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I’ll avoid cliches involving rain or pouring but this week is overflowing with live music worth leaving the house for.

Tonight, Built to Spill is at the State, while Giddy-Up, Helicopter! is at Push Ultra Lounge, both in St. Petersburg.

Friday, Alejandro Escovedo is at The Palladium in St. Petersburg, a WMNF show. Tampa Theatre gets in the act with screenings of “Control” at 7:30 and 10 p.m. It’s director Anton Corbjin’s feature about Joy Division and its doomed singer, Ian Curtis.

Saturday brings old school soul to Skipper’s Smokenouse in Tampa when WMNF presents Charles Walker & the Dynamites. Alt-rock greats Matt Pond PA are at New World Brewery along with Tampa’s Mouse Fire. WiLD Splash brings Rick Ross, Wyclef Jean, Pitbulll and others to Ford Amphitheatre. Egyptology-obsessed metalists Nile storm the State Theatre.

Sunday, it’s The Roots, one of if not the best live act around, at Jannus Landing in St. Petersburg. If more metal is what you need, check out Black Cobra at Transitions Art Gallery at Skatepark of Tampa.

Monday, Pat Metheny plays a trio gig with bassist Christian McBride and drumerer Antonio Sanchez at Tampa Theatre.

Tuesday you’ll have to decide between Ani DiFranco at Tampa Theatre or They Might Be Giants at Jannus. Wednesday at Jannus it’s the “Take Action Tour” with Every Time I Die, The Bled, From First to Last and more. Thursday, chill at Push Ultra Lounge with Tribal Style and Poetry ‘n Lotion.

Can’t find something in there that appeals to you? Dang, cuz, you’re picky.

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(Originally ran Feb. 22, 2008)

In a fit of snobbery, I once purged my record collection of “dinosaurs” such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ELO, Kiss and pretty much anything that wasn’t PC (punkishly correct).

It wasn’t the last time I got all Josef Stalin on my vinyl. In grad school, I excised the Beach Boys, Todd Rundgren, “lightweight” new wave such as XTC and The Psychedelic Furs, even, God help me, The Who.

Because one day the girl of my dreams was going to come to my apartment and decide I was her true love because I owned the 12-inch single of Sonic Youth’s “Star Power”? And she’d storm out in tears if she came across “Hermit of Mink Hollow”?

Something like that, I guess.

The introduction of CDs was a godsend, allowing me to re-acquire new copies of all those albums I sold. All of the aforementioned acts are back on my shelves (and/or on my hard drive).

There’s a contradiction when an avid music lover slips into snobbery. A casual fan will hear a song and like it or dislike it. For the snob, it just sets off a round of questions? Who’s the singer? What band was she/he in? Did Pitchfork review it yet?

Kind of sad when a music lover can’t tell if he loves music, right?

Part of this is a function of youth, when music is part of defining your personality, like the 16-year-old title character of “Juno” declaring her favorite band to be “a three-way tie between the Stooges, Patti Smith and the Runaways.”

But for some of us, and probably everyone who winds up being a music critic, snobbery sticks with us into adulthood - until that one, fateful day when I finally admitted to myself I’d rather hear the first Boston album than whatever hip, new and edgy artist was hot that week.

I still like hip, new and edgy music - I try to listen to every new performer I can because I never know where my new favorite is hiding. On the other hand, I bought “Foghat Live” the other day and I’m digging that as well.

I’m Curtis and I’m a recovering rock snob.

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(Originally ran Feb. 15, 2008)

So Herbie Hancock wins a Grammy and you’d think he stole a match girl’s rag doll.

What, poor little Amy Winehouse or Kanye West didn’t get another trophy for their shelves? I’m sure they’ll survive.

According to the uproarers, Sunday’s Grammy show was hip and cool and cutting edge and whatever other terms convey “didn’t suck,” right up until those kids - who worked so hard all year - were denied in the Album of the Year category.

Oh my. Such misfortune. Thank heavens our fainting couch was nearby.

Somehow, the thinking goes, Hancock’s win made it the same old out-of-touch Grammys.

It didn’t. The whole show was the same old out-of-touch Grammys, which is just as it should be.

