By Sarah Ventre Better Than: Any other rainy Sunday afternoon with about 100 underage kids. Ah, summertime! It is a time for remembering one’s youth from endless days of swimming to eating ice-cold watermelon and who can forget summer camp? Certainly not the good folks at Unlimited Enthusiasm, a summer…
Max and the Marginalized: Tuesday, July 15, at Modified Arts By Clay McNear Max Bernstein, Jon Ryggy, and Dave Watrous — the musicians who comprise the political-punk band Max and the Marginalized — will be shocked by what I’m about to do. What’s that, you ask? Lump them in with…
PJ Standlee They are six-feet tall, made of super vacuum-formed solid aluminum and boast six 250 mm woofers, a 250 mm midrange speaker and a state-of-the-art 165 mm tweeter. They’re called “Muon,” and they just might be the best sounding speakers money can buy – if you have $140,000 to…
By Benjamin Leatherman Don’t know about y’all, but I really dig it when bands whip out a cover or two during their live gigs. Whether it’s a song the band normally apes (like the Dead Kennedy’s parodies of “Viva Las Vegas” or “Rawhide”), or it’s just a rare, one-time-only kinda…
By Benjamin Leatherman Teenybopper pop-rock faves the Jonas Brothers are scheduled to perform tonight at the Cricket Wireless Pavilion. There’s a pretty substantial slate of live music going down this weekend at venues throughout the PHX. Nearly every major genre is represented, from rock and hip-hop to jazz and Latin…
Here’s a handful of concerts that were just announced.
By Jonathan McNamara Friday: Ukulele Ray and the KoKonutz We’re unsure how much faith you can put in anything a parody artist says, but if myspace is to be believed, Ukulele Ray is capable of imitating a “cast of thousands.” Come take a gander at the man who dresses like…
By Jonathan McNamara What? You think just because Harry Potter is a wizard he doesn’t know how to rock? You know what rocks? Petrification…by a basilisk. Have you ever stared into the magic eyes of a massive, serpentine demon and whispered “oh shit” in parsletongue before feeling your very fibers…
By Steve Jansen One microphone and, uh, one microphone. That’s the only thing used to record The Black Jacket’s self-titled debut. The result: A rock ‘n’ roll adventure in unmastered, lo-fi goodness. “Like Father, Like Daughter” is the album’s best song. Imagine if you could sprout wings and fly through…
THURSDAY 10 Axis/Radius: Divine Ladies Night with MCB & DJ Devine (various) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: Greed Thursdays (hip-hop, Top 40) Club Forbidden: Lips Thursdays with DJs Domenica, Hill, & MJ (various) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Pickster One, DJ Element, Dumperfoo, & Emerg…
July is the time of year when families get together for cookouts, kids stay up late to watch TV, and music critics compile their midyear Top 10 lists. Yes, we live for this kinda thing. Never mind that there are still six long months of records that will be released,…
Country audiences have always been strongly working-class, and such country greats of yesteryear as Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard sold albums based on how they answered the fears of the average American. Toby Keith does the same thing, but with a wholly commercial slant, pandering to audiences dismissed by the…
Montreal indie-rock quintet Wolf Parade — relentlessly championed by Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock — made a huge splash in 2005 with their exhilarating debut full-length, Apologies to the Queen Mary. Three years later, they’re back with a follow-up, At Mount Zoomer. On the phone to give us his take…
Sigur Rós’ latest is positively festooned with danger signs: first album to be recorded mostly outside the band’s home base of Iceland, first to feature a track sung in English, and the first co-produced by a big-shot dial-twister (Flood, of Depeche Mode and PJ Harvey fame). Somehow, though, these seemingly…
With 10 like-minded bands on the same bill, it’ll be damn near impossible to avoid death metal overkill here. But if you can find a way to conserve your energy, the Summer Slaughter tour features two Montreal death metal bands that go together like, well, an ax and a freshly…
Not to be confused with the ultra-polished Indiana University a cappella group of the same name (though that would be funny as shit), this extreme metal outfit dares to go where most of its peers fear to tread. Which is to say: awkwardness. Yes, Straight, No Chaser will still melt…
A Todd Rundgren performance could include just about anything from the multi-instrumentalist’s 41-year career: the ’60s garage rock of his old band Nazz, his early ’70s power pop solo work, his mid-’70s Zappa-esque experimental stage, his ’80s New Wave dabbling, his ’90s phase of bossa nova, concept albums, and interpretive…
Chris Martin and company return to the road in support of their latest album, Viva La Vida, their follow-up to the number one, 10-times platinum album X&Y. Critics are already commenting on the album’s “harder edge,” and even Coldplay front man Chris Martin remarked to Entertainment Weekly that “We’re slightly…
Omaha’s Tilly and the Wall doesn’t have a drummer. But the band’s figured out a way to lay down the beat just the same: Member Jamie Pressnall provides percussive rhythms by tap-dancing. Yes, tap-dancing. Left to the wrong feet, it could all turn into a gimmicky, indie-pop version of Riverdance…
This Pittsburgh jam band has long been a shared favorite of Deadheads everywhere (the devout are known as “Rootheads”), as the band’s music incorporates world-music percussion and touches of bluegrass, but leaves room for improvisational jams. Some of the bands songs, like their biggest hit, 1995’s “Send Me on My…
We were surfing through DJ Tranzit’s impressive-looking MySpace page (www.myspace.com/tranzit) the other day, and besides being amused by the house music maestro’s catchphrases (“Some people call it a dance floor. I call it my office”), we peeped a pretty lengthy list of the clubs and gigs where he’s plied his…
What’s the most surprising characteristic about this DIY-sounding album? That it’s not just some dude holed up in his parents’ basement multi-tracking in the bathroom to achieve that just-so sound. Because it seriously sounds like that. However, The Black Jacket is a full band featuring a number of members from…
