Some guys have all the luck, not to mention effloads of talent to boot. Steven Chung is one of those guys. Things have been extra rosy for the 32-year-old Scottsdale nightclub veteran and house music guru, who performs as both DJ Tranzit and his darker alter ego Juheun, including inking…
Hank Williams III (Hank 3 to those in the know) says Dale Watson is one of his favorite artists — a tried-and-true country artist — and goes so far to shout him out to audiences at virtually every concert. This appeal is easy to understand: Watson is a throwback to…
American Juggalo ScreengrabBy Paul T. Bradley For those among you who are “down” and perhaps for those who are not, you know that much brouhaha was made by the FBI’s inclusion of Juggalos — ie fans of Insane Clown Posse — in their 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. This, of…
It took three whole years for Stellacutta to finish its self-titled debut album, which finally saw the sweet monitor glow of their Bandcamp page in January. The record is a pristine showcase of the Tempe outfit’s bombastic, jazz-inflected indie rock — the melodic heights reached within it show that the…
You want depressing? Try this: Bobby Brown on VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club. In healthier, happier times, Brown wouldn’t have come within 50 feet of VH1, cable television’s premier clearinghouse for vanity reality shows. But Brown isn’t what he used to be. He’s no longer a suave, stealthy playa with the…
Golden, Colorado, features a bar called the Buffalo Rose. Bands are flanked on stage by stuffed standing polar and black bears. The walls are lined with animal heads. About 200 people squeeze inside. It’s where once-popular top-selling, stadium-filling bands go to die. Soul Asylum hasn’t yet played there, but the…
Sacramento, California-based hip-hop duo Blackalicious has released three full-length records in the two decades it’s been in action: 1999’s Nia, 2002’s Blazing Arrow, and 2005’s The Craft. But don’t dismiss Gift of Gab (Timothy Parker) and DJ/producer Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley ) as slackers. Though they might not appear to…
Mammoth, Arizona-based Al Foul’s website proudly proclaims the rockabilly singer as the “One, the Only Al Foul.” It’s more than just an accurate boast: The duder performs solo, snarling over a fat Gretsch guitar and stomping on a bass drum. But his songs aren’t rowdy BBQ Show/Bob Log-style tirades. No,…
Proud adult/indie rock musician John Roderick managed to puff down some hefty straw men in his March 6 rant for Seattle Weekly titled “Punk Rock Is Bullshit”: “It’s time we stopped hating ourselves, our ambition, and our sincerity, guarding our integrity credentials in fear of interrogation by the secret punk…
Some guys have all the luck, and Steven Chung is one of them. Things have been rosy, to say the least, for the Scottsdale house music guru who performs as DJ Tranzit. When EDM superstar Bad Boy Bill swung through the Valley recently, it wasn’t just to perform at Axis/Radius…
So, Jeff Mangum’s playing a show here this week. What just a few years ago seemed like an impossibility (or at least an extreme improbability) is becoming a more common thing — less “Hey, didja read that new Salinger story?” and more “So there’s a new Terrence Malick movie coming…
Max Cavalera of Soulfly is a mellow speaker. His Brazilian accent is thick, and there’s a lilting quality to the way he punctuates his sentences with phrases like “You know?” or “It’s killer, man.” He’s buzzing about a lake house in unincorporated Phoenix, a second home to go along with…
Thursday 28 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) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (juke joint, R&B, French pop) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays with DJ Klassics, DJ Freshmaker, DJ Phlava, DJ…
Billy Bragg @ Crescent Ballroom|3/26/13For his first-ever Phoenix show, Billy Bragg gave his all, of all of his sides — the young punk firebrand, the activist, the lover, the Woody Guthrie acolyte, the folk malcontent, and the Bard of Barking hawking his new album. Though the new record, Tooth &…
As any Scottsdale party monster would tell you, Saddlebag Trail in Old Town tends to go full tilt boogie with rowdy behavior and exceedingly loud music after sundown, courtesy of high-end hangouts like El Hefe, Wild Knight, and EPIQ. Starting this evening, the din’s only going to get noisier and…
Last week, Swedish experimental pop duo The Knife released a deeply flummoxing and obfuscated (confusing) manifesto to promote their upcoming album, Shaking the Habitual. Now, someone cool* has uploaded the whole thing to RapGenius, a website that originally was meant for deciphering hip-hop lyrics but now is used for practically…
It’s been three short months since Keith Walker and Brett Davis came together to form the brooding, synthesizer-inflected sounds of The Holy Coast, but in that time they’ve released two singles and have become a trio. Dead Wildlife’s Braden McCall has officially joined the team. The boys initially planned on…
“I guess it’s about me having things to say and then saying things with friends,” Kristina Moore, vocalist and songwriter of Where Are All the Buffalo? says in regard to her band. While this sounds like the mission statement of most bands, the collective and collaborative nature of Moore’s project…
Max Cavalera of Soulfly is a very mellow speaker. His Brazilian accent is thick, and there’s a lilting quality to the way he punctuates his sentences with phrases like “You know?” or “It’s killer, man.” He’s buzzing about a lake house in unincorporated Phoenix, a second home in addition to…
Attendees of last weekend’s McDowell Mountain Music Festival at Margaret T. Hance Park found plenty of ways to feel the music during all three days of the event, including those folks of crunchier, groovier, and dread-headed bent. Over the past decade, the springtime concert festival has been a popular destination…
She’s a multimillion-selling crop (country-pop) artist, a perfumer, and a maneater. Head over to your local Albertsons and take a gander at the greeting cards section and you’ll discover Taylor Swift is also adept at slapping pictures of cute puppies onto cardstock and writing gems such as “Wow. Just Wow,”…
Up on the Sun has learned that Norteño soul guitarist Eddie Dimas, author of the classic Latin instrumental “El Mosquito,” passed away March 8 of natural causes. Dimas was 65. See also: -100 Years of Music That Defined Arizona…
