A new concert series called Grit & Rumble launches Friday at Suite E Studios in St. Petersburg, bringing together femme, queer, and BIPOC punk and alternative acts just weeks after Ybor City lost one of its longest-running indie music venues. The debut show features Tampa Bay bands Kitty Kitty Meow Meow, Hovercar, Cozy In The Black, and Julep, all booked at the 100-capacity Warehouse Arts District venue.
The series is curated by Josephine “Cozy” Selbeau, who also fronts the Tampa Bay post-punk revival band Cozy In The Black, according to Creative Loafing Tampa. Selbeau, describing the kind of night she wants to build, asks, “Do you like women screaming in your face?” Her own band blends grunge, new wave, and punk into what she calls an Afro-Futurist Witch Doctor Punk sound, and she co-founded the group alongside bassist Dominique Battle to carve out space for Black visibility in alternative music.
Grit & Rumble has a special interest in booking femme, queer, and BIPOC bands, and organizers describe the series as a showcase for punk and alternative artists from marginalized communities. The series is a collaboration with FMAM Events, a Tampa Bay promotional company tied to Crowbar's ownership that also books shows at regional spots like New World Tampa and The Orpheum.
A Venue Vacuum Left by Crowbar's Closure
The timing is no accident. Crowbar, the 300-capacity Ybor City venue that spent 20 years launching Tampa Bay's independent and alternative bands, permanently closed on July 31, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Co-owner Tom DeGeorge, a National Independent Venue Association leader who has testified before Congress, pointed to steep rent increases, rising parking costs, and pressure from corporate entertainment giant Live Nation, which plans to open a 4,300-seat venue in Ybor City's Gasworx district, as reported by WUSF.
Crowbar's final months turned into a string of farewell shows, including a summer run that featured Hovercar sharing a bill with Florida Night Heat and Soft Cuff, as Hoodline reported that night. Hovercar, made up of Kirsten Clauser, Nikki Raven, and Alton Plemmons, is releasing a three-song EP called Medicine on Friday, the same day as the Grit & Rumble launch. Cozy In The Black also played one of Crowbar's farewell Indie Night shows in the venue's final weeks.
St. Petersburg Steps Into the Gap
With Ybor's anchor venue gone, St. Petersburg has emerged as a community with small, indie-centric stages, and Suite E Studios sits at the center of that shift. The 100-capacity warehouse venue and multimedia production space opened in the Warehouse Arts District in February 2025, according to Resident Advisor, and regularly hosts live shows, record pop-ups, and underground dance events. Selbeau already had ties to the space: Cozy In The Black filmed a live performance of “Released From The Shrine” there in February for the 2026 NPR Tiny Desk Contest.
The Warehouse Arts District also hosts monthly Second Saturday ArtWalk events that fold independent studios, live music, and local art collectives into a single neighborhood circuit, per the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. That infrastructure has made the district a hub for creative micro-enterprises and nonprofit arts groups, giving new series like Grit & Rumble a built-in audience beyond the venue's walls.
Regional Recognition and What's at Stake
WUSF named Grit & Rumble a top Tampa Bay weekend music pick, spotlighting Tampa band Kitty Kitty Meow Meow's mix of raw punk, hardcore, and pop as part of a lineup of femme-fronted punk acts. Tickets for Friday's show at Suite E Studios were still available starting at $16.53, per Creative Loafing Tampa.
The stakes go beyond one weekend bill. Live music audiences in Florida generated more than $567 million in off-site spending at nearby small businesses in 2024, underscoring how much surrounding dining and retail districts rely on small venues for foot traffic, according to WUSF. As Crowbar's closure showed, that economic footprint can vanish quickly when rent and corporate competition squeeze out independent rooms — which is exactly the pressure Selbeau and FMAM Events are betting St. Petersburg's warehouse spaces can absorb.
