Last year was a big one for Greeley Estates, the best-known post-hardcore act to come out of our state. Almost exactly a year ago, the Greeley Estates released No Rain, No Rainbow, the band’s fifth album in six years. They charted on the Billboard Top 200, changed guitarists, and toured…
The classic blues pattern is not technically complicated. The devil is in the details, the nuance. Beginning guitar players often start out with a blues scale, a watered-down version of the American Songbook, and a play-along CD in the background. There’s nothing wrong with that — everyone’s gotta start somewhere…
Since the Fiesta Bowl Block Party began taking over downtown Tempe on New Year’s Eve, it’s either become the absolute best place to be or the one place you want to avoid — depending on the crowd you run with. Either way, music fans are curious to know who will…
Christmas in the desert isn’t like it is in other places. There’s no snow, it doesn’t get that cold, and novelties like warm fires and cups of hot cocoa serve no practical purpose the way they do in the east. So even if we’re not huddling for warmth, one of…
Christmas in the desert isn’t like it is in other places. There’s no snow, it doesn’t get that cold, and novelties like warm fires and cups of hot cocoa serve no practical purpose the way they do in the east. So even if we’re not huddling for warmth, one of…
They don’t come more original than Sweet Pie. The 67-year-old is, as far as anyone can tell, the world’s only nudist boogie-woogie pianist. The eccentric self-taught musician, born Paul Winer, roamed the country from 1965 through 1990, performing at ski resorts, colleges, and tourist spots all along the East Coast…
Normally the backstories about how rock bands got their start are pretty similar to one another. You know the drill: The members were outcasts in school, rebelled against their parents in some way, and wound up in a forceful, angsty band. That’s not really how things worked for the members…
Usually, band’s origin stories are pretty similar to one another. You know the drill: The members, outcasts at school, rebelled against their parents and wound up in a forceful, angst-y band. That’s not really how things worked for the members of NeedToBreathe. The stripped down Southern-sounding quintet hailing from Seneca,…
Over the past decade, the model for the live music business has been turned upside down. Back in the day, a band would go on tour to increase the sales of its record. Now, bands often sell their records in an attempt to support their tour. Roger Clyne and the…
Dark Star Orchestra is one of the best-known Grateful Dead tribute bands in the country. But when you play other people’s music every night, finding ways to keep things interesting becomes a new kind of challenge. So we have Dark Star’s new project. The band is staging the “From a…
Roger Waters began playing in the earliest incarnation of Pink Floyd right around the time he turned 20 years old. At the time, the music was an innovative reflection of youth culture. It featured psychedelic, experimental sounds, prominent (often dissonant) guitar, and sweet vocal harmonies. We are reminded of this…
Roger Waters began playing in the earliest incarnation of Pink Floyd right around the time he turned 20 years old. At the time, the music was an innovative reflection of youth culture. It featured psychedelic, experimental sounds, prominent (often dissonant) guitar, and sweet vocal harmonies. We are reminded of this…
You may think that the days of punk songs sounding just like those of The Ramones are over. Not so. The Qt up a bit, and throw in some surf-y sounds. That sound is packaged for digestion with fast-paced, two-minute songs. The New Hampshire-based band (note the irony: New Hampshire…
New Riders of the Purple Sage are famous for their rambling brand of California country music, which is a lot like the original Southern stuff sans the vocal twang. Lumped in with artists like Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens, they re-create the collective “Bakersfield sound” of the ’50s…
Melanie has been writing and performing music continuously for over forty years. She’s most well known for her performances at Woodstock, the iconic 1970 Isle of Wight festival, and her songs “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” “What Have They Done to My Song Ma,” and “Brand New Key.”Her distinctly…
When you think about that special brand of reggae rock popularized by frat boys in the ’90s, bands from Hawaii are not the first to come to mind. Still, Pepper, probably the most famous trio to emerge from Kailua-Kona, has managed to make a name for themselves in the genre…
Though Melanie Safka may have fallen under the mainstream radar some time ago, she and her distinctive vocal style have remained a part of the collective consciousness. She’s best known for “Brand New Key” (a song that every outspoken pre-teen girl should listen to, to feel both independent and unabashed)…
When you think about that special brand of reggae rock popularized by frat boys in the ’90s, bands from Hawaii are not the first to come to mind. Still, Pepper, probably the most famous trio to emerge from Kailua-Kona, has managed to make a name for themselves in the genre…
A Perfect Circle doesn’t have a new record to support, but that hasn’t stopped the supergroup (featuring Tool’s Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel) from selling out all 15 of its dates in a five-city, West Coast tour. Sure, the venues are on the small side, but it’s still…
When a band has a quick and steep rise to success — and doesn’t come from a town with much indie cred (read: New York or L.A.) — it appears to easily let go of its hometown as an important aspect of its identity. Phoenix is lucky that Jimmy Eat…
If you’ve been keeping up with the country music coming out of Nashville, stumbled upon one of the industry’s several televised awards shows, or even if you’ve just glanced at the cover of Country Weekly in the grocery store checkout line, you’ve noticed that most of today’s male country stars…
The music of Gospel Claws is filled with meandering, sweet chord progressions, gentle percussion, and an excitement that is restrained everywhere besides the vocals. Joel Marquard’s voice, in contrast, is raw, unpolished, and strained. That voice adds an unfamiliar and unexpected twist to the garage-informed pop songs (the band’s first…
