The driver at the Burbank International Airport opens the rear door to his cab and I hop in. He slides into the front seat, puts it into gear and pulls out. Moving toward the airport exit, I tell him the name of my hotel. We turn north and roll toward…
The army on the tiny Chez Nous dance floor is a microcosm of the Valley’s population, of ethnicity, age, size and gender. White, black, brown, smart, stupid, silly, happy, drunk. There are slinky strippers with moneyed suitors. There are divorcée moms going out. Cocksure gents work every angle. Snow-haired couples…
There is the sound of packs of hogs. An audible rotary force that grasps the chest and rearranges heartbeats. A thousand speed-addled Keith Moons banging contrarily away on tom-toms, kicks and snares couldn’t top its fanfare. The crooning grumble of pampered hog motors concedes to snappy spitters and spats, and…
I took out my six-string razor/ The axe is cold — Mott the Hoople A vein throbs alarmingly on either side of his neck, and his bright red face looks swollen and ready to explode. His half-open mouth exposes a weather-beaten picket fence of teeth. His pupils, set in a…
If any of these milk-hued heroes like Kid Rock, Eminem, Limp Bizkit or Korn had real balls, they’d tell the Grammy Awards to fuck off. They’d gurgle 5.8 percent beer guzzled from cans and slur fizzy dialogue like “fuck Ricky Martin and Whitney Houston and the Backstreet shits” while appalled…
St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, the pyramids of Giza and the breathy night glow of Sydney, Australia, all flashed in brilliant kaleidoscopic glory on CNN’s millennial report. In my brother’s pint-inspired phone report from the River Thames, he describes Queen Elizabeth II floating past, resembling “a cardboard prop-up of the…
The No. 1-selling song of 1999 was Cher’s “Believe.” On her heels was TLC’s summer smash “No Scrubs,” and Monica’s snoozer “Angel of Mine.” Following those are Whitney Houston’s “Heartbreak Hotel” and Britney Spears’ “. . . Baby One More Time.” Sixpence None the Richer, Christina Aguilera, Sugar Ray, Deborah…
I have nothing against those softy-in-jeans journalist types who scurry to bended knee at the altar of, say, Fiona Apple and Built to Spill; I just can’t sit here and pretend to be one for whom taste is second nature. Taste, that is, as defined in complacent lists that always…
Dreams unfulfilled/Graduate unskilled/It beats picking cotton/Waiting to be forgotten — Replacements, “Bastards of Young” Crushed chords are long, sustained and heavy. The sounds of concrete skies desolate landscapes. The vocals swing low, deep, almost ironic-sounding. The singer is skinny, like a stray, waifish, too, and the band just broods. The…
The Independent Film Channel is, in my opinion, one of the most important new channels on television. In a world where more channels does not necessarily mean better product, we should seize this opportunity and celebrate it; give it attention, nurture it and make sure it survives…. I hope this…
A kid limps up and offers his palm. He wears a black Misfits tour shirt and Marine fatigues, glittery combat boots and a teal-colored mess of hair. Framed by the hazy hues of Mill Avenue on a Friday night, he seems an antagonistic juxtaposition to the street’s sugary chain-store harmony…
Wandering into the burrow of the unwell while making an enemy of the future and anyone who gives a damn. Turning the body to a toxic trash can. Insurmountable and unjustified self-hatred with a healthy sense of martyrdom and the dramatic. All trite finger-wagging signs of a suicide waiting to…
By somehow sidestepping cheap Wendy O. Williams connect-the-dot punk-rock jive, the black electrical tape over the shouter’s nipples worked. The trashy and busted-up way in which she carried herself across the stage, too, lurking, at once stiff and sinuous, was equal parts Iggy, peepshow barker and Nazi femme dom. Her…
When I am alone and doing it, I always think of Mariah Carey. Maybe thinking about Mariah Carey this much is not good. But I can’t help it. It all started with this girl named Tiffany, who looks just like Mariah Carey. She lived with her mom and little brother…
Sure, no contemporary Phoenix “rock” venue can even hold a dusty seven-inch to beat dives like The Star Club and three-decades-ago bands like The Spiders, who gashed its stage, taking the piss out for bored kids, prompting waves of cops, curfews and shutdowns. And perhaps when history books retell of…
“Flying through the air with the greatest of ease!” the thrash-voiced singer crows as a pair of cherry-colored panties floats onto the Coliseum stage. “Oftentimes, they are still warm.” A woman from the front row stands, moves to the stage’s bow and raises her hand to the singer. The singer…
Crack and tweak are all that matter to Kim. Everything else is just part of the plot to procure it. Only through a combined sense of panic and fearlessness does she manage to collect enough cash to kill off another day. Kim is a self-described prostitute, 39 years old. She’s…
“Man, that odor can be foul, you just can’t believe,” laughs 84-year-old John Myrick, who should know. The Southern-born gent has been quenching nature’s atmospheres for years. Call it an occupational hazard of long nights caught between a urinal and a hard place. He’s heard the torque and splash of…
The delayed monsoon pissed down for a good 20 minutes. It was just enough rain and whipping wind to nettle the hundreds who had set aside this Wednesday night for purchases of cactus pears and chain saws. The storm sent most of them racing for their cars. Thousands of neatly…
In the early Sixties, long before words like radical and counterculture would become bland marketing doublespeak for rap groups and chain stores, a handful of beat college and FM stations around the country started freeform radio programming. The radio stations employed self-ruling DJs who eschewed starch-shirted formats and championed sounds…
Beneath swirling lights and a disco ball, cowboy hats tower over the other heads. Mocha-colored young women in up-to-the-moment attire throw pelvis alongside fresh-faced couples and open-shirted Latin lovers with Ramon Navarro mustaches. One arch-backed pair grope one another, his thigh her crotch, her hand his, while keeping even beat…
The year is 1978. Son of Sam gets life, the Pistols lose theirs and John Lennon still has his. Sandinista guerrillas attempt to extricate Nicaraguan life by overthrowing its government. John Belushi spoofs frats in National Lampoon’s Animal House. We are standing in the Phoenix Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum 10 rows…
