Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson Play Concert for Your Dog

When you really like a musician you let certain things slide. How about when musicians decide to create a “high frequency” concert geared for you and your dog?That’s exactly what Lou Reed and his wife Laurie Anderson are doing. TwentyFourBit reports that this event will be taking place at none…

Radio Phoenix Fundraising Update

You may remember a few weeks ago that Radio Phoenix was in a bit of a financial pickle. The station was in desperate need of about $1,500, so they threw a benefit show for the cause at The Rogue. In case you were curious how it turned out, here’s the…

Nothing Not New: Podcast #5

They said it couldn’t be done. Nothing Not New is well into its fifth month. That’s something like 100 records that I’ve listened to so far. That’s a lot of songs, and here are 11 more standouts from the past four-plus months.On this podcast, music editor Martin Cizmar and I…

Flier of the Week: Mergence at Yucca Tap Room

This flier might look old-fashioned, since the image is from a vintage cigarette advertisement for Tiplaet, but don’t think the show at Yucca Tap Room this Friday, May 14 will be fuddy-duddy. The bands on the bill, which include Mergence, Banana Gun, Honey Pistol, Sister Cities and Wizards of Time,…

Seven Nights of DJs & Dancing

THURSDAY 13 27th Avenue Bar: Ladies Night with DJ Moy, & DJ Jared Paul (Top 40, hip-hop, Latin) Afterlife: Filthy Thursdays (dubstep, breakbeats) AZ88: Mr. P-Body & Friends (classic and old-school grooves) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (jazz, blues, country, R&B, rarities) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays (hip-hop, Top 40) Bomberos…

Casual Saturdays

¿Dónde está Dos Gringos? It certainly ain’t anywhere near ASU. At least not anymore, as the local chain of party-hard Mexican bars divested itself of its north Tempe location last year. The hacienda-like frat shack lives on, however, in the form of Trailer Park, 1001 East Eighth Street, with a…

James Taylor and Carole King

Before there was JT “the ‘Dick in a Box’-endorsing Madonna-molester,” there was JT “the methadone-smooth folk-rock lothario.” And from almost the beginning, Carole King was there, too. Taylor first collaborated with singer-songwriter King on his breakthrough album, Sweet Baby James (1970), and her contributions to his career probably can’t be…

LCD Soundsystem

If LCD Soundsystem’s third record will indeed be the band’s last (as main man James Murphy has indicated), at least they’re going out on top. Not since New Order’s mid-’80s heyday has a band seamlessly fused dance music with rock music all the while reconciling an indie spirit with the…

Besnard Lakes

The Besnard Lakes are more than a band whose name kind of looks like “Barenaked Ladies” if you look at it really fast. They’re also a four-piece from Montreal, centered on husband Jace Lasek (lead vocals and guitar) and wife Olga Goreas (vocals and bass). Yeah, a married Canadian couple…

The Dirty Heads

Though it’s been 14 years since the death of Sublime singer Bradley Nowell — and the release of Sublime’s biggest album, the posthumous self-titled record featuring “What I Got” — the band is still incredibly popular and attracting young fans all the time. Shrewdly, a lot of other bands have…

The Album Leaf

The Album Leaf isn’t so much post-rock as it is post-soft. Sigur Rós protégé and auteur Jimmy LaValle’s five largely instrumental albums could be called road music, because what they evoke is too many undulating miles of asphalt. Unlike The Odyssey, LaValle’s music isn’t epic. Odysseus went somewhere, while The…

Hooves: The Decline of Western Civilization, Part IV

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They practiced, they planned, they were ambitious and optimistic. Then, like so many rock musicians before them, excessive use of alcohol took it all away. Before they knew it, Hooves had embarrassed themselves at probably the biggest annual event in the Phoenix rock…

Glee Is Second Only to iTunes as Music Retail’s Biggest Force

The most powerful force in commercial music today? No debate. It’s iTunes. According to recent data, Apple’s online behemoth crammed 69 percent of our collective digital-music spending into its swollen, Jabba-like gullet last year. That works out to 25 percent of all music sales — a fairly astounding figure that…

Caribou Takes the Plunge

For Dan Snaith, a.k.a. electronic musician Caribou, winning the Polaris Prize for his fourth album, 2007’s Andorra, was validation of seven years of hard work. The award, given annually to the best Canadian album, was an odd nod considering the solitary nature of his bedroom recording and the cultish appeal…

Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma

Artist: Flying LotusTitle: CosmogrammaRelease date: May 3Label: Warp RecordsA while back, a reader posted a comment on one of my Nothing Not New posts asking why I continued to listen to electronic/laptop music even though I don’t care for it all that much.Well, first of all, in the spirit of…

French Quarter Releases New Record, Heads Out on Tour

Looks like Stephen Steinbrink has decided to “get the band back together.” May 17 marks the release date of It’s Not Just Kissing and marks the full-length return of French Quarter, the “band name” under which Steinbrink recorded and toured for several years. Steinbrink, aided in concert by Chase Kamp, Preston…

From Print: Blogs Teased in Our 5/13 Issue

This week, New Times ran a box in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. What do music editor Martin Cizmar and local promoter Stephen Chilton think is going to happen…