New England progressive house DJ Steve Porter cleverly dubs his sound “Porterhouse,” referencing not only his signature style but the gargantuan grooves he lays down live and on his debut album, Homegrown, on FDS Recordings. A protg of Sasha and Sander Kleinenberg, Porter has established himself as a dance-music visionary,…
Now that the pale-skinned, fragile-voiced young singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska, has been put on a pedestal with Bob Dylan after 10 years of quietly releasing records as an indie Boy Wonder, it feels like we know everything there is to know about Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. Media hype is a…
Frances the Mute, the latest opus by former At the Drive-In cohorts Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, arrived at the perfect time; its fresh-and-wild style filled the vacuum left by a dearth of new musical movements. Too bad self-appointed trend monitors are currently working overtime to pigeonhole the group as…
If the Postal Service has taught us anything, it’s that Seattle-based side projects provide fashionable new beginnings, which is a damn good thing since things always seem to come to a tragic end in the world of prolific Pedro the Lion front man David Bazan. The touring version of his…
Way back in 1976, Graham Parker’s commanding vocal presence and acerbic songwriting — given extra fuel by The Rumour, one of the greatest backing bands in rock history — made him a contender. While he was lumped in with the rest of the so-called angry young men of the New…
The collections of sons on the Buena Vista Social Club emitted such stark beauty that Americans went nuts, buying millions of copies of traditional Cuban folk music. But the initial quake was nothing compared to the avalanche of material pouring through the filter thereafter. The highlight to Ry Cooder’s epic…
Shortly after releasing Bebel Gilberto’s phenomenally successful Tanto Tempo, Six Degrees commissioned numerous producers to try their hands at remixing this Brazilian royalty. Considering how Gilberto’s latest self-titled effort evolved her bossa-tinged sound, there’s little surprise that this second edition of dance-based mutations followed suit. Gilberto’s strength is in her…
In the past, U2 and Radiohead’s declarative anthems had been the most obvious benchmarks for Coldplay’s grand make-out music, but with X&Y, the band aims for an interstellar majesty that plays like a warmer, less intellectual Pink Floyd. Chris Martin and his mates again display an ingratiating accessibility, building their…
Since 1995’s brass-ring-snatching (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis’ Gallagher brothers have matched the British media’s hype, rung for rung, with musical grandiosity. Neither the band nor the press have seemed willing to admit that Oasis was not haute cuisine, but good grub — pop played with diamond-hard attitude and…
Rock critics can’t resist calling Of Montreal “sunny,” and there’s plenty of truth to that description. Since 1997, the Athens, Georgia-based band has put out seven albums of whimsical pop psychedelia that plays with shimmering, sophisticated layers of guitar and keyboard melody, over-the-top vocal harmonies, surreal lyrics, and unpredictable arrangements,…
I’m completely out of my indie rock element, but it’s quite the scene at the Sail Inn on a recent Sunday afternoon: pretty (and friendly) granola girls twirling around in flowing skirts, squealing little kids running around with bubble-blowing machines, gray-haired guys in tie-dyed shirts with their guts stretching the…
Last Wednesday night, while the rest of America was watching Bo and Carrie duke it out in the final hour of American Idol, I was watching a room full of singers on a different stage. And thinking that maybe I’ve been watching too much television lately, because Phoenix Theatre’s production…
At 2:30 p.m. on May 14, 2002, Maricopa County jail psychiatrist Joe Franzetti scribbled a note into the medical chart of his patient, inmate Steve Cervantes. He wrote that Cervantes was “stable, compliant, and with a brighter mood. No homicidality. No suicidality. No delusions. Insight and judgment improved. Socializes appropriately,…
My 15-year-old son jolted me out of my morning trance the other day with a question that sent my mind reeling. “Dad, did you know that high schools are providing the names, addresses and phone numbers of students to military recruiters without permission?” Looking up from my coffee, I replied,…
This summer will be my first in Phoenix, a simple statement that seems to come with a built-in drum roll. Say it to anyone in the Valley, and you’ll get a suitably dramatic response: The heat is like sticking your head in an oven. Or living in a blow-dryer. Or,…
Sometimes, a drippy blue-raspberry Otter Pop just isn’t enough. Instead of inciting brain freeze from a pathetic Popsicle this summer, refine your palate. From simple shaved ice to gourmet gelato, there’s something to satisfy every type of sweet tooth and stave off the sweats. If you’re bored with Baskin-Robbins, and…
By our count, there are but two sequels waiting to have oil rubbed on their backs this summer — one featuring an evil lord named Vader, the other featuring an evil lord named Schneider — so the season has that going for it, which is nice. But in lieu of…
No matter how many summer vacations you plan or how well you plan them, a moment comes when you realize that you will never sword-fight with Lord of the Rings fans in Kazakhstan or reach that tiny island off the north coast of Australia where the school shuts down for…
One does not have to be relegated to an indoor air-conditioned environment to escape the sweltering summer heat. Here are some cold and dark out-of-the-box activities that will get you outdoors and away from that thermostat-controlled milieu. Ice Ice Blocking Need a method for turning the summer into a winter…
When I migrated here from New York, I hadn’t counted on how near impossible it would be to put a band together and keep it focused during the hot summer months. Even the lamest justifications for missing rehearsals, from the persistent “Uhh, I spaced it, man” to the truly wretched…
Talk about the heat of the night. The prevailing wisdom here in the Valley has long been that come 2 a.m., when bartenders turn off the taps and drop-kick drunks out the door, our banging burg transforms into a ghost town. It’s doubly so in summertime, as even the most…
Short of submerging yourself in a vat of ice, home remedies for keeping body heat at bay are sparse. So let the experts soothe your scorched skin this summer. Swanky spa treatments, while a bit more pricey than a pound of crushed cubes, are the perfect solution for cooling every…
