The Tampa Scene Today

As 15-year-old Charles Bishop crashed a stolen Cessna into Tampa’s Bank Of America skyscraper, suicide note praising bin Laden in hand, he no doubt was humming one of the tunes to be heard on BLACK SUNSHINE.

Welcome to Tampa, Florida, jewel of the Gulf. Lush city of hot blood and cold chillin’. Home to wintering Yankees, yawning ’gators and serial killers. Once a principal port of pirates, now it combines police state, theme park and insane asylum. By day a clean, conservative gloom looms; after dark the wild and nasty stuff starts. Jutting heavenward from mangroves and marshes, sucked up by an unforgiving black sun, it’s a beautiful low-wage mecca on the edge of nirvana.

For cutting-edge Goth and related forms, it’s the place to be. Shimmering, shadowy, and primal, the city generates some far-out freaks who make fabulous music. Tightly-wound and neurotic best describes them — some of ’em definitely party hard — but at the same time kinda laid-back, with a charming introspective arrogance. Some of them already enjoy national reputations. Some are beautiful, some are sleazy; all rule in eternal coolness.

From Day One Tampa emanated Dark Music. Perhaps overwhelming weather or religion’s oppressive hand or the idyllic nights inspired it; perhaps suburban sprawl grafted onto semi-tropical bliss caused an inversion of meaning whereby a paradisiacal place regurgitates a wild, untamed sound. It happened in Scandinavia, which basks in social welfare the way Tampa basks in sunshine and where kids went wild due to angst and boredom (and started doing Black Metal); it happened in Japan (JapaNoise), with kids freaking out from the pressure of a plasticized, processed society. And it happened here before: Death Metal (Morbid Angel, Deicide, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Death) originated in Florida’s fairest city (as did Southern Rock [The Outlaws, Boot] so very long ago).

Tampa’s newfangled Goth-Industrial-Darkwave-Electro-Metal scene kicks ass. Neither frumpy Victorian costume ball nor too-lively vampire convention, it rises from the tortured souls of a few special people. The old saying “Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll” sorta sums it up, but there’s much more: subtlety, smart melody and ferocity combine to propel essential rock formulae far into the future. At once isolated and plugged in, the scene evolves, setting standards by which the world measures other Dark Music.

From ’95 through ’02, nineteen bands from Tampa cranked out the tracks on BLACK SUNSHINE. Some tracks ring new and fresh; some echo other, more familiar acts. Collectively the music herein displays a unique regional vibe.

Some tracks ooze metallic mayhem (when one factors out obvious influences — KMFDM, NIN, Danzig, Manson — one hears salty Sabbath). Dance-driven orgasmic abandon prevails on other tracks (an Electronica-flavored New Wave, with overtones of ecstasy disguising fashionable frustration re: Bowie, Bauhaus, Bjork). The styles mesh nicely (in this very cross-pollinated scene); it all blends together into a bright, tight soundscape. Truly sexy, highly energized — with beautiful melodies, powerful rhythms, and naked emotion — it sounds really — hmmm — Tampa!

As the sun sets on the Sunshine State, normal folks retreat within the safety of their televisions’ glow. Tampa’s vampest vixens come out, and all Hell breaks loose. Many Orlando outcasts make the hour-plus drive to blend in with the madness; some of the hottest denizens come from the lovely city across the shark-infested bay, St. Petersburg. A notable world-class club, The Castle, is a vamp’s watering hole of choice, and there’s always Masquerade and Flytrap and Fuck and The Liar’s Club; those and a few other fleeting venues scattered around the metropolitan area constitute the scene’s range. On a good night one might catch The Genitorturers, Tampa’s (and America’s) premier heavy fetish band, whose Death Metal-infused Industrial Punk set the stage for much of what’s happening here now.

Lotsa shit goes on after hours at Tampa musicians’ homes, including all manner of druggery and debauchery. During those nocturnal gatherings evil (or angelic) music fills the air, made just for you by the temporarily sane.

Open up your ears and strip — it’s that kinda place. Let the bombastic bass vibrate you while sweet angst engulfs your mind. Or stay dressed, lay back and fade away — until that black sun comes up. Then it’s back to the grave or a shitty job or a maximum hangover for many of the musicians herein — except of course those who are already Rock Stars, and can sleep late!