See also: The Five People You Will Meet at Country Thunder Country Thunder Canyon Moon Ranch in Florence, Arizona Friday, April 13, 2012 I’m not superstitious, but it’s hard to brush off the supreme bad luck I had on Friday the 13th, attempting to drive my Nissian Maxima to Day…
See also: A Look at the Creamy Radio Stage at McDowell Mountain Music Festival See also: Galactic’s Robert Mercurio on Carnivale Electricos McDowell Mountain Music Festival Outside of The Compound Grill Friday, April 13, 2012 Dark ominous clouds, chilly 70-degree weather, and one of the most superstitious days of the…
Local spinster Rodrick Mullins typically performs under the spinster moniker DJ Babel (which is an acronym for Beyond All Beliefs Entertain Life). Frankly, he might as well change his nickname to DJ Jungle Boy, since the 34-year-old has a major yen for wild and chaotic variant of drum ‘n’ bass…
What music critic prophet could have predicted that in 2012 hip, indie songwriters like Los Angeles-based Ramona Gonzalez, who records haunting, danceable pop as Nite Jewel, would be compared to acts like Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam or Sade? But here we are, the year the Mayan calendar ends, and…
With a voice that has withstood the test of time (20 years of rock and roll to be exact), Eddie Vedder is still one of the greatest singers of our day. One thing we particularly love about him is his ability to make it big as a crossover artist in…
Aaron Dontez Yates, better known to the world as Tech N9ne, is not a big fan of the typical. “How many black dudes do you see painting their faces and coming out with bishop robes on the stage?” he asks me, speaking from his tour bus “somewhere in New Mexico.”…
Two years ago, yours truly embarked on finding a real country experience that didn’t lead me into the backwoods of some quaint southern town, but rather out into a barren field in Florence. I was alone. I was scared. I was wearing flip flops, at the risk of getting my…
William Fucking ReedReed deejays Sticky Fingers every Friday night at Bar Smith. For more info, visit Sticky Fingers’ official website. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Currently, my car radio defaults to KWSS 106.7-FM, which hosts my Friday/Saturday…
If there’s ever been a weekend you don’t have to scramble for musical options, this is it. You’ve got a quadruple threat: Country Thunder in Florence, McDowell Mountain Music Fest in Phoenix, Way Out West Fest in Tucson, and that big party in Indio called Coachella. But are you not…
See also: fIREHOSE’s Ed Crawford: “It Was Our Job. We F**kin’ Showed Up Every Day.” M. Ward has slowly and sturdily built himself up as a songwriter and producer over the past decade, with a string of hushed folk, country, blues, and pop inflected records that don’t cry out for…
Childish Gambino The Venue Scottsdale Wednesday, April 11, 2012 Judd Apatow and Paul Feig’s Freaks and Geeks was one of those shows that seemed too good to exist — and indeed it didn’t for very long. NBC cancelled it after one season (they didn’t even originally air all the episodes…
Steel Pulse Marquee Theatre Wednesday, April 11 When a band has been around 37 years, it knows how to do things right. From tight musicianship to a dynamic stage show — plus a deep catalog of hits — Steel Pulse covered all the bases Wednesday night at the Marquee. The…
In case you couldn’t tell from my previous Throwback Thursday posts, I have a soft spot for the ’90s. I’m a millennial, so it’s easy for me to wax nostalgic over boy bands and raunchy comedies. Last weekend was quite the stroll down memory lane thanks to American Reunion, which…
As a music writer who is not musically inclined, it’s always fascinating to me to catch up with bands and musicians when they’re not on the stage. For this week’s issue of New Times, I hung out with Former Friends of Young Americans for a profile of the local shoegazers…
We’re all a little art starved here in the desert, and Wally Boudway of Wooden Indian argues. Perhaps that’s why they’re going on a show binge of sorts, performing their first residency at Long Wong’s on Fridays throughout April (they kicked it off last week). The Phoenix-based psych-blues-rock purveyors talked…
Two years ago, when Frankie Rose started talking about following her breakthrough debut album with a synth-pop record, friends assumed she was joking. As the drummer for Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, and Dum Dum Girls, Rose was at the center of a 1960s girl pop revival even before her first…
Dusk has barely begun her descent on downtown Phoenix when anti-genre conformists Former Friends of Young Americans gather for band practice at frontman Toby Fatzinger’s home in the historic Garfield neighborhood. The area is known not only for being one of the city’s oldest and largest historic districts but for…
Thursday 12 16th Street Bar & Grill: Kickback Thursdays with DJ Cedric Ceballos (hip-hop, classics, neo-soul, reggae, R&B, Top 40, old school) Afterlife: Beat the Scene Thursdays (electronica, dance, remixes) Bar Smith: Double Vision Thursday with DJ Kyko, DJ Idenaty, & DJ Dario (Latin, hip-hop) Bobby Q’s: DJ Phlava, MC…
Mountain music can, and should, be utterly terrifying to outsiders — at least in its traditional sense. Just imagine toothless hillbillies wearing overalls, rocking out on banjos and upright basses until they’re drunk enough on moonshine to wear their coonskin caps without considering the fashion implications. Cue “Dueling Banjos.” Take…
At an early ’90s Cocteau Twins concert in Denver, half-asleep and fully delirious, I drifted in and out of reality as strobe lights pulsed behind my eyelids, Elizabeth Fraser’s voice wafted about my head, and driving rhythms and reverb held me firmly entranced in a surreal world. This is my…
While the sibling rivalry that eventually took down Oasis was one of rock ‘n’ roll’s ugliest, the infantile “he’s a liar!” and “well, he’s a twat” tirades resulted in fans’ getting the best of both worlds: Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Since 2010, the latter…
Springtime means wildflowers! Get out of the house! Springtime means outdoor festivals! Get out of the house! (Springtime also means snakes, snakes, snakes, but let’s just ignore that for now. Or at least put on some tall boots. Be safe. But still get out of the house.) This weekend merits…
