I am absolutely dreading the arrival of Guitar Hero: World Tour. Can’t even enjoy the summer. It might sound like insanity, given that the fourth installment in the Guitar Hero franchise could end up being the most successful game of 2008. It won’t even hit store shelves till late October,…
Bitching about the heat in Phoenix is one of our pet peeves (and so is the use of “pet peeve”… grrr), so you’re not going to read such tripe in Night & Day. No sirree. Instead of complaining about the inside of our car reaching nuclear levels or how just…
When the paintball craze first hit critical mass, it seemed like the Hula-Hoop of sports. Fun? Yeah. Doomed? Hell, yeah. Today, paintball’s about as far from obsolescence as a doomed craze can get. Just last year, a group of East Valley investors sank a boatload of dough into a new,…
The first time you hear Eilen Jewell’s voice, you may experience an interesting cross-sensory phenomenon. For example, you might be struck by involuntary synesthesia, confusing the sound of her spellbinding voice for the taste of whiskey and cream or the scent of past lovers. Jewell’s sound – a union of…
The slogan of the Valley of the Sun Juneteenth planning committee is “Remembering the Past, Celebrating the Future.” Ugh. Strangely, the same folks who cooked up that bland, Chamber of Commerce jingle are responsible for the kickin’ Valley of the Sun Juneteenth Celebration. The fest is family-friendly, true, but also…
The bigger the better, yes, but size often has less to do with physical heft than the amount of space one is able to confiscate by sheer noise power. We’re sure they’re all skinny Brooklynites, but Chubby Behemoth’s expansive disregard of stage boundaries and tendency to steamroll every venue it…
It’s no secret that we hate Tucson and the scum who populate the freaking place. But when we remember folks like Hank Arnold – a Tucson racecar driver who won more than 160 main events throughout Arizona before dying in a Manzanita Speedway crash in 1967 – well, we still…
Video games have saturated our culture for 30-something years, so if you haven’t waxed nostalgic about them yet, you’re way behind the curve. Catch up at “ZAP! Vintage Video Games.” “It’ll be an interesting cross-generational experience… a great opportunity to show a time period that has become kind of distant,”…
What’s one of our favorite things about Mesa Contemporary Arts besides the kickass exhibits? The gallery’s sheer size, which makes it the perfect fit for “Mass Consumption,” a show that associate curator Tiffany Fairall describes (in a ginormous nutshell) as “everything about popular culture.” Juror Greg Escalante of Juxtapoz magazine…
Reggae-like grooves that quote 1960s Jamaica. Funk-soaked keyboards, circa 1973. Santana-esque electric guitar solos. No way a modern-day band can successfully fuse all of these elements into something listenable, groovy, and tight. Well, we felt this way until we were made hip to Alfred Howard & the K23, a San…
This year’s Phoenix ConGames 2008 will definitely be filled with swordplay and sorcery. But with the recent passing of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, gaming geeks may be a bit more somber. Or maybe not. Maybe the d20s will roll into Mesa Convention Center and really geek it up…
While shagging one of our emotionally unavailable conquests, he screamed our name. (We’re coldhearted. It meant nothing.) But when he started watching an anime DVD on his big screen, we saw pink and gold twittering birds everywhere, then drew a heart in the steam on the window. Needless to say,…
While shagging one of our emotionally unavailable conquests, he screamed our name. (We’re coldhearted. It meant nothing.) But when he started watching an anime DVD on his big screen, we saw pink and gold twittering birds everywhere, then drew a heart in the steam on the window. Needless to say,…
It’s gotten so we don’t even see them, the carefully placed product endorsements that are part of everyday life. On an episode of American Idol, Simon Cowell raises to his lips a monstrous neon tumbler emblazoned with the Coca-Cola logo, and what we see is a man taking a drink…
We hadn’t seen a portraiture group show that knocked our socks off for a long time. We hadn’t, that is, until we checked out “The Portrait” exhibit, which features works of a different breed entirely. Local photographer, eye lounge art-collective member, and show curator Lindsay Palmer gathered works by many…
Portrait artist Derek Wilkinson is among good company, the likes of Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh. Then again, Da Vinci was charged with sodomy, Rembrandt bedded his maid, and Van Gogh mutilated his own ear. Yikes. Luckily, it’s their work we remember, not their personal lives. “I think Rembrandt’s…
You win a jillion dollars in the lottery. First order of business? 48-hour bender of cocaine and hookers, of course. But, after that, you want to invest in something that has sustainable value. So you shell out for a Van Gogh. Safe investment, right? Maybe not. Check out Phoenix Art…
The only way to experience a group this vast, colorful, and earthbound is to simply just listen. An excessive use of adjectives seems unjust. Faun Fables and its creator, Dawn McCarthy, seamlessly draw from a spiritual and mythological realm to convey world sounds that are entrancing. The expression “song telling”…
When was the last time you saw a really good live glockenspiel performance? Can’t recall, eh? Well, leave it to Germany – the same country that worships David Hasselhoff – to incorporate the noble instrument (which is basically a higher-pitched xylophone) into an experimental/progressive metal band. No, we’re not talking…
After a hot start, the Arizona Diamondbacks have been on a serious slide of late. With a boatload of road games coming up – including two separate three-city stops to the Midwest and East coast – and a young club to boot, one has to wonder if a June swoon…
On the one hand, the Arizona Rattlers had nothing to lose. On the other, everything was at stake when they made that preseason promissory note of a 2008 postseason appearance. Who does that shit? Well, whatever it might say about their sanity, the Rattlers displayed a clangin’ set of cojones,…
There are certain things that make for a good night. Finding the hottest party in town, maintaining a lack of mascara globs throughout the evening, and successfully averting visible panty lines. Throw in a casual hookup without catching an STD and, baby, you’re good. But what makes for the best…
