This is officially the last week where of the year where you’re allowed to believe you have authority over the Christmas-music-listening habits of others, and I hope to god you don’t waste it. When you’re done yelling at the guy in the gift department at Macy’s for playing Wonderful Christmastime…
Megadeth is such a strong act that it needs little introduction. One of the underground metal groups of the ’80s who achieved lasting commercial success, the band has sold more than 50 million albums over the course of more than 30 years. The four musicians have a knack for creating…
By Mitchell L. Hillman Sometimes you go to a show and there simply is a vibe, a certain ephemeral quality, a momentary zeitgeist that can be described in no way other than “perfection.” It could be any number of things, but usually it comes down to first, a carefully casted…
The weekend before Thanksgiving can’t help but disappoint you. It’s trying as hard as it can, and it’s perfectly happy to remind you that you’ve got a short week coming up, but really the only positive you can take from it is that you won’t get trampled chasing down a…
Mesa-based pianist and singer-songwriter Courtney Cotter King is, among other things, the Valley’s version of Zooey Deschanel. Not only is she a dead ringer for the new girl, Cotter King also achieves maximum quirk. Describing one of her songs, “White Rhino,” she says, “I started writing the piano to it,…
Remember that one music festival Liquid Sol? You know, the one that reportedly was originally going to happen in September out in Florence only to be rescheduled for November in Glendale and then finally put off once more until next spring. Yeah, well, it’s most definitely happening and now has…
Benjamin Franklin warned that small leaks can sink great ships, meaning you should sweat the small stuff. But for the progressive math-rock quintet that borrowed Franklin’s aphorism, it’s mostly been one big leak after another. Two nearly fatal car accidents — one involving a motorcycle, the other a Vespa –…
Booked several days a week at venues across the Valley, it’s clear the Hoodoo Casters are doing something right; they’ve played nearly every blues-friendly venue in the Valley, along with some in northern Arizona. Their motto says it all: They’re “the blues your mama warned you about.” Performing a mix…
On the off chance you haven’t noticed, scads of reboots, makeovers, and metamorphoses have gone down in Scottsdale’s after-dark scene. In just the past month alone, Barney’s Boathouse was sold to new proprietors and became more of a hip-hop spot called Arizona Eye Candy, Jackrabbit Lounge underwent renovation and was…
Mesa-based pianist and singer-songwriter Courtney Cotter King is, among other things, the Valley’s version of Zooey Deschanel. Not only is she a dead ringer for the actress/musician, Cotter King achieves maximum quirk. Describing one of her songs, “White Rhino,” she says, “I started writing the piano to it, and it…
Thursday 21 AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Bar Smith: Thursday Ladies Night with DJ AL3, & DJ NERD (hip-hop, Latin, EDM) Bobby Q’s: All Star Thursdays with DJ Freshmaker, DJ Phlava, DJ Dark Vader, & DJ Skoolboi (hip-hop, Top 40, reggae) C.A.S.A. Sunba: House Party…
The Internet has made it extraordinarily easy for indie creators to compete on the same platforms as major ones and hardly easier at all to make money like them. For artists, the problem is obvious; for fans and consumers, it’s more subtle. It’s easier to discover a story or a…
From the Shangri La art Tell this guy about the death of the album.By Michael Corcoran “The album is dying in front of our very eyes,” Variety columnist and music business know-it-all Bob Lefsetz wrote recently based on weak LP sales, including Katy Perry’s Prism, which sold only about 220,000…
Pearl Jam concerts are different. It’s not just a bunch of guys on stage cranking out rock songs; even in Jobing.com Arena, it’s an intimate, more personal affair. Artists talk about the energy that flows between audience and stage, and that’s what’s so obvious here. The bands cares; the fans…
If you’ve ever wandered into Crescent Ballroom early on a Saturday evening, you’ve likely been privy to the bewitching performances of Flamenco Por La Vida. Led by Angelina Ramirez and Carlos Montufar, the group expresses its Latin gypsy soul through sound and dance in the Ballroom’s lounge weekly, but on…
One of Hermann Hesse’s lesser known collections, Wandering, reflects on anxiety, death and the arts while aimlessly meandering through the countryside. Alt-folk singer Bryant Eugene Vazquez left Flagstaff, Arizona barely two months ago to ramble on to Philadelphia, but he’s still releasing records here in the desert. On his latest,…
One Direction[Editor’s Note: In his column Serrano Time, award-winning scribe and goofball Shea Serrano writes about his life and times.] Last week, I wrote about why One Direction’s “This Is My Story” sucks. Usually, whenever one of these pieces goes up (and they go up often), I get a handful…
The fellas from Fayuca are fresh off another successful tour supporting their wicked-cool record, Barrio Sideshow, released earlier this year. Thanks in large part to the video placement of their lead single “Por Que Seguir” on MTVu, the boys from Phoenix are finding it a lot easier to fill venues…
Sometimes it seems like wishing for a band to be famous is just the most polite way imaginable of wishing for all of its members to lead miserable, unloved, unfulfilling lives. Rest assured that when our writers got together to talk about Phoenix bands who deserve to be famous none…
Wherever it is along the sonic plane that shoegaze collides with post-rock, Montreal quartet Besnard Lakes thrives, cooking up haunted, atmospheric sprawls that tickle the introspectively inclined. Their fourth release, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO, also marks their third nomination for the Polaris Music Prize. They have yet to win,…
Like most American children, I was indoctrinated into the Christian tribe. In case you somehow aren’t familiar with the mythology, one of the main ideas is that if you do what the book says, you’ll go to a place called heaven. Now, the book doesn’t lay it out very clearly,…
By Patrick Montes In the hype and haze surrounding the timeframe between the viral success of ASAP Rocky’s song “Purple Swag” and the release of Rocky’s first mixtape, much of the internet’s gaze was directed squarely at the flamboyant, charismatic young Harlemite. Yet, when his “Live.Love.ASAP” mixtape was released part…
