In 1991, 16volt founder Eric Powell had a vision: he wanted to merge the gritty, primal guitars of garage rock and punk with the relentless machinistic throttle and hum of industrial beats. The result was a barrage of “coldwave” songs brimming with blips and glitches on 16volt’s 1993 debut album,…
Polka Dot Dot Dot embodies one of the great rites of American adolescence: the sleepover, a hootenanny of silly goosery and warm friendships. “We’re totally in love with each other,” coos Jordan Smith, who asked Colleen Johnson and Onyx of Olympia, two Pacific Northwestern singer/songwriters, to join him on tour…
To call young stud tenor saxophonist Paul-Eirik Melhus the next John Coltrane or even in the vein of a contemporary jazz cat like Chris Speed would be premature and just plain stupid. But we do gotta say that this 16-year-old dude is one of the best players in town, regardless…
We pull up to the tony Myst nightclub rocking our high wedge heels and black miniskirt, cruise the second-floor VIP area where the friendly bartenders shower us with whiskey and compliments, and decide we’ll bring our sassy selves back for Source Magazine’s 20th Party. The blowout’s sponsored by Prime Time…
You’ve subsisted on nothing but carrots, church wafers, and Chinese laxatives for the past three months, determined to have the perfect bikini figure. You’ve withstood numerous suggestions to “eat a goddamn cookie” and are looking forward to flashing that ass-and-tit set of yours. Never mind that the contours of your…
The Light Up the Sky Festival, an alcohol-free event at Maryvale Baseball Park, features live musical accompaniment to the fireworks starting at 9:15 p.m. Thu., July 3, 7-10 p.m., 2008…
Phoenix Art Museum has always had a thing for Asian art. Its permanent collection of Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian artworks is not only massive, but also well-regarded. The “No Snow on the Broken Bridge: Video Work by Yang Fudong” exhibit is another amazing gem in PAM’s new series of…
How in hell did our WNBA-champion Phoenix Mercury go 0-fer-May? And how ’bout that sparkling 3-6 record they carried into mid-June? Well, there’ve been three significant changes since last year’s campaign, and that’s a ton for any pro-basketball team, no matter the gender. But since someone specific must be blamed…
Dark Lotus is coming to town, and we best not mock them for fear of dismemberment. Composed of members of Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, and Blaze, the band is a dark clown conglomerate with a taste for doom. And with names like Violent J, Shaggy 2 Dope, Monoxide Child, and…
The San Diego Padres. Ugh. What to say about these NL West cellar dwellers? [Insert enough white space here to fill up the article’s predetermined word count.] Aw, man. That ain’t going to fly with our editor. Plus, we want to keep our job, so we’ll gab as best we…
Mark Mothersbaugh lives a symmetrical life of wild extremes. Consider: • He’s was born and still lives in Akron, Ohio – all-American birthplace of the rubber tire, Alcoholics Anonymous, and the soap-box derby – but made his name as frontman for the band Devo, which posited that mankind was digressing…
By Jonathan McNamara What is the most over-the-top form of entertainment? This weekend, two forms of joyous audio/visual overload locked together in battle to find out. U.S. Air Guitar Championship (Phoenix) A gang of invisible guitar strumming maniacs hit The Brickhouse Theater in downtown Phoenix this weekend proving that you…
By Jonathan McNamara Friday: Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot Director Adam Yauch’s documentary about NYC’s Rucker Park hits theaters this weekend. See local b-ball hero Jerryd Bayless and seven other players looking for a shot at the NBA go head-to-head in a dramatic basketball showdown. For more information, read “Baseline…
Whether you realize it or not, your day is a minefield of perception pitfalls. It starts with that first glance in the mirror, when your nose looks like a flamingo beak and that pimple looks like Mount Vesuvius. On the drive to work you wonder if that asshole cut you…
Of the summer’s many revenge-of-the-nerd fulfillment fantasies, Wanted stands the best chance of dislodging Fight Club from fanboys’ Facebook pages. It has the same dizzying style, the same ultraviolence, the same undeniable appeal of punch-clock payback, and — best of all — no irony! Fed up with your shit job,…
Many will attempt to describe WALL-E with a one-liner. It’s R2-D2 in love. 2001: A Space Odyssey starring The Little Tramp. An Inconvenient Truth meets Idiocracy on its way to Toy Story. But none of them does justice to a film that’s both breathtakingly majestic and heartbreakingly intimate — and,…
In Kit Kittredge, all it takes to cure the Depression is a little Miss Sunshine. To my 10-year-old daughter, the term “American Girl” means “that store my meanie of a mom — unlike all the other, higher-quality moms — won’t let me go near.” Why should I? She hates dolls,…
The words “user-generated content” usually mean you’re about to encounter one of two things: an irritating Super Bowl commercial made by 16-year-olds, or another dramatic chipmunk. Still, people love this stuff. So it’s no surprise that video-game developers are catering to the YouTube generation with Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy…
The Downtown Phoenix Public Market has made shoppers think locally about their produce and proved there are bargains beyond clipped coupons and grocery-store discount cards. Because of the market’s popularity, other homegrown items have sprouted on the downtown asphalt, including Mics @ the Market, an open-mic hootenanny that gathers poets,…
You live in a town long enough, and every corner contains a memory of someone you used to know. I’ve been here almost half a century, and I can barely walk across the street without being reminded of one person or another. I drive past that cheesy diner at 16th…
While most of the Valley’s various symphony orchestras have gone on hiatus for the summer, the monthly Downtown Chamber Series manages to roll on and represent the local classical music scene despite the heat. The latest edition of the series is presented at the Phoenix Art Museum and features the…
We asked a guy out to Morton’s Steakhouse last month. Our socially awkward invite: “You wanna eat some meat?” Poor sap. If he’d only said yes, we would’ve followed it up with, “You wanna drink some booze?” and taken him to the lecture/tasting “Bourbon: The Journey From Barrel to Bottle.”…
