Best Country Music Pilgrimage 2009 | The grave of Waylon Jennings | People & Places | Phoenix
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Best Country Music Pilgrimage

The grave of Waylon Jennings

Legendary outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings, the first country musician to ever have a platinum record, wasn't originally from Arizona. Though a Texan by birth, he's tied to the Copper State because he lived here much of his life and resurrected his career here by playing gigs seven nights a week at J.D. Musil's nightclub in Tempe. He also passed away here, at his home in Chandler, and was buried here, at Mesa Cemetery, the same grassy lawn that holds the remains of paroled rapist Ernesto Miranda of "Miranda rights" fame. Waylon's grave is a peaceful place, where you'll find his intricately designed black headstone adorned by flowers and trinkets left by generations of fans passing by. It's the closest thing a country music fan will find to sacred ground in this town, and it's well worth the trip.

Best Kids Music Blog

Zooglobble

A few years ago, Stephan Shepherd's wife was asked to edit the newsletter for her parenting group. She roped her hubby into writing reviews of kids' music — and that, boys and girls, is how Phoenix wound up with the best children's music blog around. Shep­herd doesn't just review music and report on the industry on his blog, he also brings super music to town — another reason to read Zooglobble and learn who's coming to the Valley and when. Now we have just one more wish, Stephan: Bring Baby Disco to Phoenix! You know what we're talking about.

Best Place to Take a 2-Year-Old

The Noodle Forest at the Children's Museum of Phoenix

Google the words "noodle forest" and you'll find hundreds of hits referring to the groovy play area on the third floor of the Children's Museum of Phoenix, which opened last year. The playground is a rainforest of more than 3,000 lime green and creamy orange polyethy­lene foam tubes. The noodles hang from the ceiling and sway gently as kids chase each other through the padded jungle. This tactile and colorful bonanza can crack a smile on even the most crabby toddler . . . or adult. Admission is $9 for kids and adults and you get to see the rest of the museum, too. Under 1? It's free.

Best Place for Kids to Act Up

Childsplay

Whether it's their beautifully mounted productions at the still-sparkling new Tempe Center for the Arts, or the classes they teach year-round (including weeklong summer programs) at their nearby Tempe facility, Childsplay is a class act. When it comes to instruction, perfection is not the goal — a welcome relief in this all-too-pushy, test-obsessed culture. Kids can take classes with real life actors, then come to a show and see them perform onstage. That's what we call community theater at its finest!

Best One-Man Show

David Barker's Dodging Bullets

His sabbatical leave during the summer of 2004 led to a crisis in David Barker's life. Like many artists, Barker, a professor of theater in the Herberger College of the Arts best known for his mime performances, turned that crisis into art. Dodging Bullets details the day that Barker's brother-in-law opened fire on him and his sister, the gunman's wife. The bullet intended for Barker missed him, but his sister was hit in the chest. It's a testament to Barker's skill as a playwright and performer that he made this tragic tale — which he's preparing for a remount, we hope very soon — both amusing and enlightening.

Best Contemporary Dance Company

Scorpius Dance Theatre

Lisa Starry gets it.

The artistic director/choreographer for Phoenix's 10-year-old, 20-member-strong Scorpius collective understands that the terms "modern dance" and "interpretive dance" are buzz-kills in a society with a crippled economy and a stunted attention span. That's why Starry gives hesitant Gen Xers and Yers — the folks with the disposable incomes — what they want. And that's a little pop-culture sugar to help the medicine, er, contemporary dance go down.

One of Starry's core influences is Cirque du Soleil. A Vampire Tale, her annual "Nutcracker of Halloween," predated Twilight mania. In general, Starry says her inspiration comes from the movies rather than other choreographers (and those who've seen A Vampire Tale know it's much closer in spirit to Interview with the Vampire than Bella Swan).

"My dream was always to entertain, and that's what is working for Scorpius," she says. We're glad.

Best Traditional Art-Film Theater

Harkins Camelview 5

Though there's still some lingering heat, the summer blockbuster season is over, meaning we can avoid overwhelming explosions, manic car chases, and one-note comedies. That's why Harkins Camelview 5 is our haven year-round. Anytime we want to escape the typical celluloid tedium, we can settle into the last theater that the chain's founder, Dwight "Red" Harkins, opened himself. Camelview has quite the menu of foreign and independent films (even with masquerading major studios dipping their toes in the art-film pool), which keeps us coming back — especially now, when more thoughtful fare vies to be remembered by Oscar voters.

Best Microcinema

No Festival Required

When IFC and the Sundance Channel don't quench your thirst for non-traditional cinema, No Festival Required is your mighty-mite hero. The monthly indie and art film showcase started in 2002, taking up the mantle of microcinema that Jeff Cochran left behind. Microcinema refers only to size of the venues, because No Festival Required has always featured works that are bold, daring, and cutting edge in content and technique. In addition to monthly screenings at Space 55, NFR domo Steve Weiss has helped organize and market screenings and film events at Deus Ex Machina, Chandler Cinemas, and the Phoenix Art Museum.

Best Bite-Size Lecture Series

Ignite Phoenix at The Tempe Center for the Arts (usually)

As the saying goes, less is more and Ignite Phoenix, the quarterly series of bite-size lectures, epitomizes the axiom. Modeled after the first Ignite event, held in Seattle in 2006, anyone can submit a presentation on anything — as long as it can be completed within five minutes. The hallmark of Ignite Phoenix is the variety of subjects that have made it to the podium, including the picayune (a rant about the uselessness of stressing out) and the profound (a lecture about algae-based green fuels). The result has set the Valley's Twitter-dwelling tech, biz, creative community aflame.

Best Entertainment on the Light Rail

The Train Tracks

Musicians seem drawn to using public transit systems as a backdrop for performances. We've seen many a street rat busking in NYC and D.C. subways while strumming their acoustic gee-tars. Maybe it's the captive audience or Americana's deep-rooted bonds shared by trains and tunes. Either way, we figured that once the Valley's light-rail system launched last December, it wouldn't be too long until we heard live music at stations. The folks behind the Train Tracks did us one better and have been booking Phoenix indie acts to play unplugged versions of their songs on light-rail cars since February. Conjured up by a cabal of CenPho left-brain types (including Inside Creative Minds filmmaker Tray Goodman and Modified Arts/Stinkweeds' Kimber Lanning) the weekly online video series records acoustic performances by such local scene favorites as Courtney Marie Andrews, Yourchestra, and Sugar Thieves during rush hour. It's similar to London's Black Cab Sessions (albeit not in a back of a taxi), in which everything's done in one take. Every three months, those who get the best response are invited to compete in a quarterly First Friday battle of the bands at the Phoenix Art Museum. The winner will get stage time at next year's Tempe Musical Festival. Sounds good to us, as long as they don't ask us for spare change.

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