ROB SCHUH USED TO BE ABLE TO bench-press 500 pounds. These days, he struggles to lift a more pedestrian 150. Schuh — arguably the Valley’s finest jazz drummer — is only 36, but he looks more damaged than his years. His short, receding hair exposes his huge Vulcan ears and…
Car dealers have long been notorious for finding creative ways to make customers part with their money. But Tempe attorney Michael Shaw thinks he’s found a new tactic. Shaw says he and his partners have uncovered a pattern of deception among many Arizona car dealers that has resulted in car…
Queen Creek is such a desolate place that when the Arizona Boys Ranch Spartans play football on a Friday, the lights of the stadium become a beacon in the desert. On October 15, the lights are blazing for the Spartans’ homecoming game, but the spectators are getting bored. The inept…
ANTHONY PERRI IS QUICK TO TELL PEOPLE THAT he’s not an educated guy. He dropped out of high school on the first day of his freshman year, after attending Italian (the one class he figured he could pass) and lunch. He’s a little fuzzy on history (he refers to General…
At 1 p.m. on Friday, August 20, Dennis Burke was an inmate at the Madison Street Jail. Four hours later, he was speaking to the Phoenix Planning Commission, explaining why he opposed the construction of a new 10-story jail facility a couple of blocks from where he’d spent his morning…
A.T. Holder is a punk. On this Saturday night at the Fire Escape, he’s only one of at least 100 kids finding high-decibel nirvana. But A.T. Holder can’t help but stand out in this crowd. He says he’s 12 years old, but he doesn’t look a day over 10. His…
Mike Pallagi felt like he knew Ryan Page way before he actually met him. At Sandpiper Elementary School in Scottsdale, Pallagi was an ungainly, bookish nerd who hung with the other overachievers. Page was the epitome of pre-adolescent cool, a blond-maned golden boy who coasted through his classes and was…
December 6, 1969, was one of the worst days of my life. Although I was barely old enough to spell my own name, I had already been programmed to love all things related to Texas A&M University and to despise all things related to the University of Texas. Particularly when…
Lucius Parr We Got a Problem (self-released) Lucius Parr’s name often gets unfairly overlooked when the Valley’s premier blues artists are listed, but anyone who’s caught his tight combo knows that his talent is undeniable. Parr has first-rate credentials. He and his brother Lamar absorbed the blues as young kids…
Pavement Terror Twilight (Matador Records) It’s one of the little ironies of indie-pop that Pavement has hit its creative stride just as much of its initial, underground crowd has grown tired of the band. The postpunk rule of career management has long been that you either reach a mass audience…
Between his weekly radio show on KJZZ and his work as entertainment director of the Rhythm Room, Bob Corritore has long held the title of the Valley’s greatest advocate for traditional blues and roots music. But Corritore is such an earnest and articulate fan that it’s easy to forget that…
Cibo Matto Stereo Type A (Warner Bros.) When Cibo Matto made it to MTV in 1996 with a goofy, giddy novelty song called “Know Your Chicken,” the natural reaction among the previously uninitiated was to write the duo off as a one-joke gimmick. The idea of two thickly accented Japanese…
No one would have blamed Ron Sexsmith if he’d decided to skip the Valley on his current tour. His last visit here, in July of 1997, qualified as a perfect disaster. First off, Sexsmith and his two-piece supporting band played a heartfelt show at Nita’s Hideaway to about 15 people…
It seems that every time Fred Green plays in California, the funk trio winds up relying on the kindness of rock heavyweights. At the group’s most recent Redondo Beach gig, a guitarist friend brought ex-Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, and Watt proceeded to get high in the band’s van before the…
Julian Coryell never really considered being anything other than a musician. His thinking is easy enough to explain: His father, Larry Coryell, has long been one of the world’s most celebrated jazz guitarists, and Julian grew up watching musical virtuosos come in and out of the family’s southern Connecticut home…
The Negro Problem Joys and Concerns (Aerial Flipout) If there’s a weakness surrounding L.A.’s recent pop renaissance, it’s that too many of the bands settle for emulating their heroes, right down to the very last “c’mon, c’mon” and “sha-la-la.” As transcendent as much of Badfinger and the Raspberries still sound…
It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks for the band Chula. For their first real road excursion, the emo-punk quartet had lined up a couple of Southern California gigs along with two other bands, to be capped by a return gig in Tempe. Three hours out of Phoenix, their van…
For a guy once known for his unwillingness to do interviews, Elvis Costello has turned out to be one of pop music’s most insightful commentators. Over the years, he’s actually emerged as something of a “player-coach,” to borrow a term Rolling Stone once applied to Pete Townshend (in fact, Costello…
Various artists Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Maverick Records) The world inhabited by Austin Powers is more an evocation of the way the ’60s were documented than of the time period itself. Its absurd devotion to swinging at all costs echoes films like Casino Royale and the Matt…
Nick Broomfield’s controversial 1998 documentary Kurt and Courtney works very hard to paint a negative portrait of Courtney Love. So hard, in fact, that by the end of it you almost find yourself feeling sorry for her. Everyone from Love’s father to her ex-boyfriend to her former nanny fires verbal…
Henry “Mojo” Thompson sits in his wheelchair, hunched over his kitchen counter, jotting down notes in a spiral notebook. His one-room South Phoenix apartment has the near-empty look of someone who’s either moving in or moving out. The only furnishings are a TV and VCR that both rest in one…
Ricky Martin Ricky Martin (Columbia Records) Whatever happened to the good old days, when the Grammy Awards were a joke and everybody knew it? Grammyland used to be a fanciful place where Jethro Tull was the pre-eminent hard rock band, while Toto and Christopher Cross were recognized as Mozarts of…
