There is no doubt that rapping dominates hip-hop. No matter how good a beat is, for the casual hip-hop fan, the bars being spit over it will almost always be more important. Even a mega-producer like Kanye West didn’t ascend to superstar status until he released The College Dropout and…
Downtown Phoenix’s overall fun levels have taken a hit, as Obscura dance night at Rips Ales and Cocktails prepares to wind down from a monthly happening to a special event taking place whenever founder Robden Brethauer feels like it. Brethauer is making the change after nearly eight years of monthly…
The new year means new beginnings, fresh ideas, and more chances to give birth to new projects. In such a populous area, we are privy to a tremendous amount of ambition and diversity when it comes to the local music scene. The area’s creative class constantly churns out new music…
Like so many musicians before him, Redemptions front man Anthony Fama is trying to use his music as a vehicle to a second a chance to right all of the perceived wrongs in his life. Whether it be his personal financial mistakes, the missteps against past lovers, the wrongdoing against…
It’s hard to imagine a more destabilizing feeling for an indie touring band than waking up to see that the entire trailer has been stolen off the hitch, but that is exactly what Sundressed woke up too Saturday in Salt Lake City. “It was the most devastating feeling. I woke…
Representatives of every punk subscene will be at Leftover Crack’s gig at Mesa’s Nile Theater. The reason being is that Leftover Crack is really good at being punk. There are a lot of bands that describe themselves as makers of punk rock, but very few of them embody the attitude…
West Phoenix based rapper José “Low Key” Hernandez was in the process of making positive changes in his life. He was less than a year home from a six-month prison sentence for assault, but instead of boasting about it on records he decided to completely change his ways. But unfortunately…
The Phoenix music scene really does feel like it has grown a lot over the past few years, with new venues opening, new fans getting enticed into the scene, and new groups of musicians stepping up to reign over the rest as the biggest bands in town. But none of…
The Arizona Hip-Hop Festival really did absolutely everything right in regards to growing the second annual gathering of mostly Copper State-based rhymers. This year’s promotion seems more streamlined than last year’s including a sleek round of individual fliers for each act; the lineup was even bigger; and oh, it partnered…
In the past year and a half, Phoenix rapper Bag of Tricks Cat has gone on national and international tours opening for nerdcore heavyweight Mega Ran, with whom he dropped a split EP. He also recruited Bazaar of platinum-selling hip-hop group D12 to appear on his track “Never Sober.” A…
If there is one thing that Phoenix-based folk artist Daryl Scherrer knows about, it’s heartbreak. Whether performing his solo acoustic stuff as “The Voice Who Lost Its Man” or playing with either of his bands, The Blood Feud Family Singers and Monster May I, the central theme to any Daryl…
There is no arguing that Treasure MammaL is one of the strangest musical acts in the Valley of the Sun. When the group drops its next album I Will Cut You With My E.B.T. Card, it will enter the argument for being one of the biggest bands in the Valley of the…
Halloween starts early. It begins with a couple of odd Facebook posts, a meme or two, and by the first week of October it’s already looking like the nightmare before Christmas all over social media. Everyone seems to love Halloween time, whether they love the parties, bobbing for apples, or…
Earlier this year Bogan Via got to live every musicians dream when they got to shoot a video for their song “Kanye” overseas in Dubai, one of the coolest cities on the planet. They’ve relocated to Los Angeles, they get to tour far more often than the average band, and…
Apache Lake Music Festival is one of the best Phoenix music scene events of the entire year, and it’s coming up really soon! It’s not huge like the festivals Lucky Man production has been putting on and it doesn’t have quite production value of a Viva PHX, but Brannon Kleinlein…
Summer Ends Music Festival round two is right around the corner, and for its second year of early fall festing Lucky Man Concerts has brought Kanye West into the mix. What is the point of some other useless turn of phrase when the just the use of his name spruces…
Summer is finally ending, and the local music scene is ready for the temperature change with some cool new music video releases. Phoenix favorites like decker., MysticBlu, Red Tank!, No Volcano, and Pro Teens are bursting into fall with new multimedia material. Each of the videos by these five different…
I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my life. I actually kept count in 2013, when I attended 126 shows. In all the concerts I’ve seen, I never once have fallen asleep. Until Wednesday night’s Lenny Kravitz concert at Comerica Theatre. I dozed for awhile at Bonnaroo 2011 during…
Here are our co The Donkeys – Friday, September 4 – Valley Bar The Donkeys, not to be confused with the late-’70s power pop band from West Yorkshire or the Japanese noise rock outfit, have a solid fan base in Phoenix, prompting these Californians to visit about once a year…
Raheem Jarbo has been living with split personalities since 2007. That’s when he started releasing hip-hop as Random, a socially conscious rapper trying to spit his version of truth to power, and Mega Ran, his video game rap- and nerdcore-based alter ego. With Jarbo’s newest record, RNDM, dropping on September…
What sort of things is left to be said about a founding member of a band called Slime and the Boobytramps after his untimely death? Raucous stories of house party destruction? Outrageously worded inappropriate jokes meant to offend? Self-described shitty tunes meant to clear the room? Well, yeah, all those…
While upstart bands eye the throne, Captain Squeegee is fervently working to defend the crown as Phoenix music video kings. The Mesa-based atomic jazz fusion ensemble has been steadily producing the highest quality music videos in the Phoenix indie scene with a barrage of videos in multiple disciplines. The first…
