It’s that time of year where our focus is officially shifting from reflecting on 2013 to preparing for 2014. Another 365 days have swept by, full of heavy metal ups and downs, groupies and drug overdoses, mind-blowing riffs and sold-out shows. The state of metal in 2013 certainly hasn’t blown…
Nirvana means absolutely nothing to me. I’m sorry to have to be so blunt, but that’s the only way to put it; as much as I enjoy the songs, and as much as I can intellectually recognize the influence it had on the next decade of popular music, Kurt Cobain…
It’s understandable if you believe end of the year “Best Of” lists are largely self-indulgent, because it’s fucking true. Music critics write for other music critics and no one else. When the musicians in question sometimes actually read the review, it’s largely by accident. All of us writing simple bullet…
Blues guitarist Jim Glass will be inducted into the Arizona Blues Hall of Fame December 29 at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix along with Tucson blues musician Mike Lenaburg. The induction ceremony event will go from 8 p.m. to midnight, with many of the blues musicians that Glass has played…
By Jeremiah Toller Once upon a time in the late 90’s or early 2000s, I paid 35-plus bucks for a ticket, drove with friends for hours for hours and hours to Wisconsin to see DJ Swamp perform at a huge rave with probably a couple thousand people. No, wait, for…
Welcome to the holiday season nexus. Please turn in your seasonally appropriate pop songs. Please return to the city where you work. Please await further instructions. Do not think about New Year’s Eve. It’s not here yet and kind of a disappointment anyway. (View our complete concert calendar here.)…
Musical hotspots seem to circulate around the country. Hair metal was birthed along the Sunset Strip in late-1980s Los Angeles, but before those boys started teasing their hair and wearing makeup there was a counter-culture movement (mostly make-up free) that happened decades earlier and just a few miles further west…
By Nathan Smith These days, swing revivalists seem to have comfortably settled into their own niche in the music industry. Brian Setzer has cornered the market in playing swingin’ Christmas carols to grown folks; Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, out on its own Christmas tour all month, will play a post-Christmas…
December 28, even when it isn’t a Saturday, is the least essential day of the year. You’re still stuck firmly in the middle of the holidays, but the holiday that’s the reason for the euphemistic season is already past, leaving the red and green decorations around town looking a little…
According to Sister Lip drummer Ariel Monet, the “Lippians” have been playing Long Wongs at the Firehouse every Monday for the past seven months. But even playing the venue once a week and competing with the day before Christmas Eve couldn’t stop Sister Lip from packing the room December 23…
Valley stalwart Sir Harrison’s blues band will have a new, improved sound for the new year when it adds saxophone player Jeremy DeCoster to the mix, coming out with a four-piece band adding funky blues to its usual rockin’ blues. “Jeremy is a longtime musician and a longtime friend who…
Musical hot spots seem to circulate around the country. Detroit and Memphis were leading soul centers of the ’60s and ’70s, while Haight-Ashbury dominated the psychedelic movement. In New York City, Greenwich Village’s jazz and boho-folk gave way to the Lower East Side’s early glam, punk, and New Wave scenes…
Cancer, to paraphrase renowned rhyme-slinger Sadat X, is like the darkest of dark days. Sadly, far too many artists and performers connected with the Valley’s music scene have had dark days of their own this past year as they fought for their lives against cancer, including Blunt Club collaborator Jules…
Thursday 26 AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Bar Smith: Ladies Night with DJ AL3 (hip-hop, Latin) Bobby Q’s: All Star Thursdays with DJ Freshmaker, DJ Phlava, DJ Dark Vader, & DJ Skoolboi (hip-hop, Top 40, reggae) Dos Gringos (Scottsdale): DJ Switch (rock, Top 40, remixes)…
Any true heavy metal fan can attest to the fact that the worlds of fashion and heavy metal should never go hand-in-hand — but this day and age, selling out and heading mainstream is only becoming more prevalent. So years back, when a handful of heavy metal bands began releasing…
When some bands have a big show coming up they throw up a couple of posters, set up some well-timed posts on Facebook, cross their fingers, and hope for the best. When indie-progressive-disco six-piece Future Loves Past has a big show coming up they get weird. With their final show…
There’s a big, two-day hole cut into our concert schedule this week, on account of Jesus’ birthday (observed), but I’ll be damned if this weekly Phoenix-concert-listings feature goes dark on my (and Jesus’) watch. We may or may not get to five shows, but let’s give it a shot…
On some weekends, it’s a toss-up as to what’s the best show in town. The weekend of December 20 was not one of those weekends. Black Carl and Dry River Yacht Club playing their final sets of 2013 was obviously the place to be for Phoenix music aficionados Friday night,…
Santa Claus and I have had a tenuous musical history. There have been some good years, for sure, especially in 1986, when he brought me Christian Death’s Only Theatre of Pain on vinyl. I’m sure Kris Kringle, viewing from his magic snow globe, loved seeing my sheer delight as I…
A second round of performers at the 2014 Country Thunder was announced on Saturday, adding to the already packed line-up. Joining headlining artists Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, and the Band Perry will be Thompson Square, Cassadee Pope, Tyler Farr, Easton Corbin and LoCash Cowboys. The four day festival kicks off…
This set of concert recommendations won’t apply to everyone, because we don’t have one that takes place in an airport on your way back to your parents’ house. But if you’re sticking around, like me, you’ve got some options. Like Up on the Sun on Facebook or follow us on…
As the legend goes, in 1974 the commercially successful jazz and soul symphony band Tower of Power played a studio session in Long Island on the radio station WLIR. This might have been just one of countless performances in the history of a band that’s conquered the ups and downs…
