“Emperors of Japan” sounds like something somebody would name their band while under the influence of psychedelic drugs. The Phoenix band sounds like it’s on a fabulous trip, too. Their latest album, Activator, opens with a song called “The Jesus Bee,” which is all woozy surf guitar with indecipherable, upper-register…
A guitarist wearing nothing but an oversized diaper. A white girl sporting a cat costume, then later, roller skating around stage with a fake fire extinguisher. A fit specimen of a man wearing a white fur coat. And an old dude in a peacock-esque headdress who can still bring the P-Funk.
These were just some of the things on display during the George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic (http://www.georgeclinton.com/) show at Marquee Theatre Wednesday night. At times, it didn’t all make sense. But when/if it starts making sense, it’s probably a sign that Clinton has died and gone back to the planet he is from.
“I’m basically a guy with tits.”
This is how 16-year-old Red Mountain High School student Kelly Ortiz describes herself at the beginning of her “Pageant Queen” episode for the MTV show Made, which airs Saturday, February 16.
Released in 2005, this was the second compilation (of three, so far) designed to showcase the artists on Ludacris’ DTP label. Of the 17 tracks here, Luda appears on eight — three are solo tracks (if you count “Intro”), and the rest are group efforts like “That’s My Shit,” with…
If somebody had told me that one night, I’d be on my knees, staring at Ludacris’ crotch for two hours, I’d never have believed them. But here I am, on the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, kneeling right in front of the stage at Celebrity Theatre, where Ludacris is…
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of tagging along with the Phoenix Bach Choir and the Kansas City Chorale at the 50th annual Grammy Awards . At the end of the day, they took home one phonograph statuette for “Best Engineered Album, Classical” during a star-studded affair in Los Angeles. (For a full list of winners, go to http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/50th_show/list.aspx)
Last year, local hip-hop duo The Premiere self-released a phenomenal album, London Paris New York — an audio opus packed with instrumentation from garage-rock guitar solos to New Wave synths, all layered over beds of bouncing beats and clever raps (“Patrick Swayze” still gets our vote for catchiest local song…
No tough goth punk worth his or her high-heeled steel-toed boots would let a broken collarbone get in the way of making great glam trash music. Not only did Wednesday 13, former vocalist/guitarist of Murderdolls and Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13, continue performing after a devastating car crash last…
Hip-hop star Ludacris hosted his “Luda Bowl” concert at Celebrity Theatre tonight, and his performance exemplified the showmanship of the genre. Not only did Ludacris have the audience of a thousand-plus fans all waving their arms in the air, but he proved to his DJ that “there are some true…
So Snoop Dogg comes to Scottsdale to blow the roof off Bud Bowl at Axis/Radius, and there are only two problems: one, there’s not really a “roof,” as the stage was set up outside, and two, there aren’t enough of the right kind of buds at Bud Bowl. “Anybody got…
As I type this, Diddy is still rocking the stage at Axis/Radius. The hip-hop mogul hit the stage around midnight, accompanied by smoke, lights, screams, and, of course, a massive entourage. Diddy’s knack for recycling rock riffs was apparent early on in the set, with the guitar riff from Rick…
While the celebs continue trickling down the red carpet here at Axis/Radius, there’s a ton of great live music on the outdoor stage. The evening started with a half hour set from Valley rapper Pokafase, who played some newer material and made several references onstage to “representin’ Arizona.” He did…
Since we last blogged, the following luminaries have traipsed past us: Junior Spivey, Matt Kamp of the Dodgers, Guy McIntire, Brian Waters of KC Chiefs, Jimmie Johnson, Bill Hall, Vanessa Minillo, and our two faves thus far — Terry Crews and Nick Lachey. Terry Crews was hamming it up –…
Here we are at Axis/Radius for the Super Thursday party with Diddy, hanging out on the red carpet. Thus far, it’s been a buffet of celebrities. The first person we saw was race car driver Danica Patrick, who stopped to talk to us for a moment. She was the first…
Magic Bullets’ bouncy New Wave pop (often sung with an affected British accent) sounds like a lot like Echo & the Bunnymen, but this San Francisco sextet puts its own spin on things. For example, the song “Spent Nights,” from the group’s 2006 debut, a CHILD but in life yet…
Hip-hop star Ludacris is a football fan with a lot to say about the Super Bowl. He really wanted to see the Dallas Cowboys make the championship game, but since they didn’t and it’s Giants versus Pats, his money’s on the Patriots when he comes to Glendale for the Super…
Diddy’s in town to throw his bling around for Super Bowl weekend, and you can bet your badonkadonk we’ll be partying with him. Thursday, January 31 is “Super Thursday” at Axis/Radius, and Diddy is set to perform for an hour and a half, along with sets by hip-hop stars Next and Valley rapper Pokafase. Not only will I be there in full regalia (that’s right, I’m actually ditching the ponytail/leather jacket look for once), but I’ll be accompanied by independent singer/songwriter Jody Gnant, who’ll be shooting exclusive video footage for this very blog.
The term “indie rock” is as vague as the term “rock” these days; thankfully, there are still people out there making music that can’t be defined, no matter how many adjectives or hyphens scribes throw into the description. Take Asthmatic Kitty Records artist Raymond Raposa (the sole member of Castanets),…
With Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers headlining Super Bowl XLII’s halftime show, we couldn’t help but wonder what other acts deserve the chance to play to one of the year’s biggest crowds. Of course, then also we got to wondering about what rare duets the event could motivate, especially after such great team-ups as Aerosmith and Britney Spears and Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake (which, okay, ended poorly). Here’s what we came up with.
Valley folk-rock guitarist extraordinaire Mat Weddle has gotten plenty of worldwide fame in the past 18 months, since the video for his acoustic cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” debuted on YouTube in August of 2006, including more than 1.5 million views, kudos from iTunes, and loads of press coverage from the likes of Spin.
And the attention just keeps on coming, as last week, legendary shock jock Howard Stern featured the song on his Sirius Satellite Radio show. Shoehorned in between pointed discussions about ABC reality show Wife Swap and Joey Buttafuoco’s new sex tape during the January 10 edition of the show, the self-proclaimed “King of all Media” heaped plenty of praise upon the bearded Obadiah Parker frontman and the song.
Better than:Being too cool to dance.
The Blue Man Group’s “How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.1” is like a mini pop-psychology lesson, embedded within an interactive, multi-media extravaganza. The premise behind the performance: a fledgling band of Blue Men order an instructional videotape titled The Rock Concert Instruction Manual that tells them how to be rock stars and give audiences a stellar concert experience.
If you’ve looked at the forums at Web site www.arizonabeats.com, you already know that my cover story on Phoenix hip-hop, “Raising Terrazona,” has ignited quite the firestorm of criticism from members of the local scene. For those who haven’t seen the forums yet, there’s a whole section titled “Arizona reacts to the New Times article ‘Raising Terrazona,’ wherein people in the forum level several complaints, including that the story was “racist,” that I tried to create tension that didn’t exist between two scenes, and that since I’m not a hardcore hip-hop fan, I had no business writing about the local hip-hop scene.
