The good news: God is coming — soon. The bad news: He’s bringing Steve Winwood. The good news: He smites with guitar instead of cricket plagues. The bad news: He won’t be smiting the Jonas Brothers. The good news: “After Midnight.” The bad news: “Higher Love.” The good news: You…
Grade: B- I generally try to make the weekly You Asked For It review at phxmusic.com more about music than career counseling, but there’s no way to avoid it with this week’s artist, Phoenix rapper Chad Krystal$. Krystal$ has some things going for him. His white-boy flow isn’t bad, he’s…
Few people have benefited from the Obama administration more than John Vanderslice’s fans. Whether you voted for McCain or Obama, you probably agree that the country would be a lot better off if we could come to a bipartisan agreement to stop writing songs for or against the war in…
Last time you heard from Scott Bondy, he was fronting an Alabama grunge act called Verbena and ripping off, first, the Rolling Stones and, then, Nirvana, with the help of producer Dave Grohl. Now he’s going by A.A. Bondy and channeling Bob Dylan. The name change seems to be a…
Now in its third season, this smorgasbord of all things death metal proudly bills itself as “the most extreme tour of the year.” Hey, we ain’t arguing. When you put together a lineup that includes Dying Fetus, Decrepit Birth, Winds of Plague, Cattle Decapitation, and bunch of other bands that…
2 Live Crew have fallen hard. While they’re still on the scene — with a new lineup change — they’re not playing massive concert venues any longer. And when they come to Tempe this weekend, they won’t even be playing the Marquee Theatre or the Clubhouse Music Venue. The foul-mouthed…
Being in a tribute band is like being a porn star: Once you get famous for doing it, that’s it; sure, you can try to cross over and make original music, but no one will take you seriously and you’ll always be remembered as “that dude who was John Bonham…
Emperors of Japan weren’t the first band to give away their music for free on the Internet, but they were definitely ahead of the curve when they released Your Freak Majesty as a free download on emperorsofjapan.com in 2006, long before big-name bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails followed…
It’s been a year since Kevin the Makeout Bandit and his misfit DJ pals debuted their decadent dance night Party Foul!, which has become an electro-rock Pleasure Island for the stylish masses at Homme Lounge over the past 52 weeks. A lot’s gone down: Mixmasters like Bigie and Craig Citizen…
THURSDAY 25 AZ/88: Mark 5 (rare groove, trip-hop) Bikini Lounge: INTOXICA! with DJ HFE (blues, R&B, rock, rarities, vintage) Bobby Q’s: All-Star Thursdays (hip-hop) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: Scandalous Thursday with DJ Juan Rocha (house, electronica) Club Red: The Blunt Club with Magestik Legend, The Wright Family, Top…
It’s mid-afternoon at The Tiniest Bar in Texas, and Dear and the Headlights have just finished playing the fourth and final show they’re cramming into four days at South by Southwest, a music industry circle jerk that’s a make-or-break week for up-and-coming bands. Onstage, bearded singer Ian Metzger draws the…
Pssst! Wanna hang out with Jim Adkins for a night? You can do just that Thursday evening at the Tavern on Mill in downtown Tempe when the Jimmy Eat World singer plays the role of DJ during the New Times Summer of Sound: Pop showcase. But before we let Adkins…
If you’re worried Ida Maria is the next in a long line of indie princesses to go “pop” the first time some douchey A&R guy suggests it might be a prudent career move, fear not. As she showed last night in Scottsdale, although “I Like You So Much Better When…
I’ve owed Emperors of Japan a favor since, like, six weeks on the job, when Tony Poer’s entry in my Flier of the Week contest won, committing me to attending one of their shows. Through cruel circumstance, I actually haven’t made good on that quite yet, but I hope to…
After 10 years in AZ music scene, once-hot indie-rock band Stereotyperider are calling it quits — for good. The guys will say goodbye to their fans with a final show at Tempe’s Yucca Tap Room Saturday, June 27. The show will also feature The Necronauts and The Reddmen and Stereotyperider…
Rolling Stone: Lil Wayne’s Lawyer Questions Role of Drug-Sniffing Dog in Bust NME: Deftones re-record new album without bassist Pitchfork: Jay Bennett’s Death: Overdose Idolator: Casey Kasem To Reach For The Stars For The Last Time Next Week Electric Mustache: Video: Know Your Enemy NME: Florence And The Machine: ‘my…
A massive crowd turned out for last night’s Arizona premiere of the new sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Fans lined up in rows that snaked through the Tempe Marketplace Harkins Theater, spilling out onto the sidewalk and clear around the other side of the building. Not everyone who held a coveted…
Hollywood Heartthrob The Takeover Grade B- When financial considerations mean songs needs to be replaced for a DVD release of a film or a TV show, producers usually turn to generic sounding music to take the place of the more popular, but prohibitively expensive, tune. Tinsel-town just might come knocking…
Our experience with Sonny Long — and the subsequent support for his fraud by people who should know better, but maybe have more in common with him than they’d like to admit — shows me that a lot of folks in Phoenix’s small but boastful hip-hop community are full of…
It’s lights out for the Valley’s longest-running movie rental place catering to the gay and lesbian community. Movies On Central, which has offered a variety of indie, cult, and special interest flicks since 1995 (and won six New Times Best of Phoenix awards), is gone. Doug Klinge, who owns the…
God Help The Girl God Help The Girl (Matador) So you’re Stuart Murdoch, successful songwriter, vocalist and leader of Scottish indie darlings Belle and Sebastian. Your work with the group has made it one of the best-loved bands of the last decade-plus while your songwriting has developed from almost painfully…
We’ve been to Star Swim and we’ve been to Cheap Thrills. So our Saturday nights seemed pretty packed with options already. But now, we’ve got one more to add to the list. It’s called Tune in Tokyo, it’s at the Hotel San Carlos’ Copper Door Bar and it’s the latest…
