It’s not uncommon for fans to have a soft spot for the first album they hear from a beloved artist. It might not be the band’s defining work, but it was your entry point, your gateway. I’ll always carry a torch for Alkaline Trio’s fourth album, Good Mourning, and in…
There comes a time in every music snob’s life when they realize pre-judging a band based on the city where it resides and what musical genre it fits into is just as stupid as it sounds. In the case of L.A.-based duo In the Valley Below, a new musical project…
There’s been a growing cacophony coming from inside Last Exit Live in recent weeks, including plenty of banging, thumping, and grinding. Such clamor isn’t from any ear-crunching local hard rock acts testing out the soon-to-open downtown Phoenix bar and music joint, however, but rather from a flurry of renovations that…
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice, a myth originally told by the ancient Greeks but best-preserved in Western culture through the Roman poet Ovid, generally is interpreted as a cautionary tale about the perils of living in the past. Orpheus, a famous Greek bard, loses his wife to a snake…
The love affair began over a fuzzy guitar lick topped with a greasy organ swirl. Keyboardist Nicole Laurenne and guitarist Michael Johnny Walker were in a band rehearsal when the other musicians stepped out for a smoke. Walker noticed a fuzz pedal that hadn’t been used during the session. So,…
We don’t necessarily want what’s good for us — from chili cheese fries to that one last Jäger shot to a late-night booty call. And sometimes we must give thanks for the circumstances that thwarted us and led to a later sense of relief. So it is with dramatic indie…
“We’re changed people,” Brandon Decker says firmly, describing the aftermath of the nearly fatal rollover car accident that forever altered the lives of the members of Sedona-based indie-folk band decker. It’s a story that’s been told many times, but it bears repeating: Last August, en route to Santa Cruz, California,…
Don’t mean to sound like an etymology spazz, but there’s a huge difference between dorks, dweebs, and doofuses. God help you if you’re a doofus: hapless, ham-fisted, hopeless. Calling someone a dweeb at least connotes a smidge of intelligence, albeit a kind that is nerdily articulated or used pathetically for…
How do you figure a song called “I Am the Antichrist to You” should turn out? Awfully metal, right? Well, in the hands of Kaoru Ishibashi (who records and tours as Kishi Bashi), the track materializes as a fleet-footed, cloud-soft slice of folky chamber-pop — practically the mathematical opposite of…
It’s not often one hears a musician proclaim he wants to start a “vocal-driven pop band,” but such was the case with Mother Mother guitarist/frontman Ryan Guldemond. But why aim for such commonplace pop fare? Because this is the kind of music the generally unaware music populace loves — it…
For all the snarky comments Vampire Weekend gets about biting Paul Simon’s style, maybe it’d be worth looking back even further? Sure, Simon was the one who released the landmark Graceland in 1986, incorporating African polyrhythmic sounds and vocals. But, uh, pre-existing actual African musicians who already made those kinds…
If you’ve never witnessed the turntable swagger of DJ Logan “Element” Howard at any point during his 16-year career, you’ve missed out on something special, fool. The YouTube videos of the local legend scratching away on hip-hop vinyl like a rabid cat don’t do it justice as seeing him in…
Thursday 28 Afterlife: Touch’s Vegas Night with DJ Tsunami, DJ Michael Ryan, DJ Matt Fox, & DJ KR8Z Beat (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 Dark…
I’m no prophet, but 2013 might go down in the books as some sort of “shoegaze revival banner” year. Not only did My Bloody Valentine release the long-awaited (22 years) MBV, the followup to the genre-defining Loveless, but yesterday news broke that the Southwest’s long-dormant dreampop/shoegaze/noise rock showcase, Beautiful Noise,…
Brand new versions of the Phoenix New Times apps are now available on iTunes and Google Play. The apps are loaded with new features. Check em out and download them now…
Call it the chief paradox of modern pop culture: Most reality television shows blow, but we keep watching, because in a weird way, they’re as compelling as they are mindlessly entertaining: The exploits of Honey Boo Boo’s family may be exploitative, but, dammit, if they don’t love each other. The…
Though the band now resides in Austin, Meat Puppets and the brothers Kirkwood (Curt and Cris) will be forever tied to the Valley of the Sun whence they sprung. That connection has gotten stronger to with the addition of Curt’s son Elmo–a Tempe resident and guitarist in local bands Flamingo…
Paramore doesn’t need the Farro brothers to go on. So long, founding brothers Josh and Zac. Frontwoman Hayley Williams is soldiering on, bad haircuts and all. It looks like the band’s big move into maturity might just abandon the sparkly pop that made the band famous. Who cares that it…
If there’s one thing that The Sail Inn is famous for — besides its granola-friendly jam-band sessions and ultra-irie reggae fest on Sundays — its enormous musical repasts featuring local bands and DJs. The venerated Tempe venue is built for the task, given its amphitheatre in the back and a…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
It took a successful Kickstarter campaign, numerous fundraising shows, and generous outpouring from the local music community, but Sedona’s decker. has successfully completed its fourth album, Slider (no relation to the T.Rex record of the same name), and was able to replace the instruments damaged in a near-fatal rollover. Now,…
By Brittany Spanos At what point did teen girls suddenly just become wrong? “Serious” music fans seem to have universally accepted a critique of quality that befalls any artist who willingly sells to the rabid teen girl market and stigmatized the fans who dare to sometimes be male or at…
