Daniel Smith usually gets by with a little help from his friends, but lately he’s been getting a lot. In the case of the heavenly new album Ships, released by this musical mastermind under the new, all-purpose moniker Danielson, that means contributions from at least 30 of his family and…
It takes balls to do a solo acoustic set in the middle of a bill consisting of loud bands, mostly because it’s so easy to fall flat on your face and turn the crowd off completely. A few weeks ago, though, I saw a kid pull it off. On a…
British phenom Jamie Cullum’s 2003 breakthrough Twentysomething offered up a fresh take on jazz — sort of a Michael Bublé/Robbie Williams cocktail — but with his latest, Catching Tales, he’s added hip-hop to the mix, thanks to a few tricks he learned from Pharrell Williams (catch their duet “You Can…
Three years ago, producer/engineer Otto D’Agnolo was of two minds about the decline of originality and forward thinking in the record industry, so he did something about it. He split himself in two — literally. Sick of being told by A&R people with the musical impulses of a hand buzzer…
Juicy chunks of fresh lobster, lightly bound together with mayonnaise and served on buttered, toasted bread. Spicy, bubbling étouffe laid out over a bed of steaming white rice. Succulent Chinese dumplings stuffed with garlicky pork, floating in a rich vegetable broth. Fucking Delicious. That’s according to Derek Fudesco, anyway –…
Early last week, I was incensed to learn that Bonneville International Corporation, a company wholly owned by the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, announced it is acquiring what I believe to be the most valuable radio station we’ve got here in the ‘Nix, Power 92. Bonneville will be completely…
There’s a focused single-mindedness to every Excepter song that hints at humorlessness behind the decks. So it’s a pleasant surprise, during a recent telephone exchange, to discover that front man John Fell Ryan is as amusing in conversation as he can be free-associative and indecipherable with his lyrics, as personable…
New Times loves the frenetic New Wave/punk sounds of The Epoxies, the Portland, Oregon, quintet made up of Viz Spectrum, FM Static, Shock Diode, Ray Cathode and, of course, foxy front woman Roxy Epoxy. We love the band’s live show even more: Replete with fog and bubble machines, heavy-duty strobes,…
A-Trak lives a charmed life. DMC World Champion by the age of 15? Check. Owner of a record label at 18? Check. Touring the globe with an internationally acclaimed hip-hop artist at 22? Check. “Yeah, you can say that,” says A-Trak when it’s noted that he’s had a meteoric career…
A few weeks back, I was drinking coffee, perusing the gossip pages online, and stumbled on a hilarious piece in the scandal-plagued Page Six section of the New York Post. Apparently in Las Vegas there’s not one, but two KISS cover bands composed of little people, and they’ve got a…
Sitting in a hotel bar overlooking downtown Denver, Vinnie Paul Abbott is stunned that not a single TV is tuned to the hockey game. His boys, the Dallas Stars, are taking an ass-whuppin’ at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche — or so Big Vin tells me — and he’d…
T Bone Burnett is back, and in a big way. Burnett is a songwriter, singer, righteous and religious hepcat, architect of Americana, child of rockabilly, Tex-Mex and Louisiana music, as well as an influence on Bob Dylan, who clearly influenced him. He’s cut brilliant albums dating back to 1972, but…
Thirty-three years old is too damn young to die. That’s what keeps running through my head when I think about the passing of Sidney Copeland, the proprietor of stalwart punk rock bar Jugheads on McDowell Road in Phoenix. I never got to know the guy, but the shock of losing…
As an acclaimed hip-hop producer, RJD2 balances auteur ambitions — meticulously crafting instrumental hip-hop opuses such as his own Deadringer and Since We Last Spoke — with a gift for cranking out hot boom-bap beats for the likes of Aesop Rock, Massive Attack, Souls of Mischief, El-P, and others. This…
When he was 30, Mark E. Smith, iconoclastic front man for The Fall, wrote “Living Too Late,” an odd reflection on mortality where he sang of crow’s-feet ingrained on his face. Now almost 50, one of rock’s most original and recognizable voices sees no reason to reflect or dwell on…
Andre Williams — the Godfather of Rap, the last rock ‘n’ roller, the don of dirty R&B — has lots of kids. There are the five he sired himself, who have mixed feelings about his music. “They hated it — they didn’t even want to be represented by it,” says…
The legend of Coheed and Cambria goes beyond the three albums of music the band has released. It goes beyond its wiry, Yes-on-emo histrionics, beyond New York, where the four-man group is based, beyond Earth, even, and far out into interstellar space. In fact, Coheed and Cambria isn’t just a…
“Zeitgeist” Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) — the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. Yeah, it’s a loaded word, one that knots sober Teutonic gravity around dramatic academic loft. But Merriam-Webster’s definition couldn’t be more on point in describing the music of U.K. quartet…
As of press time, New Times got word of a tragic loss suffered by the Valley’s punk rock scene: Sid Copeland, 33, proprietor of Jugheads bar and music venue, suffered a fatal heart attack on Saturday, April 22, reportedly while lifting weights at a commercial gym. He is survived by…
Not that long ago, my friend Jason and I got ourselves in hot water with our girlfriends when we went on a double date to a nice restaurant and, after several shots, began acting like drunken jackasses — literally. We were running through all of the farm animal noises we…
In 1986, it didn’t matter if you supported the anti-rock mothers of the PMRC, loved pop playboy Robert Palmer, or subsisted on a no-carb diet of hardcore punk; there were two kinds of people: 1) those who bowed and worshiped Metallica’s new thrash-metal masterpiece Master of Puppets, and 2) infidel…
The Phoenix hardcore scene just can’t seem to get a break. Between bad press about feisty hardcore gangs and more venues refusing to book bands that have a reputation for attracting violent fans, now the scene has taken another hit — high-profile local posi act Where Eagles Dare is closing…
