What’s up with RiRi? TMZ reported Rihanna had an outburst backstage at the Grammy Awards before she canceled her scheduled appearance. Her people say that she had bronchitis and wouldn’t have been able to perform, but the gossip website reported “the singer was loudly expressing displeasure over her rehearsal …
Looks like the Rebel Lounge will re-open ahead of schedule today, according to an email sent out by organizers. The central Phoenix concert venue closed after a Saturday night concert by the rockabilly band Three Bad Jacks. The lead singer lit a fire in front of the stage, setting off…
Jazz singer Kurt Elling is an artist in constant forward motion. A master vocalist with virtuoso chops and a deep appreciation of the genre, his career began in the jazz clubs of Chicago, where two of the scene’s elder statesmen provided Elling with guidance and encouragement necessary to grow into…
It’s been just over 20 years since D.R.I. released a new record, but that’s about to change. The Texas band launched in 1982 as a hardcore act. Five years later, their short, ferocious songs (most clocked in under a minute-thirty) got longer as the group moved in a more metal…
Touring with Beck, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Shins, Jessica Dobson played some of the biggest stages a rock guitarist could hope for, but it came at the expense of her own band. So Dobson put herself front and center, walking away from the Shins to focus full time on…
Calling all beer drinkers and party people with a competitive spirit. New Times’ third annual Beer Olympics has your name on it. On Friday, April 22, from 8 to 11 p.m., Tempe Marketplace will become the proving grounds for the Valley’s finest drinking games competitors, who will face off in…
Writing a top ten list vacillates between easy and hard faster than the questions in a typical Trivia Crack game. Sometimes, the lists flow right out and you nail it. Others, though, you stew on and cross things off, add them back, and cross them off again while the little…
There is no doubt that rapping dominates hip-hop. No matter how good a beat is, for the casual hip-hop fan, the bars being spit over it will almost always be more important. Even a mega-producer like Kanye West didn’t ascend to superstar status until he released The College Dropout and…
Three Bad Jacks, the band that started the fire at Rebel Lounge that triggered the venue’s sprinkler systems, posted about the incident on Facebook Monday evening. The band called the Saturday night accident an “unfortunate situation.” Instagram user evilchavo posted a pair of videos that showed bandleader Elvis Suissa starting a…
Phoenix is a musical hotbed for a lot of things: there’s an amazing indie scene here, folk is stronger than ever, the heat had bred some insanely talented metal bands, but choral music’s prevalence is not high on the average concertgoer’s list. However, tonight marked the third time that Phoenix…
Speed metal or thrash metal? The consensus seems to be that the terms are interchangeable and probably not even applicable in 2016, although the term “thrash” metal doesn’t elicit the groans that “speed” metal does when experts on the subject are asked. In fact, this list of the best speed/thrash…
An incident Saturday night has damaged central Phoenix club Rebel Lounge to the point that the club must close until Wendesday. The Los Angeles band Three Bad Jacks had a show scheduled Saturday night. It’s unclear at this point what happened, but the Arizona Republic is reporting that there was…
Phoenix might not be New York or Hollywood, but it’s still a pretty good city for talent of all sorts. Although many artists move five hours west on the I-10 once they make it big, there are plenty of your favorite bands have Arizona ties. Since we all know about…
It’s not often that a video game nerd is also an indie rock musician. It’s rarer still when that person is dragged to a rave that, in turn, heavily influences the music he makes. For these reasons and his fatalist lyrics that contemplate life as a predetermined journey, Robert DeLong…
Valentine’s Day is something of a polarizing prospect, to say the least. Cupcake! Bittersweet! at The Rogue BarThe sinfully inclined fetishistic fiends of monthly dance night Cupcake! will welcome guest DJs Sean Watson and Benni Beatnik into their midst for this anti-Valentine’s theme party on Friday, February 12. All the…
The live music lineup over Valentine’s weekend has something almost everyone will love: profanely funny heavy metal acts, R&B legends, a locally focused rock festival, profound blues artists, geeky rappers, alt-rock heavyweights, an enormous EDM throwdown, and even a show aimed at protecting the naughty bits of men everywhere. Here…
Denizens of the Metro Phoenix nightlife scene got their drink on at few new bars that opened around the Valley last month. Some also got their game on at the same time over at the wildly popular Cobra Arcade Bar, which finally made its long-awaited debut in the beginning of…
The Mason Jar holds a special place in the minds of longtime rock fans in the Valley. Now, you can take a piece of the now-defunct legendary music venue home with you. Auction Nation is hosting almost 200 lots of memorabilia from the Mason Jar, including everything from unused concert…
Mitchell Hillman listens to more local music than just about anyone in the Valley. He presents his picks for best new music in his column, Right Hear, Right Now. Wolvves – “Ivory Drive” Around this time last year, Wolvves released its debut full-length debut album and upon doing so, immediately…
Phoenix Afrobeat Orchesta produces some of the most cohesive, full-bodied, and smooth grooves in the Valley. This is known. Looks like the rest of the country is starting to find out. The organizers of NPR’s much-watched Tiny Desk Contest have chosen Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra as to compete against five other…
Country music once again has a home up at the High Street retail center in North Phoenix, albeit one that isn’t the namesake of a superstar singer. Cowboys Saloon, a rustic eatery and bar that hosts live music, recently opened in the spot formerly occupied by a Toby Keith’s I…
As he puts down his instrument case, we ask Tempe musician Daniel Suber, better known as MC/DC, if there are a lot of punk trombonists. “Not that I know of,” he responds with a laugh. “Everybody is like, ‘Play in my jazz band,’ and I don’t know how to do…
