Urban legend has it that you’ve gotta be downright filthy rich (and/or retired) to escape the sweltering Phoenix summer. Meet some mythbusters with sweet careers — or lack thereof — that give them a chance to split town, come June. Become a “Professional” Student Angel Fuentes plans on never trading…
The Project enjoys bringing it back to the blunt-tokin’ old school days of “Bitches Ain’t Shit” gangsta rap circa nine-deuce, but with a twist, fusing together seemingly disparate elements of modern creative jazz, avant-classical, and metal with a funkdafied energy that rolls right alongside West Coast party hip-hop. The rollicking…
These days it seems that for a band to be credible, it has to reference some predecessor or style, preferably prefixed with “post.” There’s “post-ska punk à la Reel Big Fish,” “post-hardcore minimalism screamo,” and pretty soon, there will simply be “post-post.” This is not the case with Glendale’s Dietrichs…
SAT 12/10If you want to act a fool this holiday season after consuming one too many eggnogs, feel free. Just don’t expect to rock the boat and poop on somebody’s parade during the APS Fantasy of Lights Holiday Boat Parade on Saturday, December 10. A fleet of more than 40…
12/11-3/12If the photographers whose work will be displayed at Phoenix Art Museum’s new exhibition “Keeping Shadows” were a baseball team, they’d be the 1927 Yankees. The all-star lineup includes Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Imogen Cunningham, Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Timothy O’Sullivan, Lewis Carroll, Henri Le Secq, Julia Margaret…
Can’t you hear this beer-drowned bar conversation among audiophiles? “We should call all the experimental musician cats around town and form a music collective. Yeah, avant-garde aficionados would really dig it.” Then reality strikes. “Organizing musicians to do something? Shitballs! Want another round?” A similar experience occurred for Jennifer Rogers…
FRI 12/2The giant squid may have eluded scientists for decades, but Phoenix artist Pete Deise has been capturing them for years — in metal, that is. Deise creates steel sculptures (including one at the airport and another in front of My Florist Cafe) with characteristic tentacles. His latest exhibition, “Ascension,”…
The controversy-starved folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may freak when word hits the street about Tara Logsdon’s hands-on operation “Ursidae Anaplasty” (Latin for “bear plastic surgery”) during the “Stuffed Animal Show” at Waycool. But before PETA starts protesting, we should tell you that the furry patients…
11/26-11/27For the average American, polo is a head-scratcher — along the lines of what people in Yemen must think of pro football. But polo is arguably the most popular sport in the world after soccer. It’s also one of the oldest, and the North Scottsdale Polo Club plays the game…
SAT 11/26Jumpin’ Jesus, thought Aaron Burkey, I’m a friggin’ genius! The 35-year-old vocalist/guitarist was searching for the perfect name for his latest band, but the possibilities weren’t catchy or distasteful enough. He was considering Kiddiesnuff when he was struck by a revelation: Why not pair the Son of God with…
11/17-11/20According to the folks at the International Hot Boat Association, the premier site in the U.S. for drag-boat racing is right here in the desert. No, they aren’t high on nitro-methane. They’re talking about Firebird International Raceway, host of the 2005 IHBA Coors Light World Finals. From Thursday, November 17,…
11/19-4/9Last summer, public displays of lingerie were as plentiful as feral kittens and bad movies. Luckily, as temperatures plummet and sweaters appear, the Phoenix Art Museum is unveiling “Lingerie: Secrets of Elegance” — a sociohistorical perspective on frilly things from the 18th century onward. So what is it about the…
11/10-11/13Conventional wisdom holds that in sports, the four “majors” consist of football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, though hockey now toils on the Outdoor Life Network while NASCAR runs laps around the competition both on television and at the turnstiles. This weekend, more than 200,000 of the faithful, or roughly the…
11/3-11/26Maybe NASA and Michael Jackson should fall to their knees and kiss the feet of collaborative artists Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, whose “Apollo Prophecies Project” has made moonwalking cool again. Kahn/Selesnick’s massive “Project” portrays a fantastical world in which astronauts from 1960s and ’70s space missions are mistaken for…
Tommy Chong discovered one important thing after serving nine months in the poky for selling marijuana paraphernalia over the Internet. “I learned never to put my face on a bong,” he says. Following his July 2004 release from jail on charges in which he wore “the badge of honor as…
SAT 10/29Alas, you won’t see gore-rock band Samhain playing a nude set with backing vocals by a buff Samantha Stevens from Bewitched at “Rites of Hekate, Samhain 2005.” However, there will be naked Wiccans galore at the garment-optional affair, which marks the “witchiest Sabbat of the year.” The 18-and-over event…
SAT 10/29What is it within us that makes us want to do things like wrestle in Jell-O or pudding, bathe in spaghetti noodles, or feel mud squishing up between our toes? If you’ve been neglecting your inner child, let it loose at Kokopelli Krush, a grape-harvest celebration and foot-stomping party…
FRI 10/21Unlike those works of art that can’t even be breathed on without a whack on the hand by a beefy security guard, J. DeSanti’s creations are meant to be used. They’re pretty nice to look at, too. His funky, functional pieces — which he crafts out of shattered glass,…
SAT 10/15You don’t need testosterone to make hardcore music hard. Though it’s always been implied that the ol’ punk-rock “oi” be sung by a boy, the sixth annual GoGirlsMusicFest 2005 tour dishes up acts that chuck tradition into a pile of discarded Britney Spears CDs. The music fest offers a…
SUN 10/16″Poetry readings are boring. This is a rock show compared to poetry readings,” says Mary “Bone Mama” McCann, who will perform her high-octane sound poems at the Noisy by Nature book-release party on Sunday, October 16, at Modified Arts, 407 East Roosevelt Street. This definitely ain’t your ordinary “I…
SAT 10/1As kids, we watched hamsters running in their wheels, pedaling their li’l legs for hours, yet going nowhere. As adults, we became human hamsters on StairMaster machines, climbing countless flights of stairs, but never moving off the ground floor. Break away from the “virtual” stair climb on Saturday, October…
THU 8/11When we tried to call Wammo, co-founder of the wacky, acoustic alterna-swing/blues band Asylum Street Spankers, all we got was the sound of sirens and Wammo screaming, “Oh my God, oh my God, look out!” followed by a beep. We’re glad Wammo’s got a sick sense of humor; otherwise,…
