Here’s a little pop quiz for ya: 1) Do you love ladies? 2) Do you love the vagina? 3) Would you wear a button that reads “I heart my cunt”? If you answered “yes” to two out of three, we’re thinking you should head to Muff Mondays. The event goes,…
There’s nothin’ like a good old-fashioned drag show to kick off a CD-release party. Back in 2007, in what was quite possibly the wildest performance ever to grace the stage at Yucca Tap Room, a swarm of drag kings and queens danced, spanked, and stripped the roof off the joint…
Scene from the green room of Scottsdale’s Martini Ranch: A burly security guard approaches Phoenix rockers Vayden, who are hanging out before their headlining Friday-night set at the club. “I heard you guys are all the rage,” the guard says. “Ah, man,” Vayden singer Curtis Casey sighs, tucking one of…
In the last week of September 2006, an odd thing happened: A Phoenix rap group managed to light up controversy all over the nation via an article that appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times by staff writer Chris Lee. The article, titled “Rap’s Captive Audience,” was…
“What hip-hop do you know that has a Kansas country girl singing?” Mynce, the turntablist for local hip-hop group the Smob, asks me this over beers the day after the band’s CD-release party. The answer is none. I don’t know of many female artists in local hip-hop, period. That’s what…
Because kids in 2007 aren’t buying CDs like kids of yesteryear did, retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target are threatening to scale back their shelf space to stock only new releases from artists with proven sales. Not a big deal if you buy CDs on Amazon or iTunes, but…
Mark Zubia is one of the most talented singer-songwriters in the Valley. He’s seen some success with his Americana bands Los Guys and The Chimeras, but his solo work is equally compelling. Here we have 10 tunes, all of which manage to tell a story alongside a nice melody, in…
We have some pretty sick fantasies, but none ever centered on staring at the night sky through a telescope. Undaunted hat- and scarf-wearers and general-punishment gluttons can rendezvous at the secluded Estrella Mountain Regional Park for the Dark Sky Telescope Hike, a 3.7-mile jaunt up the Toothaker Trail that ends…
Like major-league closers, modern-rock musicians tend to specialize in the high hard stuff. Still, that doesn’t mean fans of the genre reject any and all softer sounds — and that’s where Kevin Devine comes in. A generation ago, Devine, who has local boys Miniature Tigers on tour with him, wouldn’t…
If you’re peeping this from some sort of mobile telecommunications device, you’ll like what you’re about to read. On Saturday, May 16, the good folks of the co-working space and collective known as Gangplank will be holding the first-ever Mobi Festival, a conference for developers of mobile computing and anyone…
Boxed wines? Thanks to the economy, they’re not just for hobos and Jerry Springer acolytes anymore. Tapino’s offering a four-course menu featuring grilled duck breast paired with, well, the best of the box. P.S. The evening begins with complimentary sparkling wine . . . from a can. Buddump. Reservations are…
The fest features a screening of the documentary A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek, narrated by Ted Danson. Thu., May 14, 7 p.m., 2009…
The Avondale police officer moonlights as an author of thrillers. His latest, a car-chase extravaganza that travels from Phoenix to New York, is titled The Decoupage Album. Sun., May 17, 2 p.m., 2009…
You know you’ve got a good thing going when you’ve been tutored by someone who’s been a driving force in forwarding the Chicano art movement as a whole. Vincent Valdez was schooled in the art of art-making by Alex Rubio, the San Antonio-based muralist known as “El Diablito”; the two…
The masquerade party, presented by Raven Events, features music by Nineball and DJ Old School, merchandise vendors, pole-dancing lessons courtesy of the PussyCats Pole Dance Company, a costume contest, celebrity emcees Amber M. and Amber B. from the Bad Girls Club, and a silent auction. Proceeds benefit various domestic-violence shelters…
Hang on to your wimples. The Seduction of Almighty God is here, and it’s sure to have conservative religious types twisting in their pews for weeks to come. Set in the 1600s, during the disbanding of the English monasteries, Howard Barker’s cynical story of this grave era in English history…
We learned long ago that the only real justice in this world is a clean conscience and a good time, and that’s what’s on tap at Da Una Mano/Give a Hand: Fashion Meets Social Justice, a fundraiser for the clean conscience/good-time gals at Las Otras Hermanas, an anti-poverty group that…
Discretion is the less sweaty part of valor, we muse as we stare into the daunting maw of summer. Take Ro Ho En, the Japanese Friendship Garden, which takes its ultra-sensible annual break beginning June 1. But before we say sayonara, we’ll watch girls go by dressed in their summer…
The medium discusses and signs his new book, Unfinished Business: What the Dead Can Teach Us About Life. Wed., May 20, 7 p.m., 2009…
Adam Bradley specializes in strange bedfellows. In his new analysis of hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, the author asserts that “rap has helped bring about a renaissance of the word, returning rhythm, rhyme and wordplay to our daily lives.” In the book, the Harvard Ph.D…
It’s official. Jimmy Buffett’s in league with the Devil. How else to explain how a dude can milk a four-decade career out of a beach-bum shtick and a couple of decent songs from 1974? Or, worse, how the same marginally talented bum, er, dude can put the capper on the…
These days, you don’t need a Willie Nelson biker braid to be an outlaw-country artist. You just need the right attitude and some kickass musical skills. From his Midwestern popularity with The Homestead Grays to his three-time-Grammy-nominated work with alt-country group BR549 (named for a comedy sketch on the TV…
