Phoenix is one of the most diverse cities on the West coast, and the eclectic, multi-cultured sounds on the Diverse-Fi Music label provide ample examples of the rich sonic stew we’ve got brewing in P-City. This week, we tip our hat to Diverse-Fi.
First, let me just say that my friends Bones and Chazz – longtime cohorts for my “Niki at Nite” column – were super-stoked to see Jackyl. They’re both big fans of raucous, rowdy metal, and Jackyl is one of a handful of bands they can agree upon. Bones is an ‘80s metal chick with an affinity for Poison, Cinderella, Bon Jovi, and a bunch of other pretty boy bands that manly men cannot, in good conscience, admit to liking. Her husband Chazz is a self-professed “redneck” who loves beer, boats, and big boobs. He wouldn’t be caught dead with a can of hairspray and a pair of leather pants. But a metal band like Jackyl, where none of the members wear makeup and the singer dances around with a chainsaw – now that’s something guys can get into with no shame.
This might be our most exciting Future Shock yet, as several big-name shows and rare concert opportunities came down the wire. Rather than sit and gush about how awesome it is that Phoenix is one of only 17 cities on Tina Turner’s tour, or that Tom Waits is playing two nights here, let’s just get on with the roll call of radness.
By Jonathan McNamara Digital Summer’s numerous sticker advertisements have nothing on the sheer number of multimedia pieces we’ve put together to supplement Benjamin Leatherman’s cover story on the Valley-based band. If you haven’t seen the two (count ’em) slide shows we’ve already posted, you can see them in our Valley…
Scrubs actor and Garden State director and star Zach Braff is making a music video for singer-songwriter Jay Clifford, and he wants footage of you and your friends to be included.
It’s 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday and I’m sitting in rush hour traffic, trying to fight my way to happy hour at the Spurr Lounge. I’m doing a sort-of girls’ night out with my two lawyer pals, Cath and Shimba. Shimba is funny, cute, young, and idealistic, and she loves animals…
THURSDAY 8 Bar Smith: Peppermint Lounge with DJs Brazilia, & Mara (various) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Club Forbidden: DJ Domenica, DJ Hill, & DJ MJ (various) Club Red: The Blunt Club with One Be Lo, DJ Expo, Pickster One, DJ Element, Emerg McVay (hip-hop, breaks)…
If there’s one thing the self-satisfied, liberal, tofu-munching, cappuccino-sipping, in vitro fertilization-utilizing coastal elite hate, it’s Fox News. The Rupert Murdoch-owned home to such neoconservative mouthpieces as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity is known for cheerleading the Iraq war and not finding John McCain insufficiently right-wing. It even has the…
With Mother’s Day fast approaching, we here at New Times have spent a lot of time mulling over what makes a great mom. In the end, we each wrote down a trait, tossed these little slips of wonderful into a hat, and then, with a stick of glue, assembled them…
Tristan Prettyman — the San Diego folk-pop singer-songwriter, surfer, and former Roxy model — is back with her sophomore album, Hello . . . x. Over the phone from New York, where she was getting ready to board a plane to Nashville to continue her U.S. tour, the genial Prettyman…
Some of the best ’80s music was made by duos — Hall & Oates, Wham!, Roxette, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears. If The Foxglove Hunt had been British and around in the ’80s, they would be atop that list. But The Foxglove Hunt are two guys from Phoenix,…
Prong’s Tommy Victor recently remarked that metal bands can’t play in standard E tuning anymore because they’d “sound like the Eagles.” Not that they ever had anything to worry about, but about midway through Meshuggah’s career, the band’s guitarists switched from using already-low 7-string guitars to an 8-string approach in…
After a decade-long major-release hiatus during which he dedicated himself to music education and independent recordings, Stanley Jordan re-emerges with a CD that challenges listeners who see music as black-and-white. He’s taken musical creativity to the next level by looking outside the box at a handful of standards while introducing…
Just as it’s rare to have the U.S. president and vice president at the same public event, lest a deranged lunatic take them both out in one fell swoop, it seems slightly dangerous to the state of the indie-rock union to have the Whigs and What Made Milwaukee Famous sharing…
Like ’90s country artists making their bid for pop play, post-millennial European trance DJs are increasingly pushing their artist albums (as opposed to the innumerable mixes they typically author) into commercial territory. Like Paul Oakenfold’s A Lively Mind and Tiësto’s Elements of Life, van Buuren’s latest, Imagine, soft-pedals the oceanic…
Nowadays, the concept of a “side project” — a long-term member of a band leading another combo part-time — is fairly common. Back in the ’60s, it was practically unheard of. Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady were members of Jefferson Airplane, then one of America’s most popular bands…
The over-the-top androgynous appearance of J.D. Samson often leads to confusion about what, exactly, is the gender of the cross-dressing performance artist and member of indie rock’s Le Tigre. (Is he a she? Is she a he?) One thing there’s no doubt about is the turntablism talents of “DJ J.D.”…
Unless you’re a well-schooled jazz or R&B fan, Marcus Miller is probably the best bass player you’ve never heard of. The Grammy Award-winning Miller has played bass for Miles Davis, David Sanborn, and Luther Vandross, and also played bass and bass clarinet in a band called Legends, with Eric Clapton. He’s got his own signature bass (the Fender Marcus Miller Jazz Bass, available in 4- and 5-string versions) and is also one of the most in-demand R&B producers in the world, having co-produced/arranged most of Vandross’ albums from 1981 onward, as well as records by Al Jarreau, and The Crusaders.
By Lilia Menconi San Felipe’s Cantina on Sunday, May 4 Wipe off your drool and click through our San Felipe’s Cantina slideshow. Whatever your opinion on immigration laws, there’s one Mexican import that all Zonies seem to agree on. OK, two: burritos, and the cerveza- and margarita-filled extravaganza that is…
By Jonathan McNamara If the name Finn sounds familiar, be advised that Liam is the eldest son of Neil Finn, the singer/song-writing force behind Crowded House. Taking a few cues from his pops, Liam Finn pulls the song-writing thing off with a little bit of ingenuity and technological know-how. Finn…
By Thomas Bond When Grant McLennan, co-founder of The Go-Betweens, died of a heart attack two years ago today at the age of 48, it brought the curtain down on one of Australia’s finest ever bands. Now, fellow Go-Betweens co-founder Robert Forster pays touching tribute to his late songwriting partner…
Almost seven years after the release of Mesa-based Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American album, it might be easy for some people to forget the magnitude of that record — especially since JEW’s post-Bleed American albums, Futures (2004) and this year’s Chase the Light, haven’t even come close to matching the commercial success of Bleed American. Some might even wonder if Jimmy Eat World, the Valley’s largest breakout band since the Gin Blossoms, will be resigned to the same sort of national collective remembrance that befell the Blossoms — if it’s not something from the ’90s like “Hey Jealousy,” “Found Out About You,” or “Follow You Down,” they don’t want to hear it. Do people in Virginia even know that the Gin Blossoms released an album (Major Lodge Victory) in 2006? It’s really good. It’s just not on the radio like all their stuff from 1992’s New Miserable Experience still is.
