Back in April, we reported that Wayne Coyne had tapped beloved Phoenix weirdo-rockers Treasure MammaL to participate in a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover album, called With a Little Help From My Fwends. It started after the Flaming Lips saw Treasure MammaL perform at Coyne’s Oklahoma City art…

On October 18 at Comerica Theatre, more than 80 Arizona MCs, DJs, and performers will get together for what must be the largest local hip-hop show ever thrown, Arizona Hip Hop Festival. This staggering undertaking is the brainchild of JustUs Samuel, the rapper and founder of Respect the Underground, which…

Remember Tomas Tovar Rascon, a.k.a. Tito Torbellino, the Phoenix-born banda singer who was brutally assassinated in a restaurant in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, in late May? News came late July that Mexican police shot and killed one of the men responsible for the murder…

No, Lady Gaga will not perform with Tony Bennett at Mesa Arts Center. There’s long been talk of a collaboration CD between the two, and it seems that come September, the two finally will release Cheek to Cheek, an album that finds the unlikely collaborators crooning jazz standards, backed by…

Local rapper Trap House isn’t afraid to tackle current events in his music. Three days ago, he penned a song called “Imagine (Mike Brown Tribute),” and now, the rapper is teaming up with a group of locals to shoot a video for the song…

With apologies to Andrew Jackson Jihad, there’s no doubt Kongos is the hottest musical export Phoenix has created in years, and we have the news to prove it. Their smash hit “Come with Me Now” has now gone platinum, meaning digital sales of the song have exceeded one million…

UPDATE (August 13, 9 a.m.): The Blairs report having a wonderful time at the concert and wanted to thank Paul McCartney for his generosity. They watched soundcheck and went backstage, and McCartney’s representatives gave Hayden a series of gifts, including one of Sir Paul’s guitar pics and a drumstick signed…

Hip-hop moves at the lightning-fast pace of the Internet these days, and Futuristic, a Tempe rapper on the verge of making it big, knows that better than anyone. In the past two years, the 23-year-old Bloomington, Illinois, native has written dozens of songs, released two albums, recorded enough tracks to…

Dick Wagner, a guitarist who during his career worked with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Aerosmith, KISS and the Frost, died at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea Medical Center this morning. He was 71. Wagner, a Detroit-bred guitarist, moved to Arizona roughly a decade ago. He had struggled with his health since 2006,…

When Mesa’s Nile Theater first opened in 1924, it was a decadently decorated silent movie house. These days, what streams out of the theater is anything but quiet. The Nile Theater frequently hosts local and touring hardcore, punk and metal bands. Acts like Against Me!, Circle Takes the Square, and…

Poncho Sanchez has cancelled his Friday, July 11, show at the Musical Instrument Museum Theater due to personal issues. Sanchez also canceled a show in Las Vegas as well. MIM is looking at rescheduling the show…

Phoenix hardcore band Gay Kiss released Fault in December 2012, and some consider it to one of the better heavy albums to come out of Phoenix in recent memory. Now, the quartet’s work has paid off in the form of an opening slot touring for punk supergroup Off! — a…

Look no further for proof of Bob Marley’s legacy than the vast number of bands influenced by his work and the multitude of Marley posters that adorn dorm-room walls. More than 30 years after his death in 1981, Bob Marley and the Wailers touch people of all ages. Mostly because…

Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale were veteran songwriters — 14 solo albums between them, to be exact — before they began collaborating on what would become the duo’s first album, Prologue. But when they started writing songs, they stripped the sound from their previous projects and wrote melancholy, earnest tunes…