Raging Machine

FRI 6/3Dear Cubicle Drone,We are pleased with your interest in The Raethier Corp and our latest event, Corposition, at 6 p.m. Friday, June 3, at Lumbre Metal Gallery, 925 Grand Avenue. Robert Kilman, a cog in our collective art machine, has reviewed your vitals and determined your “current condition of…

Ball Busters

FRI 6/3Kick the ball! Kick some ass! In this heat, they’ll never last! That’s what we’re hoping, at least, when the Vancouver Whitecaps come down from cooler climates to take on our own Arizona Heatwave in the Women’s United Soccer League’s Western Division. The game, which takes place Friday, June…

Hippie Hippie Shake

6/3-6/4Most of us can’t chalk up our blunders to “all the drugs we did in the ’60s.” Deadheads under the age of 50 have had to acknowledge that “acid” today is more strychnine than LSD, and since their parents did all the good drugs, they have no excuse for the…

This Week’s Day-by-day Picks

THU 2 If you can get past Devil Doll’s (a.k.a. Cleveland-born Colleen Duffy’s) Sherilynn Fenn/”A Songstress Named Desire”/sell-your-soul-for-a-night-with-her good looks, you’ll have time to take a picture, too! But you’ll also hear a voice and a sound so smooth — smoother than Blue Velvet, in fact, the cinematic dreamscape one…

This Week’s Day-by-day Picks

THU 26 Girlie shows never get old, even if the girlies do. Such is the appeal of Terry Earp’s play Have Tassels, Will Travel, based on the life of legendary burlesque performer CeCe Walker, a.k.a. “Satan’s Angel: The Devil’s Mistress.” Walker herself, long since retired from her days of twirling…

Rock the Joint

SUN 5/29Kneebody isn’t lacking in credibility, not with the L.A.-based, instrumental jazz-rock fusion quintet’s collective résumé that sports gigs with Ani DiFranco, Snoop Dogg, and jazz trumpet luminary Dave Douglas. Yet even with academic credentials from New York’s prestigious Eastman School of Music for four of Kneebody’s five members (the…

La Poème

SAT 5/28You are an MFA candidate. Tuition is sky-high. A 5,000-word short story is due tomorrow. A stack of rejection letters from highbrow publications is piled on the desk. You marinate in your own filth for days. Your partner hates you. And the frequent diarrhea. Oh, the shitty end. You…

Scars on Ice

5/27-5/30One thing’s for sure about the ongoing NHL lockout: Neither the owners nor the players at the heart of this ridiculous impasse will ever be mistaken for Mensa members. And while the sporting public at large has responded to the impasse with a collective yawn, that whimpering in the corner…

Milk Dude

FRI 5/20Way back in the late ’80s when college radio was actually a living, breathing entity, many a dorm room in these United States was filled with the smart-ass humor and sublimely amateurish pop-punk of Philadelphia’s Dead Milkmen. Such heartfelt songs like “Punk Rock Girl,” “Bitchin’ Camaro,” and “The Thing…

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THU 19 Try as you may, you can’t have a social life through osmosis, introvert. But you can celebrate plant life on Thursday, May 19, by visiting Objects Gallery at Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback, where Craig Pearson and Potheads International host “Tropical.” The event kicks off a…

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THU 12 So you ate paint chips as a kid? Well, that explains a lot. But while the art hanging in Scottsdale’s Marshall Way galleries on Thursday, May 12, might be good enough to eat, please refrain from returning to your childhood eating habits. The Bon Appetit ArtWalk features special…

Buck Amok

5/13-5/14Generally, if you mention the letters PBR, it’s cause for ears to perk up in hopes of a crisp snap of the tab that pops open a cold one. Well, it won’t be that PBR, but there surely could be some snapping sounds, mainly those of human bones, when the…

Mad Props

Anger is a gift that Brandon Ladd Burkey wants to share. Much like the characters in the Eric Bogosian play subUrbia, which Burkey directs, the Valley transplant (by way of L.A.) is fed up with the status quo. “I believe that what we need here in the Valley is a…

Full Nelson

SUN 5/8 Willie Nelson’s career has evolved from silky-voiced crooner in the 1960s to pot-smoking hell-raiser in the 1970s and ’80s to critically acclaimed country legend in the aughts. You might figure that’s a semi-natural progression for artists who’ve been around for the span of five decades. But that’s just…

Big Draw

SAT 5/7 There’s a myth that nothing free is worth having. Tell that to the thousands of comic book fans who will stand in line for hours to get their paws on complimentary comics on “Free Comic Book Day,” happening Saturday, May 7. More than 3,000 comic shops worldwide will…

Night Moves

SAT 5/7 To some, a “nighttime art run” consists of a mobile graffiti spree with the intent of tagging the maximum number of block walls before dawn. But don’t expect many aerosol paint-toting runners at the Night Run for the Arts, since the event is not about turf boundaries, but…

Pretty Dorky

5/5-5/6 Laurie Notaro is ecstatic that so many women want to be certified “idiots.” But give her a break, already. “People are totally mad at me,” says the author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, who makes appearances in Tempe and Phoenix, respectively, on Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May…

Hawg Heaven

Andrew Wise isn’t a biker. But he’ll live the life this weekend — along with at least 15,000 to 20,000 biker dudes and chicks — at the inaugural Cycle de Mayo at the Lake Pleasant Harbor Marina. Wise, owner of Banana Communications and producer of the event, dreamed up the…

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THU 28 Still thumping “Hey Jealousy” from your Dodge Laser and mouthing “The Gin Blossoms are sooo fresh” to a carload of babes at the stoplight? Time to hightail it to Martini Ranch, 7295 East Stetson Drive in Scottsdale, on Thursday, April 28, for New Times New Music, which starts…

Cover Story

SAT 4/23 The last thing you’d expect from Bisbee indie-folk darlings Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl is a cover album. “It seems kind of cheesy,” admits vocalist Amy Ross, “but we’re covering songs by our friends’ bands. It’s not like we’re doing ‘Hotel California.’ These are songs people keep…

Pedaling Home

SUN 4/24 We’ve gotta admit that when it comes to our participation in Valley Metro’s annual Bike to BOB event, the season’s the reason. That is, if it’s shaping up to be a banner year for the hometown Diamondbacks, we don’t mind pedaling down Central Avenue for a win at…

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THU 21 You don’t get to be Rusty Wallace — with 55 NASCAR Cup career wins in more than 20 years — without being über-competitive. So just because Wallace won’t actually be behind the wheel of his quarter-scale, remote-controlled stock car at the MiniFASTCAR Challenge on Thursday, April 21, he’s…