The last time Jimmy Vespa and Bobby Lava Noxious did something they really didn’t want to do, they quit the Hypno-Twists, a band they helped start and watched as it slowly fell apart. Now the regrettable deed at hand is how to word the dreaded “Drummer Wanted” ad for their…

For most Arizona bands, the arc they can expect their careers to take is not unlike that of the Sciannas. Take a bunch of transplanted musicians, in this case Connecticut-bred brothers Fran and Dan Scianna, and thrust them into a mystifying music scene where it takes months, even years, to…

As founding member Chris Dreja tells it, making a new Yardbirds album after 35 years seemed daunting: “That’s a long holiday. We’ve been dormant like some bacteria for all that time. Waiting to unleash itself.” While some might question the worth of a Yardbirds album without Eric Clapton or Jimmy…

“Dear fans, where to start?” Jewel writes in the liner notes for 0304, what she describes as a “lyrically-driven . . . modern interpretation of big band music.” While that sounds as appealing as Morrissey fronting Chicago, it actually resembles a smarter Shakira or a folkier No Doubt. And there’s…

If you first saw The Song Remains the Same at a midnight showing, like I did, chances are the secondhand pot smoke led you to believe that Led Zeppelin had created the greatest cinematic achievement since the invention of film. Quite a different reaction when you saw the film on…

By 2000, Tuba City native and Navajo singer James Bilagody had seen his name recognition in Native American musical circles spread like the proverbial wildfire. In 1998, he contributed vocals to several tracks on Canadian Mohawk and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Robbie Robertson’s album Contact From the Underworld…

On the newly released DVD Meat Puppets Alive in the Nineties, there’s a particularly alive moment from the early ’80s that Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore fondly remembers. “I had heard they were rambling across the country in a van and playing doughnut shops and they were coming to New York…

Revolving casts of players complement David Bazan’s music, but there would be no Pedro the Lion without him. He is known for brooding internal meditations on existence, man’s struggles with a higher power and the dark aspects of humanity. A Christian artist, Bazan draws more indie kids than church groups,…

If you lined up all the arenas REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Styx have simultaneously rocked and wimped out end to end, it would stretch across the universe and back six times and probably resemble one of their ludicrous space-invader album covers. And if you were to flip over their Power…

Occasionally, a celebrity phone interview can reveal a slice of life not intended for print. It’s usually something mundane, maybe a rock star reiterating he needs his groceries to his nanny or personal assistant. But since rock journalists are like priests and not only in a monastic sense, revealing even…

Jay Vance couldn’t get along with his fellow musicians — so he shacked up with four robots. Vance was a member of the Chicago-based ska group Blue Meanies from 1989 to 1994, but it was his subsequent enlistment in the San Francisco ska outfit Skankin’ Pickle that made him realize…

The music industry may want to eulogize Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Nine Inch Nails, but the alchemy of industrial, metal and theatrics still strikes a chord with teens who just can’t find it in them to link to Linkin Park. Think songs that question the need for religion; vocalists who…

“Cute little band. We do okay. We play Sundays. People clap. Everybody goes home. Nobody gets hurt. But it’s really a good opportunity for me to learn the music.” That’s Bruce Connole’s modest take on Busted Hearts, the bluegrass band he formed with Glass Heroes/Beat Angels guitarist Keith Jackson that’s…

Since the demise of Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age have been stoner-rock standard-bearers, the lit Beatles to everyone else’s dim Dave Clark Five. On its 1998 full-length debut, QOTSA demonstrated Josh Homme’s desire to move beyond Kyuss’ lengthy song cycles and craft heavy but hooky rock that at times…

Ballistically speaking, there is no equivalent to 50 Cent. 50 thug’s thug was shot nine times in a single evening and survived, qualifying him for ‘hood sainthood. That assassination attempt came on the heels of a stabbing, which occurred shortly after the release of “How to Rob,” in which the…

Friday, February 7, 2003 Time: 7:30 p.m. Thought Crime There’s no vantage point in central Phoenix as illuminating as the one-story rooftop above Thought Crime, a communal art space on Central Avenue just north of Roosevelt. “The DEA is stationed in that building. You’ve got the transvestite bar there, the…

February 3, 1967. Eccentric U.K. record producer Joe Meek, said to be the British equivalent of genius pop producer Phil Spector, takes a sawed-off shotgun and shoots his landlady down a flight of stairs before turning the gun on himself. February 3, 2003. Phil Spector, from the looks of things,…

According to their official bio, Ontario’s all-girl metal mongers Kittie are “setting new standards by hammering out honest metal music” a revolutionary notion since metal has never been grounded in truthfulness. How honest were Ronnie James Dio’s dungeons-and-dragons lyrics when the only castles he’d ever visited sold him square hamburgers?…

This is perhaps a first in hard-rock journalism — interviewer asks interviewee if he could please turn down Mario Lanza’s recording of “Finiculi Finicula” because he can’t hear himself think. Interviewee agrees. “Yeah, that’s a hard song to talk over . . .” says Danny Marianino, a New Jersey transplant…

“Whoa, this sounds like disco, huh?” Precisely, my Funkytown-fearing friends. These SBLs are here to say bass and drum are out — Sturm und Drang is in! Purging the system of two founding members has left Ramin Sakurai and Geri Soriano-Lightwood free to explore their individual impulses and make use…

While it’s Texas billionaire David Bonderman’s prerogative to pay the Rolling Stones nearly $7 million to play a 40-minute set at his birthday bash, you’ve got to wonder what real “Satisfaction” he derives from the exchange. Does he imagine the Stones having a preshow huddle in his honor, collectively deciding,…