See also: The Menzingers’ Tom May Discusses Touring With His Heroes, Like The Descendents and Bouncing Souls The Bouncing Souls’ recently released its ninth album, Comet, celebrating 26 years of energetic New Jersey punk. “We’re doing it for us and them [the audience] almost as a family, it feels like…
See also: Chilean MC Ana Tijoux to Celebrate Women With Puente Arizona This Weekend As if it weren’t bad enough that Spain owns international soccer (or football, as the rest of the world insists on calling it), now it’s cutting into our musical turf. No pues, ¡wow! While soccer may…
See also: Why Isn’t Corey Taylor of Slipknot Listening to Metal? See also: What Mayhem Band Has the Craziest Fans (According to Tom Araya of Slayer)? See also: Motorhead, Slipknot, Anthrax, and Slayer Unite for Mayhem Fest It should come as no surprise that some epic musicians come off as…
New media gurus always talk fervent bullshit about online personal branding, which leads many impatient bands to equate fan-cultivation with Facebook worship instead of writing kick ass songs. Local Wizards, the solo moniker of 19-year-old ASU film student Kendall Humbert, is not promoted through the usual channels of SEO bait…
Derrick Hall Hall is the president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Arizona Sports 620, KNIX or KMLE. What’s the first album you bought? Kiss, Love Gun. What’s the first concert…
Curious about what’s going on around town this weekend? Need some suggestions as to how to rock, dance, or krump in the Valley of the Sun? Don’t fret: These are our Five Shows to See This Weekend…
Every now and then, you stumble across a band that speaks to you at just the right time, and they end up becoming one of your all-time favorites. This group seems to understand what you’re going through better than any of your peers, and acts as a gateway drug to…
See also: Against Me! Plays First Tempe Show Fronted by Laura Jean Grace See also: Andrew Jackson Jihad Headline Trunk Space Benefit Show There’s no band making headlines quite like Against Me! these days. Ever since frontman Tom Gabel announced that he would begin living and performing as Laura Jean…
See also: Slipknot, Anthrax, Motorhead, and Slayer Unite for Mayhem Fest See also: Why Isn’t Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Listening to Metal? American thrash-metal band Slayer can easily be called one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Their 1986 album Reign in Blood is considered to be the foundation…
Punk is just too stubborn to die. Because of the genre’s tenacity, some young bands are lucky enough to tour with artists that have been making music for decades. The Menzingers have played shows with The Descendents, and the group is currently on the third leg of a tour with…
Psyko Steve is throwing another wet and wild pool party that is not to be missed. This time it’s going down at The Saguaro in Scottsdale. Taking place on Sunday, July 8, the event will be a great day to wind down your weekend.By the looks of the flier, it’ll be…
Thursday 5 Afterlife: Throwback Thursdays (electronica, dance) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays with with DJ Phlava, MC Wolf Starr, DJ Dark Vader, & DJ Skoolboi (hip-hop, Top 40, R&B, reggae) Capitol Sports Lounge: DJ Danny Peru (old school, Latin, Top 40) Club Red: Soul Slinger, Wednesday, Bass, Jahmek, Doctor Doom, Ario…
Locally, The Earps are a familiar name, but the past couple years, have been something of a transition period for the “whateverbilly” band. Gigs have been somewhat sparse, and the group nearly disbanded after five committed years. “Everything we wanted to do we accomplished,” says guitarist/vocalist Kevin “Hotwheels” McGregor. “We…
Putting a song over 10 minutes long on your debut full-length is masturbatory. Putting three songs that nearly hit the 10-minute mark on the record? That simply doesn’t work, because listeners don’t need much excuse to roll their eyes and shrug as they head off in more fashionable direction. (See:…
La Mala Rodriguez may have runway-model looks, but she sounds more likely to break a heel off in your ass than strike a pose for you. The Spanish rapper is renowned in the Latin hip-hop scene for spitting rhymes with the smoothness of Ladybug Mecca and the ferocity of Ol’…
“Two thousand eleven was kind of like, you know, indie rap’s first big year,” Los Angeles rapper Open Mike Eagle told Up on the Sun in April. “The things that were seen more as interesting — especially in terms of coverage of rap music — were, like, acts that are…
Some music has a setting, a place that feels woven into its sound. For The Beach Boys, one of rock ‘n’ pop’s most enduring groups, the setting always has been California. But the Golden State makes for remarkably varied terrain, and while early singles like “409,” “Little Deuce Coupe,” and…
Mayer Hawthorne is a terrible, terrible rapper. Should you decide to hear “Haircut” drop a quick 16, be forewarned. But the man has pipes. The sharp-suited crooner showed a deep knowledge of black music — especially Stax and Motown soul — on last year’s How Do You Do, walking the…
Calling the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival a mere concert is like calling the tour’s namesake beverage “kind of sticky.” The Mayhem Festival is more than just a selection of public performances by thrash titan favorites Slayer and Anthrax, legendary British speed-punks Motörhead, and Iowa’s heaviest export, Slipknot. It’s an…
William Fucking Reed is apparently hell-bent on monopolizing the weekends of the Valley’s hipster crowd. He’s already the straw that stirs the drink during the exceedingly popular Friday-night mainstay Sticky Fingers, which draws trendy types by the hundreds to Bar Smith. And starting this weekend, Reed is launching another debaucherous…
This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up on the Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. How did Phoenix pop-rock band The Wiley One Celebrate UFO Day? What does heavy metal band…
Happy Independence Day, Up on the Sun readers. Check out our review of last night’s ’90s nostalgia-festival Summerland (featuring Gin Blossoms, Lit, Sugar Ray, Marcy’s Playground, and Everclear), then hit the pool, drink some cold American beers (or one of these), eat whatever the hell you want to eat, and…
