When I was still in high school in Alaska, I had it in my head for a while that I wanted to be a producer or a sound engineer. I was already way into music. I’d self-published fanzines in Colorado, Texas, and Alaska, but at the time, writing about music…
It’s difficult to describe — even after spending a third of my life employed doing exactly that — the music on the Lymbyc Systym’s new LP, Love Your Abuser, to be released on the 23rd of this month. The duo, local brothers Jared and Michael Bell (Michael’s currently living in…
“We put Vaseline on the men’s urinal so you can’t do coke off of it,” Tyler King tells me from behind the bar at the Stray Cat in Tempe, on the Wednesday after Christmas. “Cruel, but funny.” King is, of course, cracking on the reputation of certain punk DJ nights…
“I’m one of the top five hated people in the music industry,” says Nancy Stevens, the manager of local bands Violet Wild and Authority Zero and former program director of alt-rock radio station KEDJ. That statement might sound hyperbolic, but it’s pretty accurate. While running The Edge, Stevens pissed off…
I’ve never been the litigating type. Every time I’ve needed to hire an attorney, it’s been of the criminal defense sort. I’m not in a band, though, and it’s not uncommon for bands and musicians to have to deal with cease-and-desist demands, copyright and trademark issues, and other legal bullshit…
My neighborhood in Tempe is a pretty noisy place. The guys next door have a band practicing inside their house with the windows open every few days, and my neighbors across the back alley apparently have a band that practices there as well (I can hear them now as I’m…
Walk into Trax on a Monday night, as I did recently to grab a beer, and you’ll run into a strange amalgamation of sonic styles emanating from the outdoor stage in the back, courtesy of the Dave Wade Trio. I saw the Dave Wade Trio accidentally the first time, and…
“Know any banjo jokes?” my roommate asks me when I tell him I’m going to see local bluegrass purveyors The Breadwinners on a recent Tuesday night. I don’t, but my roomie does. “What’s the difference between a banjo and a vacuum cleaner? A vacuum cleaner has to be plugged in…
I’m a bit unnerved when I meet up with North Side Kings singer/guitarist Danny Marianino to drink beer and discuss the band’s new record, Suburban Royalty. Danny’s sporting a cast on his right arm, a broken hand being the latest injury he’s sustained. He says that just a couple of…
A hefty chunk of Phoenix’s musical glory days is contained on these two discs, collections of soul and funk singles from the ’60s and early ’70s that remind the listener that the ‘Nix once aspired to be a real music town, like Detroit. Actually, listen to either one of these…
In the last week of September, an odd thing happened: A Phoenix rap group managed to light up controversy all over the nation via an article that appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times by staff writer Chris Lee. The article, titled “Rap’s Captive Audience,” was about…
Just a few Fridays ago, in the broad lobby of U.S. Airways Center, I, along with another hundred or so other people, got to witness the latest fusion of turntablism and classical instrumentation envisioned by DJ Radar and his longtime composer and collaborator, Raul Yañez. This time, unlike the Concerto…
Spend one of your Sunday nights, as I did recently, at the Yucca Tap Room in Tempe, and you’re likely to see what will at first seem like an anomaly — a pretty, diminutive, 30-year-old woman named Dana Armstrong sitting behind two turntables playing classic country songs from the ’60s…
Back in the ’90s, when I was a young adult, I desperately wanted to start a small record label. It was the age of awesome and inspirational labels like Kill Rock Stars, the heyday of indie stalwarts like Dischord and Lookout, and a time when you could watch a small…
Skin shows aren’t usually on my agenda for quiet Thursday nights, so I’m a bit startled to find myself watching a band with the drummer banging away wearing only a pair of peach-colored jockey shorts from American Apparel on a recent Thursday. Needless to say, my dollars are staying in…
Gnawing your way through the latest Mars Volta record is always something of a chore at first. The band, anchored by instrumentalist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, turns out huge mind-fucks as songs, mixing prog-metal, psychedelia, and swaggering Latin flavors into massive, album-long narratives whose intent is to confound…
When asked why it’s taken old-school hardcore/punk band Bring Your Own Weapon, which has been around since 2002, so damn long to finally release a full-length CD, drummer Brett Sandy says “sheer laziness.” “Procrastination,” bass player R. Michael C. concurs. Whatever the cause, I’m rejoicing that this group of veterans…
“They killed Malcolm, Martin, Guevara, Lennon, Marley, Pac, Biggie, Tookie, Jam Master Jay, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, and even God’s son too/So fuck the Bible, I get my basic instruction from Sun Tzu.” Onstage at the infamous Club Congress in Tucson last April, a DJ…
Phoenix is a tough town for bands — the city doesn’t have a sound of its own (please don’t count Gin Blossoms-style jangle rock), and you can count on one hand the number of bands that have made it outside of our desert metropolis. That wasn’t always the case, though…
It’s not a new phenomenon, but lately the perceptions of what punk rock is and is not have irritated the hell out of me. Do three chords, a faux-hawk, and a 14-year-old’s snotty voice make a band punk rock? Is there a formula? Does it have to be loud and…
I’m sitting in a Tempe Starbucks with Abby and Mark Covert, the former owners of defunct rock club Nita’s Hideaway, discussing Mark’s need for a liver transplant, when Abby hands me a folder that contains, among articles about liver disease, an excerpt of her diary of Mark’s illness. “He hallucinates…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always detested that heart-pentagram image that silly H.I.M. band uses as its logo. Hearts and Satan? I don’t get it. Nothing against heart logos; I just think that particular shit is stupid. If you want to see a good heart logo, check out…
