Arts & Culture

According to legend, the Diné (Navajo) underworld was a supercool place to live for the Holy People. The weather was perfect, food grew in loads, and the staples of Navajo art – such as rug weaving, silversmithing, and basketry – were cultivated and honed. In his “Underworlderness” exhibit, Navajo artist…

Black Carl is basically the perfect band to play at the “PLASTER THIS! The Art of the Concert Poster” First Friday exhibit. Why? Because the Tempe-based group incorporates all that’s good and fine with music, including upbeat rock, soul grit, and booty-shaking grooves. As for “PLASTER THIS,” the exhibit features…

Pssst. Yeah, you. Wanna buy some Reefer Madness? No, the musical, you hophead! Why has Nearly Naked Theatre has chosen to present the Arizona première of this gaudy whirlwind of sex, drugs, and lounge music, based on the idiotic/cautionary 1936 movie of the same name? Says the play’s director, Damon…

Armed with an endless arsenal of records, Afrika Bambaataa threw park jams in the South Bronx as hip-hop took its first steps in the early ’70s. In the ’80s, he and his Soulsonic Force band set the Zulu Nation in motion and united restless youths with the song “Planet Rock.”…

When it comes to poet, performance artist, photographer, improviser, and Grand Avenue Live! talk-show host Kevin Patterson, we either love him, hate him, or sum up his well-meaning presence with a universal-size sigh. However, there’s no doubt how we’ll feel during the Kevin Patterson Roast, where he will be verbally…

For some folks, nothing says “happy” better than a pink-iced Hostess cupcake and an ice-cold Nehi. And then there’s Mindy Sue Meyers, whose sweet tooth is lodged firmly in her brain, which is spilling over with new ideas for making sweets into visual art. Her inspiration comes from old cookbooks,…

Remember how much fun it was to swim at the public pool as a kid? Unfortunately, when you grew up, you realized that the oasis of your memory was just a chlorinated hole filled with grimy little creatures who got pleasure from peeing in the water and stewing in their…

We love the song “A Girl and Her Horse” by the band Carbon Leaf. Surfacely, it’s about . . . well, a girl and her horse. Subdermally, it’s a metaphor for loss. The same might be said of author Deanne Stillman’s new literary nonfiction work Mustang: The Saga of the…

Whereas other comics deliberately diversify, Jerry Seinfeld is known for exactly three things (and no, his wife’s recent brush with cookbook legitimacy isn’t one of them). They are: his brilliant, groundbreaking sitcom, the moderately grating promotional onslaught for last year’s Bee Movie, and the comedian’s total dedication to the art…

While the big Snakes are away, the little snakes keep ball-yard withdrawal at bay. The junior serpents are the Arizona Diamondbacks’ AAA farm teamers, the Tucson Sidewinders, who play just down the road a piece at Tucson Electric Park. Beginning at 7 Monday, June 9, the Sidewinders host the Sacramento…

Listen, fashion doesn’t escape us. We know what it is to wear a dress without it wearing us. But there’s stylishly walking around in clothes and then there’s owning them, and not too many people on the planet can represent like Tatiana Sorokko. The Russian supermodel and high-society minx is…

The noise doctors of the high strata – Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel of Portland-based indie-rock band The Helio Sequence – have set out to roam the nation on a pan-sonic odyssey. Their craft involves a pair of reengineered vocal chords, a masochistic drum set, a keyboard, synthesizers, and guitars…

All the idiosyncratic jangling, clattering carnival-esque swooning, and arch melodrama suggests Tom Waits Malkoviched into David Bowie’s body. Frontman Carey Mercer’s vocals manifest the shrill, anxious delivery of glam Bowie much like Dan Bejar, whom Frog Eyes has backed and with whom Mercer and Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug created the…

Deemed “the Godfather of Goth,” Peter Murphy built the paradigm for surly, baritone-voiced broodfests. When the English singer broke through the London gloom-tune scene in the late ’70s with his seminal band, Bauhaus, he already had the high-cut cheekbones and deep voice of David Bowie, along with the androgynous costumes…

We have nothing against one-hit wonders, except the ones who don’t realize the jig is up. Take the ’90s band Dread Zeppelin – please! The group’s brilliant come-on lasted about five minutes. Some 15 years later, Tortelvis and crew are still delivering the same peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich punchline. Sad. The one-hit wonderdom…

Just because we ain’t got the Great Smoky Mountains and fields of Kentucky bluegrass in this here desert don’t mean we ain’t got folks playing a bunch of acoustic stringed instruments and singing a high-lonesome sound. On the contrary, there’s plenty o’ places in town to play/hear bluegrass music. The…

Everyone knows the rock ’n’ roll origin story: Enterprising white dudes mine black music (rhythm and blues in particular) for profit. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were two such fellows. The remarkable string of hits they produced for The Coasters, The Drifters, and Elvis opened the ears of disaffected teenagers…

The winner of this best-of-three series between ASU and Fresno States earns a date in Omaha for the College World Series. Sat., June 7, 6 p.m.; Sun., June 8, 7 p.m.; Mon., June 9, 4 p.m., 2008…

By Jonathan McNamara Will there be a wedding at the end of Sex and the City: The Movie? That seemed to be the question floating around Biltmore Fashion Park on May 29, 2008 as hundreds of Sex and the City fans dined on catered food and sipped hot pink cosmopolitans…

By Jonathan McNamara Hot dog! It’s already the weekend! Consider that Memorial Day cookout a warm-up for this weekend’s premier sporting event: Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Qualifier at Arizona Mills Mall. If you think you’ve got what it takes to eat and compete, show up to Nathan’s on Saturday…

By Joseph Golfen A high school aptitude test told him to be social worker or a doctor, suggesting that Lance Fung’s belief in collaboration and social equality made him an ideal fit for a job helping people. Who knew it would lead him to build a museum out of ice?…