Sure, there were some good performances - Hancock and Lang Lang playing “Rhapsody in Blue” was stunning and it’s always good to see The Time.

But this is the Grammys, for Pete’s sake, an awards ceremony which spent the first half of its life either ignoring rock and R&B completely or getting it so wrong as to provide some truly laughable moments. (Personal fave: A Taste of Honey beating out Elvis Costello for Best New Artist in 1979.)

Somehow the presence of West, Winehouse and Foo Fighters was supposed to signal a new, knowing Grammy Awards.

Please. The Grammy Awards - the trophy-slinging arm of the wheezy old record industry - understands sales figures and little else. Veterans such as Hancock get nominated because they have recognizable names. Remember Steely Dan winning in 2001 for the so-so “Two Against Nature” album?

Hancock may have been the hippest choice - “River” most certainly sold fewer copies than any other Best Album nominee. It’s a very good album and if the win sells a few more copies of it - and maybe exposes some novices to Hancock’s rich and varied catalog - so much the better.

But a hip Grammy Awards? Not gonna happen.

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(Originally ran Feb. 8)

I started this job in 1997, which seems a world away now.

Consider: No Pitchfork. No iPod. No e-mail, even. I didn’t own a cell phone or a computer. Internet access was limited to a couple of PCs in a corner of the Tribune newsroom.

As far as I knew then, MP3 was two consonants and an Arabic numeral. Nothing more.

Filing concert reviews from the Trib’s primitive laptops was a wild ride through dial-up hell.

I still had to answer my phone.

There were some real positives, though. No “American Idol.” No Britney Spears. No Perez Hilton.

In general, the celebrity obsession that dominates entertainment was, at best, bubbling under.

To be sure, there’s been celebrity gossip as long as there have been celebrities. But the digital age has amped it up considerably.

How many “entertainment” TV programs, Web sites and cable channels are there these days? And how many of them ever talk about the music or the movies or the TV shows they purport to cover?

It’s way beyond who’s dating who. It’s who’s suing who. Who’s having whose baby. Who were they partying with the night of the overdose/suicide attempt/DUI.

Because for all the celebrity worship that goes on, interest really goes up when one of them falls. And the harder the better. The switch from genuflection to back stabbing is immediate.

I don’t like Spears’ music but she’s a human being, and whatever is going on with her right now isn’t funny. It’s also none of my business. Or yours, assuming your last name isn’t Spears.

Check the comments readers leave on Web stories about a celebrity who goes into rehab, gets arrested or even dies. They contain some of the most vile, mean-spirited garbage you’ll ever read.

The Web offers immediacy and anonymity. Does it have to be at the cost of humanity?

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(Originally ran Feb. 1, 2008)

The halftime entertainment at Super Bowl XX in 1986 was Up With People.

Yeah, that’s right. Roll that one around in your brain-pan for a while. Let it soak in good.

Now try to imagine next year’s Super Bowl crowd getting pumped up for that wholesome celebration of humanness.

Rock has ruled at the Super Bowl the past few years, with Aerosmith, U2, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and this year Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers headlining at halftime.

Hard to believe that prior to 2001 hardly any rock acts had participated in halftime events (notable exception: ZZ Top in 1997, with the Blues Brothers and James Brown).

Then again, prior to Nike’s infamous use of The Beatles’ “Revolution” in a TV commercial, I don’t recall rock music being prevalent in advertising. Now it’s standard for just about any spot aimed at an audience younger than 60.

It’s not hard to figure why. Baby boomers and all generations hence were raised on rock, so it’s hardly surprising marketers took note.

What’s lost, of course, is any sense of rock ‘n’ roll as outlaw music, as a badge of rebellion.

If Dad grew up on Iron Maiden, how effective a weapon is Avenged Sevenfold in the generational wars?

If Johnny Rotten lends his voice to a Mountain Dew commercial that plays in prime time - and he did - doesn’t that diminish the threat of “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols”?

Put it this way - if loud guitar chords and pounding drums are just another element in the white noise of life, does the idea of rock ‘n’ roll mean anything anymore?

Rock once was a rallying cry for the freaks, the weirdos, the bohos and the outcasts. Friendships were born and broken over favorite bands. Authority figures didn’t like it.

