“I always knew I wanted to put pen to paper,” says Jay Cridlin.
BY KRISTIN STIGAARD
NNB Student Reporter
ST. PETERSBURG – If you’ve been to a concert in the Tampa Bay area recently, you have probably seen Jay Cridlin. He’s the tall man with a black goatee who’s up front, intently absorbing the performance.
Cridlin, 35, is the pop music/culture critic for the Tampa Bay Times, a role he assumed last month after a decade as an editor and reporter for tbt*, the Times’ daily tabloid.
In both jobs, he gets paid to do something every music buff dreams of doing.
“It’s great to be able to do what I do,” said Cridlin, “but there is a lot more to this job than just loving music. You need to know about and appreciate all different types of music with a critical eye on what is good or bad about a specific style.”
With the wider ground of his new position, “I plan to try a lot of different things now that I will be able to put more time outside the office,” said Cridlin. “It will be creatively fulfilling to focus more on writing as opposed to editing, which I have been doing for the past seven or eight years. This will be a big opportunity to do that.”
In the first weeks in his new role, Cridlin wrote major stories on Bob Dylan, the 50th anniversary of the Mahaffey Theater, and the Rolling Stones’ signature hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” which according to legend was written by the Stones’ Keith Richards and Mick Jagger while on tour in Clearwater 50 years ago.
“‘Satisfaction’ is not just a rock song; it’s the rock song, as inextricable from the concept of rock ‘n’ roll as denim and leather jackets,” Cridlin wrote.
Cridlin knew from the time he was young that writing was a part of who he was, he said. “I always knew I wanted to put pen to paper.”
He started his pursuit in high school in Virginia, doing various work for a small community newspaper. He graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in English and a minor in journalism. While there he also edited the college paper and got engaged to a woman he knew from high school. As she pursued her dream as a student at Stetson University College of Law, he joined the Times as a part-time editorial assistant in 2002.
Cridlin quickly became a full-time reporter in the Brandon office, worked there for two years and in 2005 became a writer for tbt*. In 2007, he became a writer/editor there.
As a journalist, Cridlin said, he looks for the stories that are most talked about and for the angles that escape notice. As tbt* editor, he scans story budgets for each section of the Times to find pieces that should also run in the tabloid, often at a shorter length and with a snappier headline.
For the time being at least, Cridlin also will remain editor of the music and concert blog tbt* Soundcheck, which he helped launch in 2009.
Cridlin (in green shirt) attends a lot of concerts, but can’t get to them all.
In late March, Cridlin spent what might be called a typical week night for him at the State Theatre in downtown St. Petersburg. He stationed himself near the front of the stage during a performance by British pop act Clean Bandit. He brought earplugs, a note pad and knowledge of the band.
Cridlin took notes on his phone during the set while also watching the crowd for its reaction to the performance. Later that night, he went through his notes and wrote a story for Soundcheck.
In late March, there was a string of five shows in five nights that he wanted to cover — Bleachers, Clean Bandit, Nickelback, Eric Church, and Sarah McLachlan. Cridlin couldn’t get to two of them — Nickelback and Bleachers.
“Some shows just don’t make the cut. I can’t cover five shows in one week. I have to pick and choose,” said Cridlin. “It would be a lot of fun to write about Nickelback. I don’t love Nickelback, but people have strong opinions about them so it would be an interesting thing.” (Nickelback is arguably one of the most hated bands in the world.)
Over the last few years, the financially strapped Times has cut its news staff in half. That means more work for the staffers who remain.
“It’s killing me not to be able to write about Kendrick Lamar’s new album,” said Cridlin, “but given the short staffing you have to let something slide.”