A Yuma deputy prosecutor and Lil Wayne’s co-counsel confirmed for New Times today that the rap star was present for a court hearing in his drug possession case, despite Internet rumors that he had died.
Say you are a “winter visitor” to Arizona, sitting in your Buick at a stoplight in east Mesa, listening to Sean Hannity on your factory-installed radio. There you are, enjoying your retirement, when you notice the car in front of you has a “Fuck Strange Young Things” sticker in the…
With the release of his 1987 sophomore album, Surfing with the Alien, Joe Satriani effectively established himself as a guitar icon. Aside from his obvious command of proficiency and flashy technique, Satriani was able to rise above the niche visibility of the guitar-shredder ghetto on the strength of the lyricism…
It’s not often that a local band gets national recognition. It’s also not often that a local band has a song featured in a movie released internationally. Yet that’s exactly what Tramps and Thieves has done, all in about four months. In June, the group that guitarist/vocalist Emmett DeGuvera refers…
THURSDAY 6 Bikini Lounge: DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: DJ M2 (hip-hop, Top 40) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Pickster Uno, DJ Element, Emerg McVay, Ultra Black, & Xian 1 (hip-hop, dubstep) J-Heads:…
Back in the day (read: a few years ago), it would’ve been unwise to give Pete Didonato any lip when he was working the mixers. Chances are the fierce-looking former bouncer might’ve answered back with his fists. “My temper got the best of me back then and people usually got…
Chicago’s The Sea and Cake continues to refine its unique bossa nova-tinged blue-eyed-soul dream-pop with Car Alarm. Though there are few surprises, it’s a consistently captivating throughout. The opener “Aerial” and the title song charge from the speakers like outtakes from the Flamin’ Groovies’ Shake Some Action. A solid beat,…
Those who’ve heard the first two Eagles of Death Metal albums predominantly fall into two camps: either fully onboard with the tongue-in-cheek bluesy rock and offbeat shenanigans of frontman Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes and Josh “Baby Duck” Homme, or left cold by their ’70s-rock homage and accompanying antics, like those…
Some artists emerge fully formed from the gate; others have to wait and see how their talents evolve. For some years now, Larkin Grimm, a singer/guitarist raised mostly in Appalachian Georgia who now roams about the country, has worked somewhere between those two descriptions: a compelling musician who has yet…
Fourteen years into a largely unheralded career, Elf Power is still at it, even if the band has never made the big time. In fact, it never came close. Led by frontman Andrew Rieger, this indie-rock band has been the odd man out in some buzz-worthy scenes. Despite its association…
When it comes to avant-garde rock bands, there are usually two distinct routes: noisy cathartic (Sonic Youth, Dead C) and dissonant/drone-y ominous (Spiritualized, This Heat). Then there are the bands that go to a third extreme, exuding a smug “Gosh, aren’t we just so zany and quirky?” attitude. Few bands…
Writing a song that paints a picture of a fire in a Taco Bell is no easy task, yet Detroit’s Electric Six laughs at such a notion. The band’s infamous 2003 single “Danger! (High Voltage)” easily sums up what kind of effect the genre-bending band is going for. Dick Valentine,…
There’s nothing especially new about douchebag rock. The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, and countless others have shoehorned the subgenre into the larger pop canon. But in the present decade, plenty of indie boys have gotten in touch with their inner assholes: The Walkmen, Say Anything, The Strokes, and, most notably,…
If you miss following the Grateful Dead or Phish from gig to gig, munching a few funky brownies and spinning in circles as the bands play, fire up the VW bus this weekend and head up to the Spirit Room in Jerome, where Tempe’s Mojo Farmers host their semi-annual Mountain…
On last winter’s intriguing Watershed, k.d. lang’s first disc of original material in eight years, the Canadian-born singer/songwriter seemed to have picked up a few things from the legendary Tony Bennett, with whom she has repeatedly collaborated over the years since his MTV Unplugged special in 1993. The instrumentation on…
It’d be hard to pinpoint exactly when Woody Guthrie joined Iggy Pop, Wayne Kramer and Johnny Cash as a proto punk demigod. Somewhere along the line, he seems to have slipped in there though, at least for certain segments of the punk world. The Revival Tour, which stopped in Tempe last night, is probably the best evidence you’ll find to that effect.
By Martin Cizmar
If you’re someone like me who, somewhat embarrassingly, cannot get enough Ben Gibbard, I have some good news.
By Benjamin Leatherman Hip-hop, R&B, and other urban jams have always been big sellers at Circles Records & Tapes, 800 North Central Avenue. So it’s only natural a majority of the shop’s top 10 best-selling albums for this week are chartbusters from those genres. For instance, the No. 1 album…
For the past eight years, Alice Cooper has given us yuletide rockings with his annual Christmas Pudding show. Phoenix’s resident shock rocker hosts the annual fete to raise money for his charity, the Solid Rock Foundation, a non-profit Christian corporation that provides a recreation center (The Rock Teen Center) for teenagers. To that end, Cooper’s “Proof is in the Pudding” talent competition — which nets the winning contestant a gig at the Christmas Pudding show — now includes a Teen Competition.
Last Exit, Halloween, Club Candids
Steve Wynn Crossing Dragon Bridge (Rock Ridge Music) By Thomas Bond After three stellar albums known as the “desert trilogy” because they were made in Tucson, singer/songwriter Steve Wynn set off for a change of scenery for his new disc Crossing Dragon Bridge. Recorded in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia,…
By Martin Cizmar
It’s not often an album I’ve never heard before makes me nostalgic for my high school days, let alone one that came out last year and is sang partly in Japanese. But so it was with Toybox’s five-song EP, Five Seconds To…, which really took me back. Despite the fact that it’s Toybox is three ASU Japanese-exchange-students-turned-locals, and perform some of their songs in Japanese, they sound like the bands all my friends were in during my school days, old school pop-punkers of the 924 Gilman Street persuasion.
