“Um, we better use Charlie,” Rob Kistler tells me when I ask how I should address him when referring to the country-rock band he fronts under the pseudonym Charlie Shooter, which just released its first CD a couple of weekends ago. Kistler finally capitulated to the cascade of advice suggesting…
It’s a bit of a throwback this Thursday, January 12, at the notorious Blunt Club’s second throwdown of the new year. Nineties NYC rappers Dres and Mista Lawnge, a.k.a. Black Sheep, are back together and bringing their silver tongues to Hollywood Alley in Mesa, on a bill with resident DJs…
“I want to break into ‘Tiny Dancer’ right in the middle of one of our songs and just weird everybody out,” Andrew Pringle, pianist and vocalist for the Rescue Plan, tells me after one of the band’s practices. Elton John seems a bit incongruous an influence for the five-piece screamo…
You’ve got to wait until the new year to buy the new Strokes record, First Impressions of Earth, in stores, but this Thursday, December 29, if you’re truly a Casablancas and Co. fanatic, you’ll want to be down at the latest installment of Panic! at Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale,…
A couple years back, singer-songwriter Jake La Botz was spending his Sundays down at the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in south central L.A., and playing in the church’s band with his friend Willie Chambers, of the ’60s R&B group the Chambers Brothers. La Botz is a Buddhist, but the…
Known for his beat-juggling skills with his ’90s New York DJ crew the X-Men (who would later become the X-ecutioners, so as not to get sued), Rob Swift blew minds back then by incorporating rival West Coast crew the Invisibl Skratch Piklz’s manic, extraterrestrial scratching with East Coast beat juggle…
I’ve been thinking about the word “nigga” a lot lately. Seems it’s popping out of everybody’s mouth these days, whether it’s high school wiggers or commercial rappers. The way I understand it, there’s two ways to see it: It’s either taking the power out of a derogatory term, much like…
For hip-hop heads, it just doesn’t get any better than the annual Furious Styles Crew anniversary celebrations around these parts. The b-boy collective, which also has chapters in San Diego and Los Angeles, is turning 12 this weekend, and it’ll commemorate the occasion with a three-day smorgasbord of b-boy and…
On a recent evening in a quiet Tempe neighborhood, the guys in Smoky Mountain Skullbusters are in a small padded room at guitarist Dylan Underkofler’s house, practicing for the upcoming release party for the punk outfit’s sophomore record, Yin Through the Yang Door. As drummer/vocalist Rob Davis, bassist/vocalist Mike Roberts,…
Recently, my nephew Torin celebrated his fourth birthday. My brother, a sound engineer, recruited a local band, New York Homecoming, to learn a couple of children’s songs and play in his yard at the Saturday afternoon party. Shortly after the band’s 3 p.m. sound check, a Tempe cop showed up…
On the most recent First Friday, at midnight, I’m in a former Mormon church with immense ceilings. Psychedelic colors are dancing on the walls courtesy of some old-school overhead projectors while old-school funk is jumping out of speakers. Even more incongruous is that I’m at a party in the Great…
It’s not often we get a living legend hitting the turntables in the ‘Nix, because, really, the art isn’t old enough to have that many pioneers. There are a few, though, and amongst those few, none ranks as high in the pantheon — except perhaps Kool Herc — as Grandmaster…
“The blues is dying out here,” my friend Dale Baich told me recently when we were bullshitting about music. I was taken aback by his statement, but when I thought about it, I hadn’t hit up a blues show in quite some time — like many people of my generation…
The more things change, the more they stay the same: Just when you thought local hip-hop/rock/reggae outfit Cousins of the Wize was in the ‘Nix’s history books, here they are celebrating their eighth anniversary, a major milestone for any local outfit. With DJ Needles holding down the turntables, Jah Sonora…
I have a theory that excessive sobriety and serious relationships can easily hamper an artist’s potential. I know it’s true with me; the focus I’ll put into a relationship with a girl doesn’t often leave me with as much creative inspiration. My favorite records and books are inspired by loneliness,…
Boy, oh boy. Just in time for Halloween, one of the spookiest-lookin’ characters of the past few decades is coming to town to pick up one of Phoenix’s infamously cheap eight-balls of blow. Oh, and Boy George will be DJing, too, for the kickoff of the 5th Annual Ghost Ball…
In late spring of this year, I was kicking myself for having missed the 10-year anniversary show for local label Truxton Records. A few weeks later, the label’s proprietor, Dave Ramsey, described the event to me while we stood on the patio of Casey Moore’s in Tempe. It sounded like…
It’s always exciting when a world-class DJ hits the ‘Nix for the first time; it does our egos good and quashes a bit of our desert metropolis’ inferiority complex. So clap your hands and say “yeah” for this Saturday’s inaugural appearance by U.K. producer and DJ BK, a.k.a. Ben Keen,…
Hot Pink!, the long-reigning queen of the glam-dance scene, seems like it ought to have petered out. Instead, even with founder DJ Nimh spending most of his time in NYC, Hot Pink! continues to evolve and keep all the pretty sparkly kids showing up to shimmy. This Friday, October 14,…
“If you see us again, we will definitely be doing it for the money,” announced Tom Reardon, bass player and vocalist for Hillbilly Devilspeak, in a recent press release. After more than 11 years of playing shows, Reardon’s killing off the band that’s been his primary artistic endeavor, at least…
The bathroom sink is bathed in blood, the splatter extending up onto the mirror above it. Near the stalls there’s a guy holding his tee shirt to his previously gushing nose. That’s just what you’d expect to see at a Madball show — tonight I’m at the Marquee Theatre in…
It must be a bitch being better known as Nicole Richie’s fiancé than for your skills on the tables, but that seems to be the case with DJ AM (a.k.a. Adam Goldstein), at least outside of Hollywood and New York City. But for those in the know, AM’s developed a…
