It’s a beautiful thing when the pieces fall into place. For Lizzy Plapinger and Max Hershenow, the creative forces behind MS MR, the New York-based synth-pop duo currently supporting Grouplove on a nationwide tour, serendipity was strong at work during the band’s inception. While studying at Vassar College, Plapinger having…
Summer in the Phoenix Valley doesn’t wait for any official proclamation — it just comes on hard in early May. With that in mind, the Musical Instrument Museum’s summer concert series officially begins May 1. “We get some of the greatest [musicians in the world] here,” MIM music director Lowell…
If you happen to be suffering from a bad case of “Post-Coachella Depression” after spending one, or even two, weekends out in Indio, we’ve got a few suggestions on how to recover. First, give yourself a day or two to get your bearings back and decompress from the experience. Secondly,…
LA Weekly made an April Fool’s post, about drones at Coachella. Well, it turns out they might have been prophetic. Those hovering propeller-powered crafts have indeed arrived at Coachella. They could be spotted this year floating surreptitiously above the crowds, during performances by MGMT, Outkast and others. So what’s the…
2014 was a year of Coachella firsts for me — it was my first time camping and not going as a member of the press. It was a series of highs and lows all bundled up into one fun, yet exhausting weekend. I’m still coughing up dust, but I can…
Anything involving Alice Cooper is bound to push the boundaries of what’s normal in the world of pop culture and music. Forty-five years after he began shocking the world for the first time, Cooper, along with a team of filmmakers, Cooper is back, this time in film form. Unveiled as…
Dave Mason was disappointing. That’s the bottom line, though many in the audience would say otherwise — particularly during the “Dave set,” which would be telling enough in itself. Billed as Dave Mason’s Traffic Jam, the idea of Mason playing Traffic tunes — the band he was a founding member…
Valley stoner rap guru Hot Rock Supa Joint took some time out of his busy day to answer some pressing questions in honor of 4/20, which apparently is some sort of weed holiday. You really have to spend some time in HotR ock’s presence to get a true feel for…
Oakland resident Kimchi Truong was 24. She passed out on the Coachella grounds last weekend, likely due to an overdose. Her death, Thursday, was shocking. But what’s really shocking is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. This story is about very young people doing a shit-ton of drugs, but…
Chris Victorio/OC WeeklyYou tell ’em, Grandpa!Age, of course, is a state of mind. But it’s easy to feel like you’ve aged 30 years after three busy days at Coachella. Whether you’ve gone to the festival since the first year in 1999 or just started going a few years ago, the…
Record Store Day is tomorrow. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when my editor said, “Hey, maybe you can write something about Record Store Day.” Makes sense. I do write under the moniker Record Store Geek. It’s just that my editor has only asked me for one specific column in…
“I’m terrified of being an adult,” Lorde told a packed house toward the end of her concert Thursday night at Comerica Theatre. Given the way the 17-year-old songstress’ debut album, Pure Heroine, dominated the latter half of 2013, and given her lyrics — coolly defiant celebrations of suburbia, rejections of…
Since the release of their debut album, Tennessee, The Prowling Kind have been looking to prove it is one of the premier indie rock bands on the Phoenix scene. The band already has passed many of the traditional milestones for a Valley band looking to conquer that next step. The…
Music-loving Phoneicans have been basking in Coachella’s sunshine all week, and this weekend is no different. High-profile acts from the California festival will continue swooping into the Valley of the Sun. It’s a great time to be a fan with disposable income. Local music festivals abound too, from the Under…
Sorry to harsh your mellow, stoners, but we’ve got some bad news. If you were planning to attend the three-day Arizona 420 Festival this weekend at the Crowne Plaza Hotel — including seeing Fishbone or any of the four dozen other acts booked to play the event — said plans…
Timothy Norris Round one of Coachella is over and damn, was it a good one! We’re all soar, sunburned and smiling. For those of you heading to Cali for Round 2, here’s the best of what we saw during the festival’s first weekend…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Since Chromeo’s formation almost a decade ago, the band has become a leader in dance music with its innovative, modern take on funk. Most notably, the group’s third album, 2010’s Business Casual, released hits like “Hot Mess” and “Don’t Turn the Lights On.” Chromeo’s fourth studio album, White Women, is…
In case you haven’t noticed, since Oct. 6, 2012 (the 50th anniversary of the release of “Love Me Do”), we’ve been on a half-century celebration cycle in which we are scheduled to relive every Beatles innovation, every release of the Beatles’ landmark career in real time, right until the inevitable…
The first record store I worked in (and eventually co-owned for a time) was located on a dead-end side street in a nondescript beige building with no signage. It was down a poorly lit hallway and inside a converted 90-square-foot bathroom. A CD hung from the still-protruding showerhead. Random promo…
When is a new band not such a new band? Well, in the case of incendiary hardcore revivalists OFF!, it certainly makes a difference that two of the members have known each other for nire than 30 years. Bassist Steve McDonald first met singer Keith Morris when he was in…
There’s something in Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry’s voice — the way it floats just above the bass and synthesizers, its so-slight-you’ll-almost-miss-it Scottish lilt — that makes it always a little disarming when she drops an F-bomb. “So easy I bleed out / What the fuck were you thinking? / We…
