Joe Valiente, 27, professional rapper, takes a long hit from a short joint and peels back a window curtain in the rear lounge of his luxury tour bus. Ten feet away, on a grimy sidewalk in downtown El Paso, a line forms along the brick edifice of Club 101. Whooosh…
Superstar DJ Keoki is arguably the most famous rave DJ in the world, and, save porn star-cum-celebrity DJ Traci Lords, the most ridiculed. Keoki was the first to emerge from the new breed of premillennial celebrity cults-of-personality to whom rave promoters must tithe $1,000 or more an hour just to…
Marina flips open a Styrofoam box and holds it up. Inside are three pieces of California Roll and a red slab of tuna. She curls her mouth into a slack smile. “Sushi’s good when you’re high.” Free sushi, even. Half an hour ago, Marina says, some lady came out of…
Editor’s note: Paul Rubin and David Holthouse reported extensively on crystal methamphetamine in the December 18 issue in a 16-page special section, “Methology.” Valley drug cops busted 11 crystal methamphetamine labs during the first three weeks of January. One of them was a three-bedroom apartment in the 1700 block of…
Meth Roots Methamphetamine is an all-American drug. It should come as no surprise that many embrace a high that can make running errands feel like the quest for the golden fleece. As early as the 1830s, the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “It is odd to watch, with what…
“Better Than Hawaii” It’s 3:43 in the morning and Cyndi and Shana are coloring. They’re dressed for comfort in sweat pants and tee shirts; long hair pulled into ponytails. Markers and crayons are scattered about them on the living-room carpet, and it’s easy to imagine them as little girls, playing…
A Convict’s Warning What I do find appalling is that there are a lot of people in here simply for having big mouths and a lack of common sense. I estimate that only 25 percent of the crimes of manufacturing and conspiracy to manufacture meth were actually directly involved in…
Jane’s Addiction, and Goldie Mesa Amphitheatre December 4, 1997 Most of the time, Perry Farrell talks like he’s a hippie, or at least on mushrooms. “How does it feel to be outside, with the ceiling so high?” he asked aloud, eyes gazing aloft in wonder, two songs into Jane’s Addiction’s…
“Chupa” means “suck” in Spanish, and the motto on the fliers for Phoenix’s defunct but legendary underground dance spot of the same name used to read: “A club never sucked so good.” From the fall of 1994 to the spring of ’96, Chupa sucked long and hard, every weekend, all…
Time to get ill? Nah–time to get sik, on location in the Sik Bay, creative den of R.C. Lair, underground DJ and premier graphic artist for the Valley’s dance-club and rave scenes. R.C. (the initials stand for Ryan Christopher) is a bit nocturnal. Sik Bay–actually one room in the Tempe…
Inside the foyer of Greg Crane’s north Scottsdale office suite, there’s a niche in the wall facing the front door. It holds a small, fake plant and a proverb inside a clear, plastic frame. Every weekday morning, one of the women who works for Crane replaces the proverb from the…
A quarter mile northeast from the Church of the Orbital Orgy, a family–mom, dad, big brother, sis–sat on a couch, watching television. “They’re toast,” I thought. And they were. The couch suddenly lurched forward, jerked to a stop for a second, then hyperaccelerated and smashed into the TV, which was…
As a hip-hop DJ, Z-Trip was born with two strikes against him. He’s white and from Arizona. The only things that saved him were his skills, which are mad like the Hatter. When Z-Trip’s at battle stations, the pyrotechnical sorcery, most famously his scratching, reaches Jedi mind-trick levels. Less celebrated…
Six East Lounge. “The Beast.” People in Tempe have called it that since the late ’70s, when it was still a biker bar. Today, it’s easy to see–and smell–why the nickname stuck. When you walk in, rancid piss and cleaning chemicals mingle with whiskey, smoke and a musty, old-house smell…
Here’s a vision of hell, as drawn by Todd McFarlane in the 10th issue of Spawn, the best-selling comic book in the country: A row of black-hooded men, hands lashed behind them, stands trembling with fear. Flames curl around their feet. Beneath their hoods, the men are weeping. Before them…
The warning on the vial is clear. “CAUTION: Federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the order of a licensed veterinarian.” Sammy, 24, clicks a metal tongue-pierce against the back of his teeth and gently pries out the vial’s rubber stopper with a pair of needle-nose pliers…
Club-promoting is guerrilla capitalism at its sick best. Just peep the ongoing alley fight between promoters of two new hip-hop nights in Scottsdale–one at the Cage, the other at Club Tribeca. Here’s the thrust-and-parry thus far: Until recently, Phoenix-based superhero DJ Z-Trip and his sidekick Fashen presided over a successful…
Emile Ananian is a gifted DJ, and he’ll be the first to tell you so. Last February at an underground party called Icee, I walked into a trailer to buy water and found Emile, obviously out of his head, ranting to no one and everyone in a line of 25…
Like a lot of thieves, Gambit only works at night. It’s half past 10 in Phoenix when he boots up his laptop. Darth Vader’s voice intones “What is thy bidding, my master?” Gambit double-clicks on a desktop icon shaped like a chess queen and offers no reply. He’s about to…
Dark industrial chicks aren’t sexy. Dark industrial chicks are erotic. Pierced tongues, ash mascara, dead-rose bouquets hanging like crucifixes above draped bed frames speckled with candle wax. Such women give me shivers. They’re so . . . nocturnal. Seething, spitting and genuflecting to the heavens onstage during a recent show…
My favorite memory from Lollapalooza ’96 is watching the Ramones blast through “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” as a wicked dust storm suddenly rose on the horizon and swept toward Compton Terrace at warp 5. Roadies literally had to pull Joey Ramone away from the mike when the storm descended…
Once I escaped the teeming mass of Melrose Place fans in the low bleacher seats and climbed high enough to feel the breeze on my nipples, I got into U2’s POPMart phantasmagoria at Sun Devil Stadium, May 9, a lot more than I thought I would. Turning all the spotlights…
