With its new disc Salazar Brothers, local band Rising Conviction takes a step toward being in Ozzfest someday. The band has been creating a straightforward hard rock sound since 2000, although this latest release has more of a jam-session feel, with lengthy tracks, smooth transitions, and short interludes that are…
This Minneapolis indie favorite is tuning in loud and clear to the ghosts of a lost era in rock — those few precious years of the late ’70s and early ’80s, before punk, New Wave and goth all went their completely separate ways. Ouija Radio cranks out darkly catchy melodies…
If rock critics ran the world, the Backyard Babies would be headlining stadiums instead of sweating it out in closet-sized rock dives. But none of the three albums the Swedish band’s released since 1997 has managed to awaken slumbering U.S. rock fans. See how influential the press is? Liquor &…
The Saddle Creek collective in Omaha remains as busy and intriguing as ever, swinging between solo and group projects. This tour brings together two of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst’s cronies, Denver Dalley and Maria Taylor. Dalley is Oberst’s songwriting partner in Desaparecidos, but his side project, Statistics, offers a dramatic…
Pouyan Afkary is oblivious to how successful he is. He’s a 19-year-old kid who graduated from Highland High School in Gilbert two years ago and immediately left for a life on the road with five of his classmates — the other members of emo-rock band Scary Kids Scaring Kids. After…
When I was a teenager working in a skateboard shop called G&B up in Anchorage, Alaska, skateboarding was an insular scene that even had music of its own: a blend of punk, hardcore and thrash known as skaterock. Personified by acts like Arizona’s own J.F.A., Gang Green, Suicidal Tendencies, Drunk…
We’re a town lousy with theater awards: the ariZonis, the Scotties, the Milties and the Tilties. Chris Page at the Tribune has his Spotlight Awards, and even Mark Turvin hands out something called The Fishy Awards, which sounds sort of — well, you can finish that thought yourself, can’t you?…
Where’s the airplane? The airplane I’m talking about is the infamous Cessna P210 purchased in late 2002 by fundamentalist Mormon polygamists who control the 350-student Colorado City Unified School District. The $220,000 aircraft hasn’t been seen in more than four months. Neither has accused pedophile Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet…
Donna Hesketh wants to sell her house. Who could blame her? Standing in her driveway, she looks at the dead trees in her yard and wonders whether they’ve been poisoned. When she gets a cold, she worries that she’s breathed in bacteria. She can barely walk through her house, where…
Wake up. Roll out of bed. Grab the newspaper and head to your own personal library, where the only seat in the house is made out of porcelain. Plunge the handle and your day has officially begun. As you step into the shower, what you sent down the toilet begins…
Bane frontman Aaron Bedard can wear a purple sweater with an appliqué teddy bear onstage and the tattooed folks in the crowd won’t say a word. Bane just has that kind of rep. This Boston hardcore band, started in 1995 as a side project for Converge guitarist Aaron Dalbec and…
Dining in Phoenix sometimes feels like going toe-to-toe with Torquemada during the Spanish Inquisition, or at least Monty Python in that skit where they declare, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Except here, they let you choose your method of torture. Breakfast at a pretentious resort eatery? Lunch at a…
Just when you think you’ve seen everything Phoenix has to offer, someone drives you down to the warehouse district and walks you through a towering maze of boxes stuffed with papier-mâché teapots, tiny plastic feet, and soaring stacks of grosgrain. And there, deep in the swamp-cooled bowels of Diane Ribbon…
An unfolding television crime story on the morning of last February 25 grabbed the attention of Estela Sanchez. Phoenix police were investigating the pre-dawn shootings of a man and woman just outside the Coconut Groves apartments at 2028 West Indian School Road. The detectives seemed focused on a lime-green taxicab…
THU 23 If you feel the need to unleash your inner diva, or if you just want a reason to wear that overpriced cocktail dress one more time, fret not — Scottsdale’s rolling out the red carpet just for you. On Thursday, June 23, Barcelona, 15440 Greenway-Hayden Loop in Scottsdale,…
Thursday 23 Acme Roadhouse: College Night with DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with AKA (gothic, industrial) Dos Gringos — Scottsdale: Block Party with DJ Sterling (all genres) Draft House: DJ Dave outta NYC (hip-hop) E-Lounge: DJ Domenica (high…
With a near-egalitarian gender split, a tendency toward horns (including trombone and tuba), and the wry ability to deliver phrases like “permanent malaise,” “kill you politely,” and “11 different reasons for fists and fights” while still claiming its twee pop turf, Architecture in Helsinki is the hands-down winner as 2005’s…
Having flown from dusty alt-country to the land of orchestral pop plenty with 1998’s Overcome by Happiness, Joe Pernice is no stranger to spontaneous relocation. On Discover a Lovelier You, however, the Holbrook, Massachusetts, songwriter just moves to a different room in the same apartment. In spots — notably the…
Leandro Soto at Paulina Miller Gallery: There’s no place like home when you’re far, far away. Maybe that’s why the mixed-media assemblages about Cuba, Leandro Soto’s lost home, are so much more powerful than the ones about his adopted hometown, Phoenix. Soto’s landscapes of saguaro and rock are technically accomplished,…
Mean Streets Be very, very afraid: This is regarding Michael Lacey’s story (“Thunder Road,” June 16): Many years ago a book was published telling us about the 100 things to be most frightened of in America, and the Houston Police Department made the list (after taking a suspect for a…
SAT 6/25If the Indian nations as a whole were ever to declare a sport their national pastime, you can bet basketball would be right up there with lacrosse. Basketball has been an all-consuming passion and a source of pride in Native American communities for generations, with reservation courts serving as…
6/23-6/26The Bible rocks, dude. (Surely all that thumping has got to create a wicked beat . . .) And if you’re watching a performance of the long-running musical Godspell, then you know that the Bible really can rawk, man. Moon Valley Productions raises the roof on Thursday, June 23, at…
