It’s not easy being beautiful. Just ask Zac Pennington, frontman of experimental pop group Parenthetical Girls, whose vocal strains fall halfway between Perfume Genius and Lightspeed Champion, complemented with the baroque pop stylings of Belle and Sebastian. Pennington, known for his gender-neutral lyrics and his Morrissey-borrowed wit, pens some brutally…
It’s not easy being beautiful. Just ask Zac Pennington, frontman of experimental pop group Parenthetical Girls, whose vocal strains fall halfway between those of Perfume Genius and Lightspeed Champion, complemented with the baroque pop stylings of Belle and Sebastian. Pennington, known for his gender-neutral lyrics and his Morrissey-borrowed wit, pens…
The sound of San Francisco’s Soft Moon is disorienting: A darkly hyperactive Neu! mixed with the dance-floor sensibility of Depeche Mode and the stark despair of Bauhaus makes The Soft Moon one cynically crafted machine. But the most disorientating tactic in frontman Luis Vazquez’s arsenal is his muted vocals. Listen…
I know you don’t care, but I made a Harlem Shake video. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna show it to you. Because I am naive when it comes to the internetz, I actually was a little surprised when it didn’t become an instant viral hit. I’ll be 100 percent honest…
In case you’ve got the memory of Mr. Magoo, Beck’s latest musical release wasn’t an album. Instead, it was just a book of sheet music. Called Song Reader, the book includes over 100 pages of original artwork and 20 songs that Beck wants you to bring to life. Already dozens,…
For someone not even old enough to drink, Sareena Dominguez sure has accomplished a lot: After signing to the River Jones Music label less than a year and half ago, she’s played South by Southwest, released an album (her debut, Moonbeams), and starred in a music video of the same…
“We’re changed people,” Brandon Decker says firmly, describing the aftermath of the nearly fatal rollover car accident that forever altered the lives of the members of Sedona-based indie-folk band decker. It’s a story that’s been told many times, but it bears repeating: Last August, en route to Santa Cruz, California,…
It took a successful Kickstarter campaign, numerous fundraising shows, and generous outpouring from the local music community, but Sedona’s decker. has successfully completed its fourth album, Slider (no relation to the T.Rex record of the same name), and was able to replace the instruments damaged in a near-fatal rollover. Now,…
Conspiracy theories are my comfort food. After all, all a conspiracy is “the action of plotting or conspiring,” and not just about tin-foil hats and Reptillians. When Reagan’s cronies illegally sold weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra Scandal, that was a conspiracy. When the CIA sold crack to kids in…
Dear neighbors, I hate you. Your haircuts suck and your yard is ugly. To make matters worse, you called my landlord and then the cops on me because I was having a party you described as a “rave.”…
Have you had you’re eyes glued to the psychedelic prog-rock message boards? If not, maybe you missed the news that The Mars Volta broke up, due in large part to lead guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s focus on his other band, Bosnian Rainbows. But you probably didn’t miss the news, because The…
Vagabond Gods @ Rogue Bar|2/2/13For a band like Vagabond Gods, Rogue Bar is the perfect place: rough around the edges, obscure, uh, rogue. As we’ve talked about before, lead singer/screamer and guitarist Bryant Vazquez also divides his time between three other projects. First, there’s Sedona’s decker., where Vazquez plays bass,…
If you don’t know Bryant Vazquez from his solo work, you might know him from his three other projects — as bassist in Sedona’s decker. or as guitarist in Murdoch with Flagstaff indie rockers Them Savages. But his work with his brother, Chris Vazquez, under the moniker Vagabond Gods is…
Epileptics beware: the new Black Moth Super Rainbow video for “Hairspray Heart” warns you against seizures. But watching WWE pro wrestler Goldust (Dustin Runnels) perform as “The Pink One” in this juicy Jacuzzi jam will give you quite a few other convulsions. See also: -My Bloody Valentine Might Release Its…
The indie-folk movement has become a plague. What started as an innocent return to roots quickly became a fad and, somewhere along the line, the pining for simplicity and an authentic nod to American roots music turned into a push to get ahead. But the cynicism directed at Americana’s revival…
Doing some crate digging at Tracks in Wax, I uncovered a rather strange relic: an album showcasing local music. The cover was a faded license plate with the words Arizona Sounds Vol. 1, sponsored by KDKB 93.3 FM. It was printed in 1977. As a Phoenix native, I’ve always had…
Welcome to our Label of the Month feature, where we’ll expound on some of our favorite music manufacturing companies, the folks that help mold the entire picture for amazing artists and shoot those ideas out into the world. This month, we’re aiming our sights on Ghostly International, the Ann Arbor,…
I think everyone has a “forbidden song.” What’s that? It’s like, whenever I hear the tune “Freebird,” whether in the car or at some party or whatever, I have to turn it off. It’s like an obsessive-compulsive decision and I will be forever agitated until that song is no longer…
Not everyone has the luxury of having an auxiliary jack in their car stereo. With the amount of leaks, holes, and weird noises coming from my engine, I’m lucky my beat-up truck still runs period. I can’t be asking for a decent stereo. So my commuting music consists entirely of…
So this one time, my college roommate was gonna buy this album. It came in two formats: CD and MP3. The CD version was a few bucks cheaper. I argued with my roommate that a CD was a better deal because you also got a physical copy of something, but…
Palms, Wiley One, Jared and the Mill, and Sara Robinson and Midnight Special @ Crescent Ballroom|1/9/13South by Southwest, the sort of Mecca of indie music, is kind of a big deal. A good show there can make or break a band, even if the event itself is a tad self-indulgent…
Lana Del Rey’s “Cola” put some interesting visuals in our heads, especially that line about the particular flavor of her labia – “My pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola,” she sings. As we’ve already gone into, local pranksters MAN-CAT took the vulgarity one step further, creating their own ad campaign, complete…
