As usual, local filmmaker Nico Holthaus has set up an unenviable task for himself. On the party weekend before Halloween, he’s scheduled a premiere of the final cut of Art Edward’s fictionalized love letter to the Tempe music scene of the early ’90s, Stuck Outside of Phoenix, at the Pollack…
For 40 years–a pop music eternity–the four original Rascals, among the only ’60s bands still with all its original members, have been at war with each other in various combinations. For too long The New Rascals (with Dino Danielli and Gene Cornish) and Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals have toured in competing…
The early ’90s were not the best of times for metal. Suddenly everyone who grew up listening to Sabbath–and a lot of people who didn’t–was exchanging skull rings for flannel and writing grunge songs about being strung out. But Patrick Flannery and his alter-ego Prophet were just starting out playing…
Given the recent press devoted to the return of the cassette, you may have expected a bigger coming-out party than the first-ever “Cassette Day” on September 7. The Zia Records Exchange on Camelback rolled out all of six cassettes at the front counter, all easily dwarfed by a Questlove book…
Given the recent press devoted to the return of the cassette, you may have expected a bigger coming-out party than the first-ever Cassette Store Day, on September 7. The Zia Records Exchange on Camelback rolled out all of six cassettes at the front counter, all easily dwarfed by a Questlove…
Two phrases that Franco Gagliano tends to say a lot nowadays are “I don’t want to offend anyone” and “I’m not gonna lie to you.” When Franco ruled supreme as owner of The Mason Jar, one of Phoenix’s longest-enduring rock clubs from the early ’80s into the early Aughts, you…
Two phrases that Franco Gagliano tends to say a lot nowadays are “I don’t want to offend anyone” and “I’m not gonna lie to you.” When Franco ruled supreme as owner of The Mason Jar, one of Phoenix’s longest-enduring rock clubs from the early ’80s into the early Aughts, you…
On his Facebook “About” page his education reads Università DI Napoli “Federico II.” Under work it reads “Music Production” and that he is the President at “Salf Enploy,” which is how it would sound phonetically when Franco Gagliano says it. When the “Legends of the Mason Jar” show which reunites…
One man installs a recording studio in a house or a storefront, starts an independent record label, signs a roster of artists, and boom, a music factory is born. It’s the stuff that fills whole display cases in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Berry Gordy with Motown Records…
One man installs a recording studio in a house or a storefront, starts an independent record label, signs a roster of artists, and — boom — a music factory is born. It’s the stuff that fills whole display cases in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With minor variations,…
“With low expectations it’s very easy to surprise people.” You’ll never guess who said that. No, not Norman Vincent Peale — Pamela Anderson said that! See how this low expectations thing works? On a night when loathing everything came easy and liking anything new seemed doubtful, I caught The Prowling…
For the true Black Sabbath devotee, there is only one place to be on Friday night. No, not US Airways Center. Sure, a true devotee would probably pay some shekels to see three quarters of the band that created Paranoid, Masters of Reality, and Volume IV in the flesh, sagging…
At the Happy Together tour, which passed through Talking Stick Resort over the weekend, it’s only natural for a charged-up boomer audience to close its eyes and imagine itself back in the ’60s. But you wonder how many fans closed their eyes, thought they were back home watching a PBS…
Being a rock fan in the early ’70s meant never knowing a year when rock wasn’t moving forward — when newer and bolder innovations weren’t always just around the corner. Yes took the burgeoning progressive rock movement further — and with a longer running time — than anyone else had…
Being a rock fan in the early ’70s meant never knowing a year when rock wasn’t moving forward — when newer and bolder innovations weren’t always just around the corner. Yes took the burgeoning progressive rock movement further — and with a longer running time — than anyone else had…
So, the music video on MTV as a promotional tool is a thing of the past, is it? Well, on July 1, Fervor Records announced that you could see the new Glass Heroes video for “Let Me Down” on MTV.com, the reformed music channel that’s trying to establish its website…
There’s a lot of Steve Hunter in your CD collection. If you read the four-point type, you’ll see that he’s played (with and without guitar buddy Dick Wagner) on three of Lou Reed’s most revered RCA albums and over a half-dozen Alice Cooper albums, as well as albums by Peter…
Think back on a gig you saw six or seven years ago, and about how much the landscape in our fair city has physically changed since. Now try imagining a gig from 46 or 47 years ago, and how much history has been paved over–then you’ll get some idea of…
Even the most ardent music fans have a skewered impression of Phoenix’s early rock musical landscape. It starts with Sanford Clark and Marty Robbins, then you cross a whole spread of barren desert ’til you get to Lee Hazlewood and Duane Eddy, and then nothing until the early rumblings of…
Even the most ardent music fans have a skewered impression of Phoenix’s early rock musical landscape. It starts with Sanford Clark and Marty Robbins, then you cross a whole spread of barren desert ’til you get to Lee Hazlewood and Duane Eddy, and then nothing until the early rumblings of…
If I believed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an institution or even an argument settler, I would insinuate myself as one of their exhibit planners and make sure there was a “Worst Dads in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” created every June. Why? Because for…
If you’re going to be a quasi-one-hit-wonder in the United States — at least as far as Casey Kasem is concerned — you could hardly do better for name recognition than these shrewd Scots, who had the IQ to enshrine forevermore their band’s name in the title of said hit,…
