Mixed in amongst this week’s indie rock plethora is a Slick Rick show at The Clubhouse. The British born, New York raised M.C. is best known for being a story-rap innovator, coming of age in what many consider to be the Golden Age of hip-hop. Songs such as “Children’s Story,”…
Why is it that bands — and people in general — seem to be appreciated so much more once they’re gone?After they’re out of reach, suddenly a person somehow becomes even more important than before. You’ve seen it when someone dies, of course, and also when a band like The…
Song: Tennis, “Take Me Somewhere”Context: This buzzing Denver band comes to Rhythm Room tomorrow night. Tennis – Take Me Somewhere by forcefieldpr…
Calexico at Corona Ranch Someone at Corona Ranch realized it was after 11 p.m. Someone knew the band had been playing for damn-near two-hours. Someone wanted to punch their time-card and go home, not caring to hear a truly stellar Southwesternized version of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which you’d have to…
The White Stripes If you’re anything like me, your first thought when you heard that the White Stripes were breaking up was this: “Sucks to be Meg White right now!”After all, it’s not like Jack White has got anything to worry about. He’s still got The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs,…
When I ran into the Lisa Savidge guys at the Calexico show Friday they said their new record, which they’ll start handing out at a show next Thursday at the Rhythm Room ($10 gets you in and a copy of the record to take home) is more shoegaze-y than their…
called it from the very beginning of the football game: The Super Bowl halftime show would be 10 minutes of the Black Eyed Peas shouting. And indeed it was.Between the bad pickup on the microphones and the complete lack of nip-slips, this year’s Super Bowl halftime show downright sucked.The whole…
My name is Benjamin and I’m a classical music lover. I grew up in a household where Pachelbel’s Canon, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and Handel’s Messiah were played regularly. I’m also a big fan of hip-hop, although not to the degree of some of my colleagues (who can craft outstanding blogs…
Interpol Marquee Theatre Saturday, February 5, 2011Interpol hasn’t headlined a Phoenix show since 2004, a few months after Antics was released. In 2005 they visited our state twice, playing Edgefest, and Coconuts, a small Tucson bar that is now closed. Since then, Arizona has been skipped on every tour, including…
Someone at Corona Ranch realized it was after 11 p.m. Someone knew the band had been playing for damn-near two-hours. Someone wanted to punch their time-card and go home, not caring to hear a truly stellar Southwesternized version of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which you’d have to imagine part-time Tucsonian Paul…
Song: Authority Zero, “Movement”Context: Authority Zero plays Club Red tomorrow night for New Times Soundcheck — a festival which features a bunch of local bands. Authority Zero – Movement by renanvec…
Am I the only one who really, really hates Nicki Minaj? You’d think so based on only a smattering of anti-Nicki talk on ye ole interwebz, compared to a torrent of anti Ke-dollarsign-ha fury and all the hate of other comparable slutwave artists.For example: There are a mere 1,500 members…
Lil Wayne will be rooting for the Green Bay Packers in this year’s Super Bowl, according to SPIN.Weezy’s all about reppin’ the green and yellow, stating in his newly released Wiz Khalifa rip-off “Green and Yellow,” “I’m a cheesehead/Y’all n****s cheese whiz.” He posted the song on his blog Weezy…
Title: Touch My Beer and I’ll Kill Ya Basics: Let’s start with what Catfish Mustache isn’t (thank God): Countrified rock, emo, pop-punk. What we do have — in lieu of all those super fun genres — is some funk rock with some hip-hop sprinkled in for good measure. Warning –…
Welcome to What Are You Listening To?, a new weekly feature on Up on the Sun where notable locals talk about their favorite music. Damon BraschBrasch is the owner and chef of Green restaurant in Tempe with a new location coming soon to Phoenix. He is also the guitar player…
Like many other DJs and EDM artists have done in recent years, the Brazilian beat-blasting duo of João Miguel and Luciano Oliveira (a.k.a. The Twelves) made it to the big time via the blogosphere. After their raucous remixes of MIA, Asobi Seksu, and Erlend Oye garnered rave reviews on the…
Let’s face it. The White Stripes is was a band that without question defined music for this generation. Whether you liked them or not (and most everyone did, at one time or other) they were constantly in the news, challenging convention, and reinventing sounds and styles, making them fresh, new,…
Eleven countries, and possibly more to come, have already restricted any airplay on television. Even BBC 1 radio refuses to play Rihanna’s song during most hours of the day since the lyrics aren’t too clean. Meanwhile, YouTube users are required to confirm that they are at least 18 years old.Rihanna’s…
In this week’s big feature, Nicki Escudero looks at the burgeoning career of North Scottsdale crooner Dawn Jameson — examining whether she’s just another no-talent slutwave star along the lines of Ke$ha or if she’s got talent to match her looks. Whether you agree she’s got the goods or not…
Song: Calexico, “Crystal Frontier” (Live in Nuremberg)Context: When I spoke with Calexico frontman Joey Burns in the wake of the Giffords tragedy we discussed this song, which he suggested as a wake-up tune aboard the space shuttle for the astronaut husband of a famous fan of his band, Gabby Giffords…
In this week’s print edition we ran a story about the the recent reboot of New York City’s most fashionable gloom-rockers Interpol. For the piece we caught up with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino to talk about some of the recent changes the band has undergone. Most notably of which is…
Blues music is a uniquely American tradition, but like any art form, it doesn’t stay static. Over the past century, the blues have grown, morphed, and branched in big and unexpected ways. The biggest came when the blues of the Mississippi Delta moved up river to Chicago, changing both the…
