By Dan Leroy A couple of weeks ago, an expert on the Harry Potter series told an audience of high school kids how lucky they were to have this Big Shared Experience–these seven books and 41,000 words in common. What does Harry Potter have to do with hip-hop in 2008?…
And now it’s time for the “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” memorial Worst Lyrics of 2008, March Madness-style tournament, this year a terrifying mélange of appalling oral-sex requests, bargain-bin philosophies, grammatical atrocities, and cringe-inducing pillow talk. To elevate the drama, I provided a trusted colleague with…
By Randall Roberts You don’t need a half-wit music critic to tell you it’s been a remarkable year for America, one historians will be discussing and researching for centuries to come. War, financial collapse, politics, technology: All have been dinner-table topics for many Americans. Racial barriers in 2008 were demolished…
Welcome back! We hope you had a sufficient amount of ho-ho-hoing and present opening to last another twelve months. Just in case you haven’t, here’s a package of some of the stories and photos you may have missed during the holiday. Light Rail Launch Hundreds of thousands turned out to…
Tempe’s Last Exit Bar & Grill will reunite The Black Moods on New Year’s Eve, Wednesday, for a headlining performance. The once-hot high-energy trio, who broke up (guitarist Josh Kennedy is now in Violet Wild) more than two years ago, were unlike most bands in the local music scene and brought…
Some of the more well-received albums of 2008 have come from the rainy, bike-loving confines of the Pacific Northwest – a trusty bastion for indie rock and insanely innovative pop. When bands from the two meccas of the Pacific Northwest – Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington – emerge onto the…
Show: Blue Man Group at US Airways Center, January 14.I couldn’t tear myself away from this show, not even after I drank a few beers and had to pee. The concept for the show was “How to Be a Megastar,” and included all manner of interactive multi-media, from how-to video…
From the this-is-super-cool-but-would-have-been-way-too-much-work-for-us file comes this: Our man Murph has put together a nice assortment of best of 2008 lists by local indie types on his blog, So Much Silence.Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World and Kevin Murphy himself are both in love with Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight while…
By Annie ZaleskiPop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that’s true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls, step right up!) But every year, a few irresistible bits of innovative ear candy rocket up the charts and seep into our…
Show: What Laura Says Thinks and Feels at the New Times Summer of Sound pop show at The Sets, June 21.Not to toot our own horn, but we really scored by booking local indie rock sensations What Laura Says Thinks and Feels for our Summer of Sound series this year…
Valley Metro pulled out all the stops for yesterday’s debut of the 20-mile light rail system we’ve been writing about all month. They had parties scheduled at pretty much every stop on the line — though, honestly, I’m not sure there was anything beyond an unmanned purple tent full of fliers…
By Chris Gray It’s time to rank the best of what went around and came around again. BILLY JOEL The Stranger (Columbia/Legacy) As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man’s deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell – and, occasionally, rock. “Scenes From an…
By Noah W. Bailey Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn’t nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn’t feel right stuck in the category. Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while…
This is the good stuff. Check the slideshow.So after a million different holiday functions (we come from a broken family – it tends to extend such celebrations), we needed something to break up the wholesome time. And with time running out for the long weekend, we decided to check out…
The mobile protesting pair of Erin Searle (left) and Kevin Sweet at the light rail’s Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street station. It’s not all sunshine and roses at crowded light rail stations today. Kevin Sweet and Erin Searle, a pair of college-aged sweethearts, are out protesting the fact the light…
Not sure how many more folks are headed out to the train today, but if you are steer clear on the eastern most stop. There are several thousand people there, all waiting in a looong line for their chance to take a ride on the Valley Metro’s first day of…
Are you still standing? Hell! That must mean you haven’t taken a trip on the Night Train, the ultimate pub crawl for the Phoenix Light Rail. We’ve spent the last month giving you one stop, one drink and one more reason to ride the light rail every day. Now that…
Show: Metallica at Jobing.com Arena on October 21Unlike Niki, I’m not much of a metalhead, but this should was truly brilliant. In fact, I found myself listening to Death Magnetic for weeks afterwards, and was fond of saying things like “I feel like I just discovered this new band… Metallica!…
Where: Stop #1, Montebello and 19th Avenue: Oz (1804 W. Bethany Home Road, a five-minute walk from the stop) Drink: Rolling Rock (or any other domestic beer) for $4-$4.50. Happy hour is from noon to 7 p.m. every day and includes discounts on well drinks, domestic beers, and draught beers…
By Julienne GageAmericans who still think of Latin music as mariachi bands and gyrating Ricky Martins and Shakiras might want to lend a closer ear to the genre. This country’s Hispanic population isn’t just growing, it’s growing more diverse. More and more unique musical styles are being gobbled up, and…
By Michael Roberts In 2008, independent rock returned to the underground, where it belongs. Given the grand catastrophe that is today’s record industry, most major-label executives don’t have the time or energy to convince music fans they might like something a little out of the ordinary. They’re too busy recycling…
It seems like just yesterday we were reminding you how bad the Eagles of Death Metal are live while praising The Hives for putting on one of the best shows of the year. Well, the band Axl Rose so memorably dubbed The Pigeons of Shit Metal are coming back in…
