In it’s pure, island-bred, form reggae tends to make pretty poor sing-along music for white people. Sure, “Buffalo Soldier” seems like a good sing-a-long, given it’s perfect pace and easily learnable lyrics, but when push comes to shove, in trying to mimic Bob Marley’s accent the average white suburbanite ends up creating a…
Yes, this is Up On The Sun’s 2,000th post. Can you believe it?I realize I’m opening a can of words here, but anything you’d like to see change here on the music blog most easily reached by typing www.PHXmusic.com in to your preferred browser’s address bar? More coverage of your friend’s band? Less coverage…
Pitchfork: Kim Gordon Disses “The Radiohead Model” So Much Silence: Miniature Tigers on The Interface Spin: Coldplay’s Next Record “Might Be Bad” NME: T.I. marries longtime girlfriend ‘Tiny’ Rolling Stone: Daryl Hall on His “Oddball” Life in Hall & Oates, Web Series Waved Rumor: Rock Clip of the Week -…
Punk is one subculture that will never die, no matter how old the guys who started it get get, and how ridiculous those progenitors look in their old time outfits. In fact, it grows a little all the time. Throw five guys in their 50’s (preferably covered in tattoos, maybe…
Watch out Metalhead, there’s a new hair metal cover band in town and they have your old guitarist… Whether they steal a piece of your thunder remains to be seen.Hairforce is a hair metal super group featuring some of Phoenix’s best musicians including G-String, the former guitarist for Metalhead who…
I’ve never been sure why there isn’t more of a rivalry between Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, but, aside from some boy drama, the two country-tinged pop princesses seem to co-exist happily.If you missed Swift’s excellent show at Jobing.com Arena last month, you’ll have a chance to check out what…
It’s pretty hard to miss the fixed-gear cyclists at First Friday. They’re the skinny, tattooed cats you tend to see swarming around the intersection of Fifth and Roosevelt Streets, riding atop their stylish-and-sleek urban single-speed racing bikes. As I mentioned in my cover story from last summer on fixed-gear culture,…
Spin: Hot Download: A-Camp’s ’80s Cover Rolling Stone: Lil Wayne Pens Ode To Kobe, “Rebirth” Pushed To August 18th Electric Mustache: mp3: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple” Pitchfork: Mastodon Get Their Own Pair of Vans Idolator: The Most Beguiling “Weird Al” Yankovic Cover You Will Hear All Week…
This Saturday marks the return of what has to be Jerome, Arizona’s biggest music festival: Jeromeatherapy. The one day music festival features 12 local bands — headed by What Laura Says, Black Carl and Dry River Yacht Club — all playing in an old gold mine. Jeromeatherapy celebrates what makes…
Nick Cave is a bad-ass. Perhaps, the baddest ass around. Consider: in the last few years alone, he’s released two of the best albums of his career — Dig Lazarus Dig!!! with longtime backing band The Bad Seeds and the self-titled debut by side project Grinderman. He wrote the screenplay…
I actually have no idea what to expect from a bake sale run by roller derby girls, but I aim to find out tomorrow at First Friday…
Spin: Jay-Z’s ‘Blueprint 3’ Out This SeptemberRolling Stone: The Biggest, Oddest (and Most Unique) Sound in New YorkPitchfork: Santigold’s Label Attempts to Block Santigold MixtapeNME: Grammys ditch polka category for 2010 AwardsSpin: Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman Perform Together in NYCPitchfork: Black Keys Work With Mos Def, Jim Jones Idolator: MGMT Warns…
Who says there’s nothing to do during the summertime besides planting yourself in front of either the television or the air conditioner? Certainly not us, since we’ve assembled a list of 10 different shindigs and events that Valley culture vultures can check out. And if you’re running a little short…
If you’ve read this week’s music feature Sonny Long you may have a grasp on who he is (at least in his own mind). Is he the next thing in Arizona music or just another dreamer? Read on to find out.While writing this week’s cover story, witers Niki D’Andrea and…
While the calendar nailed to our wall states that summer doesn’t officially begin for another couple weeks, every Valley resident knows that Mother Nature doesn’t play by such rules. Nope, that raging, sadistic bitch tends to jack up the thermostat in early May and doesn’t let up until late-September at…
To see Matthew Reveles kicking back in his Tempe home, dressed in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, you might get the wrong idea. Reveles’ long, black hair, flowing beard, and wire-rim specs seem to suggest he’s in a neo-jam band on the order of Phish or maybe even drawing…
You might not think that Tempe “humorcore” band Psychostick and Jill Sobule (a.k.a. that chick who sings the other “I Kissed a Girl” song) have much in common, but it turns out they both have some seriously loyal fans. Last year, with the country mired in a recession, Psychostick and…
In July 2007, Yeah Yeah Yeahs appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, capping the night with “Down Boy,” from their then-current EP, Is Is. “Down Boy” is a dark, sultry song, and the band’s singer, Karen O, swayed in place with odd, theatrical movements, unable to keep a…
In these fallow economic times, many a local bar owner has turned to DJ dance nights to draw crowds and their drinking dollars. Case in point: Hail Mary’s, 1402 South Priest Drive in Tempe (a place known more for serving Philly’s than phat beats) has hosting Groove Corps’ Spun Thursdays…
THURSDAY 4 Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cherry Lounge: Scandalous Thursday with DJ Juan Rocha (house, electronica) Club Red: The Blunt Club with DJs Bonu$, Element, Pickster Uno, Iron Giant, Kris Tha Fist, & more (hip-hop) Coach & Willie’s: The Recession Sessions with DJ Borisimo, DJ Mecca, DJ Rockledg, DJ Soluna,…
America hasn’t been particularly good to ska. Indeed, reggae’s dancier, spazzier cousin may have met its Waterloo here back in the late ’90s, when No Doubt started channeling Miami Sound Machine and fellow domestic acts like Reel Big Fish proved incapable of sustaining modern ska as a relevant alt-music lifeform…
In the self-descriptive sense, Youth Brigade is no longer a credible name for an iconic punk band that formed in 1980 and toured with Social Distortion during the early Reagan era. Then again, Middle Age Brigade seems a little neurotic, no? So what to do? Claim philosophical privilege, that’s what…
