Email Author Serene Dominic

Awards

• 2008 - Arizona Press Club Awards, published July 12, 2007

  "Back on the Sun"

• 2007 - Arizona Press Club Awards

  The music beat

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2002 Stories by Serene Dominic

• Go Punk Yourself!

  published December 5, 2002

  This is perhaps a first in hard-rock journalism -- interviewer asks interviewee if he could please turn down Mario Lanza's recording of "Finiculi... More >>

• Garage Chic

  published November 28, 2002

  While it's Texas billionaire David Bonderman's prerogative to pay the Rolling Stones nearly $7 million to play a 40-minute set at his birthday... More >>

• Supreme Beings of Leisure

  published November 28, 2002

  "Whoa, this sounds like disco, huh?" Precisely, my Funkytown-fearing friends. These SBLs are here to say bass and drum are out -- Sturm und... More >>

• Fatigo

  published November 7, 2002

  With all the music that's out there in this crazy world, any data beyond a band name and song title might seem superfluous. So give credit to... More >>

• Against Type

  published October 17, 2002

  It isn't every day you get to see a band react to its first piece of national press coverage. Oddly enough, it's in Zia Zine, a free record... More >>

• Blind Ambition

  published October 3, 2002

  This ain't the way your brother's indie band made its way. Don't indie bands play basement parties and warehouse blowouts until all hours, move a... More >>

• Authority Wins

  published September 5, 2002

  You're always told to be nice to the people you meet on the way up, but you can't expect the same etiquette to be returned in the world of punk... More >>

• The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash

  published August 22, 2002

  Giving heads up to a musical hero in a band name is asking for trouble, like a guitarist calling his band Jimi Hendrix's Pick Guard. But after... More >>

• That '80s Sound

  published August 15, 2002

  "'The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down'? Quite a loony selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates!" Christopher Lloyd uttered those lines to said... More >>

• The Power of Five

  published August 8, 2002

  Now it's official: America loves its morose anniversary celebrations. Whatever the cursed event may be — the Kennedy assassination, the death... More >>

• Radio Goo Goo

  published July 25, 2002

  Fifteen years after the group's first album, the Goo Goo Dolls name is still good for the occasional line drawn in the dirt. Quite a few haven't... More >>

• They Might Be Giants

  published July 25, 2002

  The first time I ever laughed out loud in a rock club? It was in Manhattan, and They Might Be Giants were playing at a little club called Dr. B's... More >>

• Gut Check

  published July 4, 2002

  Minimalism. The term has spawned more run-on sentences by pinheaded writers than any other movement. And yet no written word has ever allayed... More >>

• Bhagavad Guitars

  published June 27, 2002

  Your practice space is burglarized. All your vintage equipment is gone. You've no secure place to rehearse your music. What will you do? What... More >>

• Three the Hard Way

  published June 13, 2002

  Let's pretend you're a club owner — we'll wait while you yank the necessary hairs out of your skull to make this a more credible performance.... More >>

• White Wash

  published May 23, 2002

  There are three standard reasons a rock act would refuse to do interviews: 1. The Freddie Mercury Royal Snub. This occurs after an artist... More >>

• About a Band

  published May 16, 2002

  In Phoenix you can more readily measure the passage of time by the limited life expectancy of live venues than by the forward projectory of Valley... More >>

• The Next Rig Thing

  published May 2, 2002

  Before www.truckersonspeed.com was up and running, all routes of Truckers on Speed Web information... More >>

• Open War

  published April 18, 2002

  If you'd asked me about spite incarnate 10 years ago, I would've told you about the Feldman brothers of New Rochelle, New York. Two siblings... More >>

• Brutally Frank

  published April 11, 2002

  No one ever sets out to conduct the world's worst interview, in much the same way every 10-car pileup on the freeway was once just a bunch of guys... More >>

• Chicago™

  published March 21, 2002

  Believe it or not, there are rock critic circles. That's where pent-up, penned-in pop music detractors spew their spleens making fun of all the... More >>

• White Men Can't Rap

  published February 28, 2002

  The other day I heard someone say, "You know, America is in real trouble." -- Johnny Sea, "Day for Decision," 1966 All you have to... More >>

• Rocking Maniac

  published January 24, 2002

  Frankly, if rock writers didn't have crazed visionaries to waste ink on, you people would get plenty tired of reading about expertly played... More >>

• Pretty Vacant

  published January 3, 2002

  If 2001 was a maddening, schizophrenic year for America, that goes double for the music that bubbled to the surface in the last 12 months.For... More >>