Jake Goldsmith is one funny dude. Whenever we get to speak with the 30-year-old selector and member of the Rebel Disco collective, he tends to be quick with quips or some sort of wittiness that always makes for a lively interview. Such was the case when Up on the Sun…
Jack Howell Howell has been the producer/engineer/musician/owner of WilloDisc Production House since 1989. For more information, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? KWSS 106.7 FM. What’s the first album you bought? Michael Jackson, Off the…
Curious about what’s going on around town this weekend? Need some suggestions where to rock, dance, or krump in the Valley of the Sun? Don’t fret: These are our Five Shows to See This Weekend…
The wait, as they say, is finally over. You can cease all the speculation of who the hell is officially playing this year’s Coachella as Goldenvoice unveiled the lineup in grand fashion. See also: -Who Is Really Playing Coachella This Year? -The Rolling Stones Aren’t Playing Coachella, but Some Great…
Lady Gaga@ US Airways Center|1/23/13It’s been a hot minute since Lady Gaga released any new music, but that didn’t stop her Little Monsters from coming out in full force to support her at her sold-out Born This Way Ball at US Airways Center last night. The more than 2-hour long…
In this week’s issue, we chat with the members of Phoenix art-punk band The Father Figures, discussing the band’s phenomenal sophomore album, All About Everything. We ended up with quite a bit of information left over from our 90-minute interview, so in this installment of Outtakes, we’ll crack open the…
Love is one of those things that means something different to everyone. And for their new music video for “Kill It with Love,” local funky pop band The Wiley One allowed artist Nathan Shields to apply his own artistic interpretation to the clip, using his speed drawing skills to capture…
In person, Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick looks nothing like the mover and shaker of the moment. He wears Windsor eyeglasses and, from certain angles, looks like Harris Trinsky, the bookish petunia from cult TV hit Freaks and Geeks. Bundick, however, is no Dungeon Master. On record, he has the…
Almost every full-time musician can tell of a serendipitous series of events that led him or her down the path of becoming a professsional. Maybe Mom and Dad had some old records that sparked an interest, or tuba spots in the school band were all taken up, so they had…
“This whole interview is just going to be us trying to figure out how an assembly line works.” I am at the house of Mark Glick, the founder of Anxiety Machine records, along with all the members of the hardcore band Gay Kiss. Together, we are packing copies of their…
The Father Figures started with a 50th birthday party, which is either the least or most punk thing ever. Traditional agitated punk wisdom would suggest that guitarist/vocalist Michael Cornelius, bassist/vocalist Tom Reardon, and drummer Bobby Lerma lead pretty square lives: All three are married with children (Cornelius is actually a…
Bleeding-edge MacBook Pro? Check. Professional-grade Beats by Dre cans? Yup. Pirate, er legally obtained version of Ableton and/or Serato Scratch Live? Downloaded and installed. Sounds like you’re well on your way to following the well-trodden path into the world of DJs and EDM. Hell, you’ve probably already worked a few…
It’s hard to know where to start with The Residents. The band’s press release claims that they neither exist nor play any instruments, and yet they have released more than 60 albums, a smattering of videos, DVDs, and short films, and produced a handful of theater productions as well. It’s…
The indie-folk movement has become a plague. What started as an innocent return to roots quickly became a fad and, somewhere along the line, the pining for simplicity and an authentic nod to American roots music turned into a push to get ahead. But the cynicism directed at Americana’s revival…
Maynard James Keenan drives around Arizona’s Verde Valley in an oversize green pickup. The truck’s wheels kick up clouds of dust as he rumbles down the dirt road that leads to Four Eight Wineworks, the barreling room where wine from his nearby Merkin Vineyards ages in casks. From here it…
A 38-year-old Jersey-born rap veteran who is a certified member of Mensa, Chino XL has called L.A. his home for a decade and a half. “I feel like there’s more space, metaphorically, because there’s space physically,” XL says. “Whenever Jesus was tempted or looking for clarity, he went to the…
San Diego’s post rock-meets-subdued pop duo Pinback has kind of been under the radar for the past five years. Rob Crow and Zach Smith took a break from recording new Pinback songs to focus on side projects and family, all while taking Pinback out for occasional tours. But the duo…
Right now, there’s a Tool fan angrily venting about the lack of a new Tool album in some dark corner of the Internet. Right now, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan is most likely working on something other than a new Tool album. As detailed in this week’s Phoenix New Times…
Yesterday afternoon, the home page of the Coachella website changed to a video called “Bloom,” which shows plants and art exhibits sprouting from the ground. Some look pretty creepy–did those worm/slug things 30 seconds into the video really just form a structure? At least the rest are fairly cute or…
Doing some crate digging at Tracks in Wax, I uncovered a rather strange relic: an album showcasing local music. The cover was a faded license plate with the words Arizona Sounds Vol. 1, sponsored by KDKB 93.3 FM. It was printed in 1977. As a Phoenix native, I’ve always had…
Social Distortion @ Marquee Theatre|1/22/23By most standards, I arrived on the Social Distortion scene rather late, some 15 years ago. I wasn’t much older than 14 when I bought my first album, and was — like most fans — immediately hooked. Many of us grew up on the lyrics of…
Fetish freaks, goth groupies, and costumed geeks…oh my. All of these types turned out by the hundreds for the Thriller Costume Party at Monsterland in Mesa this past Saturday for one last hurrah before the haunted house-themed nightspot headed for the gallows. They weren’t only party monsters packing into Monsterland…
