Summer festivals might be winding down elsewhere in the country, but since it’s sunny and hot nine months out of the year here, the Valley’s guaranteed to have a few more super-sized summer shows before we get the big fall festivals. Edgefest 2006, presented by “independent” Phoenix radio station Edge…
The first CD from local bluesician Paris James harks back to the back-porch country blues of the 1920s, when players like Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson were finger-picking through a mix of folk, gospel hymns, and Delta blues. The sounds of spirituals and the South that dominate James’ CD…
One can’t help but chuckle at the Red Elvises’ appropriation of cheesy American culture — the colorful bow-tie tuxedos, the lopsided pompadours, singer Igor Yuzov’s lounge-lizard panache. The band’s flair for fusing Russian folk music with American surf, rockabilly, and even disco led to interesting concoctions like “I Wanna See…
Motörhead’s 27th album (and its 19th studio offering), Kiss of Death, doesn’t deviate from the heavy guitars, breakneck beats, and hoarse vocals that made the British band one of the most influential groups in the heavy metal genre. With the departure of guitarist Würzel, Motörhead’s been pared down to a…
When it comes to rock ‘n’ roll theatrics, Rob Zombie may not have drawn up the blueprint, but he’s definitely remodeled his own house of horrors, from directing instant cult classic horror movies like House of 1000 Corpses to his catalogue of ghoulish industrial metal albums (the latest being this…
The best way to describe EastonAshe’s sound is “adult contemporary rock.” The Cave Creek-based band has a mature sound, audible in rich compositions like “Bayou Blues,” which doesn’t utilize the 12-bar guitar progressions in E major or A major like many songs labeled as “blues,” but instead features hand-clap percussion…
How many boxed sets are really worth $65? A Life Less Lived: The Gothic Box (to be released Tuesday, September 19, by Rhino Records) is — this package is like the Nuggets of the goth rock world. There are three CDs, a DVD containing a dozen videos, and a book…
This split CD from indie rock duo Less Pain Forever and pop/electronica twosome Peachcake begins with Less Pain Forever encouraging you to “Throw Yer Babies.” The leadoff track not only has LPF’s usual quirky synths and Zappa-esque vibe, but also contains lyrics like “The fire on the mountain is a…
Tool grants very few interviews, never appears in its own videos, has a singer who often performs in the shadows onstage, and releases albums full of complex, epic songs that fans scour for secret codes and meanings that the band neither denies nor confirms. The rare occasions that front man…
While most bands are looking for sponsors like Fender and Gibson, Boston-based band Constants would prefer support from somebody like Wesson or Mazola vegetable oil. In March, the psychedelic indie prog-rock band kicked off a nine-month U.S. tour in a 66-passenger school bus that’s been modified to run on organic…
Corey Parks is like a bad-ass biker broad wielding a fierce four-string. The trashy, inked-up bassist has always struck an intimidating figure onstage, whether she was stomping around in shredded fishnets and cowboy boots in Die Hunns next to punk pariah husband Duane Peters (U.S. Bombs) or literally spewing fire…
Do hairstyles influence musical styles? They do if you’re Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, whose various ‘dos (and don’ts, in the case of her late ’80s mullet) mirror her musical phases. Year of the Spiky Red Mullet (1988): Like the mullet, Etheridge’s music was often found in divey bars with…
Malibu “psych-folk-rock” band Simon Dawes and math-rock mavens Don Caballero might be on to something: Give your band a solo-sounding name, play full-bodied songs, and watch people scratch their heads trying to figure out who you’re named after. (We’ll give ’em both away: Don Caballero takes its name from a…
On a Saturday night in mid-July, the Paper Heart is in a groovy time warp. Tonight is the second evening of a special two-day celebration of Russ Meyer’s 1970 cult classic movie Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which chronicles the chaotic rise and fall of a fictional female rock…
Had they been around in the 1800s, Austin-based band Asylum Street Spankers would have been traveling the country in a caravan like a giant band of Gypsies, unloading a plethora of instruments — drums, guitars, standup bass, fiddles, washboards, harmonicas, banjos, ukuleles, Dobros — and rocking every stop with equal…
Once upon a time, you had to go to New Orleans to see many of the Crescent City’s jazz fusion bands. Then, a big hurricane named Katrina destroyed the city, and the Big Easy’s bands were forced to embark on fund-raising tours ever after. Such is the case with E.O.E…
The first great tragedy of Sublime was the fatal heroin overdose of singer/guitarist Brad Nowell in 1996. The second great tragedy is the ongoing release of compilations that contain any smidgeon of Sublime — demos, outtakes, bootlegs, live versions, remixes — regardless of how rehashed or half-assed. Not that this…
Here’s the problem with riding the ass-end of a wave where everything old is new again: The tide eventually comes in, and what was previously a tight refurbishment seems like trite regurgitation. Take London-based synth-pop rockers Boy Kill Boy — the band has a spacy ’80s sound reminiscent of Simple…
Back when rock was a real arena monster, fans used to hold up lighters at rock shows. At shows by local pop punk/hard rock band A Change of Pace, fans hold up their illuminated cell phones. That gesture’s a great metaphor for ACoP’s music — it’s an old sound, punched…
e(v)olocity’s done something smart with its debut CD that every band trying to get on the radio should do: packed its four best songs onto the front end of the album. Once the first two tracks — including the mediocre single “Too Far” — are out of the way, the…
When Social Distortion first started cranking out punkabilly anthems like “Mommy’s Little Monster” in the early ’80s, punk hadn’t yet pogo’d into the realm of pop-culture pretentiousness — something Social D front man Mike Ness addresses on the band’s 1998 live album Live at the Roxy. Before the band launches…
Tramps & Thieves’ first full-length release (with a whopping 16 tracks) is a lot more rockin’ than the band’s 2004 Mill Avenue Cowboys EP, with fewer acoustic moments and more straight-up shit-kickin’ songs that address issues like the Iraq war, outlaw hippies, and hallucinating in the desert. Songs like “Sidewinder”…
