music on instruments made of cereal boxes and other garbage, sighted in Sarasota at the farmer's market. They're usually a foursome but were down to a trio this time.
In 1977, an airplane carrying the Jacksonville-based southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in a swamp in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and vocalist Cassie Gaines. The band persevered on, and though the hits stopped coming, they are still one of America's most popular concert draws with a huge Grateful Dead/Jimmy Buffett-like cult following.
Some of their followers, however, may be a little too cultish. In 2000, it was discovered that unknown persons had broken into the graves of Mssrs. Van Zant and Gaines in Orange Park, FL. Gaines' ashes were spilled, and Van Zant's coffin was removed but the vandals were apparently unable to get it open. The vandals were never caught, and it's unknown what their motive was. Some say their intent must have been to rob Van Zant's body of "collectible" items, or to confirm a long-standing rumor that he'd been buried in a Neil Young t-shirt (the band had an ongoing feud with Neil Young because of his song "Southern Man"). But that doesn't explain why they also desecrated Gaines' grave, which contained nothing but an urn of ashes.
The mausoleum was left in Orange Park as a tribute, and fans still lay flowers there, but the remains have been removed. For years, the location of Van Zant's reburial was a secret, but it eventually was revealed he now rests near other family members at Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville. This time, he's buried in a massive underground concrete vault, and would-be graverobbers have been warned, "To open the vault would require a tractor with a lift capability of several tons. It is also patrolled by security."
The infamous crash site where Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist Randy Rhoads lost his life is at Airway Road, Flying Baron Estates, Leesburg, FL. The house, which was almost totally ruined by the 1982 disaster, has since been restored.
Ozzy and the band had been on their way to Orlando to play a gig, but got sidelined in Leesburg, Florida, to have repairs done to the air conditioning unit on their tour bus. While Ozzy slept in the bus, Rhoads, the band's hairdresser/makeup artist Rachel Youngblood and the bus driver, Andrew Aycock, sneaked over to a private airport nearby.
They stole a small Beechcraft F35 plane and Aycock, a licensed pilot, flew several close erratic passes around the tour bus in an apparent prank to surprise those on it. One of the plane's wings accidently clipped the bus, breaking a wing off and sending the plane out of control. It crashed into the garage of the nearby mansion, bursting it into flames and killing all three on board on plane. (Ozzy himself ran into the house and rescued an elderly man inside, who was near deaf and had not even heard or noticed the impact of the plane.)
The bodies were burned beyond recognition, and Rhoads' remains were identified only by his jewelry. According to Sharon Osbourne in her autobiography, "They were all in bits, it was just body parts everywhere".
According to the toxicology report, Rhoads' remains showed no drugs or alcohol, but Aycock's tested positive for cocaine. The NTSB investigation determined that Aycock's biennial flight review, required for all pilots, was overdue. It was later learned that Aycock had been the pilot in another fatal crash, six years prior, in the United Arab Emirates. One wonders what might have been, had they never decided to stop in Leesburg to fix the air conditioner. But given Aycock's drug use, the odds are high that a road accident could have occurred, thus killing the entire band.
