Monsignor Dale Fushek had long been the rock star of the Catholic Church in the United States. He founded America’s largest program for Catholic teenagers, Life Teen, at his parish in the East Valley in 1985. Today, about 100,000 high-school-age Catholics across the country attend his program each week. As…
Some bastards have all the bloody luck. Say, a year ago today, you signed a lease or bought a residence near 70th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale. Then you wake up one morning to discover that not only does the cul-de-sac there boast Sushi on Shea, but the Great…
If Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart isn’t often revived, it’s almost certainly because it’s an issue-related drama with a story — about the first few years of the AIDS epidemic in Manhattan — that sounds, in quick summary, quite dated. It doesn’t help that the play is equal parts lecture…
“I just got done burning all my clothes,” explains The Barin, whose real name is Brian, but likes to go under the name Barin Darnew, probably just to piss off his parents, “so I could buy some new ones.” I look at my pal as we make our way toward…
This is what it’s come to: I have driven for nearly an hour in order to interview a big plastic skeleton. What’s more, I’m doing it at a place I swore I’d never, ever visit: the Arizona Renaissance Festival, a faux medieval village (one of the largest of its kind…
Goodbye Blue Monday might sound like a nod to ’80s New Wave pioneers New Order. But GBM, a San Diego quartet whose name actually references Kurt Vonnegut’s seminal Breakfast of Champions, has no desire to imitate either the Manchester Invasion (despite citing The Cure as a major influence) or the…
SAT 2/26 It seems that KTAR personality Gayle Bass really knows how to shake it. And by “it,” we mean a martini — which also, it just so happens, serves as her moneymaker, when Bass and more than a dozen other local luminaries serve as wanna-be mixologists during the Celebrity…
2/26-2/27 Stereotypes are an awful blight, which is why the Scottish are such an inspiringly indefinable people. Any group that counts among its sports the Hammer Throw, Weight Toss, and Standing Stone Put are on the high side of macho. Yet those same people are just as likely to be…
FRI 2/25 So many people still shudder at the “F” word: Feminism, that is. The Guerrilla Girls don’t understand that — after all, they’ve been trying to reinvent the word since 1985, adopting the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms, donning gorilla masks, and using “facts, humor and fake…
Regarding our mothers, there are certain thoughts we block out — both as kids and as adults. For instance, mom’s most intimate moments with dad. (Even putting it delicately gives us the willies.) And then there’s, frankly, the most frightening and unthinkable — until now, that is: Mom sticks a…
Before you say “Snottsdale” again to refer to the Valley’s most affluent city, check out Faking Fabulous, a television show pilot written by longtime Scottsdale residents Brian Davis and Carrie Severson (pictured). The sitcom explains some things. “It’s about twentysomethings in Scottsdale, mimicking the older generation’s success and fashion, but…
Bride & Prejudice is the third major film released stateside in the past few years to fuse the epic romantic musical stylings of Indian “Bollywood” movies with more Westernized, “Hollywood” elements. It’s also the most successful of them, but when the only significant competition has been The Guru and Bollywood/Hollywood,…
First, the good news. Uncharacteristically for a February release targeting African-American viewers, Diary of a Mad Black Woman is not a yuppie romantic comedy featuring Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut. Anthony Anderson and Eddie Griffin are nowhere to be seen, and despite the fact that the most memorable character is…
We’re still happily enjoying the paradise that is our balmy wintertime in the ‘Nix, but clubgoers should be prepared for a chilly blast when Florida’s DJ Icey, lauded as “the King of the Funky Breaks,” hits town Friday, February 25, with an appearance at Myst, 7340 East Shoeman Lane in…
The one-man-band scenario always carries a greater potential for silliness than your average act. Scott Wexton, a.k.a. the Voodoo Organist, is no stranger to kitsch himself, what with glow-skull stage props, excursions on the theremin (the geekiest instrument ever devised), and songs about being dipped in battery acid by the…
The guys in Vistalance will be watching eBay for their stolen instruments, since some asshole stole their van (with all of their equipment inside) back in November. The local metal band’s losses totaled roughly $12,000 including the van, which has since been recovered, riddled with miles and reeking of piss…
Remember in the early ’90s flick Airheads, when Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi are standing at the door of a recently acquired radio station, testing an alleged music exec by quizzing, “Who would win in a fight: Lemmy or God?” Unlike that undercover cop, the men in Rapid Fire would…
Texas-born maverick Roky Erickson is one of the great insane geniuses of rock ‘n’ roll. Shortly after “You’re Gonna Miss Me” became a huge hit for the 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson pleaded insanity to prevent doing hard time for a petty marijuana bust. After three years of shock therapy in…
Hardcore vets 7 Seconds have been around for 25 years now, and singer Kevin Seconds and gang won’t let you forget it on this 17-track, 28-minute set. “Don’t you tell me I’m being nostalgic/I’m not looking to go back in time,” Kev belts on “Our Core.” But he’s lying; just…
Though the immediacy of the first loping chords of “I Will Dare” would suggest otherwise, it’s been nearly a decade and a half since Paul Westerberg last fronted the mythically sloppy, booze-fueled Replacements. Which is longer than he was even in the group. Yep, Westerberg has been on his own…
Her name is Annie. She’s Norwegian and beautiful, not an unusual combination. She’s big in Europe right now. And if you’ve heard “Chewing Gum,” the lead single from her debut, Annie mal, you hate her. But you can’t get her out of your head. “Oh no/Oh no/You’re not the one/You…
Tents have gone up in flames before at Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s infamous outdoor compound. And there’s no reason to think it won’t happen again at Tent City. With virtually unlimited access to cigarettes, booze and drugs, enraged inmates could torch the tents, just like they did on October 4, 1994,…
