Love it or hate it, it’s looking inevitable: dubstep isn’t going anywhere for awhile, and a lot of ambitious metalheads are pairing their riffs up with wobble wobble sounds in a bid for commercial success. It reminds me of a coked-out Paris Hilton making a sex tape with Slayer’s Kerry…
To our extreme delight, there are quite a few artists that are dropping new music this year for the first time in a long time. We’ve been waiting seemingly forever for No Doubt’s next album. Thankfully a few other artists didn’t leave us hanging for as long. We’ve selected five…
Van Halen at US Airways Center When the recently reunited Van Halen (featuring original vocalist David Lee Roth) announced it was postponing a handful of dates on its current tour, most people assumed that it was due to some conflict within the band. Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth…
Van Halen US Airways Center Saturday, June 16 When the recently reunited Van Halen (featuring original vocalist David Lee Roth) announced it was postponing a handful of dates on its current tour, most people assumed that it was due to some conflict within the band. Eddie Van Halen and David…
Los Lobos Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino Friday, June 15, 2012 East L.A.’s Los Lobos hit the Ovations Live Showroom stage almost unceremoniously Friday night. They smiled and waved and took their familiar places among one another; RayBan-wearing guitarist/vocalist Cesar Rosas far left, followed by bassist Conrad Lozano, guitarist…
If your weekend plans included journeying to Peoria check out a rock or pop tribute act at Skye, better head back to the drawing board. You certainly won’t be heading to the venue. The proprietors of the West Valley supper club and lounge, which regularly hosted tribute bands and live…
The future ‘s looking pretty damn bright for Steven Chung, which is probably why he’s wearing those Von Zipper shades in the picture above. Over the next 72 hours alone, the 31-year-old house music maestro (who performs as DJ Tranzit) will open for EDM wunderkind DallasK this evening at Wild…
Where we’re going, we don’t need roads; just a synthesizer, eyeliner, and a touch of androgyny. Welcome to Flashback Friday. See also: An ’80s Conversation with Super Stereo I hadn’t thought about British synthpop duo Erasure for a long time — until Super Stereo brought them up during last week’s…
YACHT Crescent Ballroom Thursday, June 14, 2012 Summer usually finds us in the concert doldrums. There are some good shows here and there, but mostly we opt for pool parties and air conditioning while eagerly awaiting fall. This hasn’t really been the case this year thanks to a concert calendar…
The Lost Leaf has always been an intimate setting. But quiet? Not so much. So when local quartet Snow Songs takes the stage this weekend for their acoustic set, it should be a nice change of pace for one of our favorite watering holes. Snow Songs, along with Jess Willamson…
Jonathan Cisneros knew Snail Quail was going to trail into the bizarre, and at first, he wasn’t going to drag a backing band into it. Band breakups are hard, but you don’t have to deal with that if you have a bunch of lovable weirdoes backing you up, as the…
Erick Biez The local comedian performs on the Stand Up Live Comedy Gold Showcase featuring Jeff Dye on Wednesday, June 27. For more info, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? No radio, not now, not…
Curious what’s going on around town this weekend? Need some suggestions as to how to rock, dance, or krump in the Valley of the Sun? Don’t fret: These are our Five Shows to See This Weekend. Sunday, June 17: The Kirkwoods @ Musical Instrument Museum It’s not every father that…
See also: Mr. Meeble’s European Adventure See also: Mr. Meeble at Crescent Ballroom For glitch dance duo Mr. Meeble, music and visual effects go hand in hand. The duo’s latest music video for “Star Power” features the visually stunning “ghost portal” and many of the effects that make the Meeble…
Richard Thompson Musical Instrument Museum Wednesday, June 13, 2012 There’s something about a solo Richard Thompson concert that’s both depressing and enlightening. His music allows the mind to wander from the gutter where the drunkards roll to the heavens where misguided motorcycle hoods get their last respite. It’s also a…
More than 15 years ago, trance wunderkind Markus Schulz earned some serious scrilla performing at now-defunct Valley clubs like The Works in Scottsdale and Freedom in Tempe, as well as spinning up EDM on local radio. The German-born trance artist, who resided in the Phoenix area in those days before…
See also: Kreayshawn at Marquee Theatre See also: Grimes at Rhythm Room For the most part, Blood Diamonds, Grimes, Kreayshawn and Tragik are each decent artists as separate entities (with the exception, of course, being Kreayshawn). For whatever reason, they’ve teamed up to form a group called L$D (short for…
For this week’s installment of Take Cover, a singer-songwriter covers Sublime. Tempe-based musician Page Davis picked up his acoustic guitar, puka shells, and visor to jam “What I’ve Got.” “What I like about this song is its rebellious nature. I think it’s so punk rock — he actually says in…
A band that shares a name with a fancy boat, sometimes includes a triangle instead of an “A” in the spelling of its names, and uses music to preach a cultish philosophy sounds like something to avoid like the plague. But despite Portland electropop act YACHT’s inherent weirdness (including a…
The early 1980s were a good time to be in a hardcore punk band. Music and reputation spread through underground circles, and if you added a little controversy — maybe some supposed gang affiliation — your band could go national quickly. This is how it worked for Venice Beach’s Suicidal…
Drawing heavily on folk and blues, The Cave Singers hail from the woody Pacific Northwest and play a rock ‘n’ roll reflective of that region’s geography — and of distant ones, too, though geographies no less American. There are a bevy of bands finding common ground between Appalachia and the…
Curious why Van Halen — reunited with original singer David Lee Roth — canceled a whole bunch of dates on its triumphant 2012 reunion tour? The band offered fatigue as the reason, but Sammy Hagar, the other singer known for his time in Van Halen, offered a different explanation to…
