Lonely days in Phoenix lead to lonely springtime in the desert. Everything is blooming and fornicating, humping, discharging, and collecting all the time, leaving you standing there waiting for that bee. The young dance in the light, on the lawns at spring training games, on small balconies, in backyards by…
The kid with the fluorescent green hair can’t be much older than 8. He’s wearing a shirt with a design that resembles the Heineken logo, but is modified to proclaim his love of Anal Blast, the band that’s just pulled him onstage. Singer Don Decker asks the kid, “What’s the…
For decades, critics have been leveling such denunciations as arch, portentous, heavy-handed, and precious at rock music. Destroyer’s Dan Bejar has managed to turn those denunciations into attributes. His vocals feature mannerisms that we’d usually find annoying in our U.K. cousins: feyness, enthusiastic offhandedness, melodramatics, self-importance, and smugness. (Think: Bowie,…
If pre-electric Bob Dylan knocked up the Carter family and the offspring that followed were the ringleaders of a band of rebel Irish immigrant poets who lived in the Catskills and survived on red wine and petty theft, then you might be getting close to summarizing the nearly indefinable Felice…
When we last heard from the Bs, their future seemed uncertain. Cindy Wilson had left the band, and though the remaining trio’s Good Stuff album of 1992 wasn’t bad, it didn’t set off any sparks, either. Then Wilson rejoined the band to tour behind a greatest hits compilation and they…
Three years after dissolving Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes nearly simultaneously, John “Speedo” Reis is back in the fold with a formidable new San Diego-based quartet called The Night Marchers. On the band’s debut CD, See You in Magic (released this week on Vagrant Records), Reis — collaborating…
Though twins Tegan and Sara Quinn grew up on punk, they’ve demonstrably honed their pop instincts and graduated from folk-tinged New Wave/pop-punk to something more sophisticated over the course of their four albums. Last year’s The Con consolidates the gains made on 2004’s critical breakthrough, So Jealous, with crafted, well-polished…
After more than 30 years of recording and touring, you’d think that these gentlemen would be jaded about making music, but listening to them perform, you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The iconic group — often regarded by fans as “the Led Zeppelin of jazz” —…
At most DJ and dance nights going down around the Valley, chances are you’ll be shaking your moneymaker to the same genres of music week after endless week. That ain’t the case on Friday nights at Medizona, 4240 North Winfield Scott Plaza in Scottsdale, thanks to the efforts of the…
This 1987 album is widely regarded as the best album in the long discography of Napalm Death, a band that basically invented grindcore, combining elements of speed metal (barreling, crushing guitars) and death metal (growling, shrieking vocals) with blast beats. There are 28 tracks here, most of which clock in…
Handlebar J in Scottsdale on Saturday, April 19th By: Lilia Menconi For more cowboy-girl action click here. Lately, we’ve been feeling like this town is tapped out. Every weekend, it’s the same faces, same get-ups, and same mornings of scattered memories and regrets. So we wallowed in our boredom by…
Didja know that eardrum obliteration and neighborhood aggravation aren’t the only uses for pulsating bass-heavy music? Try ratcheting the Best of Bass Syndicate up to 11 while aiming your stereo’s speakers at the floor to simulate a minor earthquake, or blast “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side…
If, by magic, American Idol actually conceived a competition between this generation’s greatest professional female vocalists (not the semi-pro pop tarts the show usually offers), it’s hard to imagine who’d top Chan Marshall. The Cat Power singer proved an inspired interpreter on 2000’s The Covers Record, and again on her…
Both Pelican and Thrice are stretching the boundaries of their sounds and others’ expectations. Pelican’s City of Echoes soft-pedals their usual throb, taking their complex art-metal instrumentals in a melodic direction. The tracks are still dense but don’t unwind as far, getting through each thematic movement with heretofore unseen concision…
An underground extreme-metal institution, Today Is the Day makes some of the most compellingly ugly music you could ever hope to hear. While pushing shock buttons is nothing new, bandleader Steve Austin has kept TITD at the cutting edge for almost 20 years, with a sound so harsh that bands…
This Nashville duo plays fuzzed-out garage blues that sounds like Tom Waits sitting in with the Black Keys. It’s grimy, primal stuff led by frontman John Wesley Myers’ growl. They formed as a trio in 2004, but when guitarist Mark Holder left in 2006 after their debut EP, You Damn…
Like a sepia-toned photo of days gone by, Watson embodies a sound Nashville disowned years ago for rhinestones and snakeskin. His deep baritone is dark as pumpernickel, smooth as steel, and haunted as that house in Amityville. His music harks back to the dusty honky-tonks and electrified swing of Bakersfield…
Hazelwood’s 1st Place Sports Grill on Saturday, April 12th. By: Lilia Menconi For more to fantasize about click here. This weekend, we decided to check out one of those places we’ve passed by a million times but have never bothered to stop in. Rumor has it that Hazelwood’s is loaded…
“Seriously, it’s like soft porn on wheels!” That is how my friend Joker describes roller derby to me before a recent AZ Derby Dames doubleheader bout at Castle Mega Sports. It’s the first live roller derby event I’ve attended, and Joker — so-named because of her huge, mischievous, toothy grin…
This young, Dutch-born saxophonist has a long history as a sidewoman, performing alongside Dave Stewart (with whom she recorded “Lily Was Here,” a hit she often performs live), Prince, Aretha Franklin, and many others since her late teens. As a bandleader, she brings influences from funk, Latin music, and other…
Florida quintet Yellowcard broke big on 2003’s Ocean Avenue. Songs like “Way Away” and “Only One” kept the band on the radio, in video games, and on awards-show stages for more than a year. You couldn’t escape Yellowcard. The group recorded a follow-up, Lights and Sounds. Then, singer Ryan Key’s…
Try as you might, there’s no knocking Jay-Z’s hustle. So what if he’s no longer president of Def Jam? So what if he’s mostly irrelevant? So what if there are more literate, talented, and entertaining rappers dropping science out there? Unfading swagger, shameless self-mythologizing, and a willingness to pimp goods…