Authority figures such as teachers, preachers, parents and football coaches.

Rock ‘n’ roll at the Super Bowl? Vince Lombardi must be rolling over in his grave.

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So Herbie Hancock wins a Grammy and you’d think he stole a match girl’s rag doll.

What, poor little Amy Winehouse or Kanye West didn’t get another trophy for their shelves? I’m sure they’ll survive.

According to the uproarers, Sunday’s Grammy show was hip and cool and cutting edge and whatever other terms convey “didn’t suck,” right up until those kids — who worked so hard all year — were denied in the Album of the Year category.

Oh my. Such misfortune. Thank heavens our fainting couch was nearby.

Somehow, the thinking goes, Hancock’s win made it the same old out-of-touch Grammys.

It didn’t. The whole show was the same old out-of-touch Grammys, which is just as it should be.

Sure, there were some good performances — Hancock and Lang Lang playing “Rhapsody in Blue” was stunning and it’s always good to see The Time.

But this is the Grammys, for Pete’s sake, an awards ceremony which spent the first half of its life either ignoring rock and R&B completely or getting it so wrong as to provide some truly laughable moments. (Personal fave: A Taste of Honey beating out Elvis Costello for Best New Artist in 1979.)

Somehow the presence of West, Winehouse and Foo Fighters was supposed to signal a new, knowing Grammy Awards.

Please. The Grammy Awards — the trophy-slinging arm of the wheezy old record industry — understands sales figures and little else. Veterans such as Hancock get nominated because they have recognizable names. Remember Steely Dan winning in 2001 for the so-so “Two Against Nature” album?

Hancock may have been the hippest choice — “River” most certainly sold fewer copies than any other Best Album nominee. It’s a very good album and if the win sells a few more copies of it — and maybe exposes some novices to Hancock’s rich and varied catalog — so much the better.

But a hip Grammy Awards? Not gonna happen.

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"I’m trying to pinpoint exactly when I became old,” said my friend as we stood in line outside Czar on Saturday night. We were there for The Hold Steady show and his comment was prompted by the antics of the impossibly young knuckleheads in front of us, behaving in that way endemic to young knuckleheads.

I laughed - I’ve tried to figure that out for myself - but what he said was disconcerting since he’s about 20 years younger than me.

I didn’t see a lot of people in my age group in the crowd. (Although if you’re in your mid-to-late 40s and were there Saturday night, my hat is off to you. Come up and say hi next time.) People my age have more sense and too many responsibilities to be elbowing their way through a crowd of people young enough to be their children to hear a band that wouldn’t take the stage until almost midnight.

But I missed The Hold Steady’s show at the Orpheum in 2006 and I wasn’t going to miss them this time. The band’s most recent album, 2006’s “Boys and Girls in America,” was just too good, and the band’s live reputation too formidable, for me to pass it up, even if I’m still feeling the fatigue days later.

I’m not patting myself on the back. I’m questioning my sanity.

I mean, it’s one thing to hit club shows when you’re young enough to recover quickly, or single enough to sleep ‘til midafternoon the next day. At this point, though, I am neither.

But I went, and even though I still feel like I need a day in bed, I’m glad because seeing a band in its prime (and I think The Hold Steady fit that description right now) is one of the greatest thrills in a music fan’s life.

And until bands hit a certain level of popularity, they don’t play in places with 8 p.m. start times. They play in nightclubs that want the band to go on later so they can sell more drinks.

So nights like Saturday are an ever more rare occurrence in my life. But for now at least, I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Once in a while.

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Few literary exercises are more pointless than predicting the future. Of course, “pointless” is this column’s middle name.

(Actually, “pointless” works better as this column’s first name, as in “Pointless Liner Notes.” Other names we considered were “Hater Zone!,” “Words in Sentence Form” and “Curtis Ross Won’t Shut His Cake Hole.")

Anyway, prognostication is an exercise in futility. But it fills up space. And this week it will fill up this space.

Here are what I feel are some fairly safe bets for the coming musical year. Feel free to clip this column and tick off each prediction as it comes true. Feel free to point out how many I missed at the end of the year. Feel free to wager on them. Hey, it’s a free country, other than the illegal wiretapping and stuff.

