“All I want for Christmas is Clay Aiken tickets,”…said no music lover ever. But hey, if paradoxical pop icons who owe their celebrity to American Idol is your thing, you’re in luck. Aiken will be bringing his brand of…whatever it is he’s a part of these days to Ovations Live!…
The final night of Sticky Fingers this past Friday went down much like any of the other editions of the long-running indie dance night. Both floors of Bar Smith were packed with members of the young and hip crowd sporting a variety of quirky fashions, DJ favorites like Borisimo and…
There’s no way to put it lightly: The men of Gospel Claws have been through the wringer. Lineup changes. A cancer scare. Most tragically, the suicide of guitarist Mark Erikson. It’s been a weird couple of years since the band’s last record, 2010’s excellent C-L-A-W-S. Given the strife, it’s easy…
“Wine makes everyone hopeful.” These are the inspirational words that appear on a sign that our friend Topper’s mother bought for our tasting room. The sign showed up on “one of those days,” and I promptly displayed it. This subject came up this past weekend while celebrating a respectable showing…
Titanic, Batman, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Castaway, The Sandlot, The Bourne Supremacy, Hook, Across the Universe, and 70 other movies with underwater scenes were cut and spliced for Flock of Dimes’ single “(This is Why) I Can’t Wear White.” Drowning, screaming, punching sharks in the gut, heavy make-out sessions, deep-sea…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop…
By now, you know the story: Things ran late at a 2004 show in Tuba City, Arizona, where Glenn Danzig and Phoenix-based hardcore group North Side Kings were scheduled to perform. Due to scheduling conflicts, the North Side Kings were bumped from the show. Frontman Danny Marianino was upset, and…
Young Prisms @ Rhythm Room|11/19/12The best shoegaze achieves what I think of as negative guitar momentum: distorted or whorled chord effects that, even when paired with hard and steady rhythms, are capable of washing out the meter to give the feeling of moving backwards. It’s related to the weird serenity…
Let’s step backward, folks. It’s 1996, and a hotshot young music writer, Laurie Notaro, is writing about some hotshot young Tempe guitar pop band, The Chimeras, for Phoenix New Times. “The unofficial bio for The Chimeras has all the stereotypical ingredients of a rock ‘n’ roll miniseries: alcoholism, drug addiction…
We get it, Ben. We know that you’re an artist whose hands have helped shaped the foundation of indie pop over the past fifteen years. We know you married and divorced the harbinger of quirky alt-girl songstresses. We know that you front one of the biggest bands to ever grace…
Andrew Jackson Jihad @ Crescent Ballroom| 11/18/12Last night was what homecoming show is all about. Almost a year has passed since Andrew Jackson Jihad’s last hometown show, so there was plenty of anticipation. The show progressively got better and better, leading up to a very unexpected and excellent ending. I’m…
Vibes are optimal right now for Tempe pupil dilators Otro Mundo. Their cassette debut of gnarled grunge-pop gems, Jellied, got them in the pages of British mag NME earlier this year, and now they’re hard at work on new material and a December tour with New York punks Psychic Blood…
Once a week Up on the Sun features a new comic strip from punk rocker, cartoonist, and full-time dad Brad Dwyer. See the New Times print edition to check out the strip in glorious, inky newsprint each Thursday…
To continue my rant from last week about bitches who rock (see The Butcher Babies, Boobs and Blood) and in conjunction with Revolver Magazine’s announcement of their 2013 Hottest Chicks in Metal calendar, I must pay tribute to two more female-fronted bands that I saw last week at the Marquee…
Over a year and a half has gone by since Rebecca Black made her dreadful debut, which means it’s time for another American tween to publicly embarrass herself to the rest of the country’s delight. Just like Rebecca’s video, this one got millions of hits and over 73,000 comments on…
Curious about what’s going on around town during the Thanksgiving holiday music-wise? Plenty, to say the least, as local bands and DJs are gearing up for gigs on both the evening before Turkey Day on Wednesday and during Thanksgiving night on Thursday. Need some suggestions as to how to rock,…
Yeah, yeah, yeah…we get it. Mondays suck (we’ve read Garfield). But it means the start of a new week, which means a bunch of killer shows in and around Phoenix. And here are a few of the coolest — our top five must-see shows this week…
The Deftones @ Marquee Theatre|11/17/12The Deftones rocked an absolutely packed house at The Marquee Theatre last night, treating Valley rock fans to one of the best shows of the year. From the opening notes of “Diamond Eyes” singer Chino Moreno took command of the room with one of his outstanding…
The news waits for no one — at least that’s what we read somewhere — so it’s perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of…
If you hear the sound of rowdy partying mixed with slick electro beats emanating from Spanish Fly on Saturday night during the weekly FRWD party, it means that Sean Essex is in control of the turntables at that particular moment. That’s because the local DJ knows how to do with…
You heard right! The Osmond Brothers, currently consisting of Jay, Jimmy, and Merrill, who sang the lead on all the Osmond hits, from “Yo-You” to “One Bad Apple” to “Down by the Lazy River” and, yes — wait for it — “Crazy Horses,” will be performing a benefit concert Saturday,…
The Faint will makes its triumphant return to Phoenix next week, following a two-year hiatus. This isn’t just any show: The band is playing its landmark synth-punk record Danse Macabre in its entirety. The concert will include a few new songs as well as fan favorites, so you will get…
