When you solicit musical submissions from the general public as I do (Brendan Kelley), you’re bound to run into some weird shit. Today’s winner for the most off the wall aural experience I’ve had is a local outfit called Janis Joplin Crap N Vomit. Apparently these songs are off the…
has to be the indomitable Blunt Club. Five years running and by far the best weekly party that goes down. Tonight Dumperfoo and crew have Tucson MC James Ciphurphace with DJ Grapla, fellow Tucsonians The Greyz, along with San Francisco artist and AlphaMonster crew member Eyeris One busting out the…
The Impossible Ones I was almost made a liar of back in June when I wrote about the Impossible Ones reuniting for the fourth time; I promised that the trio – Gentleman John, Neil Impossible, and Raubnoxious – would be playing an unannounced show sometime in the near future as…
We Fly Our Kites At Night My favorite freakazoids, We Fly Our Kites At Night, are getting their album, Killing Ray Brower, ready for public consumption (pity their public) any time now (if you don’t know who Ray Brower is, watch Stand By Me again). Since I was unintentionally responsible…
On Friday, October 20, Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale provided the perfect excuse to pair your ratty old Ramones tee shirt with some leggings at the Pretty Vacant! kickoff party, featuring DJ Marky Ramone. Indie kids, poppy punkers, and other Valley vagrants gradually drained in and boozed up, filling the…
It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark; under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart. . . There was no getting away from Michael Jackson’s Thriller at Alwun House’s Monster’s Ball on Saturday, October 30. The devilish ditty did the trick when…
I’m a bit unnerved when I meet up with North Side Kings singer/guitarist Danny Marianino to drink beer and discuss the band’s new record, Suburban Royalty. Danny’s sporting a cast on his right arm, a broken hand being the latest injury he’s sustained. He says that just a couple of…
It wasn’t easy getting Ian Metzger off his ass to play some rock ‘n’ roll again. He’d burned out on the band life early, when his high school Christian rock group, Justified, turned out to be the kind of shitty life experience that leaves a person thinking, “No real good…
Boobs and beer. The Georgia-based raunch ‘n’ rollers in Nashville Pussy don’t need much more symbolism than that, even though they’ve used the Confederate flag on their albums and show fliers for years, à la Lynyrd Skynyrd. But when you’ve got hot blonde guitarist Ruyter Suys kneeling down on the…
In the 1997 Groovie Ghoulies song “Graveyard Girlfriend,” bassist/vocalist Kepi sings, “One day I’ll lay next to you in a beautiful coffin built for two.” And sure enough, according to guitarist Roach, Kepi’s graveyard girlfriend — actually his wife and musical conspirator of more than a decade — “We do…
If you followed alt. country’s flirtation with finding an audience bigger than the readership of No Depression in the ’90s, then you’ll need to own the Bloodied But Unbowed: Bloodshot Records Life in the Trenches DVD (Bloodshot), a 31-song celebration of the first 12 years of Bloodshot Records, boasting videos…
After watching these longhaired Canucks tear up the stage opening for Nashville Pussy at the Clubhouse Music Venue, I’m convinced they are the most impressive and diverse band in the current wave of retro metal-rock, surpassing such stellar company as ’70s-sounding acts Wolfmother, Danava, and The Sword. They have incredibly…
No rock-star kid ever made a more endearing record than Sean Lennon’s 1998 debut Into the Sun, a Double Fantasy for hipsters produced by his Japanese girlfriend, Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda. Taking cues from Tropicalia, cocktail jazz and ’90s art-pop, Lennon’s lounge-adelic take on the sounds of the British Invasion…
Don’t be fooled by “Welcome to the Black Parade,” the first — and rather lengthy — single off My Chemical Romance’s third disc. The entirety of The Black Parade, although obviously ambitious in its influences and concept, doesn’t ape Freddie Mercury. In fact, most of the record just sounds like…
If the first thing that comes to mind when you read the word “Scotland” is haggis-gnawing, lager-swilling soccer hooligans, listening to the rapid-fire tracks on Entomology will make you think again. Dubbed “The Sound of Young Scotland,” bands like Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, and Josef K ruled Britannia for a…
Culminating a decade of spiritually searching dance music and blistering punk rock, Moby made, arguably, the last great album of the 20th century with Play, a brilliant amalgam of old gospel samples and new studio wizardry. At a time when electronica’s trendiness was ending, Play gave the throbbingly impersonal genre…
The Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper? Can a classic rock bill even get any better than that? The Stones, of course, are still amazing live, still able to invest a song they’ve done no fewer than a billion times — from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”…
Few bands have made the trashy side of rock ‘n’ roll feel dirtier or more inviting than The Cramps, a psychobilly force of nature with a Ph.D. in EC comics, drive-in movies, striptease sexuality, and the fuzz-guitar genius of Nuggets. With Lux Interior channeling Elvis as the undead, G-string-wearing host…
It’s tempting to talk about guitarist Adrian Belew only in terms of the company he has kept throughout the past 30 years. He’s been a sideman for Zappa and Bowie, was integral in King Crimson v2.0, and played on the best records the Talking Heads, Paul Simon, and Nine Inch…
If you’re gonna have an organ player in your group and call yourselves Oh My God, you could be mistaken for a Christian rock band. So indie trio OMG has this clarification on its MySpace page: “This Chicago rock band is not affiliated with God or Satan (though the band…
Remember Candy Land? You know, that ultra-vibrant and ultra-enjoyable confection-laced board game that dominated your childhood and sent you on a jubilant journey traipsing through such realms as the Peppermint Stick Forest or the Molasses Swamp? This weekend’s Kandieland III rave on Saturday, November 4, at the Starlight Room, 16731…
Thursday 2 Bunkhouse Lounge: DJ Doom (dance) Chilly Bombers: DJ Statik (hip-hop, dance) Club Central: DJ Luis (salsa, merengue) Coconut Club: DJ Coolstylz (Top 40, dance, hip-hop) The Door: DJ J. Nasty (hip-hop, Motown, Top 40) e4: “Passport” with DJ Tranzl8r (hip-hop mash-ups) E-Lounge: DJ Domenica (hip-hop, house) Harley’s 2303:…