• A mediocre rock band will ride a label-generated buzz onto a Rolling Stone cover declaring “Rock Is Back!” The next issue’s cover will feature Miley Cyrus.

• A teenager will create a tedious rap song, post the attendant video to YouTube and be signed by a major label. Millions of children will make the song a hit despite its blatant misogyny and use of slang terms for sex acts. Wait, that was last year.

• The members of a band popular in the ‘70s or ‘80s will reunite for a tour even though they hate each others’ guts.

• “High School Musical 3: Buy or Die” premieres. Thousands killed.

• Properly diagnosed and medicated, Britney Spears renounces her career and becomes The Hold Steady’s drum tech.

• The Recording Industry Association of America declares listening to legally purchased CDs and downloads illegal; demands minimum $500 settlement from everyone who ever purchased music; begins digging up graves of deceased music buyers to extract gold teeth.

• Seventh season of “American Idol” declared marginally more interesting than sixth. Rolling Stone cover declares “‘American Idol’ Is Back!”

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You’ve got to hand it to the recording industry. Any organization with a modicum of sense would have cut its losses long ago in the battle against downloading. The music industry just keeps digging in deeper.

Now it says it’s illegal to rip songs from a CD you paid for onto your own computer.

Yeah, I know. It’s the first thing anyone who has a CD collection does after installing iTunes - uploads CDs to listen to on the iPod.

But as reported by Marc Fisher in The Washington Post, a lawsuit against a Scottsdale, Ariz., man brought by the Recording Industry Association of America says he broke the law by having 2,000 songs on his computer that he ripped from his own, legally purchased CDs.

Let’s put aside the very real questions of privacy this raises. What this does is put the industry’s hypocrisy in an even more glaring light.

Jonathan Lamy of the RIAA told me last month that the lawsuits target “people who are distributing songs, making them available to enormous amounts of strangers.”

Apparently that’s not entirely accurate. Now they seem to be targeting anyone with music on their computer, whether you’ve ever visited a peer-to-peer file sharing site or not.

Following the RIAA’s way of thinking, consumers who already have purchased a CD are now legally beholden to purchase the same music again as a download if they want to listen to it on their computer or portable device.

Despite the inevitable industry protests, this latest harebrained scheme isn’t meant to protect the artists - the ones the RIAA has systematically ripped off since day one. It’s a sick and damn near insane attempt to scare up a few more dollars for the labels’ coffers.

Like a cornered rat that knows the jig’s about up, the RIAA is lashing out in every direction, just hoping to find an out or at least draw someone else’s blood in the process.

It’s time to put this beast out of its misery. And ours.

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January: March 13 announced as release date for long-delayed “Chinese Democracy.” “It’s a lock,” says Interscope spokesperson.

February: Interscope announces innovative “pay what you want as long as it’s at least $19.98 plus a $6.75 convenience fee” promotion for the album.

March: Axl Rose demands Dee Dee Ramone re-record Tommy Stinson’s bass tracks. When told that Ramone, as well as his other choices (John Entwistle, Berry Oakley, Jimmy Blanton), are dead, Rose wipes all bass tracks and postpones album release “indefinitely.”

April: Wearing a number of disguises, including blackface, a goatee and prosthetic track marks, Stinson re-records bass parts. Release set for “late spring.”

May: Interscope parent company Universal acquired by Warner Music. Warner Music acquired by EMI. EMI acquired by Sony BMG. Sony BMG acquired by Halliburton.

June: Rose severs ties with Interscope/Halliburton and links with Steve Jobs. “Chinese Democracy” to be first released on Apple’s eLabel, which will pair album with its own new technology.

July: Rollout of controversial digital music player/cell phone/firearm “iGun” announced.

August: Rose leaves Apple, citing its inability/unwillingness to manufacture complementary “iRose.” “It’s Guns N’ Roses,” Rose tells MTV.

September: iGun rollout goes ahead. Sales “disappointing.” Lack of both firepower and new Guns N’ Roses album considered major factors. Also, reloading requires visit to Apple store and $60 fee.

