Not since, well, ever, has a band like San Diego-based quintet Upsilon Acrux seamlessly married the spontaneity and energy of freeform jazz with the abstract and angular rhythms of progressive rock. Often described as “brutal prog,” the group jams in a style that is both spontaneous and tightly composed. (Think…
Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime lyricist, doesn’t particularly care for Marilyn Monroe. Fair enough, except it was Taupin who penned the elegiac words for “Candle in the Wind,” which read like a love-struck schoolboy mash note. Not so. Taupin’s on record as saying it was merely a cautionary tale about…
We won’t pretend to claim that ASU is the Harvard of the West. On the contrary, we wouldn’t be surprised if pulse-taking docs reside inside the school’s cavernous admission quarters. You fog the mirror, you’re in. Thus the need to dedicate additional wordage for the Mill Avenue Fall Crawl. Though…
The delicious irony of Dirty Scottsdale is that the notorious Web site not only trashes the debaucherous denizens of the city’s nightlife scene but celebrates them at the same time. For instance, enigmatic Webmaster Nik Richie repeatedly rips on vain cases like the P-Nazi — or “Picture Nazi,” an ultra-narcissistic…
Does anyone know how to say “sexy dance orgy” in Italian? Because that’s the most accurate term for what’ll happen when internationally known DJ Benny Benassi drops by Myst. Benassi has earned critical acclaim from some of the most famous DJs in the world for his innovative blend of dirty…
We all hid our alternative ways from our parents in high school. Punk rockers stashed spiked leather jewelry and hippies stashed, well, their stashes. If you were goth, your eyes were always burning after rubbing off the black makeup just before your folks’ Caravan pulled into the student-pickup area. Funny…
Wanna see folks rolling in phat 6-4s, tricked-out sub-compacts, and bangin’ modified wheels? Then peep the inaugural Latin Festival Lowrider & Euro Car Show. Music by Brown Boy and the appropriately named Chingo Bling rounds out the slammin’ shindig. Sun., Sept. 30, noon, 2007…
It’s easy to laugh at someone you hate, like the Michael Scott character in The Office, especially because dude is embarrassingly similar to at least half the bosses we know in cubicle-lovin’ corporate America. But in some societies around the globe, a culture that’s rich in contemptible bosses is a…
It’s sort of like when SCTV’s Count Floyd showed an Ingmar Bergman movie, then asked the kiddies: “You think it’s not scary to be depressed?” Thoughout September, Valley movie maven Fred Linch has covered everything from bloodsuckers to zombies to the sci-fi visions of Steven Spielberg in his weekly cinema-discussion…
What if Homo sapiens suddenly went extinct? We imagine environmental poster boy Al Gore would be tickled pink, even though he was dead. Author Alan Weisman takes a counterintuitive approach in his “thought experiment” The World Without Us, contending, among other intriguing things, that rats and roaches would themselves struggle…
Despite being named for an old, dead person — Charles Lindbergh — the Lindy hop is not just for old, dead people. Neither is it for old, almost-dead people who shuffle their feet at adult-rec centers with bingo callers yapping in the background. No, the Lindy has always been a…
There are a couple of intriguing plot lines for the Arizona Cardinals going into their home clash with the Pittsburgh Steelers. For the length of one U.S. presidential term, Cards’ head coach Ken Whisenhunt drew Xs and Os in the Steel City as offensive coordinator. Russ Grimm, the Cards’ assistant…
Whatever happened to partyin’ ’til you puke on a Monday night? Well, BYO barf bag, ’cause the partying’s back with the return of We Are Elektric!, an 18-and-over eve of live music and raunchy dancing to DJ spins. Crystal Castles headlines with a DJ set following its recent Marquee Theatre…
Once upon a time, the scariest Saturday-morning cartoon was Scooby-Doo, and a haunted house meant a bunch of teens in bedsheets spooking little kids. Now TV cartoons scare the shit out of us, and haunted houses have made a quantum leap into actual terror. Case in point: The Revenant Haunted…
Okay, ladies, what’s your number one complaint about your man? He takes you for granted, right? I knew it. But don’t be so hard on him. It’s human nature to take things for granted — and you do it all the time, too. Not necessarily when it comes to your…
The front door to my very first apartment sat a whopping 70 feet away from the train tracks, on the west side of ASU not far from the neighborhood bar Casey Moore’s. A half-dozen times a day, my walls would vibrate and my cat would hide under the couch as…
Paintings by Scooter LaForge at Antoine Proulx Design Studio: As far as turnoffs go, self-absorbed pretension is right up there with stained teeth and halitosis. And sadly, our own arts scene is rampant with artists who take themselves too seriously. But Scooter LaForge is the equivalent to teeth bleach and…
Beyond the Gates (Fox) Blade: House of Chthon (New Line) The Boss of It All (IFC) Boston Legal: Season Three (Fox) Brothers and Sisters: The Complete First Season (Buena Vista) Catherine Deneuve: Essentials (Wellspring) The Condemned (Lionsgate) Deliverance: Deluxe Edition (Warner Bros.) Family Guy: Volume Five (Fox) Flashdance: Special Collector’s…
Even the most adamantly anti-war movies about American soldiers returning from Vietnam — Hal Ashby’s Coming Home (1978) and Oliver Stone’s Born on the 4th of July (1989) — redeemed their mangled, embittered grunts through the love of good women, devoted parents, political resistance, or all of the above. You…
I’ve said it before and hope to again: David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and consistently excellent North American director of his generation. From Videodrome (1983) through A History of Violence (2005), neither Scorsese nor Spielberg, and not even David Lynch, has enjoyed a comparable run. A rhapsodic movie…
Until 2005, Richard Shepard’s was a lamentable direct-to-prop-plane filmography populated with such forgettable titles as Cool Blue, Oxygen, Mexico City, and The Linguini Incident, the latter of which was a heist film most notable for pairing David Bowie and Buck Henry — and that’s not even a punch line. For…
In the first few minutes of Eastern Promises, the striking new thriller from David Cronenberg, a throat is sliced, a uterus hemorrhages, and a newborn baby, slimy and palpitating, emerges from the womb of its dead mother. None of which comes as much of a surprise from the maker of…
