Sometimes it seems like wishing for a band to be famous is just the most polite way imaginable of wishing for all of its members to lead miserable, unloved, unfulfilling lives. Rest assured that when our writers got together to talk about Phoenix bands who deserve to be famous none…
Wherever it is along the sonic plane that shoegaze collides with post-rock, Montreal quartet Besnard Lakes thrives, cooking up haunted, atmospheric sprawls that tickle the introspectively inclined. Their fourth release, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO, also marks their third nomination for the Polaris Music Prize. They have yet to win,…
Like most American children, I was indoctrinated into the Christian tribe. In case you somehow aren’t familiar with the mythology, one of the main ideas is that if you do what the book says, you’ll go to a place called heaven. Now, the book doesn’t lay it out very clearly,…
By Patrick Montes In the hype and haze surrounding the timeframe between the viral success of ASAP Rocky’s song “Purple Swag” and the release of Rocky’s first mixtape, much of the internet’s gaze was directed squarely at the flamboyant, charismatic young Harlemite. Yet, when his “Live.Love.ASAP” mixtape was released part…
Drake’s songs can sometimes make him sound like someone who spends a lot of time sitting in front of a window, watching rain and dialing up exes. That vulnerable side of the performer, if it exists, stayed in the recording studio when he played US Airways Center Saturday night. Drake…
Dry River Yacht Club released its newest album, El Tigre, on November 16 and threw a party at Crescent Ballroom to celebrate it. At the height of the party, the Yacht Club had more than 400 people packed into the Crescent, losing their minds to some of the best performers…
The city of Tempe opened the grassy area beneath the Hayden Flour Mill for a concert Friday night by two of the Valley’s biggest acts, Black Carl and Mergence. Up-and-comers The Prowling Kind and Bears of Manitou opened. With the old mill right beside the stage, the string lights overhead,…
Every Pearl Jam joke has been made. Every Eddie Vedder impression has been performed, and some of them were very funny, although others were just enormous successes on the Modern Rock chart. All that’s left is to just see Pearl Jam, and listen to Eddie Vedder say “Ah’m still alive”…
Smeared black-and-white corpse face-paint (with a little red blood spatter thrown in for good measure) is synonymous with extreme metal. Whether it’s to enhance a demonic theme or carry on cultural tradition, musicians that utilize the medium are definitely projecting a bold message. (For me, it often points to the…
I was introduced to guitar virtuoso Grant Ferguson’s music a couple of years ago and have been a fan of his instrumental work ever since. His shows seem to work best in small, intimate venues, as he brings up guest vocalists and interacts with the crowd quite often. So his…
Chilleen’s on 17 — way up 17, in Black Canyon City — is still open, which is the first thing you’ll notice about it if your previous experience with Bar Rescue was Tempe’s Rocky Point Cantina closing almost immediately after being transformed into Havana Cabana. The second thing you’ll notice…
When Lee Brice finished his hour and a half long set and walked off of the stage at Comerica Theatre, the roar and the cheers from the crowd, along with the standing ovation, were as loud and lasted as long as I can recall in recent memory. Brice fed off…
Hot damn. Last night the Rhythm Room was the vessel for a full-on, motherlovin’ space jam starring Nik Turner’s Hawkwind. Turner is one of the co-founders of Hawkwind, a band that formed at the end of the 1960’s and helped to define the space rock sound. Hawkwind is still an…
I’ve been to a lot of different shows in my day, in a lot of different genres, but I’m honestly unable to imagine what a George Clinton show would be like in person. So that’s one option…
The Zoo aims to put reggae music on top, plain and simple. The musical drive is clear for the four members of the latest band to spring to life in the Phoenix desert. The four men come from different walks of life, and different regions of the world, bringing with…
Tonight, Tempe natives Katastro will be returning to the Valley from their new home in Huntington Beach to play a local show for their eagerly awaiting fans at Marquee Theatre. While the band will always support the city from which it came, the four funk, rock, and hip-hop artists headed…
Nearly 30 years ago, in 1984, Lee Greenwood released a song that would go on to become one of the most recognizable patriotic anthems ever: “God Bless the U.S.A.” Lee Greenwood has since been known as the Patriot, and his pride runs deep. He has never slowed down as a…
Did you feel the ground around downtown (Phoenix) move last night? Those good vibrations oozing from the cracks of Crescent Ballroom were created by a whole lot of fans who couldn’t help but move to the garage-rockin’, soulful, funky, psychedelic sounds of none other than King Khan and the Shrines,…
Tempe is running out of venues. The Clubhouse disintegrated in 2012 following a gang-related shooting; Rocky Point Cantina disappeared after a bad reality show trip; most recently the Stray Cat closed suddenly, announcing the bad news on its last day in business. Which is not to say that’s why Valley…
I have an embarrassing tendency to bait people into conversations where I just talk about cool things I am doing. Surprise, right? While it likely stems from being bored with hearing of the mundane achievements of others (babies, crappy jobs, cars), there is a part of me that figures it…
So who is this Drake guy, anyway? Of course, there’s Drake the superstar, the guy who opens his latest, Nothing Was the Same, with the brag that he’s as famous as his mentor — though at this point, he’s arguably much more famous than Lil Wayne, who signed him to…
Believe it or not, but it looks as though Adam Dumper’s been taking a few cues from both Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders lately. Over the past year or so, the local artist and impresario, better known as Dumperfoo, has transformed his signature event The Blunt Club into a veritable…
