Features

Vibe magazine recently named the “51 Best MySpace Rappers,” by state. I’m not sure how Vibe determined who made the list, but I beg to differ with their Arizona pick. The only artist from ‘Zona that passed muster with Vibe was a Phoenix rapper who goes by the handle MC Magic. Now, I’ll admit, I’d never heard of MC Magic until I saw this list. So I checked out the songs on his MySpace page, and they’re pretty solid — mostly a mix of reggaeton and other Latin flavors, R&B, and low-key, seduce-you type rhymes (think Pitbull-meets-D’Angelo). But while MC Magic’s tracks are slick, I feel that Vibe totally overlooked at least a dozen of our best local hip-hop acts. Believe it or not, P-city is a hip-hop haven, and we’ve got an amazingly diverse array of artists here, any one of which could (and should) have made the Vibe list.

I was 16 years old when my older cousin started dating the guy who would turn me on to punk rock. This was in a very backward Pennsylvania town during one of my transitional teenage years. By this time (1996-’97), most of the cool kids in my school were in…

It’s been 22 years since Celine Dion turned the Colosseum at Caesars Palace into the place where female pop stars go to die as publicly as Roman gladiators once did, but, of course, for a hell of a lot more money. Last night, Kelly Clarkson joined the club that, since…

As an Australian and occasional resident of his mum’s homeland, this writer has a serious passion for Aussie rock. Unfortunately, it’s been a few years since he’s called Australia home and, because of that, he’s a little behind on what’s happening Down Under. For a little help, he turned to…

The November 15 music section of Phoenix New Times features a first-person narrative about horror-punk legends The Misfits, penned by Brian Barr, music editor at Seattle Weekly, one of our sister publications. Not only does the story provide a plug for The Misfits’ upcoming show at Venue of Scottsdale on November 17 (a killer double-bill that also features surf punks Agent Orange), but it gives us another excuse to re-post the footage of North Side Kings singer Danny Marianino knocking out Glenn Danzig a couple years ago. Danzig hasn’t been the singer for The Misfits since 1983 (bassist Jerry Only now handles vocal duties), and maybe Danzig’s attitude is one of the reasons for that.

Britney Spears: This one’s obvious and way too easy, but Brit’s had a spectacularly bad year, so I’ll get it out of the way first. The head-shaving, the booze-and-drugs-gobbling, battling Federline in court and an automobile with an umbrella, the allegedly bad parenting, the rehab stints, the stunningly lackadaisical VMA performance, the laughably awful, “naughty” video for “Gimme More,” and, finally, the indignity of having a number-one album snatched away at the last minute when Billboard decided to change the rules and allow that horrendous new disc by the Eagles, which is only being sold at Wal-Mart, to claim the top spot. Perhaps only Senator Larry Craig and that astronaut lady had worse years.

In the United States, we take classic rock for granted. It’s become part of the very fabric of our being. And unless you get into deep album cuts (you know, the songs that aren’t played on the radio day after day), it’s hard to let go and just enjoy the…

Like an imaginative, hyperactive kid let loose amid the instruments in an elementary school music room, Minneapolis native Andrew Broder spent his first couple of albums under the Fog moniker crafting charming, headphones-paradise tunes out of turntables, guitars, strangely affecting vocals, found noises, and lots more sonic oddities. Yet Fog…

It’s 7:30 on a Saturday night in September, and Asylum is already packed. The Tucson club is the only venue in Arizona that consistently caters to fans of industrial music, and this evening, it’s filled to capacity with black-clad twentysomethings dressed like pallbearers from a Mad Max movie. Although night…

Say Anything frontman Max Bemis was diagnosed three years ago as bipolar, which, he says, made absolute sense considering the manic episodes he had been experiencing for some time. If that wasn’t enough, he was also trying to survive a volatile breakup with his first love, an experience that, along…

In an effort to bring a more multi-media music experience to our readers, we’re gonna start posting Wednesday previews of what’s coming up in the week’s print music section of Phoenix new Times. But rather than just pimp our ink, we’re also going to post MP3s, YouTube clips, and photos, to give you a better idea of what these bands actually sound/look like. We want to give a more full-on sensory experience. We want to reach out and touch you. We’re working on scratch ‘n’ sniff links.

Sorry to be the bearers of bad tidings to all you Ingrid Michaelson fans out there in the PHX, but the indie pop singer’s concert — scheduled to go down tonight at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale — was canceled within the last 24 hours.

Just like the prodigal son, Future Shock has returned to give y’all the hook up on the latest “just announced” concerts coming to Valley venues over the next few months. And speaking of comebacks, the biggest news this week was that one of the biggest names in music, Stevie Wonder, will be holding his first concert in Arizona in more than a decade.

It just seems wrong to call Russian émigré Regina Spektor Russian, because her family fled the USSR during the freeing days of perestroika in 1989. This kind of makes her a Soviet-American, even if she might disagree. The point is, Spektor is a product of a collapsed communist empire that,…

Straight outta Sweden comes Witchcraft, which — despite its black-metal name — rocks it fairly old school and classic. The sound these four Scandinavian longhairs have been making for the past seven years combines Blue Cheer/Iron Butterfly psychedelic stomp; early (pre-synth) Rush proggery; the mystic, sun-baked riffage of Kyuss and…

In the recently released Kurt Cobain documentary About a Son, Nirvana’s music is noticeably absent. Instead, director AJ Schnack lets Cobain tell his own life story by splicing raspy narration taken from phone interviews between the musician and author Michael Azerrad with artful, rich scenes of people and places from…

Every week, we’re going to be reviewing a music DVD. We kick off with Twisted Sister’s The Video Years…Twisted Sister used to scare the shit out of me. When I was 8 years-old, I would lay on my bunk bed in the dark, blasting the Under the Blade album, imagining that huge, leather-skinned monsters with oozing eyeballs were going to come creeping out of the shadows to eat me.

With their knee-high boots and go-go dresses, it would be easy to dismiss the Gore Gore Girls as more gimmick than substance, but these four hard-rocking, Gretsch guitar-loving chicks out of Detroit Rock City have more in common with Kiss than they ever will the Spice Girls. Equal parts Motown,…

Ever wonder what’s haunting the heads of musicians? We do, so in celebration of Halloween, we figured we’d try to scare up some tales of the supernatural from a few of our favorite artists. And though we couldn’t conjure any tales about the ghosts of Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain,…

Like looking at a middle-aged man’s comb-over, sometimes we have to stare into another’s mirrored shades to appreciate the ridiculousness of our pretensions. You can lie to others about it, but in your heart, you see the greasy, chicken-stained fingerprints of the truth. Southern Culture on the Skids recognizes the…

Spandex tights? Check. Can of Aqua Net? Got it. Copy of Ratt’s Invasion of Your Privacy on vinyl? You betcha. Sounds like you’re locked and loaded for this week’s edition of Future Shock, which focuses on the often-outrageous genre of heavy metal. From dank and dirty death rock to glass-shattering superstars who’re known for their screaming talents, we’ve put together a list of some of the “just announced” concerts from a multitude of metal acts that will be visiting the Valley in the upcoming months. So strap on your leather pants, knock back a few cans of Schlitz, and get ready to rock out with your cock out.

Mavis Staples may be 68 years old, but the righteous fire that distinguished so many of her rich, bottomless vocals during an extraordinary 50-plus-year career continues to burn brightly. When asked why the songs of struggle that make up We’ll Never Turn Back, her moving new CD, need to be…