Sister Smile, a.k.a. the Singing Nun, held the top spot on the charts prior to the Fab Four’s explosion onto the American music scene. Editor’s note: Since Oct. 6, 2012 (the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ debut album Love Me Do), we’ve been on a half-century celebration…
Ravers and drinkers and college cats, oh my. That’s just some of who we encountered in our clubland adventures during the past month while in pursuit of snazzy snapshots. We got to share oxygen with world-famous beat-juggler David Guetta at Maya in Scottsdale, stayed up late with candy kids at…
Gone (hopefully) are the days when underground rockers like Kathleen Hanna, Exene Cervenka, Kim Deal, and Kim Gordon needed to prove themselves as musicians. It’s no longer about women in rock; it’s just about women making good rock. Oh, and having a damn good time doing it. It’s one of…
Last time MarchFourth Marching Band graced Phoenix was in 2012 at Crescent Ballroom — and it went through hell to get there. The Portland band’s tour bus — carrying a troupe of about 30 performers — broke down just as it rolled into town. Midway through a sweaty show for…
Even after four albums, each drastically different from the others, Manchester Orchestra is a band headed in the right direction. The Atlanta band’s 2006 debut, I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child, balanced anthemic jaunts “Wolves at Night” and “Now That You’re Home” with the heartbreakingly reflective “Where Have You…
Nikki Lane is raw, unabashed, and commanding — and alluringly soft. Her music hardly follows the stereotypical country blueprint, which is part of what makes it so refreshing. Another part is the intensity packed into each song, from ferocious growls to sexy whispers, sneering jeers to quiet laments — it’s…
Prog-rock diehards and horror movie fanatics had reason to geek out when 2013 saw 40-year-old Italian band Goblin embark on its first-ever North American tour. In 2014, Goblin has decided to come back for more, this time in a round of West Coast shows. The band formed in the early…
On the cover of his just-released sophomore album, Neon Icon, Riff Raff stands in front of hot pink and blue laser beams clutching a Husky puppy in one arm and a dumbstruck toddler in the other. You might not want the Houston-based rapper to watch your kids or dog, but…
Thursday 1 AZ/88: Black Out Thursdays with Josh 1 (soulful house, lounge) Baja Joe’s: Latin Live Thursdays with DJ Chop (Top 40, Latin) Bar Smith: Ladies Night with DJ AL3, & DJ Fantastico (hip-hop, EDM, trap, Latin) Bobby Q’s: All Star Thursdays with DJ Freshmaker, DJ Phlava, DJ Dark Vader,…
Michele Chinichian knows a thing or three about throwing a boffo birthday bash. For proof, look no further than the magically delicious affair she threw in honor of her own b-day in January. It overflowed with unicorns, balloons, rainbow-colored party favors, and other playful revelry. Chinichian, who performs as DJ…
You could say Andrew Jackson Jihad — once an acoustic folk punk duo now a five-piece rock ‘n’ roll machine — is going places. After five studio albums, two tours with Frank Turner (including a stint in Europe), sharing stages with Against Me! and Future of the Left, plus an…
Courtesy Flickr user Casey Hugelfink We all know it, but it’s time to show it. Urban Outfitters is a creative wasteland, a shortsighted cul-de-sac of trends and trash culture bent for capital gain — one large, unthinking slab of cultural masturbation. But, by and large, it’s a beast we feed…
Being a local singer/songwriter is never easy, especially at the age when one needs to decide whether to attend college or focus full-time on music. However, 19-year-old Christie Huff has found motivation to move ahead with music. A music video for one of her songs made it into a film…
Whatever deity runs the universe — be it Yahweh, Ganesha, Mother Nature, or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster — we’re starting to wonder if they might have a beef with EDM festivals held at Big Surf in Tempe. Three years ago, during the first-ever Soundwave, it rained cats and dogs…
As Wooden Wand and under his own name, singer/songwriter James Jackson Toth has recorded dozens of projects, ranging from wailing freak folk to crunching hard rock, and released a sprawling catalog of cassettes, CD-Rs, vinyl, and digital efforts. But for all his diversity, Toth had a consistent pattern of hopping…
Dubstep producer and DJ Asaf “Borgore” Borger is scheduled to perform Friday, May 2, at the Pressroom in Phoenix. This Israeli-native is known for his brash and brutal style of dubstep, which he named “gorestep.” Borgore is one of the pioneers of modern dubstep in America. His 2010 breakout hit,…
When Azar Lawrence plays Phoenix on Wednesday, April 30, as part of International Jazz Day, he will bring with him a lifetime’s worth of jazz knowledge, plus the experience of playing with jazz greats such as Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Young, not to mention non-traditional types such as…
April was a great month for concerts in Phoenix. Give credit where credit’s due — Coachella’s proximity had a lot of great acts like Broken Bells, Sleigh Bells, Lana Del Ray, and others coming through the Valley. If you missed any of these shows, that’s really too bad, but you…
If you got it, flaunt it. That certainly seems the be the case at Wet Electric every year, as the EDM festival and ginormous pool party features hordes of the skinny, stylish, or bodacious bodies wearing revealing swimwear. Such was the scene during either of the two-day Wet Electric this…
Paul McCartney announced new dates for his Out There tour, and guess what? Phoenix is one of them. The former Beatle will play US Airways Center on August 12. Tickets go on sale Monday, May 5, at 10 a.m. and can be purchased through Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and the box…
There’s something fascinating about Motörhead’s longevity. Nearly 40 years ago, the English band fused together heavy metal and punk — fueled by healthy doses of whiskey — to become one of the early pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal…
Man, what a weekend, right? After a week of scarily summer-like temperatures in the mid-90s, the Valley gods blessed us with two days of gorgeous sunshine in which the mercury hardly threatened to break 80. Not ideal if you were, say, at an electronic music festival at a water park,…
