Most people agree that the former Common Sense has few peers on the mic. But his last album, 2002’s Electric Circus, was an intermittently exciting exploration of acid rock that enraged hip-hop purists, and today’s cutthroat industry doesn’t extend many mulligans for experimentation. Like any boho artist, though, Common wants…
This fourth collaboration between Rupert Huber and Richard Dorfmeister is a family affair — the letters J.A.C. represent newborn sons (Joseph, Arthur, Conrad; Huber’s wife had twins). This could clue us in to the lullaby-sounding quality of “Heidi Brühl,” with slightly polished guitars creating an airy soundscape behind Samiah Farah’s…
There won’t be a better show in Phoenix this summer than this one. That’s because these three bands realize a concert is meant to be something more than vomiting up tracks from their latest slab. All three are driven by an appreciation of rock’s theatrical qualities. This goes double for…
Death By Stereo is the punk rock band that metalheads dig, because it has an edge — aggressive guitar riffs, and hard and fast drumming that’s typical for hardcore punk bands such as A.F.I., and Shai Hulud. But while Death By Stereo sounds chaotic, its lyrics are generally serious and…
Stereolab singer/multi-instrumentalist Laetitia Sadier confers with her recording engineer on the first day of sessions for A Few Steps More, the second album from her side quartet, Monade. “It’s so nice to get a break from Stereolab and work on another project for a while.” “Yeah, I like Stereolab a…
At least another hour is left until touring headliners The Perceptionists are set to perform at the Old Brickhouse Grill on a recent Saturday night, but there are already hundreds of people in the house. When a startling siren blasts through huge speakers and a dense swarm of fans crowds…
In a recent New York Times article that disputes the age-old link between creativity and depression, author Peter D. Kramer claims that it is “depression — and not resistance to it or recovery from it — that diminishes the self.” Devoted acolytes of Nine Inch Nails major-domo Trent Reznor would…
In front of a movie theater, far, far away, a family sits and waits. Dad is chatting with some cyber buddies, and Mom is reading. She reaches over and smoothes the hair of her youngest, who’s playing a video game on her cell phone. Nearby, her two oldest enact a…
Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano’s taking it to the House — and the Senate — leaving no doubt about who’s the most powerful politician in state government. Brash, abrasive and confident, Napolitano craftily used this past legislative session to capture the pole position for next year’s gubernatorial race that’s shaping up…
Jim Chilton doesn’t just admire cowboy values. He believes in them. And, like any true believer, he’s eager to share the gospel in well-rehearsed sound bites, whenever the situation allows. Ask him, for example, why he decided to sue one of the West’s most prominent environmental groups. “I laid in…
“HOME: Native People in the Southwest”: The Heard ends a yearlong celebration of its 75th anniversary by opening a huge new gallery that houses a larger and improved exhibition of Southwestern Native American art. The new exhibition organizes 2,000 objects by tribe instead of type, includes maps of each tribe’s…
Like it or not, guns are as American as Happy Meals and maxed-out credit cards, so making them the theme of a group exhibition invites all kinds of timely and biting cultural criticism. The pieces in “The Gun Show: No Background Check Required” at reZurrection Gallery in Tempe are mixed…
Deborah Butterfield makes horse statues, but don’t hold it against her. Her horses are not the ones of civic monuments, rendered in elegant marble and carrying some dead white war hero. Nor are they the romantic bronze beasts of flaring nostrils and lush manes cranked out by mediocre Western artists…
Smart-asses in more ways than one, Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian may not be the first to have read media critic Danny Schechter while pumping S layer and actually absorbed both. But on Mezmerize, System of a Down’s third and most consistent album, the front men, now equally billed, revive…
So who, exactly, is Mike Jones? That’s a great question. Here’s what we’ve learned so far: The nearly ubiquitous Houston-based rapper apparently lives in a world of Escalades with wood-grain interiors and diamond grilles. He has a strained, nasal drawl, which he throws against both the glitzy synth lines of…
At the risk of oversimplifying his appeal, or understating his accomplishments, when it comes to ’50s surf/instrumental guitar, Link Wray is the Stones to Duane Eddy’s Beatles. While Eddy’s movie matinee looks, and sweet, bubbling twang of tracks such as “Rebel Rouser” (amplified by the low whinny of Eddy’s whammy…
For this food critic, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as gnawing on a hunk of butt while perusing the Scottsdale-based Serbian Times and occasionally wondering how many pierogi a grown man can ingest before he explodes. The butt in question? Smoked pork butt, silly! From Stanley’s Home Made Sausage Co…
Who’s Alienated Now? Editor’s note: Michael Lacey’s satirical column “Alienated” (May 5) got readers’ attention in a big way — mostly because what he described (vigilantes drawing down on 800 Mexicans inside a Phoenix Roman Catholic church) is almost predictable in an era of “Minutemen” patrolling Arizona’s border with Mexico…
Sure, the Japanese pop culture spectrum has an abundance of too-adorable kitsch (Hello Kitty’s only the tip of the iceberg) countered by an incredibly dark side (just Google the word hentai). But what’s even more fascinating — and somehow a little less familiar to foreigners — is the stuff that’s…
Thursday 19 Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with AKA (gothic, industrial) Axis/Radius: DJ MCB (hip-hop, dance) Bobby McGee’s: DJs Mark & Mikyl (Top 40, dance) Dos Gringos — Scottsdale: Block Party with DJ Sterling (all genres) Elixir: DJ Lego (house) Garcia’s: Latin Dance…
1. Weezer, Make Believe (Geffen) 2. Dave Matthews Band, Stand Up (RCA) 3. The Starting Line, Based on a True Story (Drive-Thru) 4. The Format, Snails EP (Atlantic) 5. Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree (Island) 6. Team Sleep, Team Sleep (Maverick) 7. Spoon, Gimme Fiction (Merge) 8…
Twinkling bells, trembling guitars and tiny music boxes — these are the things that make up Golden Morning Breaks. A low and haunting piece of ambient music, Morning is the work of Colleen Schott, a French performer with a cut-and-paste approach. Often, this sort of delicate electronic music can be…
