So, if there’s one thing I thought Phooson, tonight’s popped up show at Cricket was missing, it was some B-list hosting talent. Luckily, Johnjay and Rich are bringing in the big guns: Paul Abdul. The American Idol hostess will join the disc jocks on stage at Cricket Pavillion to introduce…
Today is the 15th anniversary of what I’d say is the darkest day in the history of Arizona music. On December 5, 1993 Doug Hopkins, former guitarist of Gin Blossoms took his life. I’m not really the person to talk about this myself, having been 13 and living in Ohio…
Sake is known as Japan’s major contribution to the drinking world, and the folks at Sushi 101 serve up of the Nipponese rice wine both hot and cold (we prefer the latter). While you can down a few carafes in this sushi joint’s dining room (which is replete with such…
Glendale resident and American Idol winner Jordin Sparks has received a Grammy nomination for her song “No Air.” The song, nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, is a duet with R&B singer Chris Brown. It’s also the first of two (thus far) top 10 Billboard hits for Sparks — the other being “Tattoo.” Both songs are from her self-titled debut album, released this year on Jive Records.
You know who ends up getting a lot of Flier of the Week love? Local industrial bands. But, really, as much as I’d like to spread the attention around, I have to share fliers like this. This flier for 30 Fathom Grave’s show at The Ruby Room is pretty great…
Do you enjoy the Wu Tang Clan? What about free concerts? Well then, have we got a blog post for you.Our marketing department has come in to a nice little stash of tickets for Sunday’s show, it seems, and is giving them away here at Phoenix New Times’ site. So…
So, announced earlier through a brief post that went up while we were still at the U.S. Airways Center, Billy Joel and Elton John are coming to town on March 26. It’s the latest iteration of a tour Billboard labeled the most successful pairing of all time, and should be…
Black metal beast Abigail Williams came screeching out of the Arizona desert a few years ago to much acclaim with its 2007 EP, Legend. Metalunderground.com and Hardcoresounds.net gave the band props, and Kerrang! wrote that they “have taken fresh-faced metal down the left hand path” and “the result is obscenely…
On Tuesday we told you about the big announcement we’d been summoned down to U.S. Airways Center for: free lunch, entertainment by The Big Bang as well as the Phoenix Suns dance team and their Gorilla mascot. Hell, they even brought us two little chocolate pianos and a flier to promote…
Wednesday afternoon, I spent at least a half-hour trying to convince a colleague that I wasn’t crazy for getting excited about seeing Girl in a Coma. They’re a fairly average band, he said. No, seriously, they’ve really got something, I said. Then I spent another half-hour trying (unsuccessfully) to convince…
Where: The Lucky Devil (1212 E. Apache Blvd., Tempe, 480-446-7468, one block West of the station. Drink: The “Shot Ski” for $5 and up, depending on your booze of choice. Scene: Dunno if you’ve heard the news, but college kids have been known to tie one on from time to…
The crowd outside Holgas gallery in downtown Phoenix has swelled to nearly 100. From the apartments above the gallery, cigarette smoke rises in the November chill, drifting into a mass as two girls and a guy fiddle with amps and speakers on a makeshift stage. The crowd grows as passersby…
Over the past year or so — since just before last December’s release of 8 Diagrams — legendary hip-hop crew the Wu-Tang Clan has become its own reality show, what with all the infighting over creative direction (RZA versus Ghostface and Raekwon) and the bona fide superstars (Method Man, Ghostface)…
Reviewing Black Ice, AC/DC’s latest album, one critic summed up its strengths thusly: “Sounds exactly like every other AC/DC release.” And its weaknesses? “Sounds exactly like every other AC/DC release.” That pithy assessment gets to the heart of this band’s remarkably durable 35-year career: Are they geniuses for being so…
THURSDAY 4 Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: DJ M2 (hip-hop, Top 40) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Pickster Uno, DJ Element, Emerg McVay, & more (hip-hop) Crabby Don’s: DJ Johnny Knuckles (mash-ups, Top 40, ’80s) J-Heads: Southwest Rapstock with DJ Kavi, &…
The central appeal of the Isobel Campbell-Mark Lanegan pairing is simple. Their contrasting singing styles — hers is soft and sweet; his is gruff and gravelly — mesh with surprisingly effective results, like olive oil and vinegar or MSNBC pundits Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan. What Sunday at Devil Dirt…
Back in 2000, Scotland’s Travis had a hit stateside with “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” It was a pretty, catchy song clearly influenced by The Bends-era Radiohead. Also in 2000, fellow latter-day Brit-poppers Coldplay had a big American hit, “Yellow,” a pretty, catchy song clearly . . …
When a rapper like David Banner decides to name an album The Greatest Story Ever Told, you’re not gonna split hairs with the dude — at least not to his face. Like the mortal whose fury turned him into The Hulk, this bulky Banner also uses his temper to fuel…
On Dressy Bessy’s new album Holler and Stomp, the group finally has its sound to where the band always claimed it was. While they’ve been marketing themselves since they formed almost 10 years ago as punk with an edge of adorable, or adorable with an edge of punk (depending on…
The Partridge Family notwithstanding, sometimes music is a “Family Affair” as shown by Sly & the Family Stone, the brothers Avett, Allman, and Everly, and Chapin Sisters. It hasn’t been scientifically proven that genetics can help a band’s sound (the Everlys, for example, have a fractious relationship), but, hey, it…
Motor City-born Texas maverick J.D. Souther is the sort of fabled musician and artist who rarely exists anymore. I’m a lifelong country-rock idolator, and Souther emerged from my sonic foraging early in my musical journey, soon after my beloved Gene Clark and Gram Parsons, an L.A. titan iconic for his…
The holiday season is all about getting together with your friends and family. So it’s kinda groovy that local EDM fanatics are gonna get the chance to reunite with Joe DiPadova this weekend. The 29-year-old mixmaster, who rocked the house at many a PHX nightspot for years before relocating to…
