Even before the sun had set over the monochrome horizon of I-4, a crowd had gathered at the entrance of Transitions Art Gallery at the Skatepark of Tampa to witness the opening acts of the multimedia event, Unripe.  This was only my second time trekking across the industrial quarter that lies north and east of Ybor city, visiting what Tampa Bay residents are quickly coming to recognize as one of the area’s most versatile showcases for local talent.  Having recently returned home to Florida after a ten-year hiatus in an urban megalopolis that shall here remain nameless, the left-hand exit for 21st/22nd is still a jarring shock.  Transitions Art Gallery, on the other hand, comes as a welcome surprise.  Gone are the days of Blue Chair Records, Astro Skate, and DNA, so I was all the more pleased to witness the unveiling of an ambitious event at Tampa’s most prominent all-ages hangout.

Unripe was the first production launched by the new arts initiative Avant-Garde in the Now, founded by St. Petersburg resident Aubrey Bramble.  Like me, Aubrey grew up in the Tampa Bay area and moved away for several years after graduating high school.  After meeting Matt Welch of Transitions, Aubrey conceived Unripe “as a multifaceted showcase of local talent that would maximize the capaciousness of the Skatepark’s facilities.”  The results were impressive.  Graffiti artists swathed one wall of the gallery and several of the ramps in lush aerosol colors, a handful of photographers and artists displayed their work, experimental films were projected continuously against the curves of a half-pipe, and in the bowl, music emitted from a sound installation that took the form of an illuminated tent.  Not to neglect the musical aspect of the evening: eight live acts alternated in twenty-minute slots between the gallery and the main stage.  And all of it was free.

The inherent open-mindedness of the enterprise that is Avant-Garde in the Now came through clearly in the musical line-up.  The acoustic guitar of Geri X set a mellow tone in the gallery, followed by the confident freestyle rhymes of Jamela Passmore.  On the main stage, the indie trio Dry County gave full range to their vocal cords on a handful of tunes, while metalcore practitioners At Heart offered contrasting harmonic compression. 



According to Aubrey Bramble, this eclecticism was purposeful.  “I thought it would be cool to put something together that was a collective of artists in different genres, so we could have a country band play with a metal band, and hip hop mixed in with spoken word,” Bramble says.  “I grew up in Tampa and the music scene is very clique-ish to me.  You go to certain venues to hear a certain kind of music; most venues don't cater to eclectic mixes of music.  You go to Skipper’s Smokehouse for jam band/reggae; you go to the State Theater to see punk rock or ska; the Orpheum for indie or metal or maybe a little hip-hop.  I think everyone, whether they admit it or not, listens to a wide range of music—this way a lot of people can meet each other and network, because there’s something for everybody.”

And indeed there was.  As Unripe progressed, the atmosphere in the gallery took a sharp turn when noise wizard noWhere sampled the howl of a siren and applied a power drill to a guitar neck.  As if seeking a cure to this sonic aggression, an uninvited group of musicians calling themselves Pickle Party gathered in the street just outside the gallery.  Competing with the driving rock of Rotten Deal on the main stage, the intruders drew out a large chunk of the crowd with their art-school antics: one musician set up his drum kit on the top of a minivan, two other drum sets were assembled en face, and additional percussion was provided by a bystander who brought a spare ceiling fan to smash with a baseball bat.



Following this wonderful and unexpected performance, Ozell drew the evening to a close with breakneck metal on the main stage.  The charming and quirky songs of Intertia served as an appropriate closing lullaby for Unripe.

You can check out Avant Garde in the Now at http://avant-gardeinthenow.com/