This scene invariably has played out in every musician’s life — the point when one band member informs another he just proposed to his girlfriend. Following a stretch of confused ground inspection before resuming eye contact, instead of offering congratulations, his friend says something along the lines of, “Well, I…
You don’t know the meaning of “poignant” until Glen Campbell, sitting two feet from you, starts to sing “Ghost on the Canvas,” the title track of his new — and final — album. The country great, who’s going through the early stages of Alzheimer’s, sometimes forgets which family member once…
When The Darkness entered the spotlight in 2003, the parenthetical question was: “Are these guys for real?” Glam rock long had given up for dead. So, did these guys really and truly love all things ’70s and ’80s rock, or were the spandex unitards, feather boas, long hair, lavish stage…
There are parties, and then there are epic parties. And then there are Quincy parties, where excess is the norm, inhibitions are loosened, and time has absolutely no meaning. The namesake bashes of artist Quincy Ross are the stuff of local legend and require plenty of stamina for those in…
Thursday 16 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: Ladies Night with DJ Idenaty, DJ EC Rock, & DJ Oh-Jezus (various) Bobby Q’s: Capricorn B-Day Bash with…
Bon Iver is the new Arcade Fire of the Grammy Awards. In classic “Who is…” Tumblr fashion, a plethora of people have taken to the interwebs to express their disdain for Justin Vernon and co. because they won the Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album awards, simply because they…
Both Valentine’s Day and Singles Awareness Day are overrated. Regardless of what you’re celebrating, with the exception of Arizona’s Centennial, you were probably setting yourself up for disappointment on the 14th. Obscura smartly hosted its Hearts of Darkness Anti-Valentine’s Bash a few days before the actual holiday. Couples could innocently…
Road trip anyone? The Beach Boys — you know, those old dudes in funny hats who played with Foster the People and the certified cool guy and totally-not-the-worst Adam Levin-fronted Maroon 5 at the Grammy’s — are coming to Arizona, but they are skipping Phoenix in favor of launching their…
If the Grammy’s taught us anything, it’s that despite Dave Grohl’s apparent objections, electronic dance music, or EDM, has stepped boldly into the spotlight, with artists like Skrillex and Deadmau5 leading the charge toward the mainstream. Director Amir Bar Lev’s RE:GENERATION Music Project, a documentary produced in part by the…
Editor’s Note: An abridged version of this article appears in this week’s issue, featuring 100 Songs that Defined Arizona. In celebration of Arizona’s centennial, we’ve rounded up sound clips for (almost) everything featured in our list, and will be rolling them out over the course of the week. “I just…
One of the great faces of Motown, Smokey Robinson, will be visiting the Valley of the Sun soon.Get ready to hear some of the best crooning that Hitsville, USA ever had to offer.Smokey Robinson, Kris Kristofferson, Maná and other artists will be visiting Phoenix in the coming weeks. The rest…
I wasn’t being hyperbolic when I called St Ranger the most promising young band in Phoenix in my list of personal favorite records from last year. The indie pop band’s newest five-track LP, Life Coach, proves my point, brimming with harmonious group vocals, jangly guitar interplay, and chill atmospherics. The…
Editor’s Note: A version of this article appears in this week’s issue, featuring 100 Songs that Defined Arizona. In celebration of Arizona’s centennial, we spoke with Kimber Lanning, whose got musician (Half-String, Letdownright), record store owner (Stinkweeds), and retail activist (Local First Arizona) on her resume. She discussed Sleepwalker’s 1998…
The Sun Club in Tempe. Mad Gardens on Van Buren. The Stumble Inn down in Tucson. In another lifetime (read: more than 25 years ago) these and a dozen other scuzzy dives around Arizona were all ground zero for punk rock.Flash forward to present day and many of the aforementioned spots…
See also: Keep These Tunes Away from Your Valentine’s Playlist You know, it’s not just Valentine’s Day and Arizona’s Centennial Birthday: It’s also New Release Day, a special day that happens once every week when the record labels sound out shiny discs to stores and let you start listening to…
An unusually interesting vehicle recently caught my eye while I was walking around Tempe. It was Matthew Mosher’s musical meditative space rover, Tranquility. Needless to say, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.Tranquility is all about transporting a sound experience wherever its operator goes. Tranquility, a solar-powered contraption which is…
He stomps. He hollers. He yodels and howls. Scott H. Biram also plays guitar, shakes tambourines and basically, utilizing various effects, makes more of a racket on stage then one man should be allowed the pleasure. But it is a pleasure for Biram, whose music has been featured on FX’s…
Admit it, you don’t know much about The Jesus and Mary Chain beyond puzzling over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation. It’s okay, you’re not alone. Jedidiah Foster, the singer and guitarist of The Bittersweet Way introduced his bandmates to The Jesus…
Editor’s Note: An abridged version of this article appears in this week’s issue, featuring 100 Songs that Defined Arizona. In celebration of Arizona’s centennial, we’ve rounded up sound clips for (almost) everyone featured in our list, and will be rolling them out over the course of the week. “Not alone…
Editor’s Note: A version of this article appears in this week’s issue, featuring 100 Songs that Defined Arizona. In celebration of Arizona’s centennial, we spoke songwriter Howe Gelb, who has led the constantly mutating Giant Sand in Tucson and all around the world since 1985. Gelb is known for his…
Want to know what new release discs and platters are moving across the Valley at local record stores? We’ve got you covered with another installment of What’s Selling. Adele came up big at the Grammy’s Sunday, but she’s nowhere to be seen on Hoodlums list of weekly top-sellers. It’s quite…
Doesn’t matter if you’re like me and have been mostly indifferent to fun. in the past, the band’s new single, “We are Young (featuring Janelle Monáe)” has been inescapable over the past few weeks. The song’s huge, and sounds like it was custom built for a car commercial (and yeah…