October: “iGuns for Handguns” campaign goes tragically awry.

November: Rose announces near completion of both binaural and quadraphonic mixes of “Chinese Democracy.”

December: Rose tells fans to quit waiting: “Just download it off the Internet like everyone else has been doing for the last five years,” he says.

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It’s a rare band that would welcome guests as disparate as punk iconoclast Jello Biafra and J.T. Woodruff of weenie-rockers Hawthorn Heights on its album. The A.K.A.s (Are Everywhere!) are that band and “Everybody Make Some Noise,” out in March, is that album.

The band - front man Mike Ski, guitarist Chris Bazan, keyboard player Josie Outlaw, bassist Justin Perry and drummer Chachi Darin - are hitting the road in advance of the album, hitting the State Theatre Sunday night.

Outlaw’s organ helps separate the band from the punk pack, as do Ski’s elastic vocals. Cuts such as “Dead Flowers Forever” stray a bit too close to pop-punk formula but rip-snorters like “Little Miss Apocalypse” offer full-on rock redemption. Fans of danceable punk like that of The Hives, The (International) Noise Conspiracy and even the much lamented Nation of Ulysses will find riffs to love here.

The State Theatre is at 687 Central Ave. in St. Petersburg. Call (727) 895-3045 for more information. 

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When a band gets Woody Guthrie on the good foot, you better know it takes the funk seriously.

“This Land Is Your Land,” smoking hot and all but unrecognizable from its more common guitar-and-voice arrangement, closed Tuesday night’s show by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings before a sold-out Skipper’s Smokehouse crowd.

Jones and the Dap-Kings draw from a deep well of soul history - some Stax grit here, a little Motown polish there - but it’s the mid-’60s rhythmic excursions of James Brown from which the band drinks deepest.

The first encore saw Jones taking on Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” and coming out victorious. The eight-piece Dap-Kings went straight out of that dramatic ballad into another Brown number, “There Was a Time.” Jones was electrifying, doing the camel walk, the mashed potato and just about any other dance that came to mind with an energy that would shame any of the pop world’s dance divas.

The main portion of the show felt like a build-up to the explosive encores.

The band vamped through a couple of funk numbers to open the set before guitarist Binky Griptight introduced Jones. Jones, a hair less than five-feet tall, simply took over the stage, expressing the songs with her body as well as her voice. She brought on a couple of men from the crowd to chastise on one tune, while a later number saw her bring a quartet of women on stage to “shake what ya mama gave ya,” as Jones put it.

Her voice was raw emotion, whether inhabiting the scarred but smarter “100 Days, 100 Nights, “ or the sassy kiss-off of “Nobody’s Baby.”

The Dap-Kings were marvels themselves. The guitars were air-tight, the rhythm section deadly in its precision and the horns as greasy as a cast-iron skillet after Sunday breakfast.

Jones and the Dap-Kings may look to the past for their models but don’t dare call what they do “retro.” Re-creating a musical ear is one thing. Making music as passionate, electric and alive as the Dap-Kings did Tuesday night places them squarely in the here and now. And Jones will still sound fresh when all of today’s R&B beauty queens have disappeared. 

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Each decade has its true believers - the ‘70s had Bruce Springsteen, the ‘80s had The Replacements, the ‘90s had Guided by Voices, and the aughts have The Hold Steady.

For the length of an album or concert at least, these acts prove that rock ‘n’ roll has the power to move you, change you and bring you together with a room full of strangers.

Maybe The Hold Steady’s performance Saturday night at Czar in Ybor City wasn’t quite that magical. Craig Finn’s vocals were too low in the mix, and he’s got words and a a voice worth hearing.

Fortunately, many in the crowd knew the lyrics as well as Finn, seemingly, and sang them back to him throughout the set.

Technical carping aside, the set still was enough to justify the massive hype The Hold Steady has received since the release of its third album, “Boys and Girls in America,” in late 2006.

Finn didn’t look the part of a rock ‘n’ roll saviour. With his receding hairline, glasses and a beard that screamed “lost razor” more than “fashion statement,” he was the least rock ‘n’ roll looking member of his own band. His moves were similar to a young Elvis Costello - gawky, arms tight to his body, frequently seizing the microphone with both hands. But Costello never smiled this much, never openly gave himself over to the unabashed joy of making loud music with a great band the Finn did.

