At last–I’ve found it! After years of vein-popping concentration searching for unique descriptions, after developing blisters on every finger from thumbing through thesauruses looking for new adjectives, I’ve discovered the ultimate way to determine whether a song is good. But I’ll give credit where credit is due: I owe it…
Hell-Bent: Insurgent Country Volume 2 (Bloodshot) Insurgent, indeed! How dare they, these young bands of scofflaws, going and recording songs that are actually representative of the heart and soul of authentic American country music. There’s nary a ten-gallon hat, daintily trimmed mustache or skintight pair of jeans to be seen…
Harvest Restaurant, Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino, 17 miles west of I-10, exit 162A, Maricopa Road, 1-800-427-7247. Hours: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. Five hundred years ago, the European invaders came and stole their land. Then, the white men drove them from their ancestral…
The Triumph of the Grill: It looks like barbecue fans are in for a mighty swine time this week. The Great Arizona Rib Roundup kicks off Thursday and runs through Sunday. Rib houses from around the country are displaying their bones downtown at Civic Plaza, between Second and Third streets…
Trisha Yearwood Thinkin’ About You (MCA) And you won’t feel like a dweeb thinkin’ about her, either. Trisha Yearwood is a rare find–she’s inoffensive to both new “young country” fans and old holdout traditionalists. Trish and her producer have picked an intelligent, well-written batch of tunes with no self-congratulatory “thank…
To his parents, he is O’Shea Jackson. To certain members of the population, he is the “Nigga America Loves to Hate.” But to thousands of rap fans, he is simply known as Ice Cube. Once a greasy, Jheri-curl-wearing homeboy straight outta Compton and a member of the controversial group N.W.A…
Mike Watt is an easygoing sort. He’s a big, friendly guy with a gruff voice that makes him sound even bigger and friendlier on the phone. At the moment, Watt’s speaking from Los Angeles. The rambling conversation concerns, among other things, Watt’s long career as one of the better-known and…
Insincerity blurs many a postmortem tribute album. What were the performers’ true relationships to the featured legend? Were they just hired guns used for marquee value? Why should it be considered a “tribute” to rerecord a lesser version of a hit? Can a “tribute” recording dishonor the original artist? When…
Marlon Brando’s star turn in 1990’s The Freshman was possibly the greatest piece of self-parody in the history of film acting. Sending up his Godfather persona, the actor transcended it–he gave soul, warmth, humor and true innocence to the bleak old don, and the performance had both vitality and a…
Unfairly, the word “amateur” is usually a pejorative term. The literal definition is “one who practices any art, study or sport for pleasure and not for money.” Unfortunately, “amateur” also can imply a lack of skill or finish, and such is the case with Theater Works’ current production of John…
Liam Neeson is a fine big slab of testosterone, a competent actor and a reasonably likable screen presence. He’s not, however, a movie star. He may be paid like a movie star, he may be given starring roles, but the excitement, the sense of intimacy that a true movie star…
If Forrest Gump’s mother was right (“Life is like a box of . . .”), then Arizona Comedy Theatre Company’s Coming Attractions is like a Whitman’s Sampler with all the tops pushed in so we know what we’re going to get. Four dedicated performers have put themselves on display with…
Art Detour, the yearly open house of downtown Phoenix art studios and galleries, came and went this year without much fanfare. No trolleys to shuttle folks along the circuit of art spaces, no “mystery” galleries (empty downtown storefronts turned into art spaces for the event), no juried exhibition. In other…
The whining from the leftish side of American politics seems to grow less intelligent and more ineffectual by the day, even to a veteran Nixon-Reagan-Bush hater like me. It’s as if the Democrats want to prove that Rush Limbaugh is right–that they actually are the party of politically correct minutiae…
Pistol-Packin’ Emma The front door at Phoenix City Hall proclaims: “No weapons of any kind allowed in building.” But one city employee is packing heat–City Councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood. Although she usually leaves her handgun in the car, Dirty Emma, who has a concealed-weapon permit, admits that she sometimes carries…
Fast. Extremely fast. Wide lanes. Deep gutters. No waves. Perfect water temperature. And most important: clean air. These are the physical attributes that separate an average swimming pool from a great one. There are only a handful of elite competitive swimming facilities in the United States. One of the best…
For 35 years, the gargantuan neon Roadrunner stood sentry over traffic on the Black Canyon Freeway. But one morning two weeks ago, stunned motorists stared in disbelief as they whizzed past the defunct truck stop at the northwest corner of I-17 and McDowell Road. The big beeper had flown the…
Twenty-three years ago, Arizona lawmakers set up a trust fund for the state’s prisoners. The lawmakers’ idea was simple enough–profits generated from prison convenience stores, hobby shops and the prisoners’ telephone system would go into a Special Services Fund that would be held in trust by the Arizona Department of…
It’s the final round at the Doral-Ryder Open, and Gary McCord is scatting. His solo begins as Peter Jacobsen, the hottest player on the PGA Tour, eyes a putt on the 12th green. “He’s in that ever-present Zone that these guys get into once in a while,” the CBS golf…
If you’ve never witnessed a 50-year-old Vandercook No. 232 Proof Press working at full-on, finger-crushing capacity, then you’ve never heard a noise like this: SKREE CHUNK KA-CHANK SKREE CHUNK KA-CHANK SKREE CHUNK KA-CHANK. And you’ve never seen the primitive, industrial sensuality of rollers, bearings, plates, wheels and belts moving in…
Hap’s Real Pit BBQ, 101 South 24th Street, Phoenix, 267-0181. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Sunday. American pork producers have spent a fortune promoting their product as “the other white meat.” If you believe the advertising,…
Cynics beware! Phoenix Theatre has booked a show as irrepressible as an untrained puppy. And like a puppy, this entertainment promises to knock you over and bathe your face with wet kisses, these of homespun wisdom. It will make you giggle with delight if you can withstand the Hallmark-greeting-card pretensions…
