10/6-10/31The three bone-chilling extraterrestrial attractions at Alien Extreme, 4011 South Power Road in Mesa, are like an episode of The X-Files come to life. Wanna-be Mulders and Scullys can poke around inside a government research outpost, a mysterious UFO, and a crash site, looking for ginormous creatures of extraterrestrial origin…
10/7-10/16Armchair daredevils, wrest yourselves from your Barcaloungers and make tracks to Phoenix International Raceway this weekend for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, which offers average joes the opportunity of a lifetime: to hitch a ride in an honest-to-god stock car. The brain child of the 68-year-old former NASCAR king, Petty’s…
10/7-10/31Teresa Widmer loves trash. The local mixed-media artist has collected garbage off the streets for the past 12 years, documenting her finds and recycling them into artistic assemblages that comment on America’s disposable culture. Among her finds: the People magazine cover featuring Liz Taylor’s 1989 wedding to “that construction worker,”…
Showcase nudity or violence at an art exhibit and you’ll pack a large gallery, but mention “contemporary art” and you’re relegated to a tiny, one-room studio in the basement. But contemporary art has climbed out of the aesthetic cellar in recent years, thanks in part to the PBS documentary series…
Tania Katan has no boobs, but don’t cry for her. The ASU grad turned Renaissance woman has overcome dual mastectomies, transforming herself from a “nerdy 21-year-old” lesbian just trying to get laid into an author, performance artist, topless 5K runner, topless dancer wanna-be, and raconteur deluxe. She lost her first…
Crónicas’ biggest claim to fame ought to be that it was Ecuador’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but what most people tend to notice is that it stars John Leguizamo. Mixed messages ensue: “Oscar submission” makes one think of quality, while John Leguizamo’s name inspires visions of…
Ah, Wallace and Gromit. Who doesn’t get a little lift at the sound of those names? Who doesn’t feel the edges of her mouth begin to tickle toward a smile, her heart grow warmer with images of the love between a (plasticine) man and his (plasticine) dog? Perhaps you’re not…
All the publicity for Waiting . . . has focused on the scene in which an annoying customer at the fictional chain restaurant ShenaniganZ sends her food back to the kitchen, where it meets with all sorts of nasty modifications, courtesy of some dandruff, pubic hair, and mucus. The teaser…
Director Curtis Hanson, a journeyman only recently bestowed the title of Great Director, has already made his horror movie (1973’s The Arousers), his kiddy action comedy (1980’s The Little Dragons), his teen sex romp (1983’s Losin’ It), his handful of Hitchcock riffs (1987’s The Bedroom Window, 1990’s Bad Influence, and…
It must be a bitch being better known as Nicole Richie’s fiancé than for your skills on the tables, but that seems to be the case with DJ AM (a.k.a. Adam Goldstein), at least outside of Hollywood and New York City. But for those in the know, AM’s developed a…
For the last couple of years, Herv Salters has been the secret weapon of Bay Area hip-hop collective Quannum, supplying vintage keyboard sounds for Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, and Lifesavas. Now the French-born, Berkeley-based musician steps out front, releasing a solo album of playful, funky hip-hop, composed entirely with Clavinet, Hammond,…
From the childlike front-cover drawing of a unicorn humping a horse (that’s in turn humping a zebra that’s barfing all over the place) and the back-cover photo of the sister duo dressed like two Native American Boy Georges (we couldn’t make this stuff up), CocoRosie’s Noah’s Ark is out there…
With a barrage of lurid lyrics, NYC’s Cage spits the sort of storyboard rhymes on Hell’s Winter that sound like they’re ripped from an underground graphic novel. The dreary war-zone backdrops come from El-P, RJD2, and Blockhead, and their nimble, diesel-charged compositions help drive Cage’s reckless imagination over the edge…
Both Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and The National are currently basking in (or perhaps suffering from) the glow of being the next big thing out of New York. Thanks to Pitchfork, most eyes are on CYHSY to take home the prize. The real reason to go out to Modified…
Maybe frontman Peter Hayes was getting in touch with his dysfunctional Brian Jonestown Massacre roots, or maybe things were getting to be too much like the Black Straitjacket Motorcycle Club. Infighting led to drummer Nick Juno quitting the band, and when he asked to come back a few months later,…
Named after H.G. Lewis’s 1972 B-horror film, the Gore Gore Girls are the queens of the southeast Michigan garage-rock scene that grew up in the late ’90s and went mainstream with the success of the White Stripes. Decked out in spike-heeled boots, fishnets, striped stockings, matching outfits, and ’60s-style bouffants,…
As a songwriter with nearly a dozen country chart hits to his credit — including four Top 10s with his former band, McBride & The Ride, and a few other chart-toppers for the likes of Kenny Chesney, Aaron Tippin and Lee Greenwood — Arizona-born singer/guitarist Ray Herndon is used to…
As reports of rock’s resurgence in the music world have continued to flood the press, so has there been an increase in stories of rock breaking down on concert stages in the U.S. and abroad: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age collapsing onstage. Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome…
The rock ‘n’ roll wife has always been a martyr figure of sorts. She raises the children while her husband’s on tour, endures his infidelities, supports his successes, consoles his failures, and usually ends up a mere footnote in her famous husband’s biography. Unless, of course, she writes her own…
Like other Valley residents glued to the nightly news in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Kaydee Thomas saw how quickly and efficiently Governor Janet Napolitano worked to get Phoenix’s shipment of Gulf Coast evacuees into immediate housing around the city. “It was made so sunshiny and nice on television,” says…
On July 18, a cruel day in Phoenix when the temperature reached a record-tying 113 degrees, fire paramedics responded to an emergency call from a downtown apartment-dweller. The caller was a woman who lives at Ninth Avenue and Grant. She said a man was on the ground in her front…
Florida native Steven Rogers honed his nightclub skills in Manhattan, during the reign of Studio 54, and celebrity restaurateur Mr. Chow, for whom he worked. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Truman Capote, Mick and Bianca Jagger, and Lauren Bacall, while doing lighting for Gotham clubs. Then he said…
