Normally, when we hit up a potluck, we’re rudely greeted with the same tired-ass cuisine. Processed crap. Stale bread. Tubs of mayo topped with hues of yellow mustard and green relish goo. Every. Single. Time. You’ll see none of this during The Firehouse’s weekly Food Club vegan potluck and hang-out,…
When we first heard about Sip & Spin – an event at the jazz-centric Kazimierz World Wine Bar where attendees can sip on fine wines while listening to live DJ music – our jazz-snob radar hit 10. “Great. Way to perpetuate the jazz and wine stereotype, guys,” we thought with…
Attend a number of Foot Ox concerts, and you’ll normally see project founder Teague Cullen, by himself, frantically running through a repertoire of singer-songwriter tunes about love and hope. His second album in as many years, It’s Like Our Little Machine, slows things down a bit, leaving space for exceptional…
We did it. We listened attentively — and when our habitually short attention span kicked in, inattentively — to Electric Fan Sounds Works presented by The Tucson Electric Fan Appreciation Society. Not once, but three times. And during these listens, we accomplished some things, such as editing and paperwork. We…
DJ Shane Kennedy stares intently at his laptop screen at Bikini Lounge, plotting his next play. It’s Friday night, and the dimly lit, tiki-style dive on Grand Avenue is packed with artsy types and rough-looking regulars pounding piss-quality pitchers of beer. Not many folks are actually listening to the music,…
By Steve Jansen I wasn’t too concerned with how the man behind the bakery counter at the Paradise Valley Mall Chompie’s would think of me for ordering a “Froggy Cake.” But I did brace myself to get made fun of. Instead, my girlfriend, who stood behind me, took all of…
By Steve Jansen The Octopus Project: What dreams are made of I had a strange dream last night. Possibly because I knew I was writing about The Octopus Project today, or I am truly super jacked up to see the Austin-based noise/rock ensemble. Either way, the dream went something like…
Living in a professional sports town whose teams range from subpar to piss-ant poor, we tend to be attracted to other equally lousy teams, if only to make us feel better about breathing the same air as those Cardinals and Coyotes. Take the Pittsburgh Pirates, the bitches of the National…
Not many authors warrant a highly publicized book-release party. J.K. Rowling, of course, for her Harry Potter series. Possibly some of those supermarket-aisle novelists like Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Dean Koontz. And if Hemingway were still alive and producing, perhaps him, though that shotgun-to-the-face incident kind of puts a…
Why is the jazz/funk quartet The Bedbugs referred to as such? Is it because after listening to their Latin-music-soaked grooves, we’ll be wiggling our toes in a syncopated pattern even when we’re lying in bed? We’re not too sure, though we’ll be front and center when local cats Chris Benavidez…
If you lived in India during the ’90s, you could hire a hit man for the price of a cup of truck-stop coffee. Pretty funny, right? Tim Budinger, co-writer of the locally produced short film Discount Assassin, thought so. Okay, maybe not laugh-out-loud-that’s-awesome” funny, but he did use the urban…
It’s amazing how many freaking blogs are truly out there. Just the other day, we stumbled upon one featuring the surprisingly emotional musings of the cowboys on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. Take this example from an entry titled “The winner within . . .” by Reese Cates: “It’s crazy…
A majority of today’s hip-hop is either hypersaturated with faux images, super-watered down, or dumbed down so the dummy dumb-dumbs can relate. Not so with Los Angeles underground cat 2Mex, who’s involved with projects such as Songodsuns, Visionaries, and Of Mexican Descent. Tunes that this sonic heavyweight be constructing remind…
By Steve Jansen ASU running back Keegan Herring 2008 Pac-10 Predictions: 1. USC 2. Oregon 3. ASU 4. California 5. Oregon State 6. UCLA 7. Arizona 8. Washington State 9. Washington 10. Stanford Over the years, I’ve written about loads of subjects that excite me. The merits of old free…
Churro Station
By Steve Jansen Art by Rachelle Arbellar I remember being 21 years old. Staying up really late. Sleeping. Swimming. That’s all I can remember. Miss Franberry is 21 right now, and though I’m unaware of her daily schedule, I do know that she goes to a ton of shows, plays…
Think NCAA baseball is one big, ugly abomination on account of those aluminum bats? We think so, too, sometimes, though we do love the sport. That’s why the Arizona Collegiate Wood Bat League is so refreshing and truly the best of both worlds, meaning collegiate athletes get to show off…
Think NCAA baseball is one big, ugly abomination on account of those aluminum bats? We think so, too, sometimes, though we do love the sport. That’s why the Arizona Collegiate Wood Bat League is so refreshing and truly the best of both worlds, meaning collegiate athletes get to show off…
The music of Teeth Mountain. It doesn’t belong here. On Planet Earth. Or in the Milky Way. No, the eight-piece ensemble must be posting up and composing on some Coast to Coast-like netherworld before traveling to some pod in Baltimore (their so-called home base… we’re not buying it) and scaring…
It may be hard to believe, but John Mayer is a white guy suppressing his true soul music soul. Don’t believe us? Then check out these quotes from music czar, incredibly deep dude, and The Roots’ drummer Questlove, who wrote, produced, and performed on D’Angelo’s Voodoo. (An album, in our…
By Steve Jansen Haji Baba remains, in my humble opinion, one of the best restaurants in the Phoenix area for several reasons. For one, it’s so freaking unassuming from the outside and even more so inside. Also, when you step inside, you feel like you’re hanging out abroad in an…
By Steve Jansen The B-Side Players apparently aren’t digging some of our local jazz acts. The other night, I ran into Ted Sistrunk, who played bass for two of the four local bands on the New Times Summer of Sound: Jazz bill on Friday, July 11. (I was at The…
