Reggae certainly has changed since Steel Pulse began in the mid-1970s. Back then, roots reggae ruled the roost. Dancehall, lovers rock, and reggaton were distant visions; dub was spacing outside mainstream circles. With a blend of tightly knit song structures packing pop hooks and sociopolitical lyrics, Steel Pulse gradually took…
It used to be no big deal for Phoenix/Chicago-based folk punks Andrew Jackson Jihad to play the Trunk Space. In fact, it seems it used to happen a couple of times a week. It wasn’t the first place I saw the band (that would’ve been at The Palace of No…
You’d never know it if you took their black T-shirts, black hair and, well, black outlook at face value, but metalheads have no problem laughing at their own darkness. Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim block capitalized on this with Metalocalypse, a show about a cartoon metal band that simultaneously celebrates…
It’s common for a song lyric to mean one thing to the audience and a very different thing to the performer. Not sure what Led Zeppelin is babbling about specifically? It’s probably something horny and fantastical. Other times, nonsensical lyrics end up illustrating some deep insight. “I Am the Walrus,”…
The idea that the album — as a unified, complete statement from a musician — is finished has been the subject of many great think pieces and essays over the past couple of years. Until now, the release of his debut LP, Checkognize, Abelardo Gil III, who raps, sings, and…
Call us crazy, but it seems some DJs or EDM artists are so prodigiously talented that their skill set may have been born of some supernatural power, like maybe even The Force. It seems a fitting — if not slightly geeky — explanation as any for the keen abilities wielded…
John Gourley feels good. Tired, but really good. His band, Portugal. The Man, is chilling in El Paso following a rollercoaster ride of TV appearances, festival stops, a tour supporting the ultra-hot Black Keys, a jaunt to Alaska, a crusade across Europe, and a seemingly endless series of club dates…
Thursday 5 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…
You don’t need us to tell you that Ashton Kutcher is kind of a knucklehead, but country star Miranda Lambert apparently needs a reminder after the television goofballs on-stage attempt at country crooning. Kutcher presented Lambert with the Female Vocalist of the Year award at the Academy of Country Music…
Listening to other crate diggers stories of amazing scores might be the only thing vinyl nerds love as much as collecting records. Jealously inducing tales of that time you found “that rare 45, for, like, 50 cents.” It’s at once infuriating and inspiring, a little more fuel for the fire…
It’s easy to imagine the sounds of Tempe in the ’90s dominated by jangle, over-driven amps cranked, and melodic singers crooning a Mill Ave export that would crack into the mainstream. But listening to Half String, a Tempe-based band that featured Brandon Capps, Tim Patterson, Matt Kruse, and Kimber Lanning…
There’s nothing quite like a college party. And just because you have graduated doesn’t mean you can’t still party like you’re pledging for a frat. Giligin’s has everything that made a college party fun, namely beer pong and a young, attractive crowd. There were other bar games that looked a…
Paper Diamond Club Red Tuesday, April 3, 2012 Last night may have been a Tuesday, but that didn’t stop the crowd at Club Red from getting raunchy like it was a weekend. Walking into the club, screens flashed ads for upcoming shows and a stern warning that no moshing would…
We feature a lot of brilliant music-related Tumblrs full of funny Photoshopped pictures. What’s better than that, you ask?Sleevefaced, that’s what.Sleevefaced is a collection of photos of people incorporating vinyl album artwork into their posed pictures. These pictures involve anything from the photo subject playing an instrument to more creative situations…
When local house music maestros Pete “Supermix” Salaz and Sean “Senbad” Badger teamed up with local restaurateur Edson Madrigal and took over Bar Smith in 2010, the trio helped turn the downtown Phoenix nightspot into an arty haven for DJs and urban street culture. And now for their next trick:…
In movies, the cutting-room floor is usually a cold, dark place where unused footage ends up, never seeing the light of day unless it find its way into a director’s cut somewhere down the road. The same is true when it comes to the music studio, but thanks to the…
Back in March, we spoke with Howe Gelb, of Giant (Giant) Sand about his new album, Tucson, in the first episode of our weekly podcast (We call it Up on the Sun: The Podcast. Ain’t we clever?). Well yesterday Fire Records debuted sprawling, echoing track from the “country rock opera,”…
Covering Depeche Mode without a synthesizer can be a bit of a challenge, but Fatigo pulls it off with a piano, a trumpet, and some cool bass effects. “We are going to integrate some of Depeche Mode’s synthy sounds [while] giving it that Fatigo south of the border sound,” says…
Me to Benjamin Leatherman: I’m interviewing a band. Benjamin Leatherman: What band? Me: Local punk dudes called Christian Science Monitor Lizard. Leatherman: That’s one of the best names I’ve heard in years. Indeed, Christian Science Monitor Lizard, the punk rock trio of Kevin Koenig, Ben Kraftwerk, and AC Grüns, boast…
Well, this is hands down one of the best fliers we’ve seen in a long time, and it’s too good not to be shared. It’s creative, informative, and most of all, a little familiar. Where have we seen this before? We racked our brains and came up with good ol’…
This summer is bringing in a miraculous flood of awesome shows if ’90s alt-pop rock is your cup of tea. Everclear, Sugar Ray, The Gin Blossoms, Lit, and Marcy Playground are hitting the road together for what is sure to be an absolutely epic dream of a Summerland Tour. We apologize…
When I photographed M83 a few months ago, I was expecting to hear a bunch of cinematic instrumental music. I thought M83 worked better as background music than a live show. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you also have M83 pegged as a run of the mill post-…
