When it comes to goth nights here in the Valley, people seem to think that Club Palazzo’s Friday-night freak fest Tranzylvania is the only ghoulish game in town. Turns out they’re dead wrong, as popular GLBT hangout Velocity 2303, at 2303 East Indian School Road, has been putting on a…
The turbo-charged V-6 on your ultra-cherry ’83 Buick Grand National is purring like a 180-horsepower kitten. Now you need somewhere to show how it can fly down the road. With those new-fangled cameras lining Valley freeways, a high-speed jaunt on the Loop 101 ain’t reccomended. Instead, take your pride and…
Okay, we admit we’re being a tad goofy and over-dramatic with the headline for this post, but it’s nowhere near as goofy as the video we captured in the heart of Tempe near ASU yesterday afternoon. It’s definately a “WTF!?!” kind of deal: Check it out (with an explanation after…
Suicidal Tendencies, Yeasayer, Deerhunter, Dash Berlin, Mushroomhead, Times New Viking, Thanksgiving
By Benjamin Leatherman A spectacular view of the crystal blue Caribbean Sea from Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula (photo by Jenna Leatherman). Despite having an ultra-hectic schedule these days, I was fortunate enough to be able to slip off to Cancun with friends and family a few weeks ago for…
Thought Crime’s Michael 23 under wraps. By Benjamin Leatherman Über-eccentric local artist Michael 23 and the Thought Crime collective have created some pretty whacked out spectacles over the past decade or so. There’s the 20-foot inflatable “UFO” he and other artists constructed out of trash bags on the ASU campus…
By Benjamin Leatherman Young Buck is scheduled to perform on Saturday at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale…
Here’s a recipe for a seriously stellar night of entertainment: Take a half-dozen of Arizona’s most imaginative visual artists, VJs, and filmmakers, and mix them liberally with eight or nine of the Valley’s DJs, turntablists, and “audio navigators.” The result? An all-night extravaganza titled Illumination v2.0, which goes down on…
By Benjamin Leatherman Music editor Martin Cizmar totally digs the Flaming Lips funky new CD/DVD Christmas on Mars, and apparently so do the customers at Zia Record Exchange (105 West University Drive in Tempe). Here’s the rest of the top 10 best sellers for the week of Nov. 10-Nov. 16…
By Benjamin Leatherman The best falafel I’ve ever tasted. No seriously, this time I mean it…really. Last month I sang the praises of Phoenicia Cafe in Tempe, particularly about the joint’s falafel. After supping on its version of the Middle Eastern favorite of gound chickpeas and eggplant fashioned into silver…
By Benjamin Leatherman sBACH is scheduled to perform on Saturday at Modified Arts. The Valley’s concert venues will be stacked with superstar musicians this weekend. For instance, a Cursive Memory do their indie rock thing tonight at the PHiX in downtown Phoenix, while the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man and Redman…
Face it, Q-Tip has had a life way more fly than yours, fool. Before he reached the tender age of 25, the Harlem-born MC co-founded the influential hip-hop outfit A Tribe Called Quest, shared the silver screen with Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice, earned a Grammy nomination, and collaborated with…
The hip-hop scene in the PHX is bigger than ever. Homegrown homeboy Willy Northpole made an appearance at the BET Hip Hop Awards last month, rhyme-spitting MCs are doing their thing on the mic at nights like The Blunt Club and Raising Arizona, and a new old-school station started broadcasting…
By Benjamin Leatherman Since the global retail industry has decided in it’s great wisdom that the day after Halloween is the official starting point for the annual Christmas season, we feel it’s our duty to inform the public of the following: You’ve only got 43 shopping days left to track…
By Benjamin Leatherman The Vegetarian House in east Phoenix: part restaurant, part temple. (Courtesy of VegGuide). Everybody deserves a second chance. Case in point: In 1999, my sister — who was at the time a hardcore vegetarian — treated me to dinner at the Vegetarian House (3239 East Indian School…
The Fell City Shouts are scheduled to perform tonight at the The Lost Leaf. Tonight’s the monthly First Friday art walk in downtown Phoenix, and — as always — we’ve put together a list of some of the musical and performers who’ll be doing their thing along Grand Avenue and…
By Benjamin Leatherman The Dirty Heads are scheduled to perform tonight at the Clubhouse Music Venue in Tempe. It’s been three days since President-elect Barack Obama made his historic ascension to the White House and we’re certain man of you still feel like celebrating (well, at least 44 percent of…
By Benjamin Leatherman The beat-spitting boys of Silver Medallion: Oren J. (left) and Carnegie. Oren J. and Carnegie have seen their fair share of excess going down in Scottsdale. Whether its chicas and dudes getting it on in the darkened corners of nightclubs or big ballas rolling around in their…
Back in the day (read: a few years ago), it would’ve been unwise to give Pete Didonato any lip when he was working the mixers. Chances are the fierce-looking former bouncer might’ve answered back with his fists. “My temper got the best of me back then and people usually got…
By Benjamin Leatherman Hip-hop, R&B, and other urban jams have always been big sellers at Circles Records & Tapes, 800 North Central Avenue. So it’s only natural a majority of the shop’s top 10 best-selling albums for this week are chartbusters from those genres. For instance, the No. 1 album…
By Benjamin Leatherman Governor Janet Napolitano began ecstatically cheering, clapping, and dishing out high-fives mere moments after CNN announced that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Napolitano was in attendance at a packed Democratic Party rally at the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Phoenix amidst hundreds…
By Benjamin Leatherman The four-inch version of the “Majik Mushroom.” I’m not a pothead. In fact, I’ve never tried grass in my life. Ever. Not even once. Now don’t go thinking I’m sort of stodgy, anti-drug fundamentalist. Some of my best friends in the world smoke the reefer (including one…
