The QueersChasersJune 23, 2011Last night, I found myself in the dark doldrums of Chasers stage area with melodic blasting in my ears. Dim lights and camera flashes bounced off frantic faces and the smell of teenage angst wafted through the air. Yup, I was at a punk rock show, all…
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 are Valley commuters listening to in the morning on Light Rail? •What does local artist…
Anton Mackey Mackey is a yoga teacher at LifePower Yoga and Summit North Scottsdale and a fitness trainer at FITLIFE Scottsdale. What songs are you vibing on these days? “Hold You,” by Gyptian (Major Lazer remix); “I Wanna,” by Sahara & Bob Sinclair (featuring Shaggy); “One by One,” by Laza…
Lil Wayne is considering retiring after he releases his upcoming album Tha Carter IV, according to One Thirty BPM.Just when I was nearly convinced that Lil Wayne would release more Roman numeral-labeled Tha Carter albums until I die, Weezy decided he will possibly call it quits.Part of the reason for…
As we’ve already pointed out, rock stars like to write and star in comic books. The best of these comics contain original story lines and fantastical heros and villains, but sometimes, they take a more straightforward, biographical approach.The comic Female Force: Madonna, scheduled to be released in August, falls in…
Los Angeles-based electro-dance musicians, The Glitch Mob, are bringing their reverberating talents to the Valley when they play The Venue Scottsdale on Tuesday, June 28. The orchestral trio made up of Justin Boreta, Ed Ma, and Joshua Mayer will be blending futuristic robotic beeps, rhythmic drumming, and slow, heavy-hitting basslines…
, according to Entertainment Weekly.Train’s wine, which is a 2009 Petite Sirah, will be available for just $9.99 as of July 18. The proceeds from the sales will be donated to a charity called Family House.The idea for making the group’s own “Drops of Jupiter” wine stemmed from Train’s wine club,…
Britney SpearsJobing.com ArenaWednesday, June 22When Britney Spears decides to stop touring, she should get a residency in Vegas. Her Femme Fatale tour, which came to Glendale’s Jobing.com Arena last night, was part concert, part cabaret, part circus, and part film. It almost made you forget Spears doesn’t sing live. If…
Black Lips with Cerebral Ballzy Rhythm Room Wednesday, June 22, 2011 Damn you, dyslexia, when I read the bill for last night’s show at Rhythm Room, I thought Black Lips were playing a benefit gig for cerebral palsy. Not the case. Cerebral Ballzy, however, is actually the name of a…
I love colorful rock ‘n’ roll concert posters that double as works of art (as seen in books like Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion), especially when the look of the poster fits the music or personality of the performer. This week’s Flier of the Week is for Vespertine…
When it comes to hot, sweaty, outdoor indie shows, it doesn’t get any better than Conspire. The folks who hang around this downtown cafe collective and performance space are just as colorful as the graffiti-slathered building, and the bands that rock the makeshift stage out back are usually eclectic, under-the-radar,…
Ottmar Liebert makes smooth music, the kind of airy fare you might hear in a dentist’s office. But though his tunes border on new age, his work ethic is resolutely hardcore: The German-born guitarist has been issuing “nouveau flamenco” guitar records since 1989, cranking out 25 albums’ worth of live…
The late godfather of punk, Joey Ramone, once said that one of the cool things about the Ramones’ first album was its brevity — at just 30 minutes long, you could blast the entire record at a party before the cops showed up. Joe Queer, frontman of pop-punk band The…
“I’m stymied to come up with anything funnier than people who think animals have rights. Just stick an arrow through their lungs”; “Obama’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun”; “Our failure has been not to Nagasaki [Iraq].” To read some of the…
A band that makes “avant-garde” music is often better off without lyrics. The instrumental dynamics of bands like Mars Volta and King Crimson are jaw-dropping, but their lyrics can be head-scratchers. When Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta sings, “I am a deaf con of angora goats” and King Crimson…
Ask anyone to describe legendary West Coast punk outfit TSOL, and along with tales of larceny and a fast, “dark punk” sound with chorused-out guitars, they’ll tell you those guys were huge: Drummer Todd Barnes was the shortest at 6 feet even; guitarist Ron Emory is 6-foot-2, and bassist Mike…
Joel Davis, better known by his professional name, DJ Epidemic, is moving to New York. There’s just one problem. “New York DJs are terrible,” Davis says. “They don’t mix, and they all get drunk and are on drugs. It’s a very terrible scene for DJs.” Yet Davis is bound for…
What if I told you that Cameron Jibril Thomaz (better known as oddball rapper Wiz Khalifa) was born in North Dakota, a state hardly synonymous with hip-hop? That he moved around Europe as a child, far from the American ghettos. That he had a goofy-looking short white friend named Mac…
It’s tempting to think of Peter Case as a rock ‘n’ roller who went soft, abandoning the power pop/mod sounds of his ’70s and ’80s bands The Nerves (who wrote the Blondie hit “Hanging on the Telephone”) and The Plimsouls (known for new wave classic “A Million Miles Away”) for…
It’s almost hard to characterize The Whisperlights as a local band, with members of the eight-piece group living in Phoenix and on both coasts. The band makes it work, utilizing a smaller lineup for Valley gigs while touring with the full band. A true product of the digital age, The…
THURSDAY 23 27th Avenue Bar: DJ Manage, & DJ Android (Top 40, dance) Afterlife: Thumpin Thurzdays (various) AZ/88: Josh One (rare groove, urban funk) Bar Smith: Splash Thursday (reggae, dancehall, Top 40, house) Bikini Lounge: DJ Shane Kennedy (jazz, blues, country, R&B, rarities, vintage) Blue Martini: Rewind Thursday with DJ…
If Radiohead’s February full-length King of Limbs left you scratching your head, feeling like you just didn’t “get it,” here’s another track to add to the whoosh, over-the-head pile. Or, you know, maybe it will offer some clarity. The slightly more melodic, bass-driven “Staircase,” just released by the Oxfordshire fivesome, is…
