Built to SpillCrescent BallroomMay 7, 2013 Built to Spill is something of an anomaly. Part grunge, part punk, part indie-rock quirkiness, the band encompasses all these elements without completely embracing any one for too long. That’s what made Built to Spill’s Crescent Ballroom show so appealing — this is a…
Music-discovery apps like Spotify and Pandora are free, but they have social costs. Among them: Every six months or so, we get an open letter from an artist who is being cut comically tiny checks for thousands of plays on one service or another. This week, it’s musician and label-owner…
Markus Schulz, the winner of 2012’s America’s Best DJ will be making a return appearance to Scottsdale, his old stomping grounds, on May 10 at The Venue. After residing for some time in Arizona as a resident DJ, Schulz plans to bring the party back home for his North American…
Until very recently, it was not necessary to point out that the Beach Boys who were on tour were not necessarily all of the surviving Beach Boys. Alas, we’re spoiled: Last year’s totally unexpected new album and tour brought the warring Beach Boys factions together for some extremely poignant (and…
If you and I visit the same Weezer forums, you’ve probably had Rivers Cuomo’s J-Pop album — okay, Rivers Cuomo and Scott Murphy of Allister’s J-Pop album — for a while now. If you don’t visit the same Weezer forums I do, now’s your chance: It was released Monday on…
Welcome to Ask Willie D, where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, “funny, serious or unpredictable.” Something on your mind? Ask Willie D! Photo courtesy of Peter BesteREPULSED BY A CO-WORKER’S BAD BREATH Dear Willie D: I am a female working at the…
This week, let’s shine the spotlight on a brother-and-sister team from the Valley who are doing something pretty dope — especially considering they’re 8 and 12 years old. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Cody and Chloe, who are quite possibly the Valley’s youngest-ever DJ tag…
Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience tour will be coming to Phoenix on December 2. Tickets will be available May 17, which gives you 11 days to figure out how you’re going to get tickets, and then six months or so to figure out how you’re going to camp in front of…
So, my girlfriend and I just broke up. Coincidentally, or maybe because April is just a shitty month, the inverse happened to Camille Standen, who wrote a piece for Noisey about how her shattered relationship ruined all the songs she used to love. I can relate, but I wouldn’t say…
If you’ve been reading this whiskey-drenched, devil-horn-throwing column every week for more than a year, here’s a little thank-you flashback to the beginning. In one of the first Metal Mondays installments, I talked about the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in Los Angeles — basically the heavy metal Grammys. I couldn’t…
One of the bands you can see this week around Phoenix has a famous song called “A Praise Chorus.” Another of the bands you can see this week titled the first song of their first album “Penis.” See which one of those bands is Jimmy Eat World after the jump!…
Porter RobinsonMay 5, 2013El Santo Cinco de Mayo typically is spent sipping margaritas and throwing back Corona or Dos Equis, but El Santo added one more treat to the festivities: Porter Robinson. It was my first time at El Santo, where the turnout was impressive. At this kind of event,…
UFIESTA (view the full slideshow here.)Quail Run Park, MesaMay 4, 2013 When I arrived at KUPD’s UFIESTA on Saturday afternoon, a 50-something blonde with blue-tipped hair was stumbling out of the Powerman 5000 mosh pit, wide-eyed and yelling about her head getting stomped in, but still refusing medical attention. This…
Of all the bands that managed to go diamond (that’s 10 million albums sold) back in the mid-’90s, when conditions were right for it, Matchbox Twenty looked the most like one-superhit wonders. It wasn’t their fault; it just seemed like there were 10 million themselves-or-someones-like-them doing similar (if less effective)…
Prince will not be playing anywhere this weekend. He’s surprised me before, but I’m willing to make the call now and just be wrong if he shows up at “Rock the Purple,” which is not what you think it is, probably. In his stead: Lydia comes home in support of…
Legendary film composer John Williams is scheduled to appear at a benefit performance by the Phoenix Symphony on September 28. It’s not like he needs to tour to help raise money for his kids’ college fund, and he’s probably busy with the Jurassic Park IV and new Star Wars soundtracks…
Crescent Ballroom wasted no time becoming a downtown Phoenix staple putting on shows almost every day of the year, and serving delicious food and drinks in the lounge. The venue expanded its horizons last year with Los Dias de la Crescent, where local bands performed both inside and outside for…
By Caleb Haley Usually it happens this way in the music industry: A band comes together based on its talent and, eventually, drugs and alcohol get in the way, tour dates get canceled, and members go their separate ways into substance-abuse rehabilitation and counseling. Rock/hip-hop group Rehab took the opposite…
Polish DJ Tom Swoon will help El Santo in Scottsdale celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Sunday, taking to the DJ booth prior to Porter Robinson. From the beginning of his career, only a few years ago, Swoon has emerged rapidly into the EDM scene and is now making himself known…
Longtime hermit, certified genius-oddball, and Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum is getting the band back together for a paltry smattering of tour dates this summer. In honor of the wonderful news, we’ve put together a list of the three best and three worst lines from NMH’s magnum opus, In…
I don’t want to bury the lede, here: There’s a video, in this post, of Go Daddy founder and local philanthropist Bob Parsons making a smoke-filled introduction to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” next to a bunch of scantily clad dancing girls, getting a big round of applause for saying, “Nuke the Chinese…
Stone Sour and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor is pulling double duty this year in more ways than one. Stone Sour is putting out its second album in as many years; the first was House of Gold & Bones Part 1, which dropped last year, and the second, House of Gold…
