SUN 6/26Admit it, you’ve been bad . . . really bad. But it’s all good, especially since you’ll be getting a well-deserved whuppin’ at the Sky Lounge, 132 East Washington, on Sunday, June 26, at “Spanked.” This classic “tea dance” — a popular afternoon or early evening dance party aimed…
THU 6/23We love belly dancers like the desert loves rain. Lucky for us, “Splash: Summer SMoCA Nights,” on Thursday, June 23, at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts, quenches our thirst on both fronts — metaphorically speaking. Along with performances by electronic duo Peachcake and DJ Maji, the Gamil Zarah…
Many a posturing punker has attempted over the years to emulate the puerile pranks of GG Allin, arguably one of the more infamous and reviled figures in rock history. Whether slicing open their melons, wearing women’s underwear, or flinging fecal matter, amped-up alt-rockers everywhere have copied the late shock-rocker’s aggressive…
Edna Mode may have stolen the show as the snooty seamstress to the superheroes in The Incredibles, but the next time Batman chills at the Batcave, dahling, he just might be sporting a Mark Newport knitted sweater. For the past two years, Newport has been knitting superhero costumes — including…
It’s okay to be slightly afraid of Hungarian movies. Even critics don’t necessarily relish the thought of them, or look upon Budapest as a hotbed of filmmaking. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to recall the last time there was a good movie from the land that gave us…
Anyone who would insist that movie reviewing is not a real job (‘Sup, Mom) hasn’t been forced to sit through screenings of Bewitched and Herbie: Fully Loaded in the span of five days — and by forced, I mean either you see both movies, write 800 words about each, or…
Not many people saw Lost and Delirious, the 2001 boarding-school drama about two girls in obsessive love, and that was probably for the best. Yes, Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) made a stunning androgynous rebel, but she couldn’t rescue the film from its unctuous self-importance. My Summer of Love, a bewitching…
I envy people whose favorite television show is something well-written or intelligent. My cousin John loves The Mary Tyler Moore Show; my sister has seen every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show a dozen times each. Even my mechanic favors smarty-pants programs like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I,…
Bewitched may go down as the first movie about a fictional failed actor that created a real-life failed actor. This hackneyed, hapless, and utterly useless redo of an overrated 1960s sitcom is excruciating to sit through for a dozen reasons. But nothing is more intolerable than the sight of Will…
It’s getting to the point where it’s almost too hot to go out and dance, at least before the wee hours — it seems best to hide in the air-conditioning and drop some ambient beats while you chill with an icy vodka tonic. That is, unless you’ve got some seriously…
Sub Pop’s 2004 proper release of Rogue Wave’s Out of the Shadow (originally a limited release on Responsive Recordings in 2003) was one of the quieter ones of the year — strangely quiet, because it seemed destined to be a huge success. The delicate pop featured was both heartfelt and…
Technically speaking, Embrace is the egg to Coldplay’s chicken, yet given the frenzy over Chris Martin and the Three Other Guys, it wouldn’t be surprising if people also started calling U2, Pink Floyd, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart “the next Coldplay.” Not the short-lived ’80s emo outfit fronted by Ian MacKaye,…
Lots of indie bands get press from ‘zines and alternative rags, but when you get some love from the New Yorker, then you’ve got that rarefied air of intelligentsia’s critical acclaim. John Darnielle, former nurse and New Times music freelancer, received the highbrow treatment last month — when he was…
It wasn’t a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup moment when this Brooklyn trio learned they could merge cool jazz, poetry and rap into a desirable package (The Last Poets, The Jungle Brother, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest can all arm-wrestle over first honors). But Digable Planets scored the…
It used to be that the most ironic thing in my music collection was my LP of A-Tom-ic Jones, with the swivel-hipped singer posing in front of a bloody red mushroom cloud while autographing “Best Wishes” — it’s a safe bet the previous owner wasn’t Japanese. Now comes this Battle…
The cascading waves of sound that constitute the songs on Engineers’ self-titled debut contain lyrics, but they’re almost entirely beside the point. For almost 50 minutes, these Londoners deliver the aural equivalent of those overpriced Sharper Image relaxation chairs: soothing, tranquil, easy to mock — but hard to resist once…
Gabby La La is tap dancing. Tiny of frame, huge of talent, she tap dances onto the stage — it’s about performance and it’s about percussion. Gabby is hooking in to a growing audience, as if the sitar she plays, held like a Strat, is tapping the cosmic escalator and…
7:41 a.m. Get a wake-up call from my 14-year-old nephew, Jeremy, who I’m taking to his very first Warped Tour. He asks to borrow my faded old Bad Brains tee shirt because his Bowling for Soup tee makes him “look like a noob.” 10:06 a.m. Traffic slows as we near…
A confession: I like sad, introspective music by mopey boys who sing about their broken hearts, a.k.a. emo. At the same time, I also like to make fun of the stereotypical emo fashions and emo kids’ self-absorbed affected moodiness. I’m too grown-up to define myself by the music I listen…
At a time when Phoenix’s downtown art scene is finally beginning to flourish, one of the city’s first significant galleries is closing. After months of rumors of its demise, Studio LoDo/Phoenix Center for the Contemporary Arts will shut its doors for good June 24. “We had a good four-year run,…
As the sun reaches its highest point in the sky this week with the passing of summer solstice, I’m amazed that Arizona regulators are retreating from the state’s modest commitment to develop a solar energy industry. It’s not as if Arizona is busting its budget on solar. Instead, the state…
Technology and inhumanity and greed, oh, my! Those wild beasties have been lurking in the shadows alongside the yellow brick road to progress for generations. Spend some time at the spirited “Surrealism USA” exhibit at Phoenix Art Museum, and you’ll realize we were worried about the dark side of our…
