Every time you drive past U.S. Airways Center, Diana Taurasi’s looking down on you, holding a two-toned basketball and smiling. The 6-foot shooting guard for the Phoenix Mercury, our professional women’s basketball team, has been honored with one of those life-size cardboard effigies, which looms in the second-floor windows of…
I learned a few things at the Slayer/Marilyn Manson show:
1) Slayer becomes more aggressive and tight as the band’s brutal set wears on.
2) Marilyn Manson is a consummate performer, but looks better clothed.
3) Some stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. The reason is they are true.
Should Amy Winehouse go to rehab? Should she retire from music? Should she divorce her husband? Does anybody care?
Get ready to crank your credit cards, PHX folks, ‘cause Future Shock’s back with the latest “just announced” concerts coming to town. This week’s edition is like a rock ‘n’ roll Baskin Robins, beeyotch, with acts representing the many different flavors the genre has to offer, from indie to emo to straight-out bizarro.
Legend says that blues great Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil at the crossroads in exchange for ungodly musical skill. Dax Riggs, former singer/guitarist of indie-rock duo Dead Boy and the Elephantmen, seems to have had a similar meeting with Satan before recording this album. “Have mercy on…
The psychedelic effects shine through sonically on Blanche Davidian’s second album. Songs like “Queef Action” and “Rottweilers Keep Following Me” brim with fuzz and roar with reverb behind singer Jamie Monistat VII’s spacey, snarky vocals, and the title track is a 61/2-minute raging jam. There’s even the occasional hippie vocal…
I’ve been burping up the taste of local acid-punk band Blanche Davidian for the past two days — specifically, the carbonated cough syrup flavor of the band’s new “Orange Sunshine” shot, available exclusively at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. The shot was the first drink I had when I arrived at…
We’re debuting a new feature with Up on the Sun where every Friday we’re gonna give you the heads up and 411 on any just announced kick-ass or big-ass concerts that will be visiting Valley venues in the coming months.
I can hear the ghost of Billie Holiday now: “What the hell is that, a programmed drum beat? Why is it burying my vocals? How could they turn all my winsome wails into sound bites and samples? This is NOT the blues!” Perhaps the blues legend would be honored that…
Reading lengthy excerpts from Nikki Sixx’s memoir, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star (out September 18 from First MTV Books/Pocket Books), and listening to its accompanying soundtrack by his band Sixx: A.M. (out now on Eleven Seven Music) is like running up to…
Perhaps the anemic audience at the Sunset Festival caused Stiletto Formal singer Kyle Howard to dive off the balcony inside the Venue of Scottsdale toward uncertain injury (or at least certain expulsion from the club). Perhaps a caffeine binge caused Chronic Future to play an extra-long set. Maybe mental lapses forced Peachcake to eat itself upon a big plate of silly string. Whatever the reasons for the all grandstanding, everybody who wasn’t among the 400-or-so people at the show missed a spectacle. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Cousins Of The Wize may be the closest thing to a hip-hop “supergroup” in Phoenix. Some members of the 8-piece collective have played with local luminaries Trik Turner and Phunk Junkeez, COTW MC Pie has released some much lauded solo work as Magnum P.I.e, and the group’s played with a host of hot acts that includes Incubus, Cypress Hill, Run-D.M.C., House of Pain, De La Soul, Fishbone, and Pharcyde.
Three sources have now confirmed the latest Van Halen hype: the band is reuniting with original singer David Lee Roth and embarking on a 50-date tour this October. (The sources are Web sites Melodicrock.com, BillBoard.com, and MSN.com).
Who can solve Turbonegro’s riddle of the sphincter? The six-piece punk band from Oslo, Norway chose a moniker that evoked “a large, well-equipped, armed black male in a fast car, out for vengeance.” Yet they’ve described themselves as “threatening gay men playing loud rock music.” And they do resemble some…
I know there are people out there who spend their time considering what’s punk rock and what isn’t. I’m not one of them. But something happened not long ago that’s made me think a lot about what’s punk. And I can tell you that the most punk rock thing I’ve…
The guys in The Heartless are solid musicians, they have amazing energy onstage, and their melodic punk songs are tighter and more crisp than Fritos in a butt crack. So would somebody please send them some good women so they can sing songs about something other than getting screwed over…
Below are four of my favorite “smoking songs” — tunes from throughout the decades that capture the experience of filling one’s lungs with vice. For a more comprehensive list, Google the words “High Times pot songs.” 1. Fraternity of Man, “Don’t Bogart Me” (1968): This song, which begs the listener…
Remember the good, old days (way back in April), when you could sit at the bar with your beer and suck on cancer sticks without freaking the fuck out about getting fined $50? Well, those days aren’t exactly here again, but there are some places in the Valley where you…
I am drunk, and I’m standing in the middle of a baseball field, dancing with Governor Janet Napolitano. No, this wasn’t a dream, although I have to admit I woke up the next morning and wondered, “Did that really happen?” But it did, and on the 4th of July. And…
After seeing CTS live, I was impressed by the musicianship and the band’s earnest approach to gimmick-less rock songwriting. There’s nothing trailblazing in the tunes here, but fans of artists like the Gin Blossoms and John Mayer will appreciate the deftness with which CTS recycles the rock paradigm — soaring…
There’s nothing “alt” about the country music played by Phoenix resident Nick Nicholson. The Tennessee transplant plays straight up, rockin’ country, a combination of twang and bang influenced by the likes of Conway Twitty and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Nicholson’s opened for such kindred acts as Travis Tritt and Neal McCoy, and…
Fans of dirty country punk ‘n’ roll will love Big Tex and the Blazin’ Pintos. With raunchy, twangy tunes like “Young and Filthy” and “We Miss Your Chili,” this band may be Phoenix’s answer to Hank III. The cowboy-hat wearin’ quintet’s debut album, Round Up, is basically 16 tracks of…
