Shake! Says Goodbye With Halloween Bash

The much talked about demise of Modified Arts as an indie rock venue has another twist: South Scottsdale’s The Rogue Bar is entering the fray by moving to a full-time live venue. Sadly, as part of that, DJ William “Fucking” Reed’s always wonderful Shake! dance night is going the way…

Q&A: Jeffrey Lewis

By Frances Michelle Lopez It takes a brave person to release an album of covers. Sure, Rod Stewart’s “Great American Songbook” had some sweet old school jams, not to mention the nostalgic tracks off of the infamous Pop Goes Punk compilations, and the growing number of indie artists covering hip-hop…

2008 Music Sales Less Than Encouraging For Artists

[jump] Music sales have been in steady decline, in my opinion, since the week of March 21, 2000. It was on that Tuesday that ‘N Sync’s No Strings Attached was released, going on to sell 2.4 million — million — copies in it’s first week. No album has been able to come…

Flier of the Week: Thankful Birds

Thankful Birds have had some cool posters in the past — just check out this and this. Compared to those, actually, this is pretty tame. But, in a week of weak fliers this is distinctive enough to claim the prize for the jazzy Phoenix band. Looks like a pretty cool…

Seven Nights of DJs & Dancing

THURSDAY 8 AZ88: DJ Mark 5 (rare groove, trip-hop) Baja Tilly’s: Electric Thursdays with DJ Flair (Top 40, pop, hip-hop) Bananas Ranos: Hip-Hop Thursday with DJ Drey (hip-hop, Top 40) Blue Martini: DJ Mendez (Top 40, ’80s) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays (hip-hop) Bomberos: Rani G., dk.strickler, Deon Pearson, & Alkeme…

Built To Spill

Despite the inflated reputation of 1999’s Keep It Like a Secret, it’s obvious Built to Spill has never made the perfect Built to Spill record. If anything, the band’s Pavement-meets-Phish take on jammy indie rock is universally agreed to be best realized in concert, and has been remarkably consistent, though…

Tropic

It’s reportedly gonna be colder than normal this weekend, which means you’ll definitely want to be somewhere hot. Slide over to the Venue of Scottsdale, 7117 East Third Avenue in Scottsdale, where things are probably gonna get a little toasty during Tropic on Friday, October 9. Hollywood’s Latin Prince and…

Yo La Tengo

If rock required a caretaker for its creative flame, it could do a lot worse than Yo La Tengo singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan. The one-time rock critic and his crew possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the form (witness their annual covers-by-request pledge drive performances for Jersey’s WFMU), and they’ve developed such…

Shizzfest 2

Sequels can be tricky to pull off. For every Terminator 2 and The Dark Knight, there are twice as many shitheaps like Caddyshack II and The Two Jakes. This axiom also extends to music, which is cluttered beyond measure with ill-advised follow-ups: For example, Woodstock ’99 never should have existed…

Vivian Girls

After a meteoric rise that brought them perilously close to the line that separates buzz from hype, Vivian Girls have followed up their self-titled debut album with another that seems to wisely dial things back just a little. That isn’t to say that Everything Goes Wrong is subdued or watered…

Ghostface Killah

It’s pretty much always good news when any of the Wu-Tang Clan decides to show up in town, so Ghostface Killah’s upcoming appearance is probably worth checking out, if only out of prurient interest. He just dropped his latest album, Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, which for…

Tiki Throwdown

If a pig-roastin’ rock show at Tempe’s most legit dive bar is what you’re in the market for, this is it, bro. In the parking lot of the venerable Yucca Tap Room, an entire (presumably, already dead) pig will be sacrificed (ya know, metaphorically speaking) to the party gods. The…

Atticus Tour 2009

Hold on a second: It’s called the Atticus Tour, and the co-headliner is a band called Finch? Wow, that’s really precious. Maybe they’ll hire Scout Willis as a cage-dancer, or add melancholy indie-pop duo Harper Lee to the bill later on. Actually, let’s hope they don’t. Featuring the identical swept…

Puscifer Tix On Sale Friday

Tool frontman and vino aficionado Maynard James Keenan’s on-the-sly musical endeavor, Puscifer, is set to headline two nights at downtown Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre this December. Lucky for you, tickets are available this Friday, October 9, at 10 a.m. via Live Nation.Apparently, Keenan leaves behind that dark, brooding, plz-don’t-look-at-me persona he…

Alice Cooper Releases Halloween Single, Holds Karaoke Contest

Local boy Alice Cooper, the self-proclaimed “King of Halloween,” is releasing a new single called “Keepin’ Halloween Alive.”The iTunes exclusive track –which you can hear in the video above — also comes with a “Cooperoke” vocal-free version which fans are encouraged to video themselves singing along to for a contest…

Move Over, Mormons! Mesa’s Going Punk

When the Leeper family pitched the idea of opening a punk/goth clothing & collectibles store smack in the middle of conservative Mesa’s Main Street, there were a few raised eyebrows. “They wanted to know if it would be another Nile,” quips daughter Amanda Tucker, the seamstress behind a few of…