Rumor has it Poeina Suddarth canceled her June 27 Phoenix show because she couldn’t arrange transportation to the Valley, let alone the venue. Suddarth currently is supporting Poeina on her “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” tour, relying on the ride-sharing kindness of fans, strangers, and truckers to get her from gig…
Forget Japan: Jann Klose is big in Indonesia. The songwriter and guitarist is something of a cult figure there, and he’s still not sure exactly how it happened. “It’s a really weird thing,” he says with a laugh while on the road in New Jersey. “People are still posting this…
While recycling is a great way to help the environment, it’s hardly exciting. Yet there’s a lot more that can be done with recycled materials if you set your mind to it. Gain inspiration at the Musical Instrument Museum’s Family Day featuring recycling-related events inspired by Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra. Trolling…
Forget Japan: Jann Klose is big in Indonesia. The songwriter and guitarist is something of a cult figure there, and he’s still not sure exactly how it happened. “It’s a really weird thing,” he says with a laugh while on the road in New Jersey. “People are still posting this…
Musician/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo has made a career out of taking chances. His first true band was the San Francisco-based punk outfit The Nuns. Then he joined up with cow-punks Rank & File before forming the country-oriented True Believers with his brothers, eventually hacking out a solo career. His music typically…
While the Atlanta Dream continue to battle it out with the Chicago Sky for the top spot in the WNBA’s East Conference, the Phoenix Mercury hold down third in the West just behind bitter rival Los Angeles Sparks. Both teams feature 2013 all-star selections: rookie center Brittney Griner and six-time…
David Beckham is no longer there to bend it for the L.A. Galaxy, but there are still plenty of stars on the squad that might offer the Cristiano Renaldo-led Real Madrid a challenge. They will at least make the game entertaining as the Spanish La Liga team utilizes a super…
Musician/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo has made a career out of taking chances. His first true band was the San Francisco-based punk outfit The Nuns. Then he joined up with cow-punks Rank & File before forming the country-oriented True Believers with his brothers, eventually hacking out a solo career. His music typically…
David Beckham is no longer there to bend it for the L.A. Galaxy, but there are plenty of stars who might offer the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Real Madrid a challenge when the two teams collide at University of Phoenix Stadium on Thursday, August 1. The match is sure to be entertaining…
There’s always been a dark edge lurking behind the glittery pop and warm strings of Glen Campbell. Yet, it’s taken an unexpected album, culled from a series of time-killing studio outtakes, to reveal this side of Campbell. See You There, coming August 6 on Surfdog Records, takes more than a…
Baltimore 1962 was a turbulent place and time where “the races” did not intermingle. Music, however, was a meeting point, even if it meant dancing separately. Adapted from the 1988 John Waters movie of the same name, the stage production of Hairspray captures the trials and tribulations of ever-optimistic plump…
It’s been a while since Chris Isaak released an album of all-new music (2009’s Mr. Lucky), but for the rockabilly crooner with the spangled jacket, fat Chet Atkins-style guitar, and perfectly coifed hair, new material isn’t really necessary. Isaak made his name with his early albums, most notably San Francisco…
Peer pressure is such a difficult thing — especially in high school. The urge to “go along” with friends’ perceptions and beliefs is difficult to overcome. That challenge is faced by East High jock Troy Bolton as he waffles between being only a basketball star and auditioning for the school…
If your glass is typically half empty rather than half full, and you’re more likely to take the cynical, sarcastic side of the everything, pointing out and embracing life’s inequities as if they were your own just for a sympathetic nod, then an evening with Richard Lewis, the perpetually pessimistic…
If David Lowery were allowed only one word to describe his punk, Middle Eastern, folk, ska, Slavic, Indian, Spanish, psychedelic, country, rock band Camper Van Beethoven, it would be “weird.” Weird that a band with a catalog of entirely dissimilar albums has survived 30 years. Weird that influences include hippies,…
It’s almost scary to think about the music that guitarist John Scofield would have created as a heavy metal artist or as someone who dabbled in psychedelic, prog, or surf rock. Instead, Scofield touches on all these areas together, with his mostly jazz-fusion-ish construct Überjam. Maybe deconstruct would be a…
Oy vey. Interviewing comedian Richard Lewis is like being inside one of his monologues. The only difference is that rather than a one-sided conversation operating on a stream of consciousness level, there are breaks where questions are inserted — though those are only brief bumps in Lewis’ full-throttle comedic autobahn…
The B-52s’ funky, flirty and groovalicious party sound is as unmistakable today as it was when the band formed unexpectedly in 1976 after founding members Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, and Cindy and Ricky Wilson downed a flaming volcano drink at an Athens, Georgia restaurant. “We never planned on…
The Phoenix Art Museum’s current exhibition “Riding Tall” could have simply been named “Giddyup” for all the images of cowboys on horseback. Culled from the museum’s expansive collection of art of the American West, few other images — buffalo perhaps — are as iconic and cemented in our western ideal…
The Baptist Generals are coming, but we’re not talking Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee. Rather, July marks the return of a psychedelic folk band from Denton, Texas, last heard from circa 2003. Back then they were touring behind their debut release, No Silver/No Gold, a crash-bang-boom rush of…
Certain records seem to appear, somehow, at virtually every yard sale: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Foreigner 4, Carole King’s Tapestry . . . and Psychedelic Furs’ Talk Talk Talk. The first three make sense, given how ubiquitous they were, but the latter is harder to explain. Released in 1981, Talk Talk Talk,…
The B-52s’ funky, flirty, and groovalicious party sound is as unmistakable today as it was when the band formed unexpectedly in 1976, after the founding members downed a flaming volcano drink at an Athens, Georgia, restaurant. “We never planned on having a band. We were friends and crashed parties together…
