When The Faint’s seminal album, Danse Macabre, was released 11 years ago, its combination of pulsing synths and heavy guitars made the band stand out. Sure, bits and pieces sounded like New Order or Depeche Mode, but there was a modern urgency that still rings loud and clear over a…
It’s one thing to make a cartoon that affectionately sends up the theatrics of death metal. It’s another thing entirely for Brendon Small, co-producer and co-creator of the animated Adult Swim show Metalocalypse, to make three albums of astute extreme metal under the guise of his imaginary creation. Metalocalypse is…
Rock bands like Korn and Muse may be all about dubstep now, but even before emo rocker-gone-EDM-DJ Skrillex arena-rockified the genre, John Dadzie, better known as 12th Planet, was spreading the bass-heavy word. Let down by the drum ‘n’ bass genre’s refusal to change, the DJ started exploring the emerging…
Center stage, her honey-brown hair falling in her face, Lauren Farrah crouches over her acoustic guitar. Her voice rises and falls in short bursts, echoing in the Icehouse in downtown Phoenix.The Roaring Twenties-era venue screams cool, post-apocalyptic chic with its stark, open-air rooms with towering concrete walls. She’s performing on…
Thanksgiving is a time for traditions both good and bad, whether it involves gathering at Grandmama’s house for the annual government-sanctioned gorge on mashed potatoes and stuffing or tolerating your creepy uncle’s yearly onslaught of awful jokes. Meanwhile, local house music godfather Pete “SuperMix” Salaz will once again be staging…
Thursday 22 910 Live: Take it Off Thursdays’ Danksgiving with DJ Adrenaline, DJ Rescue, & more (hip-hop, rock, Top 40, electronica) Afterlife: Touch Thursdays (Top 40, electronica) AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays with DJ Phlava, DJ Dark Vader, & DJ Skoolboi…
When Canadian rock trio Rush’s self-titled debut was released in 1974, liking the band as a teenager was a risky proposition. On one level, there’s nothing about the band’s essential makeup that should render them off limits to the cool kids. Rush was a progressive, hard-rocking band influenced by Cream…
“It’s funny how money changes situations” rapped former Fugees singer Lauryn Hill in the opening line of her multi-platinum solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It’s a “no shit, Sherlock” moment, but its prominent placement seems indicative of the old showbiz saw that you can make anyone a success,…
We’re taking the day off to do the Thanksgiving thing: give thanks, eat too much, and pass out watching football. Hope you enjoy your day. We’ll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, turn up this funky Thanksgiving cut from Vince Guaraldi’s 1973 soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. If…
Soft Shoulder, The Pharmacy, JJCNV, Counterfeit Redcoats @ Trunk Space|11/20/12When I refer to a band as “bar rock,” I am not citing any definition of the term already established in musicological literature, but rather my own frame of reference. For me, bar rock can be defined in two separate waves,…
Even though one of the biggest holiday weekends of the year starts tomorrow, it seems as though few people are going to be getting much rest. There are huge meals to create and dishes to be washed afterwards, followed by a massive amounts of bargains to be found on Black…
It’s that time of year again–once you wake up from your tryptophan-induced food coma on Thanksgiving evening, it’s time to grab a blanket and a lawn chair to camp out for Black Friday. Some wackos are already waiting in line…so much for enjoying Turkey Day. If killer deals on electronics…
“All I want for Christmas is Clay Aiken tickets,”…said no music lover ever. But hey, if paradoxical pop icons who owe their celebrity to American Idol is your thing, you’re in luck. Aiken will be bringing his brand of…whatever it is he’s a part of these days to Ovations Live!…
The final night of Sticky Fingers this past Friday went down much like any of the other editions of the long-running indie dance night. Both floors of Bar Smith were packed with members of the young and hip crowd sporting a variety of quirky fashions, DJ favorites like Borisimo and…
There’s no way to put it lightly: The men of Gospel Claws have been through the wringer. Lineup changes. A cancer scare. Most tragically, the suicide of guitarist Mark Erikson. It’s been a weird couple of years since the band’s last record, 2010’s excellent C-L-A-W-S. Given the strife, it’s easy…
“Wine makes everyone hopeful.” These are the inspirational words that appear on a sign that our friend Topper’s mother bought for our tasting room. The sign showed up on “one of those days,” and I promptly displayed it. This subject came up this past weekend while celebrating a respectable showing…
Titanic, Batman, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Castaway, The Sandlot, The Bourne Supremacy, Hook, Across the Universe, and 70 other movies with underwater scenes were cut and spliced for Flock of Dimes’ single “(This is Why) I Can’t Wear White.” Drowning, screaming, punching sharks in the gut, heavy make-out sessions, deep-sea…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? 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 help you stop…
By now, you know the story: Things ran late at a 2004 show in Tuba City, Arizona, where Glenn Danzig and Phoenix-based hardcore group North Side Kings were scheduled to perform. Due to scheduling conflicts, the North Side Kings were bumped from the show. Frontman Danny Marianino was upset, and…
Young Prisms @ Rhythm Room|11/19/12The best shoegaze achieves what I think of as negative guitar momentum: distorted or whorled chord effects that, even when paired with hard and steady rhythms, are capable of washing out the meter to give the feeling of moving backwards. It’s related to the weird serenity…
Let’s step backward, folks. It’s 1996, and a hotshot young music writer, Laurie Notaro, is writing about some hotshot young Tempe guitar pop band, The Chimeras, for Phoenix New Times. “The unofficial bio for The Chimeras has all the stereotypical ingredients of a rock ‘n’ roll miniseries: alcoholism, drug addiction…
We get it, Ben. We know that you’re an artist whose hands have helped shaped the foundation of indie pop over the past fifteen years. We know you married and divorced the harbinger of quirky alt-girl songstresses. We know that you front one of the biggest bands to ever grace…
