To many of us, frames are finishing touches, essential add-ons to great works of art, but what if the frame is the art? Then what? Huh? That question is best answered by Tempe-based artist Andrew Seiferth in his new exhibit “Framed” that transforms personal memories of landscapes and locations into…
Popular images like Uncle Sam (with his bushy eyebrows and emphatic index finger) or the desperate cockroach screaming “Raid?!” have been burned into our collective American psyche. It’s funny to think that these images as well as album and book covers, comics, postage stamps, and billboards were once drawn or…
Life would be more difficult if you had an old hi-fi, a Brownie Swinger, or a twelve-inch color television for a head. You’d probably bump into things a lot. And people would stare. But, if you were lucky enough to be depicted in a groovy acrylic, wood, and resin photo…
The temperature is climbing, and snowbirds are fleeing Phoenix like post-scandal Tiger Woods from a golf tournament. To make matters worse, folks are boycotting Arizona tourism since the illegal immigration bill debacle. Some might think that it’s a good time to get outta Dodge. But why not throw the rest…
Whether you’re a gonzo gravy dog, a chain gang grunt, or a bone-shaking basket case, the Rusty Spoke, a volunteer organization dedicated to bicycle advocacy in Phoenix, invites velocipedes of all types to shed their skidlids and slide out of their saddles for a one-night party pit-stop. With a portion…
Concept albums can be tricky. Get it just right and you’ll earn plenty of critical praise. Make it too complicated and your average listener may not get it. Of course, if you’re already in a successful band and you don’t want a forgettable record on your discography, your best bet…
On the way home from last year’s Shizz Prom, we wiped out on our bike while wearing a satin dress. This, of course, was way more memorable than losing our virginity at high school prom. How can we expect The Shizz to outshine itself for 2010? The Shizz Prom is…
There are a lot of them, and they’re all quite short. But it’s neither the quantity nor the size that makes special the movies in the Phoenix Film Festival’s Best of Arizona Short Films event. It’s the quality. Six-and-a-half-hours of Arizona’s most popular short films of the past decade constitute…
Twenty years ago, a cushy desk job sounded appealing to most college grads. Now, more and more graduates across the globe are avoiding cubicle hell by working for themselves — even if it means lousy pay and strange hours. “The thought of ending up in an ad agency as a…
Twenty years ago, a cushy desk job sounded appealing to most college grads. Now, more and more graduates across the globe are avoiding cubicle hell by working for themselves — even if it means lousy pay and strange hours. “The thought of ending up in an ad agency as a…
Painter Carol Francine Swagel used to spend a lot of time at Lake Pleasant water-skiing with her family. She’s not sure what the lake looks like now, but nature, loss, and memory have propelled her to create the works in “Metamorphosis: New Paintings by Carol Francine Swagel” at Vault Gallery…
Captured! By Robots is what happens when a ska-punk veteran with a questionable sanity level attempts a “hard rock” or, dare we say, “metal” band. Vocalist JBOT (a.k.a. Jay Vance) did time in both Skankin’ Pickle and the Blue Meanies but was allegedly booted for being “unlikable.” As the story…
Farewell tours often end up being an ongoing tease, giving fans a “we gotta see them now because we’ll never ever get to see them ever, ever, again” sense of panic and finality, only to have the “extended” farewell tour roll through town again a year later. Kiss has been…
Fart jokes. Nudity. Getting laid. Not getting laid. These were a few of the topics that often came up at Blink-182 shows and helped the band secure a place in the hearts of girls and boys everywhere. The “equal parts comedy and music” formula proved successful for the guys, helping…
With the Arizona Diamondbacks struggling to stay out of the NL West cellar, it’s a good time to count the team’s blessings. By the luck of the draw, the D-Backs have the fortune of playing in a division that’s consistently one of the weakest in the Majors. That means even…
Reading the words “rare” and “spectacular” in a review of your latest album on the Web’s most influential music commentary site: good. Seeing the word “clusterfuck” following those two words: not quite as good. That’s straight from Pitchfork’s review of Minus the Bear’s fourth LP, this month’s Omni. It ranked…
Call us crazy, but didn’t prom season end a few weeks ago? Even if it that’s the case, that’s not stopping neither the artists and musicians of The Shizz nor the frenetic freakazoids of AZ Rocky from reliving their awkward high school days in high style. The later group will…
Sweeps week is just around the corner which means you’ll soon be left without Grey’s Anatomy’s indie rock picks for a few months. Feast before the famine as Patrick Watson comes to Rhythm Room Friday. The Californian/Canadian has been called “strange, beguiling, beautiful, moving” by NME and a writer for…
MacGruber (Will Forte), a highly decorated soldier of fortune known for “making life-saving inventions out of household materials,” faked his death and went into hiding after his fiancée (Maya Rudolph) was killed at their wedding, likely by MacGruber’s arch enemy, wealthy industrialist Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer). Years later, when…
Her paintings draw on art history and what she calls “all things formal.” Each line she’s drawn or brushstroke she’s made, she says, is completely subconscious. She wants, as she wrote in a recent artist’s statement, “to remember things without language and explore their primal sensory essence.” But in her…
It’s not difficult to see the “hipster” in hipstamatic — but we love it nonetheless. Hipstamatic’s a new iPhone application that can turn any old iphone into a hipstamat-style camera. This may all sound Greek, so we brought in Jason Hill, who set up an Etsy store a few days ago to showcase his own prints, to explain. Hill originally wanted…
There’s not a lot of love out there for anything Arizona-related these days, so we are definitely hearting this tee shirt a friend pointed out on www.holypinata.com Show your mixed feelings for the city (and state), pricks and all, in style. The American Apparel shirts come in black with white lettering…
