See also: Should We Feel Bad About ’90s Nostalgia?We figured we’d keep our nostalgic ’90s kick going by bringing you some more of the best music you thought you had forgotten but will always remember. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, courtesy of >I Love the ’90s.As much as…
Curious 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. Saturday, April 28: Ross Rocks! @ Hollywood Alley Hollywood Alley owner Ross Wincek has…
Don’t let yesterday’s drizzle fool you, it’s “summer, summer, summer, time”(To borrow a hook from DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince). With temperatures and gas prices rising, commuters and everyday working stiffs alike are gonna need an infectious, feel good jam to brighten the day. Local music producer and…
Rick PhillipsPhillips blogs on eateraz.com and owns the Tucson Taco Festival (Saturday, April 28) and the Arizona Barbecue Festival (Saturday, May 19 and Sunday, May 20.) When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? I listen to satellite radio, and…
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but music venues in the Valley tend to come and go. Fact. Look no further than the closing of The Compound Grill within the past week or last month’s nixing of Clubhouse Music Venue for proof. Some live music joints and concert halls have figured…
Illinois-based rockers Chevelle have a clear-cut formula when it comes to making music: They keep it honest and real. They’ve never strayed far from their controlled chaos and somehow gentle rampage or their mix of dark magnetism and gothic pop (think early Tool meets The Cure if you haven’t heard…
Timothy NorrisDrum roll, please… Individual results may vary.We’ve just rolled out a new and improved calendar of Phoenix concerts. Our online music listings are now sortable by artist, venue, and price. We’ve also got a raw, unadulterated, alphabetical list of upcoming shows in the drop-down menus on the right-hand side…
Jamiroquai is one of the quintessential ’90s pop acts. And if you close your eyes and listen, you’ll hear that its music sounds as though it could have been released any time between the ’70s and today. The band’s acid jazz/funk may sound timeless, but the classic music video for…
So there’s punk-rap, nerd-rap, avant-rap, and . . . oh, only about a gazillion other hyphenated hip-hop sub-genres. Open Mike Eagle describes his style as “art rap.” At least for now. “I’m unable to replace it,” he laughs, speaking with me via phone from his home in Los Angeles. “And…
There was a time when Lucinda Williams wasn’t a famous country rock star. True. Back in 1998, just a few weeks before her Grammy-winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was released, I found Williams sitting alone in a Boulder, Colorado, bar next door to the venue where she had…
Local rockers can always count on KUPD to ring in the summer with UFest, coaxing thousands to spend one last day in the sun before temps (theoretically) hit triple digits. This year, the high-energy festival’s lineup is packed with hard-hitting acts that have new music in the mix, and a…
There’s a new kind of rapper in town: compulsively stoned, inexhaustibly prolific, perpetually swagged-out. Rather than cloister themselves in VIP booths, they perfect their ground game in smaller clubs. They prefer the Internet to more traditional means of distribution. And unlike the Big Fucking Deals of three years ago (hi,…
I’m spending the afternoon with Joel Gion of The Brian Jonestown Massacre in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. You couldn’t ask for it any better: It’s like interviewing the Velvet Underground at Warhol’s Factory; Dylan in a Greenwich Village coffee shop; George Clinton on the proverbial Mother Ship. I…
Michael “M2” McDowell is old school to the very core, as illustrated by his love of crate-digging for classic hip-hop vinyl and his use of the original Phoenix Suns logo in his professional insignia. He’s also got a serious penchant for the lost art of scratching, as does his pal…
When Mesa rock institution Hollywood Alley debuted in July 1988, Ross Wincek was there for the opening night. And pretty much every night that followed. For close to 25 years, the soft-spoken and curly-haired co-owner (dubbed “Ross the Boss” by many) has worked behind the scenes running the joint with…
Thursday 26 16th Street Bar & Grill: Kickback Thursdays with DJ Cedric Ceballos (hip-hop, classics, neo-soul, reggae, R&B, Top 40, old school) Afterlife: DJ Intrigue (various) Azucar Cuban Lounge: Latin Night with DJ Los & DJ Yoshi (cumbia, reggaeton, bachata, rock en Español, old school, funk) Bar Smith: Double Vision…
What does it take to become a legend? In Ralph Stanley’s case, it’s being instrumental in the development of the modern bluegrass sound. Stanley, 85, got his first banjo about 70 years ago. Attempting to learn the popular clawhammer style, he instead created his now signature “Stanley Style” instead. With…
It’s not a new idea: Sex sells. Scottsdale-based hip-hop duo J Beam and Knawledg, known by their nom de rhyme Mathmadix, get it. The album cover of their long-awaited In a Class of Our Own, depicting the pair, a young lady in a short Catholic school skirt, and one foreboding-looking ruler,…
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. What is local rock luminary Jim Adkins working up with The Love Me Nots? What sounds…
There were all sorts of 4/20 shenanigans going on in Phoenix last weekend. An event didn’t necessarily need to be marijuana-themed to be fun, but no one was complaining much if it was. It was merely a coincidence that The Elevated Music Festival fell on 4/20, but that didn’t stop…
See also: Echo Cloud Brings Actual Local Rock to Mill Avenue’s School of Rock See also: Behind the Scenes of Former Friends of Young Americans’ Practice Pad A couple of weeks ago, our own Anthony Sandoval penned a music feature about Phoenix-based shoegazers Former Friends of Young Americans. In the…
Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a living off making sensational accusations and remarks. For better or worse, he has been a media darling who’s done his best over the past 20 years to prove that there’s no such thing as bad press (not that we don’t try). On Monday, April…
