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Pop: Hot Ticket
By GINA VIVINETTO
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 12, 2001
Wake him up for the show
With a backing band including the legendary Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Firehose, and Ron Asheton of Iggy and the Stooges, you'd better be awfully good.
Don't fret. You'd be hard-pressed to find a guitar freak who doesn't bow at the feet of J. Mascis, slack rocking guitar god behind 1980s alt-rock heroes Dinosaur Jr.
Funny thing is, for all Mascis's amazing licks, the guy's personality is, well, so low-key it's hardly detectable. Yo, hey, flatliner, get a pulse!
About the only thing that perked up Mascis during interviews was discussion of his favorite soap, All My Children. Of course, that's when he gave interviews. Back then, Mascis made fellow Amherst, Mass., native Emily Dickinson look like a party girl. And you know how often she left her house.
Maybe Mascis is more gregarious now. He tosses his hair around onstage, but don't expect much in-between-song patter.
J. Mascis and the Fog, 8 p.m. Tuesday at the State Theatre, 687 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. Tickets are $13 advance, $15 at the door. (727) 895-3045.
All this, and instruments, too
For more than a decade, the Orb has been giving electronica freaks some of the most interesting music out there. Using "found sounds" such as dialogue snippets, noises from nature, synths galore, and now, actual, real instruments, the London band is a pioneer in the ambient house scene.
These are the guys who had the good sense to use a goofy sample of singer Rickie Lee Jones rhapsodizing about the "little fluffy clouds" in the Arizona sky of her youth. (See Little Fluffy Clouds, 1991.) But it's not all kitsch and dance tunes. In fact, the Orb is more known for "chill out" music, the tunes you zone out to after the rave.
In mellow mode, the Orb appeals to lovers of 1970s thinking fella's prog rock. If you get into Eno, Floyd or Tangerine Dream, you'd dig the Orb.
The Orb performs at 9 p.m. Friday at the Masquerade, 1503 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City. Tickets are $16. (813) 287-8844.
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are back with timeless, thought-provoking classic tunes such as Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon), Nights in White Satin, and I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band) as well as the 1980s pap: Your Wildest Dreams, which is actually pretty catchy.
One of the rock era's most enduring acts, the Moody Blues have always dazzled fans with strong melodies, attention to lyrics, interest in life's Big Questions and the chutzpah to get all bombastic with symphony orchestras. Rock on!
The Moody Blues perform at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. Tickets are $51.50-$75. (727) 791-7400.
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