In May, Phoenix-based hip-hop duo Shining Soul — Franco Habre, a.k.a. Bronze Candidate, and Alex Soto, a.k.a. Liason — made a video for their track “No Mercy,” off their album, released in September 2013. The video mostly is protest footage mixed with clips of the group performing in concert, but…
Barn. Abandoned hotel. Log cabin. These are just a few locations outside the recording studio that bands have recorded their music. And now: record store. Jared Cox and TJ Jordan of Revolver Records are the masterminds behind Recorded in a Record Store, a compilation album of local bands who did…
Tucson’s Copper & Congress is a self-described “indie soul” trio of singer/guitarist/keyboardist Katie Haverly, bassist Patrick Morris, and drummer Julius Schlosburg. “We formed in 2012,” Haverly recalls. “We had a different drummer and guitar player. Patrick and I have been together since the beginning. Our guitar player quit and our…
Despite putting on a fantastic show at the Marquee Theatre last Wednesday, the New York kids collectively known as Interpol put on a set that clocked in at just under 60 minutes. It wasn’t exactly the Rolling Stones at Altamont, but there were many in the crowd who were vocal…
Heshers, hard rock fans, and metalheads alike have a lot to look forward to in the weeks and months ahead. Besides much-anticipated upcoming concerts by such living legends as Judas Priest and Slayer, the fall also bring with it the annual Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival, the debut of Rob…
It’s odd that people who have never met me want to punch me in the throat. Perhaps it’s akin to what people like Sean Hannity and Joe Arpaio experience on a daily basis, although I would never want to be compared to them. Luckily, I feel safe in saying there…
“I don’t want to talk about music, that’s so boring,” declares Travis James as he sits inside the Neverland House. And the local musician certainly has every right to call the shots, since the curiously named bungalow and DIY performance space in the Garfield Historic District is sort of his…
Colson Miller of the Thin Bloods and Robbie Pfeffer of Playboy Manbaby both describe their bands as more of a live experience than something that oughta be listened to at home. That said, it hasn’t stopped either band from releasing multiple cassettes this year through Rubber Brother Records. While the…
Raheem Jarbo — a.k.a. Mega-Ran, a.k.a. Random — has managed to blur the lines between hip-hop and video games by delivering a unique blend of 8-bit and heavy hip-hop beats while managing to display a certain level of vulnerability and intelligence. Now, Random has teamed up with director Mike Cardoza…
No, Lady Gaga will not perform with Tony Bennett at Mesa Arts Center. There’s long been talk of a collaboration CD between the two, and it seems that come September, the two finally will release Cheek to Cheek, an album that finds the unlikely collaborators crooning jazz standards, backed by…
Local rapper Trap House isn’t afraid to tackle current events in his music. Three days ago, he penned a song called “Imagine (Mike Brown Tribute),” and now, the rapper is teaming up with a group of locals to shoot a video for the song…
La Cerca singer/songwriter/guitarist Andrew Gardner is an idealist. No, he’s a cynic. In any case, he’s a master songsmith who speaks most articulately through his guitar playing. He found his calling in the early-’90s twee-pop of Beat Happening and Unrest, along with New Zealand indie bands like the Clean. The…
“I know where every exit in this room is.” Luna Aura’s eyes scan the room, peripherally watching everyone in it as we speak just inside the door of Jobot Coffee on a particularly blistering day. You’d think it would be a distracting trait, the indication of someone uninterested with engaging,…
Geoff Tate has always been seen as one rock ‘n’ roll’s archetypal frontmen. As singer of Queensrÿche, he sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and sold out shows in dozens of countries. Tate is ranked in the top 20 on Hit Parader’s 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time,…
Whether it says more about Jordan Prather or Tucson’s downtown music scene that the Head Over Heart singer/multi-instrumentalist likens himself to a punk rocker is up to you, but what’s certain is that he sees himself as an outsider in his community. “I remember reading in an Arcade Fire interview…
Ten years ago this December, a musical icon was taken from the world of heavy metal far too early. When Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott was gunned down performing with his band Damageplan in Ohio, we didn’t just lose a guitar legend. To those who knew him, he was one of the…
By Steve Brennan Like it or not, Pharell Williams’ “Happy” is likely to be the top-selling single of 2014. And yes, its buoyant ’60s soul vibe and simple, positive message is modern pop perfection. But scanning the rest of this year’s biggest hits, one is struck by a consistent theme:…
With apologies to Andrew Jackson Jihad, there’s no doubt Kongos is the hottest musical export Phoenix has created in years, and we have the news to prove it. Their smash hit “Come with Me Now” has now gone platinum, meaning digital sales of the song have exceeded one million…
The prominent representation of electronic music in the Valley obviously is the club scene in Scottsdale. The biggest names in electronic dance music play around Old Town every weekend, and thousands of people flock to expensive bars in flashy clothes. The opposite, that is, of what the members of Provisions…
There’s something about catching a band at a festival, especially when you don’t know them prior to seeing them,” says Marcus Pepperell, one half of London’s alt-pop duo Thumpers. He should know, given how many festival gigs his band has graced: MIDI Festival, Camden Crawl, Blissfields, South by Southwest, and…
The six members of Take Over and Destroy and Bob Hoag are gathered in the lobby of Flying Blanket Recording, the 1947 house in downtown Mesa that producer Hoag has converted into a studio. All focus is on the middle of the room, where two stacks of comic books lean…
Shovel is an underground rock band comprising many things — the transgressive squall of late-’80s pigfuck (Butthole Surfers, the Touch and Go Records brigade), the anthemic stomp of early Mudhoney and Nirvana, and bathed in a drop or two of Kat Bjelland’s sweat. However, if the frequent use of terms…
