There’s a sticker circulating through the Valley that most sharp-eyed music fans will have seen. It’s a black-and-white line-art photo of a face at a microphone emblazoned with the motto, “Punk is whatever we made it to be.” Despite the teeny-bop conception of punk rock as an aggro-jockish excuse to…

Nestled comfortably in the dining room-cum-mixing studio of his south Scottsdale house, surrounded by walls upon walls of empirically filed (by beats per minute) records, local über-DJ Z-Trip is suddenly agitated. Midway through an interview set to coincide with the introduction of his new “Z-Trip Presents Funky Cornbread” night at…

Interviewer: Now, you mentioned empathy for others, would you say that is what motivates you to make the music that you make? Conor Oberst: No, not really. It’s more a need for sympathy. I want people to feel sorry for me. I like the feel of the burn of the…

In the current climate of uncertainty and unrest within the recording industry, where big record labels eat other big record labels in perpetuity, and indies retract themselves into self-contained genre-of-the-month stalwarts, it’s nearly unthinkable for a 12-year-old band to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. But…

Jimmy Eat World Jimmy Eat World (Fueled by Ramen) Local bands haven’t gotten much love from major labels lately. Jimmy Eat World is relatively lucky, since it hasn’t been axed like so many other Valley bands, but the band’s crystalline new LP, Clarity, has been sitting on the shelves at…

Checking the vital signs for guitar-based rock has long been an ongoing preoccupation for critics. Still, you knew something was a bit different this year when new releases by Hole, Marilyn Manson and even the sample-heavy Garbage were judged not merely for their musical merits but for their potential to…

Washington, D.C.’s Jason Farrell is a man with big ideas and skills to match. Besides playing concurrently in two bands on two different labels (vocals and guitar for Bluetip, guitar for Sweetbelly Freakdown), Farrell immerses himself in filmmaking and graphic arts and plans an interconnected multimedia project encompassing all of…

Leftist politics, despite its role in the gestation and development of punk rock, holds virtually no demographic within the record-buying public today (discounting the homeless crusties who sport Refuse & Resist tee shirts and listen to decades-old Crass records). The kids wanna hear artists emote; they want them to bleed…

When I was 11 years old, my older brother gave me a tape that changed everything I thought I knew about music. The tape was called King of Rock, and it was the second album by the rap group Run-D.M.C. I thought I was pretty hip for an 11-year-old, but…

Reubens Accomplice “Borders” b/w “O’ the Night” (Jerk Records) The four young men who comprise Reubens Accomplice have, over the course of time, developed into high-caliber pop musicians with an immense talent for precocious, intricately constructed pop songs seething with charm and innocence. A glance at the sleeve of this…

Old habits certainly die hard. Blake Schwarzenbach knows this well. Nearly two years ago he brought his band, the seminal San Francisco punk-pop outfit Jawbreaker, to an end after fronting the band for the better part of a decade. Jawbreaker had been, and continues to be, one of the most…

In the state of Washington, 764-HERO is an instantly recognized alphanumeric code, and for good reason. The superlative phone number is omnipresent along the state’s highways; operators are standing by on the other end of the digits should you happen upon one of society’s terror-mongers, the carpool-lane violator. In another,…

Phunk Junkeez Fear of a Wack Planet (Trauma Records) There’s an adage that’s oft repeated among those who grow up in addiction-infested societies–“once a junkie, always a junkie.” It’s a saying that can also be applied to the question of Fear of a Wack Planet’s success. The Phunk Junkeez have…

The boys in Pansy Division are fags. It’s no secret–the band has been proclaiming its affinity for homo-sex for seven years over the course of six records in short pop-punk ditties like “Pretty Boy (What’s Your Name?),” “Smells Like Queer Spirit,” “Fem in a Black Leather Jacket” and Revolver’s favorite–the…

Elliott Smith XO (DreamWorks Records) Elliott Smith doesn’t sound very happy. In the few years since his first solo release, Roman Candle, Smith has honed the art of sad songs to a gleaming point, a point where, despite the depression and bitterness, the songs’ ingenuity and honesty leave you smiling…

“I got this crazy-ass offer from Jason Priestley, 90210, y’know, to be on the show. It really mind-boggled me, y’know, ’cause I don’t know if I wanna do that kind of thing,” Mixmaster Mike says on the phone from New York City, where, in a few hours, he’ll be playing…

Jim Adkins grins and looks up from his Pilsner while perched on a stool at a local brew pub. “Seriously, the last four months have been the best time of my life.” Anyone familiar with the life and times of the 22-year-old singer/guitarist for Tempe-based Jimmy Eat World wouldn’t be…

Liz Phair whitechocolatespaceegg (Matador Records) In a way, it shouldn’t matter that Liz Phair took four years to put together her third album, whitechocolatespaceegg. Sure, Bob Dylan released his first seven albums in the time it took Phair to craft this set of ditties, but times have changed since those…

‘Rock ‘n’ roll–real rock ‘n’ roll, not some prefab Bush/Marcy Playground/Eve 6 bullshit–is an inherently dirty business. Anyone not convinced need only check out a Makers show or talk to one of the Makers. Though they may be swathed in leather and zebra stripes, the Makers embody the raw, concussive,…

On April 8, 1994, the echo of a shotgun blast reverberated around the world. Kurt Cobain was dead, by his own hand, according to police investigators and the King County medical examiner. While millions of Gen Xers mourned the death of their “voice of a generation,” critics and fans alike…