Since musicians like Trey Songz are just not enough to send the message home that getting tipsy before hooking up is totally a great idea (and not risky at all), now pop music fans have Christina Aguilera to praise the virtues of getting drizzunk before getting physical in her latest…
Artist: Crystal CastlesTitle: Crystal Castles IIRelease date: May 25Label: FictionExactly 36 seconds into the new record by Crystal Castles, I said to myself, “This is way fucking better than Sleigh Bells.”I’m sure many of you are saying, “Quit being an asshole about Sleigh Bells; why do you feel you have…
This week, New Times ran a box in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. How was Brian Wilson’s show in Scottsdale? What does Pearl Jam’s protest song about the oil…
Judge if you want, but the team here at Up On The Sun kind of loves the tour videos from Phoenix metalcore act Blessthefall. The last one was pretty funny, and the newest, which Revolver magazine got an exclusive look at, is even better.Sure, most of it is just potty…
It’s been 18 months or so since Scottsdale’s Cream Stereo Lounge opened its doors to the public, and for the life of us we can’t remember a time when the titular milk-based substance has ever been employed at the Old Town hotspot. That all changes tonight as club promoter Brian…
The Pixies are coming to town. Punknews is reporting that the band will play Mesa Amphitheatre on September 24 as part of a smallish tour. That means you will soon have the chance to be underwhelmed by the band’s show in person.I’ve come to believe that being unimpressed by The…
Thrash metal’s Big Four — Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax — rarely assemble. When they do, it’s in places like Bulgaria where, as we understand it, Metallica’s Black Album has not yet been released, pussifying the genre in the minds of the denim-vested masses.On June 22 that Bulgaria concert will…
Fans in the audience at last night’s Boys Like Girls concert (which included members of Scottsdale pop rock band The Summer Set) at Venue of Scottsdale weren’t the only ones Tweeting deets from the show. All Time Low singer Alex Gaskarth was quick to take to the interwebs (maybe he…
This week’s music feature traces the sociological lineage of Juggalos — the bizarre, and cultish fans of Insane Clown Posse. Craig Outhier gives ethnomusicologists a head start by pointing out some of the defining characteristics of the Juggalos, and exactly from where their traditions originated.We also take a look at…
There’s not a whole lot to this flier, for a show by The X Chromosomes at Rogue Bar Friday, June 4, but that doesn’t mean it’s unsuccessful in grabbing your attention. The prettily colored design just sucks you in, almost as if it’s hypnotizing you with its dizzying interlocking rings…and…
Song: Zac Brown Band, “Chicken Fried”Context: I’m really looking forward to trying Chick-fil-A’s new spicy chicken sandwich today. I made the ‘reservation’ over a week ago, and am thrilled the day is finally here. Chicken Fried by regross67…
If ever there were a place designed to host punk and rockabilly events, it would be Sucker Punch Sallys. Sporting décor overflowing with retro style and hot rod attitude, the ’50s-style Tempe diner, at 4 East University Drive, is brimming with vintage guitars, paintings of souped-up racers, and other items…
Oy vey, these kids are young. How young? Well, they still have that wet, matted, quivering-foal youngness to them. You know? That certain gooeyness that just screams “Clearasil-sponsored talent search winners.” Raised on the mean streets of Fountain Hills, this mixed-gender foursome certainly looks the part of the lean, hungry,…
The Sail Inn seems an unlikely place to catch a marching band perform. You’d expect to find a marching band at a parade or somewhere they could, you know, actually march. But there isn’t very much traditional about Portland’s MarchFourth Marching Band. On paper, the group is built just like…
THURSDAY 3 Afterlife: Filthy Thursdays (dubstep, breakbeats) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays (hip-hop, Top 40) Bomberos Winebar: dk.strickler, Dr. Drea, & World Famous Rani “g” (electronica, world beat, house) Copper State Tavern: DJ Kavi, & guests (hip-hop, R&B) Karamba: Vaquero Thursdays with DJ Jesus (cumbia, norteña, banda) Margarita Rocks: DJ Mr…
More than in any other genre, rappers rarely seem content just being rappers. Jay-Z is a business mogul, Diddy has a clothing line, Ice-T has played a cop on TV for a decade, and Snoop Dogg makes a lot of money simply by being a lovable goofball. Curtis “50 Cent”…
MURS does everything with purpose. Every song, every line, every collaborator seems to spring from deep thought. Even his name, which he asserts was received from the heavens, is an acronym for either “Making Underground Raw Shit” or “Making the Universe Recognize and Submit,” depending on whom you ask. The…
It would be unforgivably glib to say that Miike Snow — an electropop trio from Sweden — sometimes sounds like ABBA with an echo deck. But it’s true! It’s so true. Crisply emotive, with unusual phrasings and a disarming dash of neo-funk, the music has inspired comparisons to Vampire Weekend…
Is “indie movie trailer” its own genre yet? It’s hard to hear the final minute of a song like “The Cave” by London’s Mumford & Sons, marked by a soaring yet contemplative refrain of “I will change my ways,” without envisioning it accompanying scenes of, say, Jesse Eisenberg and Kat…
Tributes to John Denver run the gamut. Take the singer-songwriter’s chart-topping hit song “Leaving on a Jet Plane” for example. It’s been reborn as a rock song, reggae song, and even a punk song, covered by Liza Minnelli, Chantal Kreviazuk, Slightly Stoopid, Sister Hazel, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies,…
“Mass murder makes me happy / Dead bodies make me happy / Until eternity/ We’ll always have Juggalo family.” — “Juggalo Family” (2001) by Dark Lotus Consider the preceding lyric. Savor it. Swish it in your mouth. It’s puerile, no? Vulgar, vicious, toxic, all that. But embedded within the murderous…
DJ Tranzit isn’t shy about sharing his opinion about Bellagio Palace’s hookah lounge The Joint. “It’s a nice venue, very slick-looking, and the sound system is sick,” Tranzit says of the West Phoenix after-hours nightclub, which featured his turntable talents during its grand opening this past weekend. Located along 35th…
