The Phoenix Film Festival kicks off on Thursday, April 3, at Harkins Scottsdale 101 (7000 E. Mayo Boulevard). In addition to a wide variety of films from both local and national filmmakers, the festival plays host to some of the coolest music acts in the Valley.
Bob Schneider is a respected singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas, a prolific road warrior who’s managed to release 20 albums in 16 years (eight as a solo artist, and 12 with various bands and side projects like Ugly Americans and The Scabs). His latest record, When Sun Breaks Down on the Moon (Shokorama), continues to establish his mastery of his craft through a rough-and-ready rock/Americana sound that incorporates musical elements from a wide range of genres. (The song “Slower Dear,” for example, tells the story of someone waiting for a loved one to come back from the war through the eyes of a forlorn grocery shopper, and includes steel drums and horns that give the song a melancholy calypso-jazz feel.)
Source of pride for living in Mesa, AZ: Google “woman offers sex for gas,” and your hometown comes up on the first nine hits. Source of shame for living in Mesa, AZ: Read those nine stories and see the unappetizing mug shot that sadly illustrates how it was the woman…
If you listen to frontman/bandleader Justin Sullivan tell it, it’s a surprise that New Model Army is still around at all. Formed in 1980 with the intention of playing just two pub gigs in the band’s hometown of Bradford, England, NMA is still heralded today for its politically engaging lyrics…
Now in its sixth year, the Tempe Music Festival brings an annual spotlight to town. As always, the headliners are national acts, meant to draw in a crowd of people who probably have little interest in local music and are far more likely to see a show at the Dodge…
Some Native Americans believe peyote puts them in touch with divine powers. “The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus,” says Quanah Parker, founder of the Native American Church Movement. “The Indian goes into his tipi and talks with Jesus.” Mescaline, the engineer behind such holy chitchats,…
Every Easter, millions of Americans celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a rebirth that, if you follow the tenets of Christianity, saves the believer’s soul. We music lovers here at New Times, however, can’t help but wonder what musical artists could be resurrected this holiday to save their genres instead?…
The HorrorPops have been called psychobilly for years, but these genre-hopping Danish rockers don’t like boxes. We chatted with a few of the bands’ members about their rebellious streak, their homeland, and their new album, Kiss Kiss Kill Kill. New Times: Your music has always been defined by an anti-status…
It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon in central Phoenix, and I’m hanging with TJ Jordan, co-owner of the Valley’s newest vinyl shop, Revolver Records. Aromatic candles give the space a warm, cozy vibe. Others must think so, too, because there’s a steady flow of shoppers competing for space in the snug,…
Phoenix was built on a desire to buy and to have. People can own acres of land on the side of a mountain, and they can go to the outlet mall to pick out all the finest furniture and accouterments to fill their homes. At the same time, there are…
There are a lot of bad band names out there, but no genre suffers from titular uncoolness like metalcore (which we’ll admit we’re not fans of). The Firestorm Fest — a mega-event meant to give the frustrated and angry fans of the genre a place to scream and jump into…
In the opening to his 875-page treatise on Irish nationalism, The Green Flag, Robert Kee attempts to decode the DNA of that island’s people, sketching an ancestral tree that includes everyone from the Firbolg and the Normans to the Gaels and Protestant plantation owners. His conclusion that the Irish are…
Los Angeles is, at best, a transient city filled with transitory dreamers. They come in all varieties these days: actors from Sioux Falls, rockers from Detroit, photographers from Reno, and immigrants from places most of us will never bother to find on a map. Consequently, the people in the City…
I’ve just arrived at the Nello’s pizza joint in Old Town Scottsdale, where I’m meeting friends to check out the Rachel Eckroth Trio. I’m cold, wet, and freaking late, because people in this town turn into their Buick Century-driving grandma whenever it rains. I spot my pals at a table,…
Pepsi fires, plastic surgery disasters, and child molestation accusations aside, Michael Jackson is a genius. Some people may laugh at that statement, but those folks probably aren’t included among the more than 104 million people who bought copies of Jacko’s 1983 record, Thriller, which remains the best-selling album of all…
Operatic crossover Sarah Brightman, speaking on The Early Show about her new album, Symphony, said: “It’s got a little bit of dark and light in it. It’s quite gothy and rocky. On the other hand, it’s quite operatic as well.” The soprano left out the album’s most important detail: It’s…
This techno trio will make you want to dance, even when singer Chris Donathen isn’t shouting stuff like “Get down girl, shake it, shake it!” over bumping beats and synthesized programming on songs like “Fscene8,” which sounds like the sonic stepchild of Cher’s “Believe.” The crux of every Medic Droid…
This garage quartet from Chandler cooks up raw rock recipes with the best ingredients — solid, fuzzy guitar hooks; danceable beats, and sexy vocals with all the lusty thrust of Cramps singer Lux Interior and the sassy swagger of Jack White. Some Mean Wells songs, like “The Storm,” are built…
Ryan Breen (a.k.a. Back Ted N-Ted) creates spacey, upbeat electro-pop songs with introspective, poetic lyrics. If Moby had ever been truly “techno,” he’d have probably made a record like Back Ted N-Ted’s A Jet Made of Limos (Modern Art), which boasts everything from New Wave excursions with basic beats (“999…
Six years after “The Fragile” we were given “With Teeth” followed by “Year Zero” in less than two years and one year later we’ve received another album from the pretty hate machine: “Ghosts I-IV.”
Some people diversify their stock portfolios. Andre Benjamin, best known as Andre 3000 of hip-hop super-duo OutKast, diversified his career. Now, learning to play in different artistic mediums, even branching out into brand marketing, ain’t exactly a rare feat amongst the megastars (and, sadly, even shooting stars) of rap and…
Drum kits crash and explode; uncontrollable feedback erupts; random, screeching wraiths arrive and disappear with an equal lack of warning; relaxed fits of laughter compete with measured, stentorian cable-news reportage. Understandably, Eric Earley can’t quite hear me, and I’m having just as much trouble understanding him. “You’re breaking up. I’m…
