La Potencias Africanas (The African Potencies) is housed in a small cinder-block building on East Van Buren. On the building’s outer east wall is a sun-baked mural of the seven African powers surrounding their divine savior. Inside, one can purchase religious icons, bits of African folk art, candles, oils, rosaries,…
The desert surrounding Jeff Dahl’s Cave Creek home is lush, made fragrant and green from recent monsoon thrashings. His neighbors on the next acre, the ones who run a Christian day-care center, have a sprawling ranch with many horses. A guy from Dokken lives just up the road. And there…
2 EGGS 2 PANCAKES 2 PC. BACON or SAUSAGE $2.95 reads the colorfully hand-scribed sign in the front window of the 42-year-old diner. A few feet to the east, on the darkened marquee of the languishing motel sign, it says, “Your home away from home restaurant will close Aug. 15.”…
It is a smoggy evening at the Burbank Airport, and Carlos Gonzales of Mesa is explaining his documentary film, the one he is making by himself with his own money. “There’s chicks showing their tits, dudes smoking weed and some guy who got jumped really bad and they fucked him…
Ween Paintin’ the Town Brown (Elektra) Paintin’ the Town Brown, the most recent offering from demented duo Ween, reeks of contractual obligation or more likely Elektra’s failure to understand the burgeoning MP3/Internet culture. Brown was originally intended to be a limited-edition chronicle of Ween’s live shows from 1990 to 1998,…
So what would it be like to cab around the city with a record-company weasel, a couple of writers, a punk-rock singer, a porn-PR pro and an adult-film star wielding a large bong in a box? An irony-rich ride more fun than a pop-up Popsicle, Daddy-O. A cab ride that…
“Another man said one time Elvis Presley is the biggest thing that ever happened,” the Reverend Leroy Jenkins says. “No, he wasn’t, Jesus was. Amen. Elvis Presley’s dead and almost forgotten; Jesus is still remembered and you haven’t seen him in 2,000 years!” The Reverend Jenkins is witnessing toacrowd of…
“Hum to me baby,” croons Glory Revival singer/guitarist Paul Lamb from the stage of Nita’s Hideaway as the spry seven-piece band slides down into a Sly Stoneish passage. The horn’s brassy meter and the seemingly looped groove of the rhythm section has female hips rotating in slow, deliberate gestures on…
Sun-singed and bullshit-sated, we crisscross the acres of car lot in search of a particular auto that may only exist as fiction in the head of the salesman striding slightly ahead of us. The car in question, a ’93 Toyota Tercel, was spotted in a classified ad and confirmed still…
The regulation clearly states that a bare-fisted blow to the skull is prohibited. The theory being a man’s knuckle rack is more destructive to a combatant’s face than that of an open palm. But the base of the hand, that arched mass of bone and tendon just below the palm,…
Wednesday night, driving along Central with zip to do. And what a main drag it is, too; black glass office buildings on a treeless thoroughfare with nary a soul in sight–save for this ruddy-faced homeless guy sitting on a bus bench, miming with his moon shadow. By 8:30, the sidewalks…
“Here! Listen to this,” shouts Steven Yazzie as he applies another touch of dawn-tinted paint to the clown’s Mohawk while Neutral Milk Hotel blares from two suspended speakers. “I paint to Neutral Milk all the time.” We stand in his studio near downtown, under a half-dozen blazing lamps, the room…
As I walk into Dusty Macgruders, at 24th Street and Thomas, that 4 Non Blondes dim ode to twentysomething trust-fund angst called “What’s Up” trumpets through the small bar’s PA system. It is at first excruciating. A song like that is usually the first nudge for me to bid a…
Sadly, the Sunset-strip scene of the ’80s took the New York Dolls’ name and dragged it through a thick, shit-infested mud bath, the kind through which few other pop trailblazers should ever have to suffer. I mean, the Velvets were never misinterpreted in such a way that had some thumb-head…
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight/Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane. –Bob Dylan A couple of prostitutes step off the dimly lit street into the splash of white light. Their dark bodies appear as things long past the point of retrieval, their faces…
After a long Memorial Day of food and drinks, post 1170 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars seems sleepy and slow when we arrive. Not for long, though. If Wanda the bartender hadn’t gotten in the middle of things after the war hero and ex-boxer slapped me across the face,…
The singer bursts onto the scene from the back of the dance floor. As she struts toward the stage, her movements incorporate a kind of odd, sinless swagger, as innocent as a young girl’s first goodnight kiss. Her entrance is, nonetheless, full of sassy, pop-star self-certainty. She wears flared blue-jean…
We walk through the concrete and steel structure that splays across 1.5 million square feet of desert called Arizona Mills. In its beige-toned, wood-floored, 65,000-bulbed, restaurant-themed, air-conditioned glory, we can’t tell whether it’s the Kenny Rogers Roasters, Burger King or the aptly named Steak Escape that is exuding the aroma…
Ricky Martin Ricky Martin (Columbia Records) Whatever happened to the good old days, when the Grammy Awards were a joke and everybody knew it? Grammyland used to be a fanciful place where Jethro Tull was the pre-eminent hard rock band, while Toto and Christopher Cross were recognized as Mozarts of…
He comes flying around the corner at Second Avenue and Fillmore, going at a good clip. He is red-faced and shirtless with flyaway Jesus hair. Across his back is an elaborate tattoo of a bird or bat or something. Beneath him, making a blunt grinding noise, is a battered Huffy…
Late on a brassy Sunday afternoon, Celia Putty stands beneath the velvet curtain, loaded on sass and confidence. Stretching diagonally over his frilly shirt and ample breasts is a red beauty queen sash that reads: “Project LifeGuard Phoenix–Queen of Safe Sex ?-1999.” Putty’s black leather shoes are trimmed with bright…
In familiar, stoic poses, the Duke hangs purposefully among framed moments of bronco busting, ranch landscapes, and flyers publicizing an event called “Bill Williams Steak Fry and Dance.” Juke-spewed country and classic rock thump through the lounge’s dim light and blue curls of cigarette smoke. Men in uniforms chase balls…
