Well, oy vey!, opa!, and oh my gosh!, here’s a world-music collective that plays an enchanting blend of Gypsy music (two of the five members of Fishtank Ensemble actually traveled across Europe in a caravan as Croque Mule) and other exotic styles, including klezmer, polka, punk, flamenco, classical, and rock…
Iron Maiden made it into the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records for achieving a sound level of 124 dB (decibels) at the 1988 “Monsters of Rock” Festival. Since the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) claims that 7.5 minutes of exposure to 120 dB can cause permanent hearing damage,…
Cballa I’m trying to count the ways that local Westside rapper Cballa annoys the shit out of me. Let’s start with calling your record Blacc Hitla. Because I’m a writer and by proxy an aspiring grammarian, the misspelling bothers the shit out of me. Now, I understand that urban street…
In an interview with Celebritycafe.com, John Paul Jones said that someone asked him if he didn’t think The Sporting Life had a Led Zeppelin influence. He replied, “Don’t you think Led Zeppelin has a John Paul Jones influence? I was a quarter of that band.” Indeed, Jones never seems to…
It’s a chilly Saturday night downtown, and I’ve just met up with my friend Toxic JuJu to take in “The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra Performs the Music of Led Zeppelin” concert at Dodge Theatre. I didn’t know what to wear for this — do I throw on some jeans and a…
While Oh Doctor doesn’t really fit comfortably into the “emo” category, its music does bear some resemblance to bands in that genre: the impassioned, “I’m-dying-from-intelligent-introspection” wails of the Nixon brothers, Acey and Kodi (who also play guitar and bass, respectively), and a taste for long, declarative-statement song titles (“Play the…
Welcome to your Woodstock ’69 flash back! While you’re getting naked and covering yourself in mud like a dirty hippie, don’t forget to grab an empty coffee can and drum along to Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle, the best psychedelic ’60s-sounding cult band to come out of the new millennium. Dillon,…
While Ten Dollar Outfit shies away from the “jam band” label, they are sorta like Phoenix’s own version of Widespread Panic-meets-John Mayer, and singer/guitarist Brian Chartrand even admits, “I don’t like playing or singing a song the same way . . . ever, really.” And TDO really is more of…
Updated online January 29, 2007 “I’m the house rocker and the show stopper, the woman’s pet and the man’s threat. I’m Chico, the Boogie Man.” — Chico Chism Legendary blues drummer Napoleon “Chico” Chism, Phoenix’s longtime “Ambassador to the Blues,” died on Sunday, January 28, at the Kivel Campus for…
Wanda Jackson dated Elvis Presley in the ’50s, and even if she may not have slept with him (“There were things you could and couldn’t do, and my daddy made sure I never crossed that line,” Jackson’s said of the period), just having shared a milk shake with Elvis is…
In addition to boasting the slickest use of samples and instrumentation this side of a Moby/Diddy collaboration, Tomorrow’s Last Try also contains the most hardcore local hip-hop song ever recorded, in the form of track nine, “Zombie Jesus.” The song opens with some psychotic Latino threatening to fuck another guy…
Who invited you? The Donnas may not think you’re cool enough to get into their pajama party, but the five females in Austin-based band The Applicators will not only let you into their pop-punk bash, they’ll probably shove a beer bong down your throat to boot. With songs that sound…
Diddy has yet to bastardize a classic rock riff from Bob Seger, which is great because I don’t care to hear Diddy’s rap tribute to James Brown slapped down over “Night Moves.” The Seger songbook is just too underrated for that kind of modern-day MTV molestation. Indeed, it seems that…
Any band that calls its members “Vagina Rock Warriors” and takes its name from a pseudonym for a slutty friend must be on a sublime mission to spread its, uh, music to the menstruating masses. But the music made by the three ladies of Juicy Newt — vocalist/guitarist Annamarie Sanchez,…
Courtney Love and Sharon Osbourne have a lot in common. They are both outspoken, headstrong women who married men who later became monstrously famous musicians. They both had plastic surgery. They are both known for throwing things — Love for hurling makeup at Madonna, Osbourne for pelting Iron Maiden with…
On a recent cold and rainy Thursday night, my girlfriend CooKie and I plan to hit a hot hip-hop weekly — but not the one most people think of, which is “The Blunt Club” at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. With a crew like Emerg McVay, Pickster One, and Brad B,…
The criterion for this list was simple: Only the hardest, heaviest metal albums were considered. Bands that play a hybrid style of metal that is not thrash, speed, death, black metal, hardcore, grindcore, or some amalgamation thereof were not included. What follows is pure effin’ metal. Bang your head off…
The babies were wearing scuba gear, and levitating above all the houses in the neighborhood. And when Christopher Pomerenke woke up, he wrote a song about the surreal scene from his subconscious, called “Throw Your Babies.” The tune serves as the leadoff track for I Know What It’s Like to…
If it weren’t for Hillgrass Bluebilly, I might not have found this fantastic fictional band, which was featured (and murdered) in Rob Zombie’s movie The Devil’s Rejects. The songs here were actually written and recorded by Texas troubadour Jesse Dayton, whom I saw perform at a Hillgrass show this past…
Dear Santa, Thank you for giving us copies of Diana Krall’s Christmas Songs (Verve) and The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Dig That Crazy Christmas (Surfdog) albums last year. We enjoyed Krall’s jazzy jams and Setzer’s superb swing while getting tipsy on whiskey-laden cider and Christmas greens. This year, we’ve found a…
“My meals are ravioli out of the can, and ramen. I came in here tonight with eight dollars in my pocket. I am so white trash.” Keith Mallette’s telling me all this to drive home that he’s not making any money with Hillgrass Bluebilly Entertainment, a local roots music promotion…
What’s that low, rumbling sound peppered with shouting and minor guitar chords? Is it The Jesus Lizard, crawling out from under a rock for a “reunion”? Is it Steve Albini reviving his post-punk band Shellac? Nope, it’s Seattle group Madraso, which has ripped several pages from the books of late…
