This is not man-bites-dog news, but it may still be exciting news: Pearl Jam is touring the United States this fall, and Phoenix is on its list of 24 North American dates. Our chance to see the last flannel-wearers standing comes on November 19, at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale. It…
“Weird Al” Yankovic once parodied “Rico Suave.” He’s parodied two separate Milli Vanilli songs. He been making parodies so long that he donned a leather-jacketed fatsuit for “Fat” before Michael Jackson was a pariah, continued to wear it for 20 years afterward, and has gone on parodying Michael Jackson now…
Todd Rundgren’s breakthrough album, Something/Anything?, was a winding double-LP on which he wrote, produced, and performed nearly everything himself. That says a lot about 1972, but it says even more about Rundgren, who’s been seen as something of a pop-rock prodigy ever since. If it seems he’s never been quite…
“Weird Al” Yankovic has been releasing parody videos since people have been releasing actual videos. He’s made fun of decade-defining artists for four decades running. Through all that — while one-hit wonders fall out of view and genres and styles are declared officially over — he’s remained a timeless figure…
The Vans Warped Tour–at Quail Run Park in Mesa Thursday–is 18 years old, which is just old enough for it to have second thoughts about going to Warped Tour. That’s the trouble with long-running festivals: Either the music stays the same and the people in attendance get older, or the…
The Vans Warped Tour is 18 years old, which is just old enough for it to have second thoughts about going to the Warped Tour. That’s the trouble with long-running festivals: Either the music stays the same and the people in attendance get older, or the music changes with its…
The current version of L.A. Guns is at least the second band bearing his name to not feature Tracii Guns, the guitarist who founded L.A. Guns and briefly took part in the Sunset Strip mega-merger that begat Guns N’ Roses. This iteration features two longtime members, singer Phil Lewis and…
Minibosses does exactly what it says on the tin: It plays video game covers, and it’s been doing it since before “Video Game Cover Band” was a genre. The group’s oeuvre focuses on the ’80s — its most-recent album included a medley of some lesser-known Legend of Zelda tracks, a…
December is shaping up to be a pretty good month to see music’s remaining super-superstars in Phoenix — Beyonce was announced for December 7 at US Airways Center this week, joining Justin Timberlake’s VIP-friendly 20/20 Experience date (did you pick up your $1950 ticket?) on December 2. One other thing…
Green Line Operator knows how to leave an impression in a crowded scene and with a very distractable music editor: Easily digested, arbitrary show ideas. The THR33 Show is, as its flier helpfully points out, three bands with three-word names playing three sets of three songs for $3 at, and…
Kendrick Lamar isn’t the first young rapper to spend the better part of his breakthrough album asking what it means to be a good person. He’s not even the first young rapper to frame said album with a vague concept. But where Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End…
Kendrick Lamar isn’t the first young rapper to spend the better part of his breakthrough album asking what it means to be a good person. He’s not even the first young rapper to frame said album with a vague concept. But where Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End…
Courtney Marie Andrews has been a Phoenix institution seemingly forever — she was on our cover three years ago — but she won’t turn 23 until November. In the five years since her debut release, Urban Myths, she’s toured and recorded with fellow institution Jimmy Eat World, continued to release…
Watch enough infomercials for Time-Life ’80s compilations, and you’ll come to this conclusion: Some albums are of their time because they were released at the peak of a particular trend, and some albums were a trend. She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper’s famous debut, is so important to our conception of…
She & Him (View the full slideshow.)Comerica TheatreJune 18, 2013 Hear about She & Him at blog or magazine distance and your impression of them is dominated by the simple presence of Zooey Deschanel’s name. Get a little closer, within range of one of their albums, and your impression of…
The venue intermittently known as Desert Sky Pavilion has seen a number of sponsors come and go since opening more than 20 years ago, so let’s hope this one sticks: Out with Cricket and Blockbuster and Ashley Furniture HomeStore, in with Ak-Chin Pavilion, named for and sponsored by the Ak-Chin…
It could be the dance moves, or the tight pants, or the man-of-the-people lyrics. It could be that video with Courteney Cox in it. Whatever it is, people — ordinary, otherwise law-abiding people — cannot resist rushing the stage at Bruce Springsteen concerts. It’s a phenomenon that’s led journalist and…
After an unpleasantly long stretch on the rumor mill–even by Apple standards–complicated by a hard-bargaining Sony Music, iTunes Radio finally exists. For the most part, the rumor mill got it right: It’s a lot like Pandora, it has text and audio ads (which feel strange on an Apple product), and…
Future Loves Past has been a local favorite since getting together in 2010, but 2013 could be their most important year yet: They’ve just announced a full-length album (already recorded at Flying Blanket Studios) due out this fall on Common Wall Media. In the meantime, we’ve got a song from…
It could be the dance moves, or the tight pants, or the man-of-the-people lyrics. It could be that video with Courtney Cox in it. Whatever it is, people — ordinary, otherwise law-abiding people — cannot resist rushing the stage at Bruce Springsteen concerts. It’s a phenomenon that’s led journalist and…
It’s been 10 years now since Jewel released 0304 and loosed the sell-out police on herself, trading in hyper-earnest folk for a dance-pop single in which she declared herself “a simple girl / in a high-tech digital world.” It was all knowing and wink-wink — at least theoretically — but…
It’s only partially Matisyahu’s fault that all his interests conspired to make him the perfect poster to hang next to Bob Marley in your freshman dorm room. That is, lots of teenagers and young adults find meaning and truth in following Phish around and reconnecting with the family traditions and…
