Valentine’s Day might be fun for cutesy couples hellbent on Instagramming their every “ahhh”-inducing move, but for those flying solo, the Hallmark-marketed holiday can get real annoying, real quick. For those who’ve recently been dumped, it can get downright depressing. The hard electro sounds DJ Self.Destrukt will be spinning along…
Larry Ortega Ortega is the owner of Obliq Art, which is participating in Arizona Center’s Art Detour Saturday, March 2 and Sunday, March 3. For more information, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? It would…
Awesome ‘ish alert: Drake and Riff Raff are collaborating. Yeah, totally. Along the same lines: It’s the weekend, and all sorts of great shows are scheduled for Phoenix. We’ve gone ahead and rounded ’em up for you, including a broken-hearted industrial party at the Rogue, a night of experimental music…
While Mother Nature continues to wreak havoc on our thermostats, most people are bundling up and keeping indoors during the chilly season. Everyone except California-based reggae rockers Rebelution that is. The Santa Barbara-natives are ditching the warm embrace of their sandy sunny digs to embark on another wintertime road trip…
Pink @ US Airways Center|1/23/13 Oh, what fun it is to be the opening city for a two-month-long tour. Pink got to work out the kinks of her The Truth About Love Tour when she played in Phoenix last night to kick-off her love-themed show. “I’m so glad we got…
The Warped Tour lineup was released yesterday afternoon, and while we were (foolishly) hoping that Kevin Lyman would have a change of heart and model the long-running festival after something like Punk Rock Bowling or The Fest, the lineup, unsurprisingly, still caters to Hot Topic tweens. There are two noticeable…
Jackson Browne @ The Orpheum Theatre|2/13/13Back in 1975 Olivia Newton John lyrically asked the question “Have you ever been mellow?” Such a question would never be posed to Jackson Browne. The singer/songwriter has to be the mellowest rock star on the planet…
In this week’s issue, we speak with guitarist Sir Richard Bishop, whose path from Phoenix and his days in the Sun City Girls has found him at the forefront of guitar experimentation from his home base in Seattle and around the world. Deftly blending and/or shifting between Middle Eastern ragas,…
A successful long-term musical career is a rarity in any genre, but what does it take to be truly acknowledged as an elder statesman in heavy metal? In most rock circles, any popular musician over 40 is usually handed some token of longevity for remaining relevant (meaning young people are…
PDP is not the newest designer drug or texting acronym. No, it’s the hip way to name-drop Poi Dog Pondering, the cross-cultural band that flirted briefly with mainstream success in the 1990s and has managed to stick around without it. Why? Because there are never enough party bands on tour…
Twenty-three-year-old songwriter Winston Yellen didn’t attempt to “pull a Bon Iver” when he rented a pre-Civil War home — formerly occupied by Johnny Cash and June Carter — in the woods outside Nashville and recorded his debut LP, Country Sleep. It just sort of happened. “I wasn’t really conscious of…
Kanye West may be today’s “lyrical mastermind genius,” but he was still learning his way around a book report when legendary lyricist Rakim and DJ Eric B began writing hip-hop history. The East Coast rap duo dropped their debut single, “Eric B. Is President,” way back in 1986 and set…
Sir Richard Bishop met John Fahey only once, despite the fact that Fahey’s Revenant Records — the blues, jazz, and folk label founded by the guitarist/independent label pioneer — released Bishop’s proper solo debut, Salvador Kali, in 1998. “[It was] shortly after the record came out,” Bishop says. “He was…
Valentine’s Day isn’t all red roses, sweet treats, and sweet nothings. For those who’ve had their hearts pile-driven into the ground or become jaded about the onslaught of flowers, candy, and romantic treacle, the Hallmark-like hullabaloo surrounding the holiday is pure torture. We suspect that Friday, February 15, is one…
The critical narrative says that pelvic-thrusting rock stars are clueless actors. Even the kingliest of rock gods, people who understand better than most how to tickle an audience, tend to be noobishly ungraceful onscreen — can we get an “amen” from anyone who’s seen The Wiz or KISS Meets the…
The word “keytar” isn’t often paired with “seductive,” but don’t tell that to Phoenix-based electro-rock trio Access Zero. The band’s music is hot-blooded and aggressive, not the brittle, dweeby synth-pop typically associated with the instrument. When the band performed live at Fetish Ball a couple of years ago at The…
Atención, long-lost singer/songwriter types: If you’re looking to make a big comeback, having a mythical backstory, two stone-cold classic LPs in the can, and a blockbuster documentary goes a long way. Such is the case with Sixto Rodriguez, whose rise from dusty-fingered crate digger obscurity to a star has been…
Local low-power alternative station KWSS has announced that it’s moving to a new home on the FM dial, shifting from 106.7 to 93.9 on Sunday, March 10. Home to shows like TMI (which I call into once a week to discuss music news and play selections), Mostly Vinyl with Johnny…
Terror @ The Underground|2/12/13 H2O and Terror are in the midst of a co-headlining tour that made its way to The Underground last night, until H2O canceled the show a few hours before doors opened. We reached out to Mantooth and Bridge Nine records to find out why H2O canceled…
Mesa’s reggae/punk outfit Authority Zero has come a long way over the course of its nearly two-decade career. The band quickly moved up from intimate (often free) local shows to playing Warped Tour and, eventually, touring the world. Authority Zero is now a household name in the local scene, an…
The Scottsdale nightlife crowd is a die-hard bunch indeed, fully dedicated to going wild out at their favorite after-dark emporiums of alcoholic fun no matter what weekend it happens to be, or whatever the weather’s like outside. The Old Town entertainment district’s raucous repast of bars and clubs are abuzz…
Eric Bibb and Habib Koité @ Musical Instrument Museum|2/11/13The distance between Memphis, Tennessee, and Bamako, Mali, West Africa, is geographically large, but last night that distance in musical terms was no more than the three feet separating Eric Bibb and Habib Koité on the Musical Instrument Museum stage…
