The White Stripes If you’re anything like me, your first thought when you heard that the White Stripes were breaking up was this: “Sucks to be Meg White right now!”After all, it’s not like Jack White has got anything to worry about. He’s still got The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs,…
When I ran into the Lisa Savidge guys at the Calexico show Friday they said their new record, which they’ll start handing out at a show next Thursday at the Rhythm Room ($10 gets you in and a copy of the record to take home) is more shoegaze-y than their…
called it from the very beginning of the football game: The Super Bowl halftime show would be 10 minutes of the Black Eyed Peas shouting. And indeed it was.Between the bad pickup on the microphones and the complete lack of nip-slips, this year’s Super Bowl halftime show downright sucked.The whole…
My name is Benjamin and I’m a classical music lover. I grew up in a household where Pachelbel’s Canon, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and Handel’s Messiah were played regularly. I’m also a big fan of hip-hop, although not to the degree of some of my colleagues (who can craft outstanding blogs…
Interpol Marquee Theatre Saturday, February 5, 2011Interpol hasn’t headlined a Phoenix show since 2004, a few months after Antics was released. In 2005 they visited our state twice, playing Edgefest, and Coconuts, a small Tucson bar that is now closed. Since then, Arizona has been skipped on every tour, including…
Someone at Corona Ranch realized it was after 11 p.m. Someone knew the band had been playing for damn-near two-hours. Someone wanted to punch their time-card and go home, not caring to hear a truly stellar Southwesternized version of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which you’d have to imagine part-time Tucsonian Paul…
Song: Authority Zero, “Movement”Context: Authority Zero plays Club Red tomorrow night for New Times Soundcheck — a festival which features a bunch of local bands. Authority Zero – Movement by renanvec…
Am I the only one who really, really hates Nicki Minaj? You’d think so based on only a smattering of anti-Nicki talk on ye ole interwebz, compared to a torrent of anti Ke-dollarsign-ha fury and all the hate of other comparable slutwave artists.For example: There are a mere 1,500 members…
Lil Wayne will be rooting for the Green Bay Packers in this year’s Super Bowl, according to SPIN.Weezy’s all about reppin’ the green and yellow, stating in his newly released Wiz Khalifa rip-off “Green and Yellow,” “I’m a cheesehead/Y’all n****s cheese whiz.” He posted the song on his blog Weezy…
Title: Touch My Beer and I’ll Kill Ya Basics: Let’s start with what Catfish Mustache isn’t (thank God): Countrified rock, emo, pop-punk. What we do have — in lieu of all those super fun genres — is some funk rock with some hip-hop sprinkled in for good measure. Warning –…
Welcome to What Are You Listening To?, a new weekly feature on Up on the Sun where notable locals talk about their favorite music. Damon BraschBrasch is the owner and chef of Green restaurant in Tempe with a new location coming soon to Phoenix. He is also the guitar player…
Like many other DJs and EDM artists have done in recent years, the Brazilian beat-blasting duo of João Miguel and Luciano Oliveira (a.k.a. The Twelves) made it to the big time via the blogosphere. After their raucous remixes of MIA, Asobi Seksu, and Erlend Oye garnered rave reviews on the…
Let’s face it. The White Stripes is was a band that without question defined music for this generation. Whether you liked them or not (and most everyone did, at one time or other) they were constantly in the news, challenging convention, and reinventing sounds and styles, making them fresh, new,…
Eleven countries, and possibly more to come, have already restricted any airplay on television. Even BBC 1 radio refuses to play Rihanna’s song during most hours of the day since the lyrics aren’t too clean. Meanwhile, YouTube users are required to confirm that they are at least 18 years old.Rihanna’s…
In this week’s big feature, Nicki Escudero looks at the burgeoning career of North Scottsdale crooner Dawn Jameson — examining whether she’s just another no-talent slutwave star along the lines of Ke$ha or if she’s got talent to match her looks. Whether you agree she’s got the goods or not…
Song: Calexico, “Crystal Frontier” (Live in Nuremberg)Context: When I spoke with Calexico frontman Joey Burns in the wake of the Giffords tragedy we discussed this song, which he suggested as a wake-up tune aboard the space shuttle for the astronaut husband of a famous fan of his band, Gabby Giffords…
In this week’s print edition we ran a story about the the recent reboot of New York City’s most fashionable gloom-rockers Interpol. For the piece we caught up with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino to talk about some of the recent changes the band has undergone. Most notably of which is…
Blues music is a uniquely American tradition, but like any art form, it doesn’t stay static. Over the past century, the blues have grown, morphed, and branched in big and unexpected ways. The biggest came when the blues of the Mississippi Delta moved up river to Chicago, changing both the…
More than 40 local bands will be playing the New Times Soundcheck Festival 2011, a two-day event that finds Grand Canyon State rockers taking over the stage at Club Red, but without a doubt the two most popular bands are the two reserved to close out their respective nights, Digital…
Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith go way, way back — but not in the way you probably think. Amy Grant, probably the most important Christian pop musician ever (even if that might not be the most impressive accolade) gave Smith his big break, hiring him to play keyboards on…
A band named Tennis has to be a bunch of Ivy League 20-somethings with penchants for deck shoes and cable-knit sweaters, right? No, bands full of those guys usually feature names inspired by monsters — vampires, even. Tennis is actually Denver husband-and-wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley. The two…
At its best, metal music is always ridiculous. To describe Ensiferum as ridiculous would be like describing Michael Scott in the seventh season of The Office as “kind of annoying.” Their name means “sword-bearer” in Latin, they play symphonic speed-metal, wear kilts, pose with swords in their publicity shots, sing…
