The Real Bar closes without notice

I never went to the Real Bar a whole lot because, well, the service sucked and the setup for their all ages shows left the drinkers (i.e. the ones spending real money) at a sight line disadvantage when the bands were playing. It’s nice to still have venues around that…

Post-Birthday Getdown with Bright Eyes

Yesterday was yours truly’s birthday, so it almost seems like a late present that one of my favorite bands, Bright Eyes, is playing tonight at the Marquee. I’ll be there to rock; meanwhile, this is one of their dopest videos (and birthday related)…..

An Emotional Response

I mentioned earlier today that I at first suspected What Laura Says Thinks and Feels was an emo band because of the name (I was wrong on that one). Then I was working on a column that references North Side Kings, and I remembered this video from a while back…

Sound Waves

In case you haven’t heard already, we’ve abandoned the New Times Music Festival of the past in favor of a summer-long series of shows featuring the nominated bands in each category all playing together at one venue on one night with a national headliner for each. We’re calling it Summer…

Annals of Bad Band Names

Perhaps it’s unfair to pick on bands for choosing silly names (like I did with the boys in An Aesthetic here a while back), but sometimes the words just beg for it. Like with What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, which I assumed was an emo band (because of the…

Cowtown

Since this Saturday is Cinco de Mayo, a totally cracker-ass holiday which happens to cause bands to play in excess all in the same day, I’m pimping some of this weekend’s shows early. Friday night, if I’m not at the Ghostlife show, then I’ll be checking out the Earps’ CD…

Ghosts and Their Machines

It’s pretty goddamn rare that when I get a random local CD with only my name printed on a white slip-sleeve and a flyer for an upcoming show in it that the band’s any good. Actually, sometimes it’s rare that the disc will get more than thirty seconds of playing…

Burned Out

I hadn’t heard from my old pal Marshall “Fucking” Beck in a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a comment on my Myspace page from him today. Apparently his old band Rebirth is releasing a CD soon (he’s got a band called Reign of Vengeance these days). Here’s…

Backed Up

Don’t let the photo above scare you, it’s only my homeboy Ryan Breen, a.k.a. the one-man electronic machine known as Back Ted N-Ted. He’s just finished up his debut album, Pop Animal, that’s scheduled to be released soon by Ohio indie Abandon Building Records. If you click on the tag…

Some Photos from a Friend

I missed the Crowded House/Liam Finn show last Thursday at the Marquee, but one of the swell guys who occasionally takes photos of bands for my column was there, and sent me these shots as well as a pretty rave review of the gig. The photog is Luke Holwerda, and…

What’s To Do?

Actually, there’s a whole hell of a lot to do, and in the interests of honoring the artists/designers that make up the (mostly) dope flyers around town, here’s a truncated round-up… Look at the pretty pictures and see what gets a rise out of you; seems like a busy week/weekend…

Isn’t “Hella” Kind of a Berkeley Word From ’89?

This is a bit of either a spoiler or a teaser, since my column about Hellas Mounds won’t be out until late today on the internet or tomorrow on the stands, but whatever the case, I thought I’d give you a little taste of what the band that I’ve blogged…

State of the (Punk) Union

Over at AZPunk.com, my friends and detractors are polling and discussing the state of punk here in Arizona. The thread is here, and this is what overlord TPStank has to say about it: I’m trying to determine the current state of our community, and it’s got me somewhat disappointed. In…

Chip Again? Yeah, One More Song

Above – Chippy’s first drum set, 1971 Not to beat a dead country horse, but I was remiss yesterday in not mentioning that Chip Hanna, who I wrote about in my column Revolver this week, is playing at Mardi Gras tonight – the reason I mention this although I already…

Bright Spots

I’m a little bit shocked that my ol’ homeboy Conor Oberst and his latest lineup for the ever-evolving Bright Eyes have actually debuted at #4 on the Billboard charts, despite remaining on Omaha’s stalwart indie label Saddle Creek. The album, Cassadaga, is a step forward for Conor, Mike Mogis, and…

Idol Weirdness

A strange email came to us lately that’s just so out there I’ve got to share it with you… this is what it said: Can a dead man win the American Idol songwriter contest? Maybe… I was co-writer with the late Kurt Mayberry. (research NT archives for Kurt Mayberry or…

Mixtapes… Finally

A while back I issued a call to arms in my column (found here) for DJs to send me their mixtapes/mix-CDs… and I didn’t get much of a response. There was a little big, which I posted about here, but just a trickle. So I was stoked when DJentrification shot…

Diamonds Redux

Last week, I promised to throw up some Runaway Diamonds tracks once I figured out how to do that with my new blogging software; all the glitches have been solved, so here’s the tunes for you. I’m torn in my opinion of the songs, I think Pomerenke’s lyrics are just…

Chippin’

Hopefully you saw my column this week on punk-rock-drummer-gone-country-troubadour Chip Hanna (if not, read it now, you’re obviously not working). I was under the weather a lot of this weekend and didn’t get out to any shows, but yesterday Chip and his wife Erin had me over for some steaks…

The Skunk

Yes, it’s the infamous 4/20, which means little to anyone except the legions of pot smokers out there who need yet another reason to get stoned. And it also means there’s a plethora of shitty jam band shows crackin’ off, but I wouldn’t recommend any of those unless you’re really…

Show Barrage

It’s something of a rarity when homeboy brothers Mike and Jared Bell are both in town to play as the Lymbyc Systym ever since Mike relocated with his girlfriend to Austin, so I highly recommend that you hightail it to Modified this evening to scope them out with Colorstore and…