Colson Miller of the Thin Bloods and Robbie Pfeffer of Playboy Manbaby both describe their bands as more of a live experience than something that oughta be listened to at home. That said, it hasn’t stopped either band from releasing multiple cassettes this year through Rubber Brother Records. While the…
Locals shine this weekend. Wooden Indian, Playboy Manbaby, and Thin Bloods are all releasing albums, so there are plenty of ways to support local arts these next few days. We’ve sifted through the listings and selected five shows worthy of checking out this week. If you’d like to double-check our…
Steve Wiley is Up on the Sun’s resident Record Store Geek. Biweekly, he shares stories of great music and wacky characters from his continuing 27 years in Valley record stores and the always-zany music biz. I was hanging out at Revolver Records the other day, and Andy (friend, former hoodlum,…
Your favorite band played for only an hour. Not an hour and 15 minutes. The big hand went around the clock just once. No further. The content of the show review below won’t matter to anyone who saw Interpol at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe in person. You left that…
Raheem Jarbo — a.k.a. Mega-Ran, a.k.a. Random — has managed to blur the lines between hip-hop and video games by delivering a unique blend of 8-bit and heavy hip-hop beats while managing to display a certain level of vulnerability and intelligence. Now, Random has teamed up with director Mike Cardoza…
No, Lady Gaga will not perform with Tony Bennett at Mesa Arts Center. There’s long been talk of a collaboration CD between the two, and it seems that come September, the two finally will release Cheek to Cheek, an album that finds the unlikely collaborators crooning jazz standards, backed by…
Local rapper Trap House isn’t afraid to tackle current events in his music. Three days ago, he penned a song called “Imagine (Mike Brown Tribute),” and now, the rapper is teaming up with a group of locals to shoot a video for the song…
La Cerca singer/songwriter/guitarist Andrew Gardner is an idealist. No, he’s a cynic. In any case, he’s a master songsmith who speaks most articulately through his guitar playing. He found his calling in the early-’90s twee-pop of Beat Happening and Unrest, along with New Zealand indie bands like the Clean. The…
For about as long as music recordings have existed, give or take 30 years, people have been using songs to pay tribute to weed. In 1929, Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra laid down what’s widely considered the first recorded tune referencing marijuana. “Muggles” had nothing to do with Harry Potter…
“I know where every exit in this room is.” Luna Aura’s eyes scan the room, peripherally watching everyone in it as we speak just inside the door of Jobot Coffee on a particularly blistering day. You’d think it would be a distracting trait, the indication of someone uninterested with engaging,…
College kids of the Valley, stop your whining about tuition fees and pay attention for a second: If you’re one of the many who ditched town during the long, hot summer, there are a couple of things that went down in your absence. First off, you can forget about tapping…
It seemed the unlikeliest of pairings when it was announced last week. Surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, co-creator of the influential TV show Twin Peaks and the celebrated director of 10 feature films, including Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, and The Elephant Man, has teamed up with very mainstream ’80s pop stars…
Geoff Tate has always been seen as one rock ‘n’ roll’s archetypal frontmen. As singer of Queensrÿche, he sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and sold out shows in dozens of countries. Tate is ranked in the top 20 on Hit Parader’s 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time,…
Whether it says more about Jordan Prather or Tucson’s downtown music scene that the Head Over Heart singer/multi-instrumentalist likens himself to a punk rocker is up to you, but what’s certain is that he sees himself as an outsider in his community. “I remember reading in an Arcade Fire interview…
Check out our picks for the best shows happening in Phoenix this week. Don’t forget the browse our comprehensive music listings if you’d like more options…
These days, The Burning of Rome frontman Adam Traub is a happy man. His band’s self-described “Jesus and Mary Chain doing a spaghetti Western” style is fully realized on the Burning of Rome’s new album, Year of the Ox (Surfdog Records), and in the last year, the band has shared…
Ten years ago this December, a musical icon was taken from the world of heavy metal far too early. When Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott was gunned down performing with his band Damageplan in Ohio, we didn’t just lose a guitar legend. To those who knew him, he was one of the…
Billy Joe Shaver slides out of his battered white Ford Econoline van with surprisingly agility for a man celebrating his 75th birthday tonight. There’s already a small crowd gathered around the outside of The Satellite in Los Angeles, an unlikely venue for such an act and such an evening, but…
Listen up, rock fans: The next time you’re stuck in the nosebleeds watching your favorite guitar god rule a six-string at an arena show, we’ve got something for y’all to ponder. And no, it’s not that you should’ve been quicker on Ticketmaster’s website. Rock music, to riff on the words…
Remember that old chestnut from your Psych 101 days about how the whole being greater than the sum of its parts? Well, it happens to be totally true, and not when it comes to gestalt psychology. Its also can be easily applied to the music world, whether we’re talking about…
Think of every wedding you’ve ever been to. Between the toasts and the bouquet toss, the traditions can feel so run into the ground you forget why you are there in the first place: to celebrate a couple who found each other in this crazy world and fell in love…
By Steve Brennan Like it or not, Pharell Williams’ “Happy” is likely to be the top-selling single of 2014. And yes, its buoyant ’60s soul vibe and simple, positive message is modern pop perfection. But scanning the rest of this year’s biggest hits, one is struck by a consistent theme:…
