MySpace. CrySpace. A place for friends. A place for nauseating self-indulgence. Whether you love or loathe the online meeting and sharing place, there are sure signs of addiction: Obsessing over the “About Me” statement. Sending butt-hurt e-mails when you aren’t on somebody’s top friends list. Staying up all night dolling…
Live From the MTC, the debut release on Phoenix-based DIY label onewordlong, isn’t exactly music because the conceptual art piece doesn’t abide by any familiar formula. Project founder JRC, co-owner of the Trunk Space art gallery and performance venue, recruited four local artists/musicians (Archbishop Jason Polland, The Coitus, Zach Burba,…
Like Public Enemy and the Wu-Tang Clan, the five pioneering group members in N.W.A were a revolutionary bunch that changed music with unabated street rhymes composed within the framework of gangster rap. However, no rappers were oppressed like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, Yella, and the late Eazy-E —…
During a recent visit to the newly expanded Phoenix Art Museum, I overheard a fellow patron say, “The art at this museum never ceases to disappoint me on a regular basis.” Funny, that’s just how I felt about “Modern by Nature: Ansel Adams in the 1930s,” a retrospective meant to…
Spanish-language students and foreign-film connoisseurs can kick it together during the weekly English-subtitled Spanish Place Movie Mondays series. In honor of December’s Cuba Month, the space will screen the righteous music documentary Buena Vista Social Club, which spotlights Havana’s legendary musicians. Second Friday of every month, 6 p.m., 2007…
You love music, you enjoy a drink while listening to music, but you aren’t all into acting like a hipster foolio in public while marinating on music. Well, Shane Kennedy, a local deejay and never one to bite his tongue, has a cure for the hipster-foolio part during his weekly…
DJ Big Latin is a punisher of the following: 1) dance floors, which are torn up when his wheels of steel are in motion; 2) uninitiated eardrums, when he spins eclectic reggaeton, cumbia, and merengue música; and 3) himself, because the dude’s demanding schedule includes weekly engagements at Macayo’s, Jackson’s…
Old folks’ music. An antique museum piece. A bleak and forgotten cause. All stereotypes to describe the American-born and -bred art form known as jazz. By these standards, the music created by 76-year-old jazz legend Sonny Rollins belongs locked in a climate-controlled room along with Renaissance paintings, 17th-century novels, and…
Glenn Weyant’s The Anta Project — a single, 54-minute track created by playing the steel walls and barbed-wire fences along the U.S.-Mexico border using a cello bow and modified chopsticks — puts a musical face on illegal immigration under the guise of creative improvisation. Where mere mention of the hot-button…
There’s a new weekly Live Visual Art series, and it’s happenin’ at one of our favorite Roosevelt Row hangs: Carly’s Bistro. Enjoy the $3-glass-of-wine special, Trappist Monk brewskis, live painting by Lalo, and acoustic jams by singer-songwriter Doug Bale. Tuesdays, 9 p.m., 2006…
Bodhisattva’s 20-minute, three-track EP Magnetar may not appeal to those who are prone to popping headache pills whenever they hear time signatures other than the common 4/4. The ambient jazz-metal-indie fusion duo, consisting of guitarist Justin Cory and drummer Shane Sittig, gives followers of wacko bands like Primus, Mr. Bungle,…
Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, and based in Tempe since 2002, this hip-hop trio of Ether, Dirty Nap-Z, and Tusk One brings its gritty hip-hop — performed during the Blunt Club series and at venues like The Loft — to Scattered Data. “Don’t Stop” jumps out of the wind-up music box…
Suzanne Falk, 36, is a self-taught photorealistic painter who creates through a unique imagined reality. Her oil paintings, often mistaken for photographs, portray contemporary storybook worlds using children’s books, vintage toys, and images from her vivid dream life, while whimsical watercolors illustrate back-in-the-day roadside scenes from her travels through rural…
Remember the “good old days” when glass bottles of milk and fresh-baked loaves of bread were delivered to your doorstep? Well, Boxed Greens does that and more by providing door-to-door delivery of farm-fresh, pesticide-free produce and herbs picked straight from the earth. When owner Larry Wiener bought the business three…
Before we even marinated our eardrums to Hot Concrete — the Drunken Immortals’ third full-length album that’s out to steal your mind with positive hip-hop vibrations and community-building lyrics — there was already word on the street that it was hot shit. You see, this seven-piece, live hip-hop groove machine…
When we heard Rakim (of Eric B. and Rakim fame) was coming to town, we bopped our collective heads while listening to his last release, 1999’s The Master, and also cocked our heads in confusion. What’s the dude doing going on an album tour for the first time since 1999?…
Lisa Albinger, 30, creates stirring depictions of relationships, womanhood, and growing up with scoliosis, using cotton swabs and paper towels instead of the quintessential brush. She’s Wisconsin-born and a practicing Wiccan, and a majority of her work depicts “her girls” being led on cathartic journeys by rabbit guides. She’s shown…
Paris-based photographer Maurice Sherif is great at showing viewers everything by showing them nothing at the same time. Unlike “Lumière Mètallique,” a Tilt Gallery exhibition in August showcasing Sherif’s large-format silver gelatin images captured in Paris’ architecturally grandiose environment, “Variation Con Intensita” illustrates complex and detailed minimalism. Gone are the…
Irresistible music and community-building art unite when StraightNoChaser Presents: “one,” a hip-happening evening of danceable grooves and visual art. Two rooms — the main downstairs area with internationally renowned DJs Joe DiPadova and Santos spinning organic dub, gritty soul, and booty-shakin’ Afro-beat; and the intimate upstairs showcasing downtempo, underground disco,…
Skin events are hot during the Valley summer. Hell, skin events are hot all the damned time. That’s why Pat O’s Bunkhouse Saloon invites all promiscuous persons to Underwear Night. Strip down or just show up in your undies and shake it all out to DJ Doom’s house beats. Thursdays,…
City anglers can get fishy without leaving town at Red Mountain Park Lake during Urban Fishing. The eight-acre oasis features two fishing docks and waters stocked with channel catfish, bluegill, hybrid sunfish, largemouth bass, carp, and white amur. Other species like tilapia — documented by a two-pound, 13-inch record-setting catch…
Been to the gym this summer? Make it pay off during One O’Clock Shirtless Shots, where you’ll get a penny shot for exposing yourself from the waist up. Bring on the sweaty armpits, chest hair, or whatever your naked torso has going for itself. The naughtiness happens every night at…
