The New Year promises to bring excitement to River Jones Music, as the label just added five bands from around the nation to its roster. From Portland comes Bike Thief and Alameda, from Austin comes the Technicolor Hearts, from Seattle comes Sophia Duccini and from Tempe comes local music scene…
If you’re not a thumbsucking moron who only cares about which overzealous rapper impregnated which leg-spreading reality star, you might’ve heard of this thing called the “fiscal cliff.” If not, lemme just clue you in via economist Paul Craig Roberts: “The fiscal cliff is automatic spending cuts and tax increases…
The late, great and totally irreverent comedian Bill Hicks once predicted the ultimate television commercial, describing it as such: “Here’s the woman’s face. Beautiful. Camera pulls back. Naked breast. Camera pulls back, she’s totally naked, legs apart, two fingers right here and it just says ‘Drink Coke.’ Now, I don’t…
As 2012 draws to a close, we’ll be looking forward to the 2013 and spotlighting 13 Phoenix bands that will be making a mark on the Southwest throughout the new year. Our first entry in the series comes from writer Troy Farah, focusing in on new “math folk” band Me…
So, hey, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame went ahead and announced their Class of 2013, which this time around includes Rush, Public Enemy, Randy Newman and someone called the “Disco Queen,” Donna Summer. Those who were nominated but didn’t make the cut included Kraftwerk, Deep Purple, Joan Jett…
Let’s face it, the Mayan Calendar thing is kind of silly, but I’m still obsessed with it because I often ruminate on The End. It’s an important scenario to consider, no matter how unlikely, because it makes us ask the Big Questions and wonder how meaningful/meaningless our lives truly are…
Election years tend to carry more chaos then normal ones, but there was something else going on in 2012. Maybe it’s the aura of apocalypse made people a little stranger this year. We had the Syrian Civil War, the Aurora Shooting, Israel being dicks to Gaza and vice versa, Mitt…
Math the Band @ Trunk Space|11/3/12Imagine if that goofy indie rock cred of The Shins and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, the “Napoleon Dynamites” of music, hadn’t lost so much popularity and had instead evolved, embracing the EDM subculture with sentimental Millenial generation video game samples and more energy than…
Gospel Claws, Sleep Money, Vial of Sound, Knesset, Zero Zero, Me Vale Madre @ Crescent Ballroom|11/30/12 Leave it to Crescent Ballroom to have such a fantastic representation of local acts here in metropolitan Phoenix. Last night may have been an LP release party for Gospel Claws, but the lineup (including…
Whitehorse @ Crescent Ballroom|11/27/12I don’t know any Whitehorse songs, but then again, I don’t know any Whitehorse songs. Allow me to explain. Over the summer, my editor assigned me to cover a sludge metal band from Melbourne, Australia called Whitehorse. As the band name isn’t very creative, it is shared…
Center stage, her honey-brown hair falling in her face, Lauren Farrah crouches over her acoustic guitar. Her voice rises and falls in short bursts, echoing in the Icehouse in downtown Phoenix.The Roaring Twenties-era venue screams cool, post-apocalyptic chic with its stark, open-air rooms with towering concrete walls. She’s performing on…
Titanic, Batman, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Castaway, The Sandlot, The Bourne Supremacy, Hook, Across the Universe, and 70 other movies with underwater scenes were cut and spliced for Flock of Dimes’ single “(This is Why) I Can’t Wear White.” Drowning, screaming, punching sharks in the gut, heavy make-out sessions, deep-sea…
I can’t believe there’s actually a Twitter war going on (when isn’t there a war on Twitter?) over the legitimacy of #Seapunk. What’s that “hashtag seapunk,” you ask? Imagine if you took Lisa Frank’s fetish for porpoises, ran it through crappy late-’90s Geocities GIFs, and added some terrible, too-clever ocean-themed…
Folk punk heroes Andrew Jackson Jihad are one of the most recognizable fixtures in the Valley’s independent music scene, and Sean Bonnette, the band’s frontman, is one of the most down-to-earth, friendly musicians I’ve ever met. I’ve often bumped into Bonnette at local dive bars or kickass shows and he’s…
Following the disintegration of electroclash hardcore hip-hop outfit Death Grip’s relationship with their label, Epic Records, has been as drama-filled as a reality TV show. It seems to have started when Epic pushed back the due date for a follow-up to their debut, The Money Store, so Death Grips leaked…
Starfucker’s highly danceable beats put the band in league with Neon Indian and Passion Pit, but frontman Joshua Hodges brings enough lyrical insight to the table to have you thinking and boogieing. Hodges has something of a fetish for The Grim Reaper’s handiwork, even searching out the original copy of…
Matthew Dear @ Rhythm RoomPart of the reason you see musicians live is to experience their craft firsthand. Like a zoo or the ocean, secondhand exposure just doesn’t cut it — you need to see it for yourself. I went into Matthew Dear’s show not knowing what to expect: he…
As Com Truise, east coaster Seth Haley struggles with something resembling a gear fetish, owning close to 15 vintage synthesizers. Naturally, his instrumental monsters stem from some of the most influential ’80s New Wave acts, from New Order to Berlin to Depeche Mode, but his grip on EDM, self-described as…
It’s election season, and with it come hordes of campaign signs that crowd every street corner, fence post, and obsolete storefront. They scream at pedestrians and drivers from the sidewalk: “Vote for this weasel over this snake-in-the-grass” or “Vote on this proposition, unless you hate children, kittens and old women.”…
Before the genre tag EDM existed, there was IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music. Granted, it’s a pretty pretentious name for a genre, but it fits incredibly well for Matthew Dear. His experimental, rhythm-driven pop is both energetic and introspective, a form of exploring multiple identities and his own, ever-shifting persona…
Almost the same moment Bogan Via started out as a band, they started a relationship. As a duo, Bret Bender and Madeleine Miller possess two distinctly different personalities and voices, and that contrast fits their high-energy synth pop. Often compared as a “sunnier Beach House,” the couple splits vocal duties…
The baritone voice has a certain feel — employed by both the louche and the doom-obsessed (see Jim Morrison; see Morrissey). IDM artist Matthew Dear falls somewhere in the middle and, more often than not, his sexual invitations sound much like monotone warnings. On “You Put a Smell on Me,”…