The band quotes easily from a host of rock ‘n’ roll sources - “Hot Soft Light” had a hard, Thin Lizzy swing, while “Southtown Girls” was Americana made epic by the swirl of guitars and Franz Nicolay keyboards.

Clad head-to-toe in black save for a bright red tie, Nicolay looked like a character from an early Springsteen song - surely he has Spanish Johnny on speed dial. Swigging from a bottle of wine, he was Finn’s suave foil and stage right cheerleader, taking the lion’s share of the background vocals and giving many of the songs a rich, epic feel with his keyboards.

The set closed with a slow-building “Killer Parties,” which gave Ted Kubler a chance to show off his guitar hero chops. Finn brought a large chunk of the crowd on stage, even handing over his guitar to a fan and finishing the song on Nicolay microphone. It was a fitting close to a set that suggested music as a unifying source isn’t such an antiquated idea after all. 

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If, at the end of this year, Thursday night’s Dresden Dolls show is not on my top 10 concerts list, I will have either lost my mind or had the best year ever in 30-plus years of concert-going.

The duo of keyboardist-singer Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione merged new wave cabaret with rock bombast for a performance that was nearly overwhelming in its power and precision.

The pair took the stage ntered wearing black masks, trench coats and peaked military caps, an appropriately sinister look for opening number “In the Flesh?,” Pink Floyd’s ugly tale of a deranged musician flirting with fascism. With just drums and electric keyboard, the Dolls created a sound as massive as Floyd’s.

The duo doffed their cloaks and roared into “Girl Anachronism,” a speedy, quirky number of the sort Sparks were known for in the mid-’70s, although with blacker-than-black humor. Palmer’s first-person account of a self-destructive woman brought to life by her lurching stabs at her keyboard.

Both Palmer and Viglione have backgrounds in theater, and both put it to good use in the intimate setting of the Tampa Theatre. Palmer became a vengeful lover, a madwoman or a wounded child with the slightest shift in facial expression. Viglione was the menacing comic foil, an impossibly long-limbed combination of Keith Moon and Joel Grey’s master of ceremonies from “Cabaret.”

Thankfully, the Dolls knew when to turn off the theatrics and communicate directly with the crowd, acknowledging the audience’s non-stop enthusiasm as well as the venue, the ornate decor of which was well-suited to the band’s performance. (And how many groups whose music draws comparisons to Kurt Weill would play a mid-set cover of the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)”?)

The group’s musicianship was extraordinary, alternately muscular and delicate. The interaction between the two was nearly telepathic - watching them mimic a malfunctioning machine in the middle of “Coin-Operated Boy” sent many a jaw dropping. And when the set concluded with a phenomenal version of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” I had to ask if I’d actually witnessed a show that amazing or simply dreamed it.

The opening acts were no slouches, either. Two Ton Boa had a theatricality not too dissimilar from the Dolls and an unusual two-bass guitar, drums and vocals lineup. Singer Sherry Fraser possesses the most remarkable voice in recent memory. A version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” took on Grace Slick and won, while the final number featured her chill-inducing, wordless soprano.

Tampa’s Win Win Winter, clad mostly in jeans and T-shirts, was the odd band out, sartorially. But its music was rich and strong and at times hypnotic. Think of Grandaddy without the smug pretensions or My Morning Jacket without the sometimes jamming and you’re in the neighborhood. Electric piano provided a soulful grounding as the guitars and vocals flowed from melodic to more raw expression. 

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No word on the date, venue or on-sale, but Tampa is on the list of cities Radiohead will hit on its 2008 U.S. tour.

A release from Nasty Little Man, the band’s publicity company, listed Tampa among the 22 cities in which the band will perform.

Radiohead will tour Europe in the summer so a spring or fall date seems likely. And remember, for non-residents, Tampa can also mean St. Petersburg or Clearwater.

The band’s “In Rainbows” album, released Jan. 1 in stores after being available for download from the band’s Web site since October, makes its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart this week.

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