Dirty Beaches songwriter Alex Zhang Hungtai started with a desire to make films and, sure enough, his album Badlands feels like a movie, owing as much to filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Wong Kar-Wai as it does to his musical influences, Suicide, Nebraska, and lonesome Roy Orbison pathos…
Considering the sheer volume of music we’re exposed to on a daily basis, it’s easy to forget that songs can be more than a distraction or a catchy beat. For Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, music was less a pastime and more an anchor, a tool used to stay hopeful…
With both South by Southwest and Coachella fresh in our minds, it’s easy to look at those festivals and feel a little envious. After all, we host our fair share of festivals in the Valley, but rarely do we ever pull in the amount of star power as some other,…
You have to figure with the pedigree Knoxville, Tennessee’s Royal Bangs has going for them — their first albums were on Black Key Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle Records; their new one, Flux Outside, is on Glassnote, home of the inexplicably popular railroad-fan band, Mumford & Sons — that they must…
Going to a Peachcake show was sort of like attending a child’s birthday party. You’d find grown men in animal costumes, stuffed animals, balloons, and even the occasional game of Duck, Duck, Goose. You never really knew who or what to expect to see on stage. Given the band’s rotating…
Kenny Chesney seems like a fun guy to hang with. You know, the dude who always has a fresh batch of margaritas chillin’ in the blender at his beach pad in the Virgin Islands, a bevy of bikini-clad babes at his beck and call, and enough money to keep the…
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros caught the eyes and ears of music audiences about two years ago with their debut album, Up From Below. A summery mix of pastoral psychedelia, the album was a Village Green Preservation Society for the desert-roaming West Coast hipster. Buoyed by the adorable, jangly…
It’s been a helluva year for Sticky Fingers. The weekly hipster wingding created by William Fucking Reed has hosted plenty of taste-making indie rock, electronica, and DJ acts (Database, Flosstradamus, Pictureplane), changed venues, and helped reinforce the hepcat reputation of Bar Smith, 130 East Washington Street. The night’s one-year anniversary…
THURSDAY 28 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…
Can you call The Smithereens’ new album, 2011, “a return to form” if the band never really went away? Sure, it’s the group’s first disc of original material in 12 years, but they’ve never stopped touring nor releasing records. It’s just that the records they’ve been releasing have been, uh,…
The Voice, which is hosted by former TRL dreamboat Carson Daly, involves four judges: Adam Levine, Cee-Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton. The judges, who serve as coaches, faced away from the auditioning singers during last night’s blind auditions so as to remain unbiased in regard to each singer’s image. Each…
Fresh off his awesome performance at The Big 4 Festival in Indio, Metallica frontman James Hetfield is scheduled to speak at Central Christian Church in Mesa on May 12.Hetfield will be part of a Q & A following a screening of Absent, a documentary directed by Gilbert filmmaker Justin Hunt,…
The Colossal Event boasted an impressive line up, including Steve Aoki, Felix Cartal, Chase & Status, and Jack Beats. The music wasn’t the only thing worth checking out. Madison Events Center was full of dancers decked out in colorful neon clothing and glitter, accompanied by Hello Kitty and their favorite…
As a music writer, I often project my own taste in music in my writing. Take, for instance, my weekly Review Roundups. There are hardly any mainstream, Top 40 bands featured in those posts. Hell, those bands get plenty of exposure — I’d rather write about an album I like…
You may not instantly recognize the name but if you’re a fan of prime time dramas on network television there is a chance you may have heard the songs of Joe Purdy. The Arkansas singer-songwriter has had songs appear on Lost, House, and has become a bit of a regular…
Lollapalooza has revealed an absolutely killer lineup for its 20th-anniversary show, according to Consequence of Sound.Eminem, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, and Muse are at the top of this summer’s impressive bill. Other big names scheduled to perform include My Morning Jacket, Deadmau5, A Perfect Circle, The Cars, Ween, Big Audio Dynamite,…
“The Morning Mayor” Dave Pratt has been claiming his return to the airwaves is imminent for, oh, about three months now.Now, Dave says, it’s really, really imminent. The announcement came from an e-mail dispatch last night and was followed up by a story in the Republic today. Pratt gave the…
Something “life changing” occurred yesterday for the Los Angeles-based rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. What? No one knows yet, but “some shit went down,” they “really won” and “dreams really come true,” according to various tweets from members of group.Update: Pitchfork now says they signed a…
McCombs has built a brilliant resume since he began recording in 2002, being labeled as “unobtrusively brilliant” by famed BBC disc jockey/journalist John Peel. Wit’s End has already been labeled as “miserable American folk” and “a downer” by some, yet there is an intangible beauty in what McCombs accomplishes over…
Maroon 5 is still participating in The Sound Strike and will not play Phoenix on September 17 as announced earlier today.”There is no date in AZ I was given the wrong info for our release and it was a mistake,” says the band’s publicist, Carleen Donovan of Press Here Publicity.Asked…
Rogue West, one of the last true punk dives on the west-side, is closing this Wednesday, according to this post on the venue’s official Facebook page:It’s with great sadness that I announce that after seven years of amazing live music and wacky behavior, the best little dive bar in town…
With the folks over at Cityslaang and YOBS closing doors, musician Stephen Steinbrink (French Quarter) and James Fella, of Gilgongo Records, have stepped up to the plate with Yellow Canary Dance Hall, scheduled to take over warehouse venue Sound Kontrol in South Phoenix, one of City Slaang’s prime spots. “We’re still…
