When I heard Zakk Wylde was coming to town, I immediately assumed it was by way of Black Label Society. I couldn’t wait to see his guitar prowess once again — including his wonderful dedication to the pinch harmonic — and his hits from more than two-dozen albums spanning almost…
Earlier this month, Gwar and Warbeast kicked off a tour and brought down the house at Tucson’s Rialto Theatre. But the thrash metal gods, lo and behold, have forsaken us here in Phoenix, and the tour didn’t come our way. Hell, the duo is even going through spots like Des…
Lots of artists stand out for designing some kick-ass metal covers — like the recently deceased Storm Thorgerson, for example, who lent his art to everyone from Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath over the course of 30 years. But when it comes to weaving together the heavy metal standard of…
Imagine taking a demonic ride through a girl’s mind, filled with fantastic illusions, haunting, heavy melodies, and vengeance against a world that has forgotten her. To get there, you could spend an evening with Otep, one of the most prolific female-fronted bands of the past decade — or have a…
It’s been a long time since the music industry had musicians’ best interests in mind. And it’s not just the greed of the industry; it’s the fans, too. I’m not talking about the multimillionaires in Metallica. I’m talking about the underground punk band whose album you downloaded for free last…
It looks like all these Record Store Days are paying off. In 2012, global sales for vinyl records hit $171 million, their highest point since 1997 — the same year that Hanson’s “MMMBop” topped the charts. This Saturday, April 20, marks the sixth annual Record Store Day, when artists and…
Some of you may remember last March when a little column called Metal Mondays debuted via Up on the Sun, and immediately dove into the subjects matters of Pantera, strippers, Jack Daniel’s, and YouTube…
For as long as metal has been around, people have associated the sound with “The Devil” and “Satanism.” Locally, it’s slim pickins’ finding an actual Satanic metal band to chat with. I’m not talking “dressed in black” here; I’m talking blood-guzzling, church-burning, javelina-murdering dudes donning corpse paint with greasy long…
This weekend, McDowell Mountain Music Festival celebrated its 10-year anniversary in style, at a new primo location of Margret T. Hance Park, with good beer from Deschutes, and with awesome bands like The Shins, The Roots, Balkan Beat Box, Les Claypool, and more. You can catch up on our reviews,…
Nineties nostalgia — with its grungy flannel shirts, giant Gameboys, and crunchy guitars — is upon us. The next “remember the days” wave will undoubtedly be for the late ’90s/early 2000s, when nu-metal first took hold of the radio dial (it’s held on ever since). So expect Coal Chamber, Sevendust,…
Anthrax @ Marquee Theatre|3/24/13There are few things more exciting than being present for the start of a legendary thrash band’s tour, when they are fresh, energetic, and have a brand-new set list. Metalheads in Tempe had that glorious opportunity Sunday night, when the Metal Alliance Tour came through town on…
From Up on the Sun’s “Fire Marshall Beck” rant in 2007 to praise of his project Staren Black in 2010, the relationship between the New Times and local metal figure Marshall “Fucking” Beck has always been, um, “complicated.” Certain members of the New Times staff — past and present –…
You can’t go wrong with a healthy dose of Anthrax in the morning. At least, that’s what I thought as I listened to their new EP Anthems, released on Tuesday, March 19. Add that to the fact that these thrash metal legends are coming through town this Sunday on the…
Usually, people move from places like the middle of nowhere to big industry cities like New York and Los Angeles to find musical success, and stay there. Not the other way around. But for former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven and his wife Heather Vincent-Niven, finding solace in Arizona’s…
Chances are, if you’re a weekly reader of Metal Mondays here at Up on the Sun, you don’t think of metalheads as thickheaded, grotesque, and crude Neanderthals. You know metal fans can be smart, erudite, and witty. Still, among the pop masses, there’s a prevailing attitude that metal listeners are…
The Used @ Marquee Theatre | 2/24/13 On Sunday night, the Marquee Theatre reverberated with the sound of cheering fans and hardcore screamo tunes on the Take Action Tour, which aims to raise awareness about such issues as teen suicide, bullying, and more (super-badass). The tour this year consists of…
Music has been recognized as one of the higher art forms for centuries. In modern pop music, its most recognizable tool has been the guitar. I find the guitar fascinating. I could spend hours poring over photos of guitars and learning about the intricate construction process behind how to make…
Post-hardcore rockers The Used have been put through the wringer more than a couple times during the 12 years they’ve spent together as a band. It’s hard to imagine that even before the time spent addicted to drugs, label shifts, and the on-stage injuries, the members had already experienced homelessness,…
The Used has been in survival mode its entire career — a trait that’s come in handy in the ever-shifting, ever-volatile music industry. Long before the band’s brand of shouty screamo fell out of grace as the de rigueur music genre of disenfranchised (but still MTV) youth, frontman Bert McCracken…
“The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.” –B.B. King “Metal confronts what we’d rather ignore. It celebrates…
The word “keytar” isn’t often paired with “seductive,” but don’t tell that to Phoenix-based electro-rock trio Access Zero. The band’s music is hot-blooded and aggressive, not the brittle, dweeby synth-pop typically associated with the instrument. When the band performed live at Fetish Ball a couple of years ago at The…
I wasn’t raised on Anthrax or Zeppelin, or anything between in regards to the heavy metal alphabet. No, the soundtrack of my youth was classical music. I competed in classical piano competitions for the better part of a decade, and Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…
