By Jonathan McNamara If you thought Phoenix rockers Juicy Newt gleaned their name from Juicy Newton, you’d be wrong. The name has nothing to do with the Grammy award-winning singer and guitar player. This band name has “a long and not very lady like story” says Juicy Newt drummer Sarah…
Music licensing corporations aren’t leaving a lot of elbow room for local venue owners(Illustration by Ed Piskor) By Steve Jansen License to Kill the Music On a recent weekday afternoon, I’m standing inside the Trunk Space with co-owner Stephanie Carrico. It’s about 110 degrees outside and a still-sweltering 95 inside…
THURSDAY 14 Axis/Radius: Red Bull Thursdays with DJ MCB (hip-hop, Top 40, rock) Bar Smith: Peppermint Lounge with DJ Brazilia, DJ Mara, & guests (electro, funk, ’80s) Bikini Lounge: DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cash Inn:…
In 1986, when I first tried to grow a beard, the consensus was that beards were for murderers and maniacs. Almost no one in mainstream America in the ’80s wore a beard; even in Alaska, a beard was a serious statement that the wearer ate cold beans from a can…
Two years after providing the haunting, gospel-tinged, and mighty crucial backing vocals on Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis’ solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, the Watson Twins — identical sisters Leigh and Chandra Watson — are back with their own full-length debut, Fire Songs. At home in Los Angeles while on…
If you walk up to the door of a bar and it has a sign that reads, “Restrooms for customers only,” chances are you’re about to enter a dive bar. At least, that is the case with the Caravan, on 15th Avenue and Camelback Road. It’s a sweltering Thursday afternoon,…
Mark Zubia is one of the most talented singer-songwriters in the Valley. He’s seen some success with his Americana bands Los Guys and The Chimeras, but his solo work is equally compelling. Here we have 10 tunes, all of which manage to tell a story alongside a nice melody, in…
Power pop has always been about the comfort factor, the idea that no matter how dicey a boy-girl song situation is, the love emanating from a stack of carefully chosen records is somehow going to make everything all right. Tempe’s Sugar High has not been immune to this sort of…
There is little doubt that saxophonist David Sanborn has earned his place in music history through his many collaborations as a sideman with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Elton John, and David Bowie. On his latest disc, he revisits the blues that influenced him early on, via the work…
Call it freak folk, acid folk, New Weird America, progressive folk, folk-prog, or the result of too many lysergic brain-ticklers at a Renaissance Faire, but Faun Fables — a.k.a. Dawn McCarthy and whomever else she assembles — is at its forefront. A Table Forgotten is a four-song EP/mini-album that resists…
If the most enduring proto-emo bands were the ones that wrote the best hooks, Smoking Popes would be right up there with the Promise Ring and the Get Up Kids. Like those groups, the Popes’ penchant for melody resided solely on the shoulders of a lead singer (Josh Caterer) with…
The former Traveling Wilbury is on a roll these days — in addition to reuniting his pre-fame band Mudcrutch for a much-appreciated CD, he has found a growing number of younger fans during his current tour. According to reports, a large number of 20-somethings have flocked to his shows alongside…
Singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins defies a cut-and-dried definition. Influenced by everybody from the Violent Femmes and James Taylor to contemporaries like the Indigo Girls (whose co-founder, Amy Ray, attended Clarkston High School in Georgia with Mullins), the folk rocker maintains a homey pop vibe throughout his albums but doesn’t feel compelled…
What’s that noise? If it sounds like anarchy in the PC, it’s probably the wondrous effectual whirlpool of Valley circuit bender The Coitus. Using “instruments” such as old Atari gaming systems, Casio keyboards, and Commodore computers in combination with modified kids’ toys, synthcarts, and homemade sound contraptions, The Coitus calls…
Whenever we’re out surveying some of the more ostentatious and showy nightspots that make up P-town’s club scene, the lyrics from that Finger 11 song “Paralyzer” seem to roll through our heads. You know, the verse where Scott Anderson sings: “This club has got to be/The most pretentious thing/Since I…
Mark David Chapman was denied parole yesterday, for the fifth time. The man who murdered John Lennon on December 8, 1980 was sentenced to 20 years to life for his crime. The week before his parole hearing, the parole board received 50 letters and a petition signed by 1000 people opposing Chapman’s release. He had three letters of support.
By Benjamin Leatherman Let mortal kombat begin. It was announced recently that Danzig will be heading back to the Valley this November as a part of the “Blackest of the Black Tour,” which also features fellow black metal rockers Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Winds of Plague, and Skeletonwitch on the lineup…
J-Heads, Club Candids
By Benjamin Leatherman It’s a damn shame that in a city the size of Phoenix (the fifth largest in the nation last we checked) there’s a real dearth of cool independent music stores. But, hey, at least it lets us appreciate those scant few record shops that are available all…
Back in May, I launched this “You Asked for It” blog. There were so many Phoenix bands complaining that Phoenix New Times didn’t give them enough coverage, even while we’ve been covering local music extensively for more than a decade. The main reason I never reviewed EVERY local CD that came my way was because, quite frankly, many of them sucked and I didn’t feel like giving bad press to a struggling Valley band. Still, local musicians griped and moaned that we were covering all the wrong local bands (read: not their bands), so the original idea behind this blog was to review every single local CD sent to me, in the order it was received, regardless of whether or not I thought the album blew chunks. Surprisingly, I’ve only received a few CDs since the blog launch that I just wanted to melt in the microwave; many of the local CDs landing on my desk have been quite good. There’s still the occasional underwhelming effort (see this week’s review), but for the most part, I’m impressed and I want to hear more local CDs.
By DJ Big Latin DJ Big Latin is a Phoenix-based music promoter who created and owns Big Latin Entertainment. He was inspired to get into the music industry when he worked as a driver for Studio 47 in the Bay Area and had the opportunity to talk to music talents…
By Joseph Golfen Surrounded by autographed guitars and gold records, twelve aspiring rock legends took up their plastic axes in Hard Rock Cafe to compete in the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Rocks the Hard Rock contest. With a chance to fly to Boston and meet Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler (not…
