From Tempe Police Department Narrative Report, incident number 96-078889. Compiled by officer #10060 (Blair R. Wrigley): Suspect #1: Hispanic male, approx. 19 yrs. old, 5’6″, 140 lbs., short black hair. Wearing a blue ball cap, a white tee shirt under a green tee shirt, and blue jeans. Suspect #2: Hispanic…

Bzzzzzzzz. Hear that noise? It might have something to do with all the Pollen in the air. Rumor has it these five cats from Pittsburgh are Steelers fans who hocked their van for Super Bowl tix and decided to stick around after the game and play for a while. Lucky…

Superdrag singer/guitarist John Davis is too young for this shit. Ten minutes ago, Davis was right where he wanted to be–passed out in his Nashville hotel room. But then his band’s road manager started pounding on the door, yelling something about a phone interview and get your ass up now…

This is a historic moment. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. –President George Bush in his televised speech “The Liberation…

When Shonen Knife parlayed a bubblehead image and clumsy fascination with American pop culture into cult-favorite status with downtown Manhattan hipsters in the late ’80s, the trio of Osaka housewives set a regrettable standard for Japanese girl bands. They were all giggle and no grit, play-acting the silly little Asian…

All stories have a beginning, but if the story is about ska music, it’s hard to say just when and where that is. In America, ska music began in 1982 with the Toasters, a multiracial group of Manhattan hepcats who introduced U.S. audiences to the frenetic mix of American R&B…

I used to have a friend who had a lot of mottoes. One of his best was “Life’s a team sport.” Which means at least play like it is. Share your water at a rave, or buy an extra ticket to give away at a Phish show. Sure, you might…

Girls Against Boys Gibson’s April 30, 1996 When I was 21, it was a very good year. I spent a third of my time in New York City, subsisting on cheap Indian food and crashing in a prewar walkup in the heart of the East Village. My place was right…

Tyree Michael Carter has many pictures of himself on the walls of his office, but only one in which he’s smiling. It’s a shot from last Halloween, and Ty is dressed like a blaxploitation-flick pimp–a veritable mack daddy. The outfit took 13 thrift stores, $100 and two weeks to put…

Well, stick a monkey in front of a typewriter and sooner or later he’ll write a haiku. Four years into a career ignited as a lark, and fueled on hype and connections, 7 Year Bitch has finally come up with a few decent garage-punk songs. And, Christ, how hard can…

The defining moment of the first New Times Music Awards Showcase came, for me, almost two weeks before the actual event. It was a Tuesday night and New Times was hosting a logistics summit meeting upstairs at Minder Binder’s in Tempe. Representatives from all 36 bands in 11 showcase categories…

Oh, way to go, Ohio. Dayton, Ohio, that is. The town that is sprouting rock bands like corn. Check out the run-down: Guided by Voices (together since 1986, discovered in 1993), Brainiac, the Tasties, the Method, the Afghan Whigs and–the subject of our talk today–the Amps. A sort of Dayton-scene…

Best Alternative Rock Beat Angels They may look and play like it, but the Beat Angels aren’t really under the illusion that it’s still 1979. They just don’t think rock ‘n’ roll has gotten any better since then. “The way we look at it, there’s this certain spirit that was…

The first band I ever went to see in the Valley was Dead Hot Workshop. I could relate to the name. It was last year, on a Friday night in mid-July. I had just moved here from Alaska and promptly discovered that hangovers are even worse when you are dehydrated…

I have this recurring nightmare where I’m in hell and Satan is informing me with a sulfurous chuckle that my punishment for a life of sin is spending eternity as an entertainment reporter for a local TV station. In Phoenix, nonetheless; the town where a talking head’s transfer to the…

Watch closely the video for “Blues Summit in Chicago”–a 1974 episode of the PBS series Sound Stage, in which an all-star band played a concert tribute to then-living-legend Muddy Waters–and you’ll notice that, right after Pinetop Perkins takes his piano solo during “Blow Wind Blow,” the camera pans the audience…

I stand at the crossroads, baby, now there’s no turnin’ back: I’m here to make a deal, so let the Devil deal the pack! –Blue Bob Crawford I don’t believe in the devil, but I believe Robert Johnson did. And according to root doctors–voodoo priests of the rural South–the first…

Wildlife biologists call it “fish fever”–a temporary madness that afflicts freshly weaned brown bears in the first summer they must fend for themselves. Summers in brown-bear country are as short as the winters are long, and eating before the snow falls is doubly a matter of life or death. Bears…

So I’m in Eastside Records a few days back looking for old Devo albums (don’t ask why), and I spot this stack of small, black handbills someone has placed at the bottom of the racks amid a smattering of other fliers for rock shows and raves. The bills in question…

Come on, now, let’s be honest: Going to see the souped-up rerelease of Heavy Metal is a bad move, unless a) you’re about five bong hits beyond stoned silly; b) you have an insatiable taste for early ’80s cheese metal (hey, dude, Sammy Hagar rocks!); or c) you still worry…