Beer, barbecue and a gang of good friends are all you need to make the most of Independence Day. But while you might find all of that in your own backyard, there’s one thing that your boom box can’t compete with: live bands. Join the punk-rock picnic at Ziggy’s, where…
Mike Castaneda is mesmerized. An eerie, bluish glow lights up his face as he kneels onstage in front of a computer screen, clicking the mouse and bobbing his head to a frantic barrage of digital beats that blast like machine-gun fire from the amps at Modified Arts in downtown Phoenix…
Sometimes, breaking the law pays off. Last year, two young women from Tempe started sneaking into every stop of the Vans Warped Tour to illegally sell a compilation CD that they went into debt to produce. Going a little hungry didn’t stop them, and scrounging for gas money didn’t discourage…
Two days of wandering in the searing desert sun can give you wild visions. But even though it was hot enough to warp time itself at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on May 1 and 2, sets by legendary indie pioneers The Pixies, Kraftwerk and The Cure…
David Sheflin is absolutely the most fashionable man in town. Sheflin runs his high-end, vintage boutique in central Phoenix like a weekly salon, mingling with discerning customers and influential friends as though he’s Diana Vreeland presiding over Vogue. On the side, Sheflin deals in top-name mid-century furniture. He’s also a…
Nobody ever said you’ll get Tempe fans handed to you on a silver platter. That’s what Emily Haines, the keyboard-playing front woman for the indie pop band Metric, found out when her group headlined the annual New Times Music Showcase on Sunday, April 18. Metric’s catchy CD came out last…
Forget about beer. Not even an hour after finishing their Wednesday gig — on the opening night of the South by Southwest music festival — the members of Phoenix rock band Blanche Davidian are standing by the bar at the Elysium in downtown Austin, doing shots of Robitussin. Make that…
Thursday, February 26 Three intertwining stories of terminally ill patients and their loved ones make up the compelling drama of The Shadowbox, presented by Phoenix College Thursday, February 26, through Saturday, February 28. “Even though the setting is a hospice of sorts, the play is neither morbid nor melancholy, but…
Greasy food and cheesy tchotchkes are staples of almost any Valley festival. But the Rathayatra Parade and Festival in Tempe on Saturday, February 14, promises something a bit different — a chance to touch the ethereal plane. Such spiritual transcendence comes by way of pulling a towering, 20-foot-high, crimson-domed, garland-anointed…
Gingerly open the signed and numbered, limited-edition portfolio of prints that accompanies “New Religions,” John Nelson’s new show at Gallery Materia, and try resisting the urge to smile at the first image: a big pair of tighty-whities. As with Nelson’s previous work, his paintings grab the viewer with deceptively simple…
In the late ’70s, a lifelong passion for reading literature became a political act for Azar Nafisi, author of the best seller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. When she finished graduate school in the U.S. and went back to her native Iran, she saw her country radically…
Thursday, February 5 It’s an understatement to say there are a lot of mouths to feed at southern India’s Drepung Gomang Monastery; more than 1,500 Tibetan Buddhist monks reside in a facility originally built for a few hundred. So to raise money as well as awareness of Tibetan culture, a…
1/29-2/1 “It’s not a standard musical,” says cast member Clark Webb of Theater Works’ Songs for a New World. “It’s more cabaret-style.” Though the songs, written by wunderkind and Tony winner Jason Robert Brown (who wrote the score at age 20), are separate entities, they all blend together with common…
1/29-4/18 Mesa Southwest Museum’s new Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit, “A T-Rex Named Sue,” is a big deal in more ways than one. “We consider getting Sue a major coup for the Valley and for the museum,” says Cynthia Diaz, museum marketing coordinator. “First, because a lot of people are unaware that…
Sat 1/31 Strength in numbers, indeed. For the first time, all seven East Valley cities — Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler, Guadalupe, Gilbert, Mesa and Queen Creek — are joining forces to celebrate Black History Month with the inaugural East Valley Regional Unity Walk and Diversity Festival on Saturday, January 31. For…
Fri 1/23 Think downtown after dark is black and white and dead all over? Not this Friday, January 23, when “COLORS . . . 002” coats the Old Brickhouse Grill in creativity. A collaboration between Terrence O’Connor and Mark Chai — both working DJs — the COLORS series pools the…
Wed 1/28 As Quentin Tarantino proves, there is life for hopelessly obsessed film geeks beyond the counters of the neighborhood video rental store. Thanks to a local casting session (one of seven nationwide) hosted by the Independent Film Channel and Cox Communications, Ultimate Film Fanatic offers movie maniacs the chance…
Thursday, January 22 Artist Scott Snibbe uses deceptively simple wall projections and interactive computer programs to convey a sophisticated idea: emptiness, the Buddhist concept that everything defines and is defined by every other thing, that nothing exists independent from reality. In “Interdependence,” his exhibition opening at Arizona State University’s Computing…
If Myopia: the secret boxcars of pubescence, Djalma Primordial Science’s butoh dance performance, is successful, then viewers will be viscerally reconnected with life’s most awkward stage, the one we’d least like to relive: puberty. “When butoh is working well, the viewer begins to tremble — it’s a very direct transmission,”…
1/15-1/31 Talk to Gus Edwards, and it’s clear he has an opinion on everything under the sun. It’s also clear that he doesn’t take them or himself too seriously, leaving the subject of his latest hour-and-20-minute play, Dear Martin, Dear Coretta, in a rather precarious situation. But under Edwards’ deft…
1/17-1/18 Peaceniks and doves be advised: Steer clear of Papago Park this weekend. For all others who love heavy machinery and artillery, and who long for the days before Bono and Britney turned camouflage into a fashion statement, the 13th annual Papago Military Vehicle Show on Saturday, January 17, and…
Thursday, January 15 He jokingly refers to himself as “the Diaper Master” these days (ever since parenthood has given him a whole new source for jokes) but comedian Craig Shoemaker still knows how to conjure up his notoriously funny character “The Love Master” for maximum laughs. Feel the love on…
