Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico’s victory over the French army in the 1862 Battle of Puebla. The rich history and cultural importance of America’s favorite Mexican holiday is celebrated annually downtown at the Cinco de Mayo Festival Phoenix. The event, naturally, features a plethora of fine food, cold Mexican beer,…
Darkness surrounds the Soft Moon. So does a sense of struggle, hopelessness, and want, the sound of a mind searching for searching for sanity and peace in a confusing world. The Soft Moon is the musical voice of Luis Vasquez, a man battling inner demons and willing to go to…
How often has someone lost a job or project opportunity because they didn’t know the right person? Too often, because for today’s business, it’s safer and easier to work with known entities. So, get in the know at RadiatePHX, the monthly networking event for business and community leaders. Connect over…
Do not come to the Swans concert expecting to hear a parade of songs from the latest album, or preceding ones for that matter. Swans leader Michael Gira doesn’t dwell in the past. Instead, he strives for the next “invigorating, energizing” sound to move his world. “It’s more about internally…
It’s theater where not a word is spoken, yet The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, a one-act play featuring more than 400 characters amongst a city-like setting, bustles to the point of seeming downright loud. Austrian playwright Peter Handke offers an outsider’s perspective over the ebb and flow…
The toughest thing about being a performing artist has to be exploring new works and ideas. Sure, one can perform for friends, but are they really going to provide that constructive criticism that can turn the so-so into fabulous? That’s where nueBOX’s Live Platform comes in. The idea behind this…
Lewis and Clark’s birch-bark canoe journey from St. Louis to Oregon helped open up the west and inspire future generations to push beyond imaginary boundaries. Charles Fritz was certainly inspired, enough so that the artist retraced the pair’s famous route twice. Along the way, Fritz visited sites of noteworthy events—and,…
Calling the artists participating in the “36th Annual Contemporary Crafts” exhibition “crafters” would certainly do them injustice. These aren’t papier-mâché, Popsicle stick houses, and yarn dream catchers, but finely conceived art pieces formed within traditional craft media such as metals, wood, glass, ceramics, fibers, basketry, jewelry, book arts, and paper-making…
Given the nature of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” Arlo Guthrie’s signature song, clocking in at 18:37 and containing 2,833 words, one might think Guthrie would be the talkative sort. Maybe other renderings of that epic song, some stretching 30, even 45 minutes, have Guthrie being more economical with his words. In…
Though Leftover Salmon has been making music for the better part of 25 years, it took a six-pack of beer to inspire the band’s latest album. However, not in the typical sense of drinking one in the search for ideas. Instead, Colorado’s Breckenridge Brewery tapped the band for a quartet…
Some theater never gets old — especially when bawdy singing, sultry dancing and a bygone era are in the mix. Such is Chicago, marking it’s 40th anniversary. The play’s setting takes it back 50 years further to prohibition-era Chicago, a time when jazz was swinging and, according to the press,…
Men, it’s time to get your kilt on and see what you’re made of. We’re talking about the annual Scottish Highland Games—a show of strength, not just physically, but also culturally. Expect traditional Scottish music, from bagpipes to drum and fife corps, along with fine Scottish dancing. Food, games, and…
“The hard thing with the acoustic guitar is to not get too repetitive,” says guitarist Andy McKee from his home in Topeka, Kansas. “It’s hard to write new music that doesn’t sound like everything else.” The man has a point, as is painfully clear with all too many singer-songwriters repeating…
“Crumpled, Dented, and Crushed” sounds like what happens to your car following a bad accident. This Herberger Theater Art Gallery exhibit isn’t far removed from that concept, though there is limited car-related art (and what’s there is perfectly wrecked). Mangled goods, so to speak, is the setting these 35 Arizona…
Grand Forks, North Dakota saw a high of 9 degrees and a low of minus-18 on Februrary 26. That’s way too cold for South African native Albert Mazibuko, who describes the scene outside his hotel room window. “We are freezing. It is very cold,” says the Ladysmith Black Mambazo singer…
Philip Glass knows no boundaries. The acclaimed modern composer’s career began “properly” enough, with study at the Julliard School of Music and work in Pittsburgh’s public schools. A move to Paris changed everything, as Glass delved into a period of minimalism enhanced by the revelatory discovery of Indian classical music’s…
Acclaimed jazz bassist Charnett Moffett has performed with a who’s who of jazz artists while also leading his own cutting-edge ensembles. His latest venture: The Nettwork Trio, any combo of musicians Moffett feels can best explore the divergent aspects of his more than three-decade long career. The current incantation includes…
The husband/wife team of Phoenix band the Love Me Nots, Michael Johnny Walker and Nicole Laurenne, has never been afraid to reinvent itself. The garage rockers in 2013 debuted their electro-fuzz outfit Zero Zero, merging 1960s psychedelia, gritty guitar licks, and new wave dance pop. Now there’s Motobunny, a garage-meets-glam-meets-’80s…
Something about a jam band’s free-form nature lures its members into the world of electronica. Maybe it’s the improvisational aspect and turns the music makes as DJs adapt to the audience at hand? Maybe it is simply the like-mindedness that a solid dance groove trumps all others? Whatever the reasons,…
The world’s oldest known fermented fruit-based beverage dates back 9,000 years. Beer is a newer creation, going back only 5,000 years to ancient Egypt, the result of an accidental pairing of grains, wild yeast, and water in a vessel subject to proper climatic conditions. Brewing is somewhat more precise these…
The music of San Francisco band Dodos packs plenty of shifting time signatures, stylistically syncopated drumming, and a constantly growing technical savvy in its music, but don’t even think of labeling this duo as math rock. If anything, the band embodies the spirit of 1970s prog icons such as Yes…
The Arizona Fine Art Expo is a lot to absorb, with artists representing 115 different studios. The expo’s goal, according to organizers, is to provide a one-on-one experience. Artists will not only be on hand to discuss their work, but offer mini-workshops while producing art on-sight. Whether it’s sculpture (wood,…
