It hasn’t been a very good year for Sky Lounge. The popular downtown dance club made news headlines in May, when a group of men leaving the club got into a fight outside the building that escalated into a shooting, leaving one man injured and another dead.
And last week, Sky Lounge was shut down by inspectors from the City of Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department for building code violations.
About a month ago, I posted a blog asking Phoenix artists to send me their CDs for review. This week, I review the latest disc from Valley singer/songwriter Matthew Reveles, whom I first saw perform back in 2002 at a “Battle of the Bands” at ASU West. He’s come a long way.
My weekend began with the news that my favorite Zia Record Exchange location, near 40th street and Thunderbird, was closing down. Bummer. Now I have to drive even farther when I want to browse bins of 99-cent records or maybe pick up a novelty “boxing nun” puppet. I had to console myself with two bottles of red wine and a YouTube marathon of ‘80s commercials
The Phoenix New Times Summer of Sound pop show at The Sets on Saturday, June 21 was a lot of fun, and several local musicians came out to show their support, including Paul “PC” Cordone from Chocolate Fountain and Los Guys (who introduced What Laura Says Thinks and Feels) and Peachcake’s Stephen Pruett, who enjoyed the entire show while wearing a beanie cap shaped like a pink bunny head.
Here are a handful of shows that were just announced this week.
So I walked into the Zia Record Exchange location near 40th street and Thunderbird this morning, hoping to sell a Jimi Hendrix box set and some DVDs for extra weekend cash. But when I walked in, the whole building was empty (save for a couple CD bins), and a work crew was stripping the walls. I asked the clerk what was going on, and she informed me that they were closed; they found out they were closing about a week ago. She suggested I take my potential trades to the Zia locations on 19th Avenue and Thunderbird, or 19th Avenue and Indian School.
Summer in Phoenix means more than just triple-digit temperatures and massive music festival tours. Here in the Valley of the Sun, it also means a smaller population (see ya in November, snowbirds!) and a ton of awesome local shows. And while paying $45 for a festival ticket at some massive…
Fans of Irish folk-rock like Flogging Molly will go Paddy-batty for this local release, which blends traditional tunes like “Hag at the Churn” and “One Eyed Reilly” with spirited, fiddle-driven originals like the snarky title track (where guitarist/vocalist Liam Mackey wails “C’mon, c’mon, Annie, tell us all who’s the daddy?…
So our regular, weekly “Flier of the Week” doesn’t go up until tomorrow, but after stumbling upon this fly flier for weekly Vice Saturdays at e4, I had to share. Nothing like a glossy card with a foxy lady to get us out to a Top 40/hip-hop dance night.
A few weeks, ago, I posted a blog inviting local music artists to send their CDs to me for review. I vowed to review each local CD in the order it was received. Since then, I’ve gotten a handful of CDs and done reviews, giving critical treatment to Underwater Getdown, Reign of Vengeance, and Dude Offline. This week, I’m reviewing Mr. Blackbird.
This past weekend was split between work and play. 80 percent of the time, when I go out, I’m out to cover shows and events for this here fine publication. So it was on Friday night, when I drove out to Last Exit Bar & Grill in Tempe for the Tramps & Thieves CD release party. Saturday, I headed to an old haunt, the monthly industrial dance night *Sadisco, at Homme in Central Phoenix. Sunday was spent drinking potent imported liquor at a friend’s house, so we’ll skip that bit (not that I remember a whole lot anyway).
This abject Amy Winehouse video surfaced on the Internet today, a viral outbreak that started with British tabloid News of the World posting it to their site. The video, shot by Winehouse’s continually-incarcerated husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, shows Winehouse and a friend singing a song that delivers slurs to all sorts of races, sexual orientations, and even the handicapped. Later, Winehouse is shown passed out. Here is the video:
Surely Tempe-based Americana/rock bands get tired of the Gin Blossoms comparisons. But that’s the best measuring stick we can come up with for many of the bands making music off Mill Avenue now – including Los Guys and Tramps & Thieves. The music harks back to the days when Mill Avenue was a rock club strip, and heartfelt confessions made their way through lyrics draped over solid Americana strumming and time-tested rock rhythms. The sound always reminded me of Heartland Rock, lost in the desert and trying to find its way back.
Here’s a handful of shows that were just announced this week.
After seeing Eartha Kitt perform with the Phoenix Symphony, I had to find an album that contained most of what I’d heard during her performance, and then some. The Very Best of Eartha Kitt is a two-disc, 35-song collection of her best-known works, from “I Want to Be Evil” and…
The gravel-voiced, avant-garde king of indescribable booze-jazz/art rock/blues-folk/dissident cabaret is making his first appearance in the Valley in 30 years. Waits’ song characters — whether it’s a hooker in Minneapolis sending a postcard or a lonely kid sitting after hours in Napoleone’s Pizza House — have endured with as much…
The dark electro-musings of Tucson artist Shawn Foree (a.k.a. Digital Leather) have never sounded more spastic, insidious, and danceable than on Sorcerer. This 12-track album blends quirky art-pop influences like Devo, Plastic Bertrand, and Tubeway Army with layers of synthesized desolation, lyrical angst, and gothic intensity to create a morose,…
She’s 81 years old, dressed in a curve-hugging black velvet dress with a slit all the way from waist to foot, exposing the dress’ red satin interior and the entire length of her shapely leg, which she extends luxuriously toward the people seated below her. Then she crouches down, opens…
This week’s creepy-cool flier is for the monthly industrial/EDM event Sadisco. The art fits with the “doppleganger” theme of this Saturday’s soiree.
There are a lot of crappy dating sites littering the Information Superhighway. With millions of users placing and browsing personals ads and inputting general, arbitrary information like “Interests,” “Politics,” and “Religion,” finding true compatibility can be an almost impossible task.
But if music is a universal language and also the language of love, then perhaps a personals site that focuses on the musical interests of its users isn’t such a bad idea.
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog soliciting local CDs for review in this weekly feature called “You Asked for It.” Since then, I’ve received albums from Underwater Getdown, Reign of Vengeance, and this week’s review subject, Dude Offline.
What the hell is wrong with Metallica? I had some empathy about the whole Napster snafu in 2000, when the band complained about copyright violations and being ripped off for royalties when Napster was a free file-sharing site. Metallica won a settlement from Napster (now a pay site), and alienated a lot of fans in the process.
