Last summer, local metal band City in the Sea was included in our list of 10 Bands You Need to See This Summer. Since then, the five-piece band has been scooped up by Sumerian Records, and toured the country incessantly, including a spot on the epic production that is known…
Charles Bradley, his voice dripping with raw emotion, sings as though his life depends on it. It’s a voice that, in essence, gave Bradley a new start in life at 61, when his debut album, No Time for Dreaming, at long last found its way into the world, via Daptone…
Are you aware just how big a deal Barenaked Ladies’ first album was in Canada? Wikipedia tells me it “topped the Canadian charts for eight consecutive weeks” and that 80,000 copies of Gordon were sold in the first 24 hours. We didn’t include them in the Top Five Must-See Phoenix…
How much money would you be willing to spend to get a mouse into your kitchen? Until Friday, August 23, $75 not only will net you a private preview of Mouse Powell’s newest album, These Are the Good Times, but the Tempe-based rapper will come into your home and prepare…
This summer, I took a trip of epic proportions, leaving the hot, sweltering desert for the cool, mosquito-filled vastness of Alaska and points north. I saw amazing sights — bears, whales, glaciers, rain forests, and rivers two miles wide — before school forced my return to this urban existence. All…
The only thing better than rocking out to great live metal is rocking out for a great cause. With that in mind, four upcoming metal shows are celebrating metal legends and local idols, and they should have a spot on your concert calendar. We’re talking Slash, the best of Arizona…
Well, this is a surprise: Lil Wayne, just three years removed from a career-making feature in Weezer’s “Can’t Stop Partying,” is playing Phoenix on September 2, just over two weeks from now. Tickets–$50 each, all proceeds benefiting the conveniently named Carter Fund–go on sale tomorrow morning at the Celebrity Theatre’s…
Last week, we published a segment of our interview with Keith Morris in response to Greg Ginn’s lawsuit. The lawsuit talk only made up about five minutes of our 30-minute discussion. The main purpose of the interview was to discuss FLAG’s presence at FYF Fest, a two day music festival…
My mom warned me about rock ‘n’ roll. She said it was a bad influence and a crazy lifestyle. Overflowing with sex, drugs, partying, and lots of other things God didn’t dig. She said stay away at all costs. So I made a career out of it. No, really. Not…
I went to see Earth Crisis in 2013. This seems unbecoming of me, and I admittedly felt out of place at the show, wondering if anyone thought I was one of those undercover cops who spies on punk shows and the animal rights movement and also classifies straight edge as…
Two of the biggest superstars in the world had two of the biggest musical fails this week, as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga released two singles that tarnish whatever reputations they had as solid songwriters. Perry completely ripped off a lesser-known singer, and Gaga released a barely intelligible track all…
Nate “Igor” SmithFor five magical days in August, Cave in Rock, Illinois hosted one of our favorite events, The Gathering of the Juggalos. Our photographer, Nate “Igor” Smith, took thousands of pictures at the Gathering, but some of the folks he captured stood out more than others. There was the…
Touring for any musician can be a difficult challenge. That challenge is multiplied for singer-songwriter Poeina Suddarth. Currently on her Trains, Planes and Automobiles tour supporting Poeina, she relies on the ridesharing kindness of fans, strangers and truckers to get her from gig to gig since her van broke down…
I went to see some of my favorite local bands at Tempe’s most notoriously seedy dive bar, the Palo Verde. If you haven’t had the privilege of checking it out, you can find it located in the scenic industrial district of Tempe. Nestled between a milk-processing factory and an array…
I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure Charles M. Schulz didn’t listen to much of The Smiths. If he had, I wonder if he would have found as many parallels between Charlie Brown’s deep-seated melancholy and Morrissey’s painful, angst-ridden lyrics as the proprietor of the This Charming Charlie Tumblr has…
It’s coming. College kids are circling the Valley in hand-me-down Corollas; especially eager snowbirds are lying to their friends back home about it being A Dry Heat, even in August; the days are very gradually getting shorter. And big touring acts, who’ve stayed away from Phoenix all summer, are announcing…
As a kid, Christopher George Manak’s ambitions for adulthood didn’t involve growing up to be rich or famous. Instead, he wanted to be an inventor, like Thomas Edison. “My dream is always to discover things,” says the man who also goes by Peanut Butter Wolf. “I wanted to do something…
Touring can be a hellish experience for performers. There’s the nonstop travel, fitful sleeping on trains and planes, and night after night (after night) of gigs. Just ask DJ Soulman, a veteran road warrior who’s spent decades touring with local rap-rock act Phunk Junkeez and as a globetrotting selector. He’s…
It’s hard to figure out exactly what to make of modern country’s flirtations with genres outside Nashville’s rustic confines. Taylor Swift’s Red incorporated an (ever-so-slight) dubstep wobble into her pop-country frame. The Zac Brown Band is covering Metallica in concert. Former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker gets as…
Charles Bradley, his voice dripping with raw emotion, sings as though his life depends on it. It’s a voice that, in essence, gave Bradley a new start in life at 61, when his debut album, No Time for Dreaming, at long last found its way into the world, via Daptone…
Thursday 15 AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Barney’s Boathouse: Thirsty Thursdays with DJ Pulse (Top 40, rock) Bar Smith: Dulce Thursdays with DJ Deuce, & DJ JayOne (hip-hop) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (juke joint, R&B, French pop) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays with DJ Freshmaker,…
Yeah Yeah Yeahs were among the earliest members of their particular indie cohort to earn mainstream fame, but they wore it well — aside from the unavoidable song-fatigue side effects of appearing in a version of Rock Band, “Maps” seems to have avoided every possible pitfall on its way to…
