A former break-dancing teen turned singer-songwriter from Watsonville, California? Can’t wait for the video. Not sure what brings him to the Valley from the Bay Area, but his first album has some likable acoustic rap-rock moments and a particularly angelic female background vocal that makes nearly every number a treat…
This Phoenix rapper’s all-caps fact sheet states that he’s got “A THREE HUNDRED SONG CATALOG WITH HEATSTROKE CREATING OVER FIFTY OF THOSE HIMSELF,” and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “OVER FIFTY” is bolded. Despite 50 Cent’s The Massacre becoming a quadruple-platinum album and charting in the Top 5…
If only Sam Phillips had said, “If I could find me a white boy who could play harp like Muddy Waters,” rock history might’ve taken a different turn. But rockabilly’s loss is blues’ gain. Charlie Musselwhite grew up in Memphis (and actually ran moonshine, according to his bio), was friends…
Martin Atkins, leader of the industrial music collective Pigface, has had a storied career going all the way back to his first big break playing in Public Image Ltd. As a drummer, he lent his talents to Killing Joke, Nine Inch Nails, and Ministry, before coming up with the idea…
Gifted playwright alert: Donald Margulies is in town, or at least one of his better plays is, in time to help wind up what’s turned out to be a mediocre season and to remind us of what we’d have lost if the troubled Actors Theatre had succumbed to its recent…
SUN 5/8 Willie Nelson’s career has evolved from silky-voiced crooner in the 1960s to pot-smoking hell-raiser in the 1970s and ’80s to critically acclaimed country legend in the aughts. You might figure that’s a semi-natural progression for artists who’ve been around for the span of five decades. But that’s just…
SAT 5/7 There’s a myth that nothing free is worth having. Tell that to the thousands of comic book fans who will stand in line for hours to get their paws on complimentary comics on “Free Comic Book Day,” happening Saturday, May 7. More than 3,000 comic shops worldwide will…
SAT 5/7 To some, a “nighttime art run” consists of a mobile graffiti spree with the intent of tagging the maximum number of block walls before dawn. But don’t expect many aerosol paint-toting runners at the Night Run for the Arts, since the event is not about turf boundaries, but…
5/5-5/6 Laurie Notaro is ecstatic that so many women want to be certified “idiots.” But give her a break, already. “People are totally mad at me,” says the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, who makes appearances in Tempe and Phoenix, respectively, on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May…
It’s do-or-die time for Seth Riveras, as the 14-year-old plummets down one of Phoenix Skate Park’s six-foot bankramps on his skateboard, blasting blindly toward a thigh-high obstacle known as a pyramid. Seconds before colliding with the trapezoid, Riveras pops his ride skyward, flying over any danger while the board spins…
Andrew Wise isn’t a biker. But he’ll live the life this weekend — along with at least 15,000 to 20,000 biker dudes and chicks — at the inaugural Cycle de Mayo at the Lake Pleasant Harbor Marina. Wise, owner of Banana Communications and producer of the event, dreamed up the…
It is no great joy to review Palindromes, the latest film from writer-director Todd Solondz, who is loved by those who do not loathe him for such movies as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, and Storytelling. Advance word had Palindromes as Solondz’s most shocking film, which seemed impossible, given its…
The new House of Wax — a remake, pretty much in name only, of the 1953 Vincent Price movie (itself a remake of a 1933 film) — manages to be gruesome and grisly, but it falls well short of being truly creepy, much less terrifying. Horror aficionados expecting the chills…
Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves in tough against hungry lions down at the Colosseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to…
Much of Crash, an L.A.-stories portmanteau about the suffocating embrace of racism, is hard to watch, harder still to listen to. Its characters — the creations of co-writer and director Paul Haggis but also of people who live next door and perhaps even inside of you — say and do…
I’m fairly skeptical about the concept of some sort of cosmic justice, whether it be a benevolent graybeard on a throne up in heaven, or something less silly, like the notion of karma. After all, not enough bad things happen to the right people. If my idea of karma were…
If you just can’t wait for this weekend’s big StreetDreams hip-hop festival at the Old Brickhouse Grill, stop in at Hollywood Alley (2610 West Baseline Road in Mesa) Thursday night, May 5, for the Blunt Club’s pre-party, featuring local up-and-comer Kid Vicious alongside the residents, Tricky T, Hyder, and Element,…
The first thing you’ll say when you see the band shot on this CD is, “These guys need more sleep and less makeup.” Then you’ll slip on Fine China’s disc and get a solid 44 minutes of first-rate melancholia. It shouldn’t work that singer Robert Withem can evoke such empathy…
A textbook case on how to do everything the suitable way, Opiate is finally coming out with a full-length on its own terms — on its own imprint label that’s part owned by Concrete Management and Vans Warped Tour/Taste of Chaos creator Kevin Lyman — after negotiating with several majors…
Over the years, the thing that’s kept the Deftones from being cast as an also-ran in the nü-metal franchise has been Chino Moreno’s subversive sensibilities. The vocalist’s affinity for all things Smiths (Robert, and the outfit led by Morrissey), which is unmistakable in his breathy delivery, has helped the band…
Some say The Ponys were too late to the garage rock revival — another me-too gang of half-Strokes, half-Hives hipsters — but anyone who caught the Chicago band in concert last year knows what the real problem was. Lead singer Jered Gummere had a terrible habit of squealing in falsetto…
Dear Chad Gilbert, It’s with a heavy heart that we request you cease all involvement with your side project, Hazen Street, because of contractual obligations to your main gravy train, the popular outfit New Found Glory. We know you were juiced to play guitar with such hardcore rockers as Toby…
