Roy Orbison

Top Five Must-See Shows in Phoenix This Week

Phoenix! It's our top five must-see shows this week.

Angel Olsen Doesn't Want to Sell You Anything but Her Music

Angel Olsen's Beautiful Folk Music Probably Won't Show Up in Car Commercials

Singer/songwriter Angel Olsen skipped out on SXSW 2013. Though she's hardly indignant about it, the industry showcase just doesn't speak to the sensibilities displayed on Olsen's gorgeous noir-folk Half Way Home, released by Bathetic Records in 2012. Those songs, like the wounded but sensual "Lonely ... More >>

TMI Radio SxSW Showcase at Crescent Ballroom, 1/9/13

Palms, Wiley One, Jared and the Mill, and Sara Robinson and Midnight Special @ Crescent Ballroom|1/9/13South by Southwest, the sort of Mecca of indie music, is kind of a big deal. A good show there can make or break a band, even if the event itself is a tad self-indulgent. I once hitchhiked there, s ... More >>

Top Five Phoenix Music Stories of the Week

The news waits for no one -- at least that's what we read somewhere -- so it's perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of our biggest stories f ... More >>

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Jobing.com Arena, 12/6/12

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band @ Jobing.com Arena|12/6/12Who is Bruce Springsteen anyway? The street rat poet singing about characters straight out of West Side Story? The balladeer casting American youth in B movie glory, Roy Orbison grandeur, and fleets of fast cars? The protest singer, ... More >>

Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Rhythm Room, 8/29/12

Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys @ Rhythm Room| 8/29/12Sometimes, different is good. After a long, steady musical diet of mostly rock, jazz, blues and Cuban music, I let my country side out for an evening with Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys. Though, in all honesty, it was pretty rocking country--a two ... More >>

Top Five Must-See Shows This Week

Yeah, yeah, yeah...we get it Mondays suck (we've read Garfield). But it means the start of a new week, which means a bunch of killer shows in and around Phoenix. And here are a few of the coolest, our top five must-see shows this week.

Brian Kohatsu, What Are You Listening To?

Brian Kohatsu The comedian and media producer performs tonight at 3rd Place Neighborhood Grill at 7:30 p.m. His full schedule is here.  When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Mix 96.9-FM or 96.3-FM Real Country. What's the fi ... More >>

Scott H. Biram: "I Can Yodel, I Can Even Hambone."

​He stomps. He hollers. He yodels and howls. Scott H. Biram also plays guitar, shakes tambourines and basically, utilizing various effects, makes more of a racket on stage then one man should be allowed the pleasure. But it is a pleasure for Biram, whose music has been featured on FX's Sons of ... More >>

Zola Jesus: "I Have This Fantasy . . . of Being a Pop Star."

When she was young, Nika Danilova trained to sing opera but often lost her voice due to performance anxiety. When Danilova began performing as Zola Jesus in Madison, Wisconsin, her harrowing voice slowly grew confident among thickets of tape hiss and ambient synths. On her latest full-length, Conatu ... More >>

15 Favorite National Songs: Jason P. Woodbury

Michael Kiwanuka​Welcome to another installment of Up on the Sun's 2011 Review. Over the next week, we'll be counting down our favorite songs, shows, national and local releases of 2011. Enjoy! I'm already regretting this one. I left so much off this list it hurts, deserving songs from the li ... More >>

Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life and Seven More Music Flicks That Don't Suck

A scene from A Heroic Life​I didn't make it out to the French pop spectacular at FilmBar on Saturday night, but the pics posted on Facebook got me super-pumped to catch Serge Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. Non-documentary or concert films are tough to pull off (those are, too) but when a movie ... More >>

Jace Everett on True Blood, Alison Mosshart, Sex, and Religion

​ BY LAUREN WISE If you've never heard of Nashville-based singer-songwriter Jace Everett, there's little doubt you've heard a song he's best known for--the theme from HBO's massively popular, supernatural-saturated television series True Blood. Everett's music is a fusion of blues, rockabilly and ... More >>

Dax Riggs

Dirty Beaches, Outro Mundo & Where Dead Voices Gather Last Night at The Trunk Space

