Prince’s relationship with his backing bands has always been a little more fraught than, say, Buddy Holly and the Crickets or Dave Matthews and Band. There’s been several of them, for one thing — the Revolution and the New Power Generation, along with associates like Morris Day and The Time…
It’s about time someone finally brought heavy metal and sex toys — a match made in heaven — together in one package. And Swedish heavy metallers Ghost (also known as Ghost B.C.) was just the band to do it. Known for their eccentric on-stage presence — five of the members…
Playboy Manbaby CD release partyCartel Coffee Lab, TempeApril 27, 2013 I get weirded out when large crowds share unbridled enthusiasm. I chalk it up to either “rugged individualism” or “special snowflake syndrome,” depending on how positively or negatively I want to look at myself. This makes me a wallflower in…
Paperhaus with Playboy Manbaby and St. RangerThe Trunk SpaceApril 26, 2013 Post-punk is a minefield for modern musicians. There’s always going to be a group of people who dig through a cool older relative’s record collection or read Simon Reynolds’ Rip it Up and Start Again and discover bands like…
Nerf HerderPub Rock, ScottsdaleApril 26, 2013 What the heck have geek rockers Nerf Herder been up to since their last trip to Phoenix in 2002? It’s been a full 11 years since the band co-headlined a show with Guttermouth at Club Rio. At the time, the band’s third full-length album,…
The country music world truly lost one of its biggest badasses today when the legendary George Jones passed away this morning at a Nashville, Tennessee hospital. He was 81 years old. The Possum, as he was known to countless, leaves behind a towering legacy in country, a long and troubled…
So what didja wind up doing last weekend? Get drunk and act the fool at a club, perhaps? Or did it involve sacking out in front of the latest episode of Game of Thrones or Mad Men? We’re willing to bet it was nowhere near as pimp as how Valley…
This weekend is Prince Eve. We understand that. But if you’re unable or unwilling to part with the kind of money it takes to see Prince in something smaller than an arena, you can divert yourself with any of these coming attractions:…
Alkaline Trio’s songwriting formula works — Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano share vocal duties in a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like fashion, singing songs about heartache and the macabre. The band has progressed quite a bit from the tongue-in-cheek breakup anthem “Stupid Kid” from 2001’s From Here to Infirmary. The band’s latest album, My…
Pop music is obsessed with youth, but it’s also obsessed with itself. Result: An endless procession of youthful musicians from pop golden ages who are rapidly becoming capital-h Historic figures. The MTV era’s counterculture heroes are now culture heroes. Bruce Springsteen is an institution. Madonna is an icon. Prince is…
Black Sabbath — that is, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, and Geezer Butler, for the moment — have been teasing a summer tour of North America for weeks, and when they finally announced the full tour on Thursday it came with an August 30 performance in Phoenix, at US Airways Center…
A few hours from now, the dulcet crooning of Mario Moreno and the swingy sounds of his backing act The Ramblers will waft out of The Western and into the Scottsdale night air, announcing the arrival of the area’s newest live music spot. The stylish honky-tonk, which (as we reported…
The Flagstaff Hullabaloo is not a big festival — 2013’s June 1-2 event in Wheeler Park is the first time it’s stretched to two days — and because there are a lot of big festivals in and around the Phoenix area, that might seem like an unbeatable disadvantage. But they…
It was 1993 when Brandon Capps and a few like-minded friends started coordinating the first Beautiful Noise “shoegaze” festivals around Arizona. But 20 years ago, shoegaze wasn’t a compliment. It was an insult, a pejorative tossed at the kind of guitarist who stared down at his pedals, waiting for the…
When I heard Zakk Wylde was coming to town, I immediately assumed it was by way of Black Label Society. I couldn’t wait to see his guitar prowess once again — including his wonderful dedication to the pinch harmonic — and his hits from more than two-dozen albums spanning almost…
Earlier this month, Gwar and Warbeast kicked off a tour and brought down the house at Tucson’s Rialto Theatre. But the thrash metal gods, lo and behold, have forsaken us here in Phoenix, and the tour didn’t come our way. Hell, the duo is even going through spots like Des…
Thursday 25 Afterlife: Touch Thursdays with DJ Tsunami, DJ Michael Ryan, & DJ Matt Fox (Top 40, EDM) AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Barney’s Boathouse: Thirsty Thursdays with DJ Pulse (Top 40, rock, dance) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (juke joint, R&B, French pop) Bobby…
Old-fashioned common sense dictates that you don’t want to get electricity-powered equipment near a body of water, much less a swimming pool. The newly opened Maya Day & Nightclub, 7333 East Indian Plaza in Scottsdale, flips the script on that particular notion, as its does with a few others. The…
When someone tells you that life can change in an instant, chances are they’re trying to sell you typhoon insurance. But one particular life-changing instant has lasted for nine years and counting. It’s the second in June 2004, with a video camera rolling, in which Glenn Danzig murmured, “Fuck you,…
The best way to encapsulate the sound of the early-’80s punk squalor collected on legendary Chicago indie label Touch and Go is with a lot of Home Depot imagery: buzzsaw guitars, hammering drums, sandpaper shrieks. Toronto post-hardcore contractors Metz would have been right at home there. Metz’s self-titled full-length channels…
Paramore is looking lighter these days. Since the band released its most recent album almost four years ago, it lost founding members Josh and Zac Farro. The experience is documented on Paramore’s newly released self-titled disc, which contains several songs about singer Hayley Williams’ feelings about a split the brothers…
Alkaline Trio has appealed to the pop-punk-loving masses for nearly two decades now by finding the midpoint between the macabre themes of The Damned or The Misfits and the hopeless-romanticism of bands like Saves the Day and New Found Glory. Tales of love and woe are what attract many female…
