Big Pricks

At first glance, Mando Rascon could easily be dismissed as just another tattoo artist. His arms are awash with numerous inked designs, half-covered by the nondescript black tee shirt he usually wears while slinging ink at No Regrets Tattoo Parlor in Tempe. But what most people wouldn’t suspect is that…

Souse Party

Grace Slick did it. So did Janis Joplin and Courtney Love. Shane MacGowan was notorious for doing it, as was David Yow. What’s this rocker roll call we’re assembling? It’s a tally of musicians from the pantheon of pop-culture history who’ve gotten shitfaced onstage. Admittedly, we’ve got our work cut…

Devil in a White Dress

THU 11/10To hell with Niagara Falls, we’ve got an even better location lined up for our impending nuptials: Hades. Sure, the guests might have a devil of a time trying to find transportation, but think about all the gory details: Instead of champagne, we’ll sip blood from bone goblets and…

Claw-de-da

Greetings, landcrawlers! Homarus americanus here — better known as the American lobster — to tell y’all that Neptune can kiss my bright, red thorax. I’m the real king of the sea, especially at this weekend’s Tempe Original Lobster Festival. Check it: Me and hundreds of my underwater crew are the…

Trails to Terror

You feel the chill in the air, that spooky tingle at the base of your spine, the growing sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. You know it’s coming, and your ass had better be prepared. We’re not talking about yet another numbskull Adam Sandler flick, pal. Nope,…

Beck

Great Xenu’s ghost! Didja know Beck Hansen’s a Scientologist? That’s correct, alt-rock’s favorite shabby-chic troubadour is a Dianetics-following, E-meter-reading Hubbardite — not that it factors into his music or anything. Nope, despite shout-outs to folks like Jenna Elfman or brother-in-law Giovanni Ribisi in the liner notes of Guero, his latest…

Trails to Terror

You feel the chill in the air, that ooky tingle at the base of your spine, the growing sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. You know it’s coming, and your ass had better be prepared. We’re not talking about yet another numbskull Adam Sandler flick, pal. Nope,…

Got Game?

10/22-10/23Critics of dodgeball consider the game a “dangerous sport,” but it’s really only as sadistic as the person chucking the ball at you. The main thing to remember is: A big rubber ball full of air is flying at your torso. So move. We know from experience that a rock-hard…

You GoGirls

SAT 10/15You don’t need testosterone to make hardcore music hard. Though it’s always been implied that the ol’ punk-rock “oi” be sung by a boy, the sixth annual GoGirlsMusicFest 2005 tour dishes up acts that chuck tradition into a pile of discarded Britney Spears CDs. The music fest offers a…

Bone Mama Mia!

SUN 10/16″Poetry readings are boring. This is a rock show compared to poetry readings,” says Mary “Bone Mama” McCann, who will perform her high-octane sound poems at the Noisy by Nature book-release party on Sunday, October 16, at Modified Arts, 407 East Roosevelt Street. This definitely ain’t your ordinary “I…

Smokin Joe Kubek and B’Nois King

Smokin’ Joe Kubek sure lives up to his moniker, and not because this wild-haired, tattooed, guitar-slinging mountain of a man is often seen clutching a coffin nail in his meaty paw. Instead, the towering Dallas-based axeman regularly sets audiences ablaze with his blistering and bluesy guitar stylings, picking and pulling…

Kota Many Colors

SAT 10/8If you’re a fan of mainstream, steak-and-potatoes Broadway shows — your Phantom, your Rent — then more power to you, frankly. But the latest offering in ASU’s “Beyond Broadway” series brings us something, well, beyond — in a gentle, lovely way. What else would you expect from a troupe…

Monsters’ Ball

10/6-10/31The three bone-chilling extraterrestrial attractions at Alien Extreme, 4011 South Power Road in Mesa, are like an episode of The X-Files come to life. Wanna-be Mulders and Scullys can poke around inside a government research outpost, a mysterious UFO, and a crash site, looking for ginormous creatures of extraterrestrial origin…

Whacksing Poetic

10/4-10/16First, a word about Googlewhacking for the uninitiated. Googlewhack! is an online game, the goal of which is to enter two or more unrelated words (“Googlefactors”) on Google’s Web site in an effort to turn up a single URL hit. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially because the…

Junk Rock

TUE 10/4From Alice Cooper’s onstage beheadings to Iggy Pop’s broken-glass surfing to the robotic samplings of those Venetian-blinds-headed dudes in Devo, rock has seemingly exhausted its conceptual toy box. Or has it? You might change your mind after experiencing Quem Quaeritis and Weirdo Begeirdo, two bands from Riverside, California’s “freak-pop”…

The Grrls Next Door

Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs includes an infamous slice of cinematic history that’s been forever burned into our collective pop-cultural consciousness: the giddily psychotic thug Mr. Blonde hacking off the ear of a bound and gagged LAPD cop to the lighthearted strains of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”…

Big Cheese

SAT 9/10You know you’ve made it when people start impersonating you. But comedian Neil Hamburger admits he’s a little nervous about seeing his clones at the 1st Annual Neil Hamburger Fan Convention on Saturday, September 10. “I’ve heard about people dressing as me for Halloween,” says the tuxedo-clad comic, who…

Net Results

9/9-9/10Looks like the lovely ladies of the ASU volleyball team need to step up to the net and show some, er . . . balls. After a dismal 2-4 effort thus far in what is turning out to be a pretty miserable preseason, these spike-blocking sirens are looking to rebound…

The Seatsniffers

Phew, can you smell that? No, we’re not talking about the stench of decaying pabulum emanating from the Top 40 charts. This particular pleasing aroma wafting its way into our proboscis originates from across the pond, courtesy of the Seatsniffers, a foursome of Belgian hellcats who specialize in blending all…

Let’s Get the Party Started

The party’s just getting started inside The Fort, even though it’s well past 2 a.m. on the first Friday in August. Haunts like the Emerald Lounge have long since discharged their drunks, but numerous night crawlers have journeyed to the squat gallery run by brothers Isaac and Gabriel Fortoul next…

Cutting-Edge Cup o’ Joe

9/3-12/31Designer Michael Graves (of Target teakettle fame) cemented his household-word status in 1979, when he participated in the “Tea and Coffee Piazza” project sponsored by Italian design house Alessi. The next wave, “Tea and Coffee Towers,” visits the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art beginning Saturday, September 3. Architects from 11…

Abject Art

9/2-9/30Looking at Gidget Gein’s art is like recognizing an old friend in a crowd and joyfully running up to greet him, only to be appalled by the huge new tumor sticking out of his side. The former bassist for shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, Gein will unveil his new artwork in an…