Maria Vassett​ Dirty Beaches, Outro Mundo, Where Dead Voices Gather The Trunk Space Friday, April, 29 2011 My favorite review of Dirty Beaches' latest LP, Badlands, is also the most negative one I've read. In a review for Dusted Magazine, Doug Mosurock states: So, the '50s sucked, right? They ... More >>

Dirty Beaches @ The Trunk Space

Dirty Beaches Talks Film, Hip-Hop, Home, and Performance Art

​ Dirty Beaches is the work of Alex Zhang Hungtai, a 30-year-old born in Taiwan before spending time in Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, China, and, currently, Montreal. To call Dirty Beaches a band would be a misnomer. What Zhang Hungtai does is more akin to performance art, with live performance ... More >>

South by Southwest Was Embarrassing for Arizona -- But Who Cares?

The Heymakers

DJ Rolemodel Talks Roy Orbison, Pussycat Lounge, Kanye West, Little Boots, and More

DJ Rolemodel​Name: Randell Carlton Green AKA: DJ Rolemodel Current club nights: Tuesdays at ACME, Fridays at Smashboxx, Saturdays at American Junkie. Genres spun: You name it and I have it. Origin story: Started off as a radio DJ while in college. I was actually fired for playing "Rape Me" by ... More >>

Barenaked Ladies at Dodge Theatre on 7/25/2010

Shawn Anderson​Barenaked Ladies Dodge Theatre July 25, 2010Ed Robertson is probably the more talented of the two founding members of Barenaked Ladies. Creative input aside, Robertson is a master chameleon, both able to mimic the boisterous nerdiness of ex-frontman Steven Page and do all the little ... More >>

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes at Clubhouse Music Venue on 6/22/2010

Shawn AndersonEdward Sharp and Co. on stage in Tempe.​"This place is crazy," the tour manager tells me on the phone, and, indeed, the Clubhouse in Tempe is crazy-packed for Tuesday's sold-out performance by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Before the opening act - Dawes, a folk-rock foursome ... More >>

Rooster Coup DeVille Stream New Song, Schedule CD Release Show

Michael Cozzo (left) & Joe Curran of Rooster Coup DeVille​Michael Cozzo has been a fixture in the local country and rockabilly scenes for several years now, first as a singer/guitarist in Liquor Store Junkies, then as a solo bluesman and now as frontman of local rockabilly act Rooster Coup DeV ... More >>

'Billy Boys

k.d. lang

Lang time coming

Watching the Wheels: a music soundtrack for hyperdrivers

Benjamin’s Weekend Word: First Friday, Just Blazed, and Richard Cheese

Roy Story

Is late musician spinning in his grave?

Hock the Line

Cheap laughs, lame cameos, and lifeless Cox

The Heymakers

Lauren White

At Last
(Groove Note Records)

Various Artists

We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song
(Verve)

Chris Isaak

What a wicked hit it is

Adam Green

Jacket Full of Danger
(Rough Trade)

The Volebeats

Like Her
(Turquoise Mountain)

Big & Rich

Horse of a Different Color
(Warner Bros. Nashville)

Best Lounge That Was Tiki When Tiki Wasn't Cool

The Bikini Lounge

Raul Malo

Today (Omtown/Higher Octave)

Hollywood Hells

David Lynch crashes on Mulholland Drive, but the wreckage is smashing

Great Scott

Tragedy brings out the best in Valley musicians, as top bands unite for a benefit concert

The Superfine Dandelion

The Superfine Dandelion

Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, Hoss

An archival concert collection finds Waylon Jennings very much at home in the Valley

The Artist Formerly Known As Print

Our quarterly roundup of the latest in music books

Mystery Men

Face it, you don't really know what the Everly Brothers have been doing all these years, do you, Bird Dog?

Brotherly Louvin

The high lonesome hardships of country's best duo are getting easier to hear

ALL THE WAY LIVE

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL HIS LIFE?A TRIBUTE ALBUM TO THE LATE ARTHUR ALEXANDER GIVES HIM THE GOING-AWAY PARTY HE NEVER GOT

SEARCHING FOR AMERICAN SUPERSTARS

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LAUGHLIN, NEVADA, AND CLINT'S WELL, ARIZONA, YOU MIGHT FIND THE MEANING OF LIFE IN THE '90S. ROGJT.