Assembled from a stockpile of 150 cassettes that turned up, inexplicably, at a public library in California, Khmer Folk & Pop is a riveting example of cultural cross-pollination. It’s also a fitting first stop for anyone still frightened off by the frou-frou “World Music” genre tag: The most interesting thing…
There’ll be a lot of celebrating at Casket Life’s tour kickoff show on Friday, August 6, at Ziggy’s in Tempe — not only is the band headed out for a two-week Southwest/Midwest tour, it’s also become the first group to sign to Stomping Ground Records (www.stompinggroundrecords.com), a new local venture…
From all accounts, Denver-based screamo/hardcore foursome Planes Mistaken for Stars flat-out leveled stages on the recent politically charged Plea for Peace tour, stealing the thunder from headliners Cursive with jackknifing Mack truck riffs and gone-haywire howls. And their dirtbag, anti-emo pretty-boy looks (they’ve been referred to as “an entire group…
Dinah Cancer wants you to know that she is not goth. Goth connotes mopery, and as a wicked woman of the night, Cancer does not mope — she prowls. “I do carry a fondness for dead things,” Cancer writes on her Web site. “I’d always worn and had a very…
What’s Selling Top 10 sellers at Eastside Records, 217 West University Drive in Tempe, for July 21 through 29: 1. The Locust, I Don’t Feel a Thing! EP (bootleg) 2. The Dillinger Escape Plan, Miss Machine (Relapse) 3. The Hives, Tyrannosaurus Hives (Interscope) 4. Dwarves, Salt Lake City EP (Sympathy…
Thursday 5 Acme Roadhouse: DJ J. Alan (house) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (Top 40, hip-hop) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Piranha Room/Area 51 with DJs Jeremy & Ricky (industrial/goth, electroclash) Axis/Radius: Summer Nights with DJ MCB & Josh Royal (all genres) AZ 88: DJ Seduce (acid jazz lounge) Club Bash: Atomic…
Metal is metal and punk is punk, and never the twain shall meet. Or at least that’s been the story for the last 20 years since the two movements’ brief convergence in the mid-’80s. Back in 1985 and ’86, releases by metal bands such as Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax forged…
EPs can serve several functions: as a way to keep impatient fans happy while they wait for another full-length album; as a cost-effective means for new artists to get material into the hands of the public; as a chance for established artists to get weird and experimental without much risk;…
If you’re going to the Phoenix school of punk rock, what better teacher to have than Jeff Dahl? Local trio Labor Party thanks the former Angry Samoan for his “support and expertise” in the liner notes of its new CD, Graffiti and Glass, a raucous nod to the psychedelic pre-punk…
Scary? Not especially. But the remixed, remastered and rereleased six-song disc from Scary Kids (who get their name from an obscure mid-’90s song by math-rock progenitors Cap’n Jazz) definitely has some punch to it. Scary Kids’ three-guitar assault, combined with a sprinkling of synths, is melodically pummeling, yet the songs…
The first Muffs LP in five years is like a quick sugar rush that doesn’t stick with you for long. Some of the band’s power-pop songs are catchy, but taken as a whole, the record lacks staying power. Kim Shattuck’s vocal inflections vary from a pouting little girl to a…
As a touring member of R.E.M., a late-era member of Big Star and a co-leader (with his friend Jon Auer) of the defunct Seattle power-pop band the Posies, singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Ken Stringfellow’s got nothing to prove in the capable-of-crafting-a-catchy-hook department. So on Soft Commands, his third solo album, he doesn’t really…
Eddie slowly walked into the room and lifted his tired eyes toward his two anxious bandmates. “He said, `I’m finally getting my solo career going, and Van Halen doesn’t fit into my plans.’ And then he hung up on me,” the guitarist whispered. “Oh God! Game over!” Michael sobbed, lunging…
Belfast’s Stiff Little Fingers are a legendary band, a punk classic despite the oxymoron. Their mixture of politics and smart songwriting brought them critical acclaim, but fast-forwarding 25 years and a couple of reunion tours and records later, the band is in the same category as the Buzzcocks: playing new…
Stan Ridgway was there when the doors opened, and he never left the building. In the late 1970s, when L.A. punk was kicking off and Black Flag, X, and Darby Crash were climbing out of the primordial muck, still covered in La Brea tar, Ridgway was establishing his mutant view…
Local DJs David Epstein and Jonboy, veteran residents at Scottsdale’s Next (7111 East Fifth Avenue), are celebrating the completion of their first demo CD together with a bash in Next’s upstairs lounge on Saturday, August 7. The two DJs, collectively known as 4th Dimension, specialize in a mix they like…
Go ahead and brand Junior Boys IDM (rank shorthand for “Intelligent Dance Music”). Just know that doing so would be a waste of time and precious consonants. Because what the Boys want to be are pop stars, and on their spectacular debut they manage to compress all that is right…
Songwriter/pianist/vocalist Leroy Carr, whose two-disc CD set is one of the highlights of the new Roots N’ Blues Series, was one of the first recording artists to make full use of the new electric microphone. With a crooning style akin to the coming generation of jazz singers, he cut 190…
Top 10 sellers at Stinkweeds Records, 1250 East Apache Boulevard in Tempe, for July 18 through 24: 1. Low, A Lifetime of Temporary Relief boxed set (Chairkickers) 2. Polyphonic Spree, Together We’re Heavy (Hollywood) 3. The Album Leaf, In a Safe Place (Sub Pop) 4. Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse (Geffen)…
Former D Generation singer Jesse Malin’s made no bones about his love for Paul Westerberg, following Ryan Adams down that now well-worn country-rock path on his last album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction, which Adams produced. Like most of Adams’ solo work, the album had more trappings than content, and…
Leaving behind much of the gimmickry of their contemporaries, the Phantom Surfers rose to the crest of the surf instrumental revival of the early 1990s, playing solid vibrato-drenched tunes with a wry sense of humor (their stage banter is hilarious). They haven’t put out a record since 2000’s XXX Party,…
When your logo is a pentagram with a pot leaf in the center, and your vocalist is “God of metal” Phil Anselmo (Pantera), you’ve got all the symbolism needed to pull off a skin-peeling speed-metal record. And that’s exactly what Superjoint Ritual did, creating 13 blistering tracks and christening them…
