10/6-10/31The three bone-chilling extraterrestrial attractions at Alien Extreme, 4011 South Power Road in Mesa, are like an episode of The X-Files come to life. Wanna-be Mulders and Scullys can poke around inside a government research outpost, a mysterious UFO, and a crash site, looking for ginormous creatures of extraterrestrial origin…
10/4-10/16First, a word about Googlewhacking for the uninitiated. Googlewhack! is an online game, the goal of which is to enter two or more unrelated words (“Googlefactors”) on Google’s Web site in an effort to turn up a single URL hit. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially because the…
TUE 10/4From Alice Cooper’s onstage beheadings to Iggy Pop’s broken-glass surfing to the robotic samplings of those Venetian-blinds-headed dudes in Devo, rock has seemingly exhausted its conceptual toy box. Or has it? You might change your mind after experiencing Quem Quaeritis and Weirdo Begeirdo, two bands from Riverside, California’s “freak-pop”…
Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs includes an infamous slice of cinematic history that’s been forever burned into our collective pop-cultural consciousness: the giddily psychotic thug Mr. Blonde hacking off the ear of a bound and gagged LAPD cop to the lighthearted strains of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”…
SAT 9/10You know you’ve made it when people start impersonating you. But comedian Neil Hamburger admits he’s a little nervous about seeing his clones at the 1st Annual Neil Hamburger Fan Convention on Saturday, September 10. “I’ve heard about people dressing as me for Halloween,” says the tuxedo-clad comic, who…
9/9-9/10Looks like the lovely ladies of the ASU volleyball team need to step up to the net and show some, er . . . balls. After a dismal 2-4 effort thus far in what is turning out to be a pretty miserable preseason, these spike-blocking sirens are looking to rebound…
Phew, can you smell that? No, we’re not talking about the stench of decaying pabulum emanating from the Top 40 charts. This particular pleasing aroma wafting its way into our proboscis originates from across the pond, courtesy of the Seatsniffers, a foursome of Belgian hellcats who specialize in blending all…
The party’s just getting started inside The Fort, even though it’s well past 2 a.m. on the first Friday in August. Haunts like the Emerald Lounge have long since discharged their drunks, but numerous night crawlers have journeyed to the squat gallery run by brothers Isaac and Gabriel Fortoul next…
9/3-12/31Designer Michael Graves (of Target teakettle fame) cemented his household-word status in 1979, when he participated in the “Tea and Coffee Piazza” project sponsored by Italian design house Alessi. The next wave, “Tea and Coffee Towers,” visits the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art beginning Saturday, September 3. Architects from 11…
9/2-9/30Looking at Gidget Gein’s art is like recognizing an old friend in a crowd and joyfully running up to greet him, only to be appalled by the huge new tumor sticking out of his side. The former bassist for shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, Gein will unveil his new artwork in an…
The lifeblood of ska has always been struggle and adversity of some sort. Songs like Desmond Dekker’s “007 (Shanty Town)” and Dandy Livingstone’s “A Message to You Rudy” embody the hardships of unemployed Rude Boy youths of 1960s Jamaica turning to a life of crime to survive, while The Specials’…
It’s a sticky Saturday morning in mid-August, and Tara Logsdon is fried. The sun beats down on Logsdon, 31, as she arranges her bizarre-looking paintings next to some artful teddy bears and handmade clothing on the outdoor stage at Holga’s, during the downtown Phoenix apartment complex’s monthly flea market. The…
SAT 8/27Quickly, we must flee! Ginormous mutated creatures are preparing to annihilate The Sets, 93 East Southern in Tempe, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 27. These death-bringers will include the demonic simian Hell Monkey and the soup-can-clad martial artist Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle. Surely, we are doomed! Oh, wait, it’s only…
When music fans utter the phrase “gay metalhead,” it’s usually in derision of some aging, teased-hair ’80s throwback. But with Ben Aqua, the 23-year-old Austin, Texas, headbanger behind the one-man thrash/noise/metal act Assacre, it’s the literal truth. For most of the past two years, the openly homosexual guitarist has spewed…
8/13-9/2For five years, Darci Johnson’s reZurrection Gallery has lent a touch of funk and spunk to the downtown Tempe scene. Now, like a phoenix bird in reverse, reZurrection’s doors are closing because of rising rent prices in the area. Johnson plans to take her furnishings and accessories online (at www.rezurrection.com),…
SUN 7/31Thank Salvador Dali for Blade Runner. That goes for Fight Club, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Truman Show, and even Total Recall, too. His name doesn’t pop up in the credits, but the most famous name in Surrealist art is credited with making the genre a profitable commodity in Hollywood, where Dali…
After more than a decade of transmitting seditiously confrontational artistic communiqués to the Valley, the rabble-rousing raconteurs of Thought Crime received a pretty disturbing reply on their doorstep earlier this month — an eviction notice instructing them to get the hell out. Despite what you might expect, the reasons behind…
7/22-7/23The auto-racing set has dominated motor sports in recent years, but the left-turn crowd has nothing on the daredevils on display at the IFMA Freestyle Motocross tour. As if the death-defying tricks the sport is known for weren’t enough, this year’s tour has incorporated elements from the Extreme Sport Bike…
SAT 7/16Sorry to be the bearers of bad news, booze hounds, but despite having a hops-happy handle, the latest event in the Fat Tire Triathlon Series on Saturday, July 16, at Tempe Town Lake, 80 East Rio Salado Parkway, won’t include any competitive chugging of the famous amber ale or…
Critics of Phoenix’s downtown art scene love to bitch about how its plethora of painters, mixed-media masters and other creative types have forgone imagination and simply mailed it in. As much as scenesters would hate to admit it, it looks like those pugnacious pundits are correct, at least when it…
FRI 7/8Local junior-welterweight boxer Jesus Soto is humble about his skills in the ring. When asked about his strategy in regard to the upcoming match at Fight Night at the Den, Friday, July 8, at Glendale Arena, Soto says, “I just try to be prepared, go for the best, get…
Hans Fjellestad loves making a run for the border, especially if he’s heading for Tijuana. One could conjecture the 37-year-old San Diego-based filmmaker and musician, whose documentary Frontier Life screens Friday, July 8, at Modified Arts, journeys down Mexico way for a narcotic-fueled binge of illicit behavior and sexual depravity;…
