By Jonathan McNamara Weezer loves YouTube. If the video for “Pork and Beans” wasn’t proof enough, there’s this latest offering from the band on their official YouTube channel that reveals the band’s upcoming tour route…through song. Did I hear “Phoenix” in there? The band says the concert will begin on…
I had already planned to review the new CD from local hip-hop icon Roca Dolla when I received a phone call from local MC Justus yesterday. Justus is a veteran of the Phoenix hip-hop scene, and he’s recently started doing a guest blog for us, called “Ear to the Street.” He asked if we were writing something on Roca’s new CD, because he said he felt it was “Arizona hip-hop” to the max and a really great record that’s representative of the best talent AZ has to offer.
This past weekend marked the Phoenix New Times Summer of Sound metal show. The event, on Saturday, August 2, was jam packed with bands. In addition to headliners Godhead and local SoS bands The AMPutatiONs, Malakai, The Human Condition, and Fracture Point in Club Red, the venue had four other Valley metal bands playing on the Red Owl side of the club.
By Joseph Golfen It’s a total drag when you really need someone bumped off and you’re a little short on cash. Enter the Discount Assassin. The super-low budget short by local filmmaker Shaun Clayton, premiered at Samurai Comics on Saturday night. The six-minute film takes a look at the gritty…
By Joseph Golfen Everybody’s got one. That song that’s always on no matter where you go or what you do. That song that is at once instantly recognizable and eternally evil! You cringe at the opening chords and every time you hear it a little piece of your love for…
Brian Coughlin plays guitar for Phoenix rock band Kinch, and he’s also the group’s self-appointed financial planner. He keeps detailed logs of where the band’s modest cash revenue is spent: T-shirts, gas, mechanical service, you name it. As he calculated potential costs for Kinch’s upcoming 19-day tour through the West…
Ringo’s All-Starr shows used to be just that: All stars. You had actual frontmen of bands (Mark Farner, Peter Frampton, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Felix Cavaliere, Levon Helm, Joe Walsh, John Entwhistle, Gary Brooker, Dave Edmunds, Ian Hunter, and Jack Bruce to name too many), all happy to be able…
This week’s review is the new solo album from Mark Zubia.
If you’re hankering for some hard rock but haven’t had the dough to check out Cruefest this Thursday, July 31 at Cricket Wireless Pavilion, take heed: you can purchase lawn seats for $10 a piece. The catch is, these tickets are only available today (Monday, July 28). Visit www.ticketmaster.com or www.livenation.com to get some.
I’ll admit it: I didn’t do jack this weekend. There were some cool shows going on, but this past weekend was the first one in several months where I decided to just hang completely low for two days in a row. But the local music scene charged on, and I did keep an eye on my incoming e-mails. Hence, this week’s (and the first ever) local music news wrap!
Karen Traviss: 7 p.m. Monday, July 28, at Changing Hands Bookstore By Clay McNear George Lucas is the sort of hypersensitive, litigious billionaire who’d sue a vending company for stiffing him on a soda pop, so he’ll probably drag my ass to court for calling him sexist, but there it…
By Clay McNear Why are tribute bands so maligned? By definition, they lack original thought, but most make up for it with suicide-bomber zeal. Not to mention pride of craftsmanship. As someone who used to play “Smoke on the Water” and “We’re an American Band” in a shitty junior-high band,…
By Jonathan McNamara We wrote about them in last week’s New Times, now see them in action for yourself. Less Than Jake hit the Marquee with a pumping, rock fist along with veteran punk-rockers Goldfinger last night. Goldfinger gets the audience on stage for their finale. See more shots in…
This week’s “Flier of the Week” is for local garage pop band The Love Me Nots’ CD release party. Groovy.
Always near the forefront of socially conscious hip-hop, Brother J and X-Clan sat poised to take over the world 18 years ago. Their Afrocentric LP To the East, Blackwards, thrived in that time of heightened social awareness, addressing issues of race, stereotypes, and socioeconomics as few had before. Eventually, it…
As we reported on Monday, rap star and Valley resident DMX was arrested at MetroCenter Mall on July 19. Today we learned that he was released from jail on Sunday night and was indicted on felony charges today.
Former Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg is offering fans his new album for only 49 cents. The Minnesota-based rocker has increasingly gravitated toward independent, experimental, basement-based recordings, and his new record, 49:00…Of Your Time/Life, is one long track with no song listings. Westerberg played all the instruments himself, and the sale price stems from a joke Westerberg made to his manager that fans would “pay a penny a minute.”
This week’s review is High Speed Chase, an album from local hip-hop group Bomb Legacy.
The legal woes continue for DMX, Phoenix’s most illustrious rap star/resident. As reported by The Associated Press, the 37 year-old rapper was arrested at Phoenix’s Metrocenter Mall on Saturday on suspicion of providing a false name (“Troy Jones”) and a fake Social Security number to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale back in April, allegedly to avoid paying $7500 in medical bills.
Usually, I like to post fliers for upcoming events in the “Flier of the Week” section. But this flier for a rave last weekend was just too good to pass up. Rock on with your clock on, Flava Flav!
Mexican artists have recorded English-language songs for decades, but the opposite is rare. American musicians have historically treated Mexican music like they treat Mexicans, and when they do bother to cover a classic, they tend to sound absolutely awful. Here, we present our favorite American covers of Mexican songs, plus…
“The music industry,” declares Less than Jake drummer and lyricist Vinnie Fiorello, “is pointing toward bands becoming their own cottage industry. Which means bands being in charge of their own merch, distribution of records, and production of records.” Fiorello makes this claim of the power of independence with an assurance…
