Fall Out Boy have a few ties to Phoenix that you may not be aware of. The band released Live in Phoenix, a DVD it recorded last year at Cricket Pavilion. Kyle, the band’s soundman, is from Phoenix. And the guys used to chill with Valley promoter Will Anderson years…
One of the reasons we love Leonard Cohen is because we don’t know him. That’s not to suggest he’s hiding sinister skeletons in his closet, but his 40-year-plus career has been significant precisely because of its air of eternal mystery. It’s even more amazing given he emerged in the late…
One of the things I love best about Bright Eyes (yes, I unapologetically love Bright Eyes) is the way the band mingles so many rootsy sounds in songs that end up sounding contemporary. It’s for that reason, and not just Matthew Reveles’ vulnerable, emotive vocals, that I compare the Tempe…
THURSDAY 2 Bomberos: DJ Rani “g,” dk.strickler, & guests (house, global soul) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: Scandalous Thursday with DJ Juan Rocha (house, electronica) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Pickster Uno, DJ Element, more (hip-hop) Copper State Tavern: The Copper Club with DJ Kavi, & guests (hip-hop)…
Ever since Kurt Cobain, Seattle’s seminal grunge hero, shot himself in the head, slews of would-be successors to Nirvana’s sonic throne have come and gone. Because April 5 marks the 15th anniversary of Cobain’s death, we’re taking a look at some of the bands that have been hailed as “the…
Bruce Springsteen is an icon who’s divided music fans like few other artists have. There’s a sizable faction of fans that worshipfully buys every album, attends every concert, and generally believes that “The Boss” can do no wrong. Nothing written here is going to persuade them not to go to…
It’s perfectly normal to admit you enjoy a small dose of the Grateful Dead. One need not be a hippie or a ponytail enthusiast in his 60s to enjoy the Dead, as the popular — and painfully accurate — stereotype dictates. For example, I enjoy putting on American Beauty and…
If your first assumption was that Phoenix alt-rockers Mondegreen came up with their name as some sort of quasi-artsy way of saying “green world,” you wouldn’t be alone, but you’d be wrong. Despite its vaguely Frenglish vibe, the word “mondegreen” was actually coined by American writer Sylvia Wright in 1954…
Respecting a band for being out there and doing its thing in front of strangers night after night is something we take for granted in this evolving music culture. We (myself included) are too quick to judge a band after hearing only one or two songs. We dismiss it as…
It’s that time of year again, when Valley country fans by the thousands kick up dust in the trampled alfalfa fields at the Canyon Moon Ranch outside Florence, where the annual Country Thunder music festival trots out four days of the biggest names in contemporary country music. After a lackluster…
If you were a club kid or music fan back in 1995, chances are you might have heard about a swanky little soiree called The Hip Joint. Seeping with style, the fly fete went down weekly during the middle of the Clinton era at bygone venues like Jamaican Blue in…
It looks like some of Fall Out Boy – bassist and band sound piece Pete Wentz – have arrived in the Valley early. Wentz has been twittering about being in Phoenix on his page (Pete Wentz), noting that baby Bronx is with him, which means wife Ashlee Simpson – whose…
After writing about a few bar and club closures over the past week (including Maloney’s in Tempe and Lyte Lounge in Scottsdale), it feels refreshing to dole out some news about some openings instead. It’s even better when it’s a previously-deceased nightspot that’s getting reincarnated with a new identity. Case…
The fine folks over at amazon.com decided that the time was ripe to assemble a list of the best indie rock albums of all time. Indie rock is a genre either really easy to define or kind of confusing to define, but that sentiment did not hold back amazon.com as…
What’s up, fellow AI watchers? After a brief hiatus, I am back, here to write on a Michael Sarver, Jasmine Murray, Jorge Nunez and Alexis Grace-less Idol. We shed a single tear for them all, and sing an off-key version of “I Will Survive” in honor of all their efforts.To…
It’s rare we have a juicy update on good time guy Roger Clyne, and rarer still we have a local music scoop from the Arizona Republic, but, while trying to figure out who Richard Ruelas (guest DJing on The Blaze this week) is last night I came across an interesting…
So what’s the deal down at Chez Nous? For the past few weeks, the doors at the renowned Grand Avenue soul joint have been locked up tighter than the vicodins at Artie Lange’s house. A paper taped to the door states that the place is “temporarily closed” and would re-open…
Less than a week after getting booted from the now-extinct Lyte Lounge & Bistro, Wednesday night hip-hop throwdown Groove Candy will take up residence at CenPho restaurant/jazz spot Doc’s Place starting on April 8. Power 98.3 mid-day jock Karlie Hustle, who hosts the weekly event, made the announcement over her…
Maybe it’s because I don’t listen to a lot of it in my off hours – that time when I want only the sweet, sweet voice of Karen Carpenter to sooth me over AM radio – but I’m constantly surprised by the depth and quality of the Phoenix metal scene…
Around the New Times office we’re really loving The Blaze’s Guest DJ week (which I participated in yesterday). ASU’s student radio station does this once a year, pulling in people like Murph from So Much Silence, Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World and, right now, our man Steve Chilton.But, seriously…
Somebody accused me in one of my recent American Idol posts of writing something with a homophobic bent to pretty-obviously gay also-ran Ricky Braddy. Now, I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, but I pity the foo’ who accuses me of not loving the gays. If…
Berkeley punk rockers Green Day will adapt their multi-platinum, Grammy-winning, catnip-for-angst-ridden tweens album American Idiot to the stage, just in time to open Berkeley Repertoire’s 2009/10 season. The musical will be the first for the vaunted Berkeley Rep’s new, swanky Roda Theatre, a fitting choice for Green Day, some of…
