Throwdown on the Interweb; Ear Infection’s in Your Corner Seems a little pissing match has erupted on the interweb in the masturbatory little world of music criticism, between my own company and sister paper Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll and Gawker media’s too-cool-for-school Idolator music blog. The…

Despite authoring this blog, I’m not much of a software geek; I’ve got to rely on some smarter heads at HQ to fix little interweb/html quandaries for me, and I don’t install new programs often. Nonetheless, I got sucked in when I read a press release this morning about Dizzler,…

Ernie, flashin’ the bling Well, I guess “emo rap” is a bit insulting, but my friends in Who Cares (who are Sacto-based but spend a lot of time in the ‘Nix) pretty much wear their hearts on their sleeves, especially Ernie, the group’s MC. I hadn’t heard from them since…

Not sure if it’s the holidaze or or just the cooler weather that’s causing so much dope action on the music tip lately, but I really don’t care. Fact is, practically every night of the week there’s some bomb shit going on. Tonight’s no exception. If you’re not hitting up…

Today’s Thursday, aka Baby Friday, and Thursday nights there’s really only one gig in town worth spending your evening at: the infamous Blunt Club. Whether you’re a hip-hopper, backpacker, punk rocker, indie hipster, what-the-fuck-ever, the Blunt Club’s the bangin’est club night to hit up, five years strong now. This installation…

Jared and Michael Bell are the Lymbyc Systym Jared and Michael Bell, the brothers who make the pretty noises in Lymbyc Systym, are about to drop the band’s first album on the influential Mush Records label, home also to avant-beatmakers and MC’s like cLOUDDEAD, Aesop Rock, Jel, Odd Nosdam, and…

Scary Kids Stealing Names I usually find it pretty goddamn annnoying when bands take their names from other band’s song titles. This was the case when I first heard about Scary Kids Scaring Kids – especially since the band’s name is copped from one of my favorite bands, the Chicago-based…

Sweetbleeders Just received a missive and a new song from Robin Vining of the Sweetbleeders (and Colorstore) yesterday, asking if I’d let y’all know about the listening party for the band’s upcoming new album, Bzzzz. No problem; the Sweetbleeders make some of the prettiest little piano-laced pop songs aroud the…

Pokafase It’s been a while since I last checked in with Pokafase, the ‘Nix’s long-suffering aspirant to establishing PHX hip-hop as a west coast powerhouse. His latest album The Martyr is due out any time, so I grabbed a couple of his tracks (one off of Mastermind, and one off…

Yolanda Bejarano A few bar nights back I went out with my old friend Yolanda Bejarano, who’s not only a swell girl but an incredible musician, and who’s been cranking out music since I moved here eleven years ago, in bands like Slugger, the Slowdown, and a mariachi band that…

Wow, there’s a lot of pre-Turkey Day festivities tonight, ’cause y’all ostensibly have tomorrow off of work, and you’re expected – no, it’s mandated – that you get completely shitfaced till the wee hours tonight. First of all, GWAR’s playing at the Marquee tonight, if you like blood, guts, costumes,…

Mu-Fuckin’ DJ Radar Wow, that was a particularly uninspired heading for a blog post about one of the ‘Nix’s only superstars, DJ Radar. Astute longtime readers may already have realized that I’ve long been a homey of Radar’s as well as a fan; I once took him back to my…

Eyes Set To Kill The three-girl, three-boy young’uns (the age range is 17-20) in Eyes Set to Kill are having quite a year. The screamo outfit released a well-received EP earlier in ’06 and just recently dropped a DVD with eight songs performed live. Better yet, they’ve been signed to…

Niki Kwik Poorly written, silly-ass press releases are one of the humorous perks of this job; the flipside is when you have to actually listen to the CDs that they come with. Exhibit A: local female-fronted trio Niki Kwik’s upcoming EP, No Need to Apologize. Here’s a couple excerpts from…

BFH Word came to me recently that local lap-guitar troubadour Brodie Hubbard (aka Brodie Foster Hubbard, aka Brodie Fucking Hubbard) is leaving the ‘Nix soon to head back to La-La Land. That’s a loss for the singer-songwriter set here; as I wrote earlier this year, Brodie’s sometimes tortured, acoustical folky…

Radio Free America I know what you’re thinking, but no, this isn’t a recap of how I spent the weekend. It’s almost the holidays so I had to forego the hookers this time around. Rather, this post is marking a milestone of sorts for Radio Free America, soon to be…

There’s a veritable glut of great shows this weekend, so this is the extended remix weekend edition of the Show Picks series. First, tonight (Friday, Nov. 17) at Stray Cats, for a mere six bucks you can catch a punk rock extravaganza with the Fed-Ups, Thirteen Black, Dick Hazard, Walt…

Last night was an aural adventure (unfortunately not an oral adventure), wherein I hit up both a country show by my cowboy buddy Andy Hersey (who’s opening for Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers at the Marquee this Saturday), and later caught a pretty amazing rock show by Vayden. Vayden’s kind…

An, ahem, Aesthetic A while back I threw up a “show pick” blog post where I dissed locals An Aesthetic for their silly band name. Luckily these guys have a sense of humor, and sent me the following reply… Ha ha… Thanks for posting up the flyer for our show…

As of today, the voting is open for the ’07 PLUG Music Awards, the indie market’s version of the Grammy’s, or, uh, not really. PLUG’s pretty tight though, giving ups to artists that wouldn’t otherwise ever see an award or trophy. And it’s all based on internet voting, so it’s…

Drunk on Tuesday Yeah, Wednesday, but nonetheless, I’ve got a couple of songs from the punk rock quartet Drunk on Tuesday for you. These Phoenician ne’er-do-wells are preparing a full length for your listening pleasure, busting out with some classic/basic West Coast p-rock in your face. Whatever that means. I…

Who Jesus? Ask Willie…. Ordinarily I’m a pretty blasphemous motherfucker; Jesus and I haven’t had much of a rapport since I was in short pants. But, like an early Christmas miracle, I got a little bit of the Lord up in my hot little hands recently that, although its unlikely…