Where: American Park ‘n Swap at Phoenix Greyhound Park (3801 E. Washington St., 602-273-1250). Drink: 16-ounce cups of beer for $3 each plus a $2 admission per person. Scene: The American Swap Meet is like Wal-Mart, thrift store, and Mexican supermercado all rolled into one gigantic outdoor yard sale. Four…
If anyone’s compiling a reel of defining Arizona 21st-century rock moments, don’t forget Kirkwood Dellinger’s January 2008 appearance on Good Morning Arizona. Falling squarely, and I do mean squarely, under what Elmo Kirkwood will frequently categorize as “corny crap,” the band briefly played to the commercial break a snippet of…
Where’s the love for rap’s elders? Almost 30 years after Sugar Hill Gang released hip-hop’s first hit single, “Rapper’s Delight,” the genre evinces less nostalgia than reel lawn mowers. While rock luminaries like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan still attract fans (some who weren’t even…
THURSDAY 11 Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: DJ M2 (hip-hop, Top 40) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Evidence, The Smob, Kahlee, Pickster Uno, DJ Element, Emerg McVay, & more (hip-hop) Crabby Don’s: DJ Johnny Knuckles (mash-ups, Top 40, ’80s) J-Heads: Thursday Night…
Zach Daniell is wiped out. It’s the night before Thanksgiving and the 18-year-old New Yorker has just flat-out sprinted through lower Manhattan with his 16-year-old girlfriend Kiki Fausel, his sister, and some friends. Bounding and pounding, they make the frenzied one-mile dash from Washington Square Park to a concert at…
Like an ambitious chef, Fear Before has attempted a new recipe with each of its four releases. The Colorado quintet’s 2003 debut, Odd How People Shake, raged with clamorous hardcore before graduating to a more spastic, experimental mathcore approach, for 2004’s Art Damage. It toned down the noisy, frenetic rumble…
Honky-tonk renegade Junior Brown is the consummate misfit. Beating the hell out of his one-of-a-kind guit-steel ax (custom-built after it appeared to him in a dream), roaring lyrics with coarse, chainsaw-toned vocals, and displaying the sort of nimble-fingered facility that makes guitar geeks around the world go limp, the Arizona-born,…
With their golden-age comic book costumes, silly supervillains, and absurd song titles, The Aquabats are punk rawk’s answer to GWAR. Only instead of promising the destruction of the known universe through copious bodily fluids, the ‘Bats are out to protect it. The superhero rock brigade got its start in 1994…
Transitioning from over-hyped buzz generator to perpetual powerhouse ain’t easy, even for figures as charismatic as the men of Bloc Party, and the strain shows on Intimacy, the Brits’ third LP. “Ares” is the sound of a band trying too hard, albeit with assists from some pretty interesting elements: screaming…
Neo-honky-tonker Wayne Hancock’s nickname is “The Train,” and though it may appear convenient to give the native Texan the moniker simply because of the Dr. Seuss-style rhyme one can play with his first name, Hancock has earned an allegiance with perhaps country music’s greatest symbol of both heartbreak and freedom…
One of the grooviest things about the Valley’s EDM scene is that DJ/dance events seemingly spring up in the unlikeliest of places. An all-night rave can take place in the middle of the forested mountains up near Camp Verde, for instance. Or some local turntablism collective will put on a…
So, from our sister paper in Broward County/Palm Beach comes news that DMX was again popped by the cops yesterday. He’s been arrested seven times in 2008 alone for charges that range from identity theft and animal cruelty to drug possession and failure to appear in court, several times here…
Question: Who’s the straight ahead rock outfit playing with AC/DC tonight that you’ve never heard of? The Answer.But what’s The Answer? The Answer!hehehehe This foursome from Northern Ireland may not be on our radio charts…yet, but since their creation in 2000 they’ve racked up a few accolades including playing with…
This morning I woke up thinking “Hmmm, I’m pretty much done compiling my list of the top ten local releases of the year, I should write that column soon,” when I got an unexpected e-mail that threw the whole operation to disarray.That’s right, The Loveblisters record, The Nowhere West is done…
So I’ve been getting raked over the coals by Tokio Hotel fans over the last few days because I wrote a blog pointing out that, well, it’s kinda weird for teenage girls to be attracted to a guy who looks a lot like them. I asked why, I got a few thoughtful…
Where: The Crowne Plaza’s Café Sha Longue (4300 E Washington St.) is directly across from the station, less than a minute walk from where the train stops. Drink: Whatever you can get them to serve your drunk ass before you get booted. Scene: We would not send you in to…
I usually feel like I have to come up with the defining words about a show myself since, you know, I get paid to be there and all, but I really can’t do any better than the simple statement made by my friend Ashley last night at Snow Patrol’s Clubhouse…
Perhaps recognizing that the tanking economy has hit the blue-collar sorts you’ll find at a massive multi-day country music festival especially hard, Country Thunder is introducing an installment purchase plan. Or, as we like to call it, “layaway.” Now on countrythunder.com you can get your tickets at the early bird…
The horde of amateur music critics at Pitchfork Media has just crapped out a tome titled The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present (Fireside). The book purports to present “edifying essays” about the greatest 500 songs of the past thirty years and “all-new reviews” of songs by artists like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, U2, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, and dozens of other stuff people have already heard and already have their own opinions about.
Tractor Pull DivasLove Songs for (Insert Your Name Here)(Self released)I haven’t been overly enamored of local alt-country bands since I started doing You Asked For It back in September. The New Westerns had a nice sound, but spotty vocals, and suffer from occasional self-indulgence. Instant Hobo won points for being hobo-themed, but…
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: After Thanksgiving, I was so bloated from overindulgence, I overslept and missed an opportunity to make a Zia Records run. My friends came over and presented me with a postcard gift. Andy Rourke of the THE SMITHS spinning… somewhere. I…
Scene: Draw 10 is a sports bar in the third degree, as evidenced by the numerous pennants and posters for local teams like the Suns and D’Backs lining the walls. Countless sports fanatics gather here (and are usually clad in the jerseys of whatever ball squad they’ve sworn their undying…
