What are the necessary ingredients for an off-the-hook party anthem? Looking at some of the greats — from LL Cool J’s “Going Back to Cali’s” to Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” — it’s gotta have infectious hooks, plus gratuitous references to alcohol, bling, the choicest bits of the female anatomy, and the…
The past six months have been pretty brutal if you happen to be a nightlife proprietor in Scottsdale. In addition to Sugar Daddy’s shutting its doors (and its former owner getting sent to the pokey), the list of establishments that have flatlined since the start of the year is pretty…
After close to two decades of spinning up hip-hop and dance music at practically every major spot our city has to offer (as well as working behind the mic at Power 98.3 for a number of years), DJ Fashen is departing the PHX in favor of an L.A. address. Much…
For us, the streets of downtown Phoenix are an urban death maze of scalding asphalt, never-ending construction, and anger-inducing bonehead drivers that we attempt to maneuver through as quickly as possible during our daily commute. But to Linzi Juliano, our city’s central core were the perfect setting the perfect setting…
Perspiration was the cologne of choice at last night’s A-Trak show at Tempe’s Club Red, as the sweltering 100-degree-plus temps inside the nightspot caused many a scenester to baste in their own sweat. Then again, it might’ve also been the white-hot beats that the A-List turntablist and remix king was…
Name: Rani “g” A.K.A.: Rani Gharfeh. Club night(s): Thursdays at Bomberos Cafe & Wine Bar, first and third Fridays at Incognito, and I’m the resident DJ at Desert Botanical Garden. Preferred genre(s): It could involve anything from global soul, good house music, deep house music. That may mean some Afro-tech…
It’s gonna be plenty toasty this weekend. Like, unbearably uncomfortable, or even Hell-worthy hot. The ever-smiling weatherbots of the 10 o’clock news set have been predicting for the past few days that its gonna get up to 115 gawdamned degrees (gulp) by Sunday afternoon. So it might be wise to…
In the pantheon of superstar DJs, A-Trak is decidedly A-list. Kidrobot just released a vinyl figure dedicated to the 27-year-old’s likeness (albeit as an anthropomorphized polar bear), his remixes of Sébastien Tellier and Boys Noize tracks have been major club hits, and he dropped two killer albums earlier this year,…
The PHX’s Z-Trip is already considered by many to be the “Godfather of the mash-up.” But could the 38-year-old also be the best DJ in the whole damn U.S.? That’s entirely up to you…and the rest of the online world, for that matter. The Tripster s in the running for the…
Don’t look now, but the Arizona Diamondbacks, the second-worst team in Major League Baseball, currently have the hottest win streak going in the bigs. Yes, you read that right. Our lovable hometown zeroes have triumphed in their last four games, including last night’s 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres,…
There’s more to see and do this weekend than just staring at massive explosions of gunpowder in the sky while some Lee Greenwood anthem plays in the background. A lot more. Since you’ve got three straight days away from the salt mine, we’ve put together a planner of off-the-hook alternatives…
At last, the train we’ve wanted to ride is finally pulling up to the station, so to speak. METRO light rail is becoming a post-midnight express as of tomorrow with service offered until last call on weekend evenings. The trains will run approximately every 20 minutes until 2 a.m. when…
Any way you slice it, Cincinnati Reds right hander Johnny Cueto is a pitching stud. As the fourth-best hurler in the National League, the 23-year-old regularly flings 98-mph heaters and has won seven of his last 10 starts, amassing a laudable 2.48 ERA thus far in the 2009 season. Intimidating,…
“Is Shane MacGowan still alive?” That’s the immediate reaction I got from a co-worker after informing them of the news that legendary Irish rock band the Pogues will be coming to Tempe’s Marquee Theatre on October 21. It’s not an unreasonable question, given MacGowan’s notorious penchant for drinkin’ and druggin’…
Unless you’re a hardcore EDM aficionado or crate-sifting turntable wizard, it’s likely you don’t know Adam Freeland from, er, Adam. Which is a shame, really, considering that the English-born DJ/producer was one of icons of the UK’s breakbeat scene in the mid-’90s, helping to pioneer the darker and dirtier sub-genre…
NYC’s DJ Neil Armstrong is one lucky mofo. Not only does the dood get to spin the backbeats for Jay-Z as the hip-hop superstar’s official turntablist, he also got to hang with Obama during the inauguration and has been lauded in the pages of Rolling Stone, URB, and the recently-deceased…
Until yesterday, I used to loathe the Warped Tour. Not because of the bands or music, mind you, but rather because of some bad experiences I’d had while attending the annual summertime mega-tour. When the Warped Tour first came to Phoenix in July 1996, I’d spent every last dime I…
Things started getting a tad emotional this past weekend at Barcelona, especially as the clock ticked towards 2 a.m. early on Sunday morning. As was reported a few weeks back, the posh north Scottsdale nightspot/restaurant was throwing its final hurrah in its current form due to an impending summertime renovation,…
The burgeoning superstardom of Justin Upton has been one of the few reasons (if not the only one) to tune into the Arizona Diamondbacks’ games over the last couple months. The 21-year-old’s dynamic fielding and hitting heroics this season (including 84 hits, 14 home runs, and 45 RBIs) have earned…
It appears that Tempe gay and lesbian hangout The Door has, uh, closed its doors for good. A message on the establishment’s voice mail unequivocally states that the club is DOA, as well as thanking customers for their patronage and urging them to take their business to Old Town Scottsdale…
We learned about Michael Jackson’s untimely passing yesterday afternoon in likely the same fashion that y’all reading this did: Twitter. In fact, as news of the King of Pop’s death spread across the Web 2.0 tweetscape so fiercely that it caused the social media service to pull a major Death…
As the world mourns the loss of Michael Jackson, we’re expecting that the members of P-Town’s music scene will be putting on any number of tributes dedicated to the late King of Pop in the coming weeks and months. The cat who gets the honor of being the first is…
