Fresh off his awesome performance at The Big 4 Festival in Indio, Metallica frontman James Hetfield is scheduled to speak at Central Christian Church in Mesa on May 12.Hetfield will be part of a Q & A following a screening of Absent, a documentary directed by Gilbert filmmaker Justin Hunt,…
Rogue West, one of the last true punk dives on the west-side, is closing this Wednesday, according to this post on the venue’s official Facebook page:It’s with great sadness that I announce that after seven years of amazing live music and wacky behavior, the best little dive bar in town…
With the folks over at Cityslaang and YOBS closing doors, musician Stephen Steinbrink (French Quarter) and James Fella, of Gilgongo Records, have stepped up to the plate with Yellow Canary Dance Hall, scheduled to take over warehouse venue Sound Kontrol in South Phoenix, one of City Slaang’s prime spots. “We’re still…
Bad news for fans of country legend Loretta Lynn. She’s canceled her upcoming tour, including a stop at May 1 stop at Celebrity Theater. “As y’all know I just went and got my knee done a few weeks back,” a statement reads Lynn’s website. “I am sad to cancel the…
Ever wonder what the hard partying DJs that put on the weekly dance-party Sticky Fingers have in common with classic rockers Moody Blues? DJ William “Fucking” Reed hasn’t been spinning some glitch-hop remix of “Nights in White Satin” (not that I’m aware of at least), but both the long running…
Did you know that a third of a year is called a tertile? Now you do!The first tertile of 2011 (great word, right?) comes to end at the close of this month, which seems like a good time to get caught up on the best songs from the first part…
There’s never been less of a division between electro-pop bands and DJs. Case in point, Next Fest, which hits Sail Inn on April 30. The festival is a veritable who’s who of electronic dance acts, featuring turntablists, live bands, and groups that blend the two formats. …
While indie-rock flavors of the month come and go, it’s important to recognize when a band has stood the test of time and weathered the trend storms and sub-genre downpours. The Radar Bros., founded by former Medicine guitarist Jim Putnam way back in the 90s, is one such band. The…
You just don’t hear enough flutes in pop music. Couple that breathy sound with flanged and plucked bass, vintage synths, a sexy beat and an incredibly high falsetto and you’ve got “Orange Blossom” by Santa Barbara band Gardens & Villa. The tune tips its hat to The Talking Heads and…
Lonesome for a time when demented characters like Vampira, Elvira, and Morgus the Magnificent invaded late-night television bearing B-movie frights and cinematic shrieks? Those were the days when a memorable Saturday evening required little more than a ghoulish host and something creepy flickering on a black-and-white screen. The glory days…
When Emily Dickinson wrote, “I cannot dance upon my toes — no man instructed me — but oftentimes, among my mind, a glee possesseth me,” she must’ve been aware of the great irony that her words itself were a dance, practically leaping off and sashaying across the page. Dickinson is…
THURSDAY 21 27th Avenue Bar: DJ Manage, & DJ Android (Top 40, dance) Afterlife: Thumpin Thurzdays (various) AZ/88: Josh One (rare groove, urban funk) Bar Smith: Splash Thursday (reggae, dancehall, Top 40, house) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (jazz, blues, country, R&B, rarities, vintage) Blue Martini: Rewind Thursday with DJ…
You just don’t hear enough flutes in pop music, amirite? Couple that breathy sound with flanged and plucked bass, vintage synths, a sexy beat and an incredibly high falsetto and you’ve got “Orange Blossom” by Santa Barbara band Gardens & Villa. The tune tips its hat to The Talking Heads…
Cold Cave comes with a loaded resume. Wesley Eisold, the group’s songwriter, has played in punk and hardcore bands like Some Girls and Give Up the Ghost, and past and current members are associated with Xiu Xiu, Prurient and Miko Miko. Cherish the Light Years, Eisold’s latest, won’t get away…
Dirty Beaches is the work of Alex Zhang Hungtai, a 30-year-old born in Taiwan before spending time in Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, China, and, currently, Montreal. To call Dirty Beaches a band would be a misnomer. What Zhang Hungtai does is more akin to performance art, with live performances…
THURSDAY 14 Afterlife: Thumpin Thurzdays (various) AZ/88: Josh One (rare groove, urban funk) Bar Smith: Splash Thursday (reggae, dancehall, Top 40, house) Blue Martini: Rewind Thursday with DJ Mendez (various) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays (hip-hop, Top 40) Chilly Bombers: DJ Medik (Top 40, rock, old school) Cream Stereo Lounge: Bongo…
By the time you read this, the wellspring of Charlie Sheen and Rebecca Black jokes will have just about dried up. Such is the nature of the American pop-cultural machine, where the exploits of human train wrecks generate an instantaneous maelstrom of material for talk show hosts and dozens of…
Two of the most recognizable voices of the seventies are sharing the stage at US Airways Center. Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks have owned the radio waves for decades, with Stewart’s trademark raspy tone and Nicks’ ethereal gypsy mysticism making folks of both sexes weak in the knees. Fri., April…
Failure to file your income taxes is generally no laughing matter: Look no further than the plight of Wesley Snipes or Willie Nelson for proof of said statement. So, if you’ve endured through the annual onslaught of accountants, filing, and mailings, chances are good that you’re in need of some…
Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks make a pretty good pair for a lot of reasons. For one, both partied incredibly hard in their ’70s heydays, when Stewart fronted The Faces, arguably the finest blues rock band England ever produced, and Nicks singing in Fleetwood Mac, definitely the hardest soft-rock band…
Music photography can often be a static thing. You’ve no doubt seen the promo shots: bands scowling, arms crossed in front of a brick wall, that one guy staring away from the camera in a real meaningful way. But occasionally something happens in the middle between the visual and the…
RAC (Remix Artist Collective) are playing Bar Smith on May 6. Not familiar with RAC? Well you’re certainly familiar with the artists they’ve remixed — U2, Radiohead, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, John Lennon, The Shins, and Pink Floyd, among a ton of others.The Collective is pretty populist, tackling indie acts like…
