Where society tells us to look away, Chris Rush’s photorealistic Conté crayon drawings of children and adults with physical and mental disabilities encourage us to look – and we mean really look – as we register their strange and glowing beauty. In Rush’s “Stare,” a ten-year retrospective, we’re drawn in…
Nothing says “modern American blues” quite like… Mesa? It’s the dodgiest cultural pairing this side of “Utah” and “jazz,” but that hasn’t stopped the Phoenix Blues Society from establishing a fine live-music tradition in this city of menudo joints and Mormon churches. In this, the 19th year of the Blues…
In the late nineties, Lawrence, Kansas’ The Appleseed Cast played the kind of rock that earned you a spot on Emo Diaries>/i> compilations, the long-running and long-suffering series curated by their label, Deep Elm Records. Yeah, emo, but not the tarted up, eye-lined emo of today, but the dense, post-punk…
The Phoenix Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks jostle for playoff positioning at Jobing.com Arena. Wed., March 10, 8 p.m., 2010…
We assert that the word “lecture” gets a bum rap. For too long, it’s been unjustly associated with stuffy professors droning on about the specifics of topics like “Who the Eff Cares?,” “This Is Boring,” and “Get Me the Hell Out of Here.”Phoenix Art Museum is breathing new life into…
Las Otras Hermanas presents this film on International Women’s Day about woman in Africa, Asia, and Central Europe facing issues. The screening takes place at Barrett Honors College’s Refectory Hall. Mon., March 8, 8-9:30 p.m., 2010…
This Eau Claire indie quartet boasts complex songwriting skills and instrumentation. Their debut album An Exaltation of Laarks got just such a thing, praised by critics as a “record full of melodic hooks embedded in indie rock mini-epics.” Check ’em out when they perform with locals Boys & Frogs, and…
Why would the frontman/guitarist of a successful indie rock group switch to bass for his solo work? Ask David Bazan, the songwriter who formerly fronted the indie-rock band Pedro the Lion, and released his solo debut Curse Your Branches, last fall. “So much of the time I spend really loathing…
There comes a time in every rocker’s life when he grows weary of performing that signature hit, night after night. Even the metalheads of KISS are bound to stop wanting to rock ‘n’ roll all night (and party every day). Not Dick Dale. “The King of Surf Guitar,” who slams…
Long before the practice of combining hardcore punk and thrash metal became common place there was The Cro-Mags. The New York hardcore band is often credited with giving birth to the musical genre of “crossover thrash” or “metalcore” (depending on who you’re asking) with the release of their classic debut…
Kinda jammy, kinda classic-rock and kinda alt-country, Steel Train has nevertheless found itself lumped in with its more age-appropriate post-punk and emo counterparts. Sure, the band’s on Drive-Thru Records and sings about, like, feelings and stuff, but it also contemplates the relationships between fathers and sons, sympathizes with alley cats,…
The band’s moniker is a reference to the jacket of an old hardback book, and front man Conan Zimmerman is an avid reader of literary legends like Salinger, Hemingway, and Chekhov. It’s no surprise, then, that Dust Jacket’s poetic lyrics stand out like Bob Dylan next to that first, infamous…
An all-star lineup of musicians celebrate the life and music of one of the greatest guitarists of all time. The slate includes Billy Cox, Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Ernie Isley, Brad Whitford, Doyle Bramhall II, Living Colour, and Chris Layton. Sun., March 7, 7:30 p.m.,…
The smell of freshly cut plywood is in the air as 15 audience members, seated in Space 55’s brand-new seating area, buzz with anticipation for the beginning of the Improvised Bookclub. A few minutes later, Sam Haldiman, the emcee of tonight’s Torch Theatre production, sprints onstage. He’s a little man…
Cop Out establishes its movie lineage right away, with a slow-motion toe-to-head tilt up, set to the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn,” of black cop/white cop buddies Jimmy and Paul swaggering stone-faced toward the camera. Director/editor Kevin Smith (who notably didn’t write the Cop Out script; this is the…
You’re really going to want to check out SeeSaw Designs’ new vintage shoppe on Etsy.As you may have picked up from my previous blogs, SeeSaw is a local company run by a group of young designers. They do all the things designers do (branding, brochures, magazines, and album art) but…
The starring ballerina is the same in all fourteen of the mysterious color photographs hanging in Bokeh Gallery, Wayne Rainey’s newest downtown Phoenix gallery venture dedicated solely to photographic art. Hairy barrel chest. Close-cropped haircut. Pink, stiff tulle tutu. Big muscular wrestler’s calves ending in big, slightly flat, bare feet…
This week, local artists will have two chances to learn about how they can expose their art to a national audience through “The People’s Biennial” exhibition, which is slated to tour five cities starting late 2010.And, no, New York is not one of the five cities…
News flash: The Play About the Naked Guy has been, ahem, extended. The production now runs through Saturday, March 6.Oh, democracy, democracy, is there anything you can’t do? In the plot of David Bell’s The Play About the Naked Guy, only two of the three remaining diehard members of The…
Life’s full of tough choices.Tonight, Valley art enthusiasts have their pick of the litter with three big events happening at three different museums across town: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, ASU Art Museum and the Heard Museum.Here’s the run-down:…
According to legendary rodent Punxsutawney Phil, we’ve got another month of winter ahead. Screw that. This is Phoenix, the land of the blazing sun. We’re breaking into spring early with pool parties, outdoor festivals, and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s Spring Opening Celebration. The event features gallery talks with the…
The Heard Museum Guild, a 600-strong volunteer arm of the world-famous museum, has a simple and obvious mission: to educate the public about American Indian heritage and culture. But, as the Guild points out, to teach, one must first learn. To that end, it sponsors an impressive series of lectures…
