Review: Parrotfish Brings Their Slime Sack Home
Mixing equal parts pop, prog, punk, and funk—served over ice with a squeeze of lime, (mostly) Tampa natives, Parrotfish, returned home last Friday for a show at Ybor City’s Crowbar.
Originally forming in high school, Conor Lynch (vocals), Matty Rodrigo (bass/vocals), and Joe Cadrecha (guitar), attended Belmont University together in Nashville, where they met drummer, Trace Chiappe, their first day on campus.
Since then, the band has been unraveling the thread of late 90’s/early 2000’s music that inched alt-rock into pop, speaking to both the angst and party energy of twenty-somethings, and expanding it into a unique sun-kissed-dirt-bag sound of their own.
With other Florida musicians sharing the bill, Friday’s show turned into a highly anticipated homecoming performance. Gainesville’s Madwoman, led by Leni Daigle, opened the show with an intimate psychedelic indie set, luring the audience closer to the stage.
The Tampa-born, Nashville-based, Visit Neptune followed with wailing drums and roaring guitar, cranking up the energy with a more aggressive alternative rock appetizer.
As Parrotfish took the stage, their first statement came from the lead singer’s outfit. Conor Lynch’s floppy sun hat, tucked-in t-shirt, and white sunglasses reminded the audience that they were there to have fun—loose, carefree fun.
Parrotfish opened their set with the recent single, “4K Friends”, bringing the audience to a bounce with its dance-heavy beat, despite the song’s ironically introverted premise, turning lines like “I’m in my bedroom but my door is locked. No, I don’t want to talk” into catchy pop lyrics.
The band dialed up the angst with the runaway lyrics of “Hitchhiker”, dodging the melodramatic by shifting in and out of funky Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-style rap verses.
The following song, “Holden Doobfield”, brought a more atmospheric element to the show, emphasizing Parrotfish’s unconventional compositions with its gentle, bubbly melody and quick transitions to a spacey chorus reminiscent of Pink Floyd.
By song four, the band pulled the crowd back into party mode, returning to their signature disco drumming, electric squeals, and sing-along choruses with “Drugs”.
After the punk-infused reset, Conor Lynch took a moment to relate to the audience.
“Getting a job sucks, doesn’t it?” He asked to crowd-wide confirmation, thanking us for keeping him from doing the same, before segueing into another recent single, “This Economy”.
The first few lines of “The Implication” followed—three separate times. With Lynch twice correcting himself a few chords in, Matty Rodrigo playfully antagonized the crowd.
“Hey! We’re not perfect, OK? Shit Happens!”
Once they dialed in the right key, what followed was possibly the most encapsulating snapshot of the band’s total sound so far, blending all the elements the audience had come to relate to Parrotfish’s self-proclaimed “slime sack” (referring to the bubble of mucus parrotfish secrete around themselves to protect from predators when they sleep).
The energy pivoted again as the band introduced a whole new tone with “Two Surfers”, a cheeky, yet sincere pastiche of The Beach Boys, full of harmonies and surf-related innuendo such as “I’m getting pitted by love, babe you’re my body glove, I’ll hold you tighter than a wetsuit tonight”.
Image courtesy of Kaitlyn Miller
Three quarters into the show—after “Lawn Chair”, “Coolest Taste in Clothes”, “Real Love”, and “Collapse”—Parrotfish pulled out a ringer. Anyone who might’ve been fading or conversing too heavily had their heads immediately turned back to the stage with the first weeping guitar note of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”.
The band didn’t squander this opportunity; they knew exactly what they were doing. After building that ethereal cloud overhead, they filled it with heavy drums and bass until it crashed down with the opening lines of “Witch Slap”— “Blood of the pig and the tail of the newt in the stew. Tongue of the fox and a couple crystal rocks should make do”.
Just as the audience was catching their breath from the intense black magic brew, Parrotfish launched into “Miami”, returning to another chili-spiced rocker as the sweaty, shirtless Joe Cadrecha wailed on his guitar, attracting all the iPhone camera lenses in the room.
As the inevitable encore chant began, most of the band left the stage. At least one member was still making his exit by the time the remainder returned to their instruments, warranting another comment from Rodrigo.
“I thought we were gonna at least make you wait a minute, but fuck it. How about some more?!”
The encore started with “There for You”, a soft, reggae-rhythm palate cleanser, before launching into the all-out funk-rock-party-disco-jam of “All the Talk”.
For their followers, Parrotfish delivered a reminder why last Friday. And for curious minds like my own, they cemented themselves as a band to see any chance we can get.
Written by J.C. Roddy
