Dream Big, the latest album from cocky Phoenix rapper Futuristic, hits every style one would hope to get from a hip-hop album. There’s club-ready anthems, smooth R&B ballads, and even some laid-back boom-bap, with Futuristic laughing between boisterous rhymes…
Last week Chumbawamba, the nonsensically named band responsible for the ubiquitous nonsensically named hit “Tubthumping,” announced it was calling it quits after 30 years. The news item drew reactions ranging from “Oh yeah, that ‘I get knocked down’ ’90’s band?” to “They were still around?” and also “God, that song…
This year, bands like Japandroids and JEFF the Brotherhood have offered varied flavors of back-to-basics rock, all of them commendable in their unselfconscious energy. But it comes at a time where some baldly question the relevance of the stadium rock ethos. Frenzied power-chord jammers The Henry Clay People, hailing from…
New media gurus always talk fervent bullshit about online personal branding, which leads many impatient bands to equate fan-cultivation with Facebook worship instead of writing kick ass songs. Local Wizards, the solo moniker of 19-year-old ASU film student Kendall Humbert, is not promoted through the usual channels of SEO bait…
For those that crank pop country radio out of their pick-ups, Darius Rucker is the breakthrough solo singer with a silky baritone and two chart-topping albums. For those that haven’t turned on a radio in ten years, Darius Rucker is perhaps more recognizable as the leader of 90’s pop-rock balladeers…
The Men and Lower Dens Sail Inn Thursday, June 28 See also: ‘Open Your Heart’ to The Men In a two-for-one deal that worked out swimmingly, the combined bills of Lower Dens and The Men converged at Sail Inn for a two-stage show that felt like a mini-festival…
Time marches on. And tours like Summerland — featuring ’90s pop heroes Everclear, Sugar Ray, Lit, Gin Blossoms, and Marcy Playground — are there to remind us that it’s doing so, to remind us that we’re getting older, to capitalize on our fading adolescent memories. I was born in 1987;…
El-P and Killer Mike Crescent Ballroom Monday, June 25 Brooklyn indie-rap linchpin El-P and Atlanta journeyman Killer Mike are kind of on top of the world right now. There’s nothing like seeing two dudes with critically acclaimed new albums on the same bill, popping in on each other’s tracks and…
“I’m not particularly that brilliant,” El-P says, laughing. “It takes me longer to do something worthy of putting out.” The Brooklyn-based rapper, former label head, and indie hip-hop stalwart isn’t bothered by the five years it took to put together his latest collection, Cancer 4 Cure (out now via Fat…
In the realm of alternative rock, metal mostly had been regarded as a distant fascination, a weird, drunk cousin from a red state. Nineties bands like Testament and Melvins appealed to heshers and hipster slackers alike. Today, however, the genre is so expansive and unpredictable that it’s no longer solely…
Brooklyn-based rapper El-P has had a tumultuous last few years. After reaching the Billboard Top 100 in 2007 with I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, he lost his friend and musical collaborator Camu Tao the next year. In 2010, he chose to close his label Definitive Jux, an indie rap cornerstone…
In this week’s issue of Phoenix New Times, we profiled 10 new(ish) bands we expect to dominate Phoenix iPods and boomboxes this long, hot summer. We’ll be focusing more deeply on those artists over the next couple of days on Up on the Sun. See the entire list: 10 Phoenix…
In this week’s issue of Phoenix New Times, we profiled 10 new(ish) bands we expect to dominate Phoenix iPods and boomboxes this long, hot summer. We’ll be focusing more deeply on those artists over the next couple of days on Up on the Sun. See the entire list: 10 Phoenix…
Gun Outfit and Broken Water Meat Market Garment Factory Wednesday, May 30 I will declare, without the slightest inkling of doubt or hesitance, that Olympia, Washington has the best independent music scene in the country right now. The major hipster metropoli (Brooklyn, San Francisco, Austin) all have loads of recognized…
For better or worse, the sacred cows of punk are being gutted — for example, the now-antiquated concept of “selling out” has nearly vanished from the lexicon of underground music. Even hardcore — a genre that places a gigantic bounty on aesthetic purity and hard-nosed authenticity — is rethinking its…
JEFF the Brotherhood, North Dakota, Wooden Indian Rhythm Room Thursday, May 17 The three bands on stage at Rhythm Room didn’t sound very much alike — and that’s a good thing. It was a treat to see three distinct bands perfectly execute their respective sounds at last night’s JEFF the…
Oh, sure, there are a lot of bluesy rock duos out there. There’s everything from the well-known opposing-colored Keys and Stripes to lesser-known pioneer pairs from the past, like Flat Duo Jets, to up-and-comers like Agent Ribbons, who add ruffled Victorian drama to the simple mix. Each band essentially relies…
Former Fleet Foxer J. Tillman turned Los Angeles mystic/comedian Father John Misty took Pitchfork to task on Monday afternoon, taking to Twitter to express his beef with the website’s review of his latest LP, Fear Fun (previous records were released under his given name). His mammoth rant against indie rock’s…
Looking back, it’s safe to say that the hyperbolic fervor surrounding the early 2000s’ “rock revival” was embarrassingly misplaced. Jack White certainly built a black-and-red empire, but The Strokes have been battling skepticism for their past three albums and The Vines barely made it out of the starting gate. In…
See also: Throwback Thursday: Everclear The announcement of the Summerland Tour (an a la carte delight of prominent ’90s soul-patch rock bands Everclear, Sugar Ray, Lit,The Gin Blossoms, and Marcy Playground) has me thinking hard about nostalgia. I learned of the tour’s Phoenix date, July 3 at Comerica Theatre, just…
Ever since its genesis with Chuck Berry and Elvis, the rock formula has consisted of three parts fun and one part danger. Proto-punkers like the MC5 and The Stooges gradually shifted the ratio a bit, but somewhere down the line, the guitar-based offspring of blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and punk…
Frankie Rose and Chandails Rhythm Room Monday, April 16 To all aspiring indie rock mavens: no matter how many blog accolades you acquire (even, yes, the three-pronged hydra of “Best New Music”) or how many spine-crushingly cool side-projects bolster your C.V., at some point you will play Phoenix, Arizona on…
