Email Author Brendan Joel Kelley

Awards

• 2006 - Arizona Press Club Awards, published June 16, 2005

  "High Voltage"

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2007 Stories by Brendan Joel Kelley

• Country Rogue

  published June 21, 2007

  "What hip-hop do you know that has a Kansas country girl singing?" Mynce, the turntablist for local hip-hop group the Smob, asks me this over... More >>

• Big Score

  published June 14, 2007

  A couple of weekends ago, I traveled down to Sonoita, near the Mexican border, to hit up my cowboy buddy Andy Hersey's release party for his new... More >>

• Three-Chord Wonders

  published June 7, 2007

  Having covered music in this town for more than a decade, I see and listen to a lot of bands encompassing all genres, styles, and persuasions, but... More >>

• Metal Health

  published May 24, 2007

  In e-mails and comments on my blog, Ear Infection, I've gotten into it with the metal kids in town. They've criticized me for my opinions about... More >>

• Word Play

  published May 17, 2007

  I've got a friend who showed up at the bar recently with his arm in a sling and stitches on his chin from an ass-whippin'. I asked him if he'd... More >>

• Bach to Basics

  published May 10, 2007

  About a year ago, a former girlfriend asked me why this town seemed so culture-less. She's from Los Angeles and is the sort of girl who likes to... More >>

• Hellas Cool

  published April 26, 2007

  As a music critic, it's a given that I see a shitload of local bands. I also see a lot of bad local bands, or at least ones that could... More >>

• Country Punk

  published April 19, 2007

  "As a drummer, let me tell you, in my experience it's all the same," says Chip Hanna, longtime skin hitter for punk stalwarts U.S. Bombs and One... More >>

• The Insects Are Free

  published April 5, 2007

  Back in the late '90s, I was getting pretty tired of Drunken Immortals — the group was playing a weekly hip-hop night at the now-shuttered... More >>

• Liar Liar´s, Amps on Fire

  published March 29, 2007

  I've finally found it — my get-rich-quick plan that'll land me a job in Hollywood as a reality show executive producer. The idea goes like... More >>

• House of Dance

  published March 22, 2007

  A few weeks ago, I helped judge the Ultra DJ Spinoff at Myst in Scottsdale. Six finalists had 25 minutes each to impress the judges (who also... More >>

• Mix Up the 'Nix

  published March 15, 2007

  Consider this a call to arms. In the wake of the arrests of DJ Drama, Don Cannon, and their crew, the Aphilliates, in Atlanta in January —... More >>

• Bruised Cruise

  published March 8, 2007

  After last year's Rock N The Seas cruise from Los Angeles to Ensenada, which featured a shitload of booze consumption and music from a grip of... More >>

• Kid Rock

  published March 1, 2007

  Other than a few years of classical piano as a preteen, I never learned to play music. My parents wouldn't buy me a guitar or a drum kit, I never... More >>

• Hip-Hop Co-Op

  published February 22, 2007

  Upstairs at the recent One Stop Shop hip-hop producers' conference (sponsored by G-Unit), I'm at the booth of Money Management, the company that... More >>

• Calamari Volta

  published February 8, 2007

  The first time I heard of Attack of the Giant Squid, I was drinking whiskey with my friend Rob Birmingham, a.k.a. Fun Bobby, who used to bartend... More >>

• Hippie-Hop

  published February 1, 2007

  I've been following hip-hop since I first heard Run-D.M.C.'s King of Rock album when I was 11 years old. I'm not a fanatic, though; my... More >>

• Dilated Pupils

  published January 25, 2007

  When I was still in high school in Alaska, I had it in my head for a while that I wanted to be a producer or a sound engineer. I was already way... More >>

• Sound Systym

  published January 18, 2007

  It's difficult to describe — even after spending a third of my life employed doing exactly that — the music on the Lymbyc Systym's new... More >>

• Rollover DJ

  published January 11, 2007

  "We put Vaseline on the men's urinal so you can't do coke off of it," Tyler King tells me from behind the bar at the Stray Cat in Tempe, on the... More >>