Music

There’s nothing duller than a “retro” band. You know the type: decked out in the fashions of some bygone era, carefully assembling each song into a pastiche of genre signifiers, purposefully oblivious to outside influences that could spoil the illusion of their just having stumbled out of a time machine…

Say what you will about Roger Clyne’s talents (which are substantial), when it comes to instigating a party, the native Arizonan is skilled. The stories surrounding the raucous Refreshments shows he was a part of back during the Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy days have been trumped by the kind…

The imaginative mind of Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III would certainly make for an interesting place to visit. It’s likely littered with as many eccentricities and curiosities as the experimental noise “songs” that the oddly named artist creates. Made with objects and instruments as disparate as scrap metal and violins,…

When bassist Kyle Rose Stokes joined The Love Me Nots, a Phoenix-based garage act, last May, it meant more than simply acquainting herself with the band’s cache of high-energy surf-rock stompers — it meant submitting herself to a full-on, Sally Jessy Raphael-style extreme makeover. “In my natural state, I’m a…

Still feeling the brutal, toxic side effects of New Year’s Eve? There’s only one antidote for your suffering: punk rock! In all, five bands composed primarily of angry-sounding, undernourished-looking young men will rock Scottsdale’s The Rogue, including local acts Sharp Sticks, Die Like Dogs, and Good Men. A fourth Valley…

Just because the notorious underground venue Rasputin’s Equestrian Manor went kaput, that doesn’t mean clandestine wingdings at Valley mansions are gonna stop anytime soon. In fact, the beat jugglers and party instigators of Warsaw Pact Entertainment will hold their annual off-the-radar (and off-the-hook) Epic Red Cup Massive New Year’s Eve…