Concert Schedule for This Weekend

By Benjamin Leatherman The indie rock cuties of Paramore are scheduled to perform on Saturday. Here’s a compilation of the big shows and events scheduled to go down at Valley concert and music venues this weekend. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1: BeatleMania Live [tribute band] 7 p.m. $37-$40 (visit www.ticketmaster.com) Casino Arizona…

This Weekend: Breaking Dawn, Discount Assassin and Pret-a-Porter

By Jonathan McNamara Friday August 1: Breaking Dawn midnight release party at Changing Hands Bookstore Twilight Series fans are too busy scanning the internet for details about the upcoming book in the series. Harry Potter anyone? If you don’t know about Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series, get your head out from…

Top 10 Songs You Must Turn Off

By Joseph Golfen Everybody’s got one. That song that’s always on no matter where you go or what you do. That song that is at once instantly recognizable and eternally evil! You cringe at the opening chords and every time you hear it a little piece of your love for…

Ear To The Street: Rick Ross and Flo-Rida at Celebrity Theatre

What’s Crackin’ Azilla? This is your boy Justus coming to you live and direct from the Heart of the Phoenix. I just want to thank Phoenix New Times for allowing me to break down what is going on in our exploding underground scene — not from the eyes of a journalist, but the eyes and ears of an artist who lives this scene every day

Can’t Miss Show: The Octopus Project

By Steve Jansen The Octopus Project: What dreams are made of I had a strange dream last night. Possibly because I knew I was writing about The Octopus Project today, or I am truly super jacked up to see the Austin-based noise/rock ensemble. Either way, the dream went something like…

Seven nights of DJs and dancing

THURSDAY 31 Axis/Radius: Divine Ladies Night with MCB & DJ Devine (various) Bikini Lounge: DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Cash Inn: DJ Sting (hip-hop, dance) Cherry Lounge: Greed Thursdays (hip-hop, Top 40) Club Forbidden: Respect Is Burning with…

Local bands feel pain at the pump as they hit the road this summer

Brian Coughlin plays guitar for Phoenix rock band Kinch, and he’s also the group’s self-appointed financial planner. He keeps detailed logs of where the band’s modest cash revenue is spent: T-shirts, gas, mechanical service, you name it. As he calculated potential costs for Kinch’s upcoming 19-day tour through the West…

The Pig gets dirty at Palo Verde Lounge

Being a booze pig, I pride myself on knowing the location of every dive bar in town. It gets a little more difficult when you are in the sixth-largest city in the country. Because our desert-gobbling sprawl is so huge, I often ask friends and strangers alike, “Do you know…

Slut Sister

Given the band/album name and cover image, I half-expected this band to sound like either cheesy ’80s cock-rock throwbacks or raucous hardcore punk. It’s neither. Although the band describes its music as “metal/hardcore/Southern rock” on its MySpace page, I’d say that description’s only about two-thirds accurate. It’s definitely hardcore metal,…

Beck

Danger Mouse is arguably the most adventurous producer to tackle a Beck project since the Dust Brothers helped birth a 1996 baby called Odelay (the Dusters’ return for 2004’s Güero doesn’t count). The resulting sound is satisfyingly dense and intricate; the neo-surf of “Gamma Ray,” the delicate psychedelia of “Chemtrails,”…

Reggie and the Full Effect

Wild rumors are standard-issue for the intentionally enigmatic Reggie and the Full Effect. But if the latest Internet scuttlebutt is true, Last Stop: Crappy Town is Kansas City native James Dewees’ (meaning the entire band’s) final album before he goes full time as the keyboardist for My Chemical Romance. Such…

Journey

The members of Journey must be feeling the band’s name is more meaningful than ever these days. It’s unlikely any band has a comeback as thoroughly modern and convoluted as these AOR mainstays, pulled back into public consciousness by HBO and YouTube. Since the 1996 departure of lead singer Steve…

Totimoshi

Rich and famous bands into their 10th year and sixth album demonstrate a worldview tempered by easy women and shysters. Hard-working bands with a growing cult following, like the Bay Area trio Totimoshi, demonstrate a worldview tempered by . . . actual observation! Singer and guitarist Antonio Aguilar describes the…

ZZ Top

Rick Rubin already had been working for ZZ Top — the Houston trio recently enlisted Rubin to produce its next album — and now ZZ Top works for Rubin as well. Billboard reported that ZZ Top has signed a new record deal with Rubin’s American Recordings, an imprint distributed by…

Bill Frisell

When Coloradans talk about great musical artists with local roots, they seldom mention jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. Frankly, the omission is mystifying. Frisell has been releasing albums under his own name since 1984, and there’s not a single embarrassment in his extensive catalog, despite the variety of stylistic options he’s…

Lyle Lovett

While people have often picked on Lovett for his looks (they’re just jealous they didn’t have a brief marriage to Julia Roberts), you can’t really argue with Lovett’s merits as a performer — the man’s released 13 albums, won four Grammy Awards, and appeared in more than a dozen films…

Groove Candy’s big move

If you’re planning to head to The Door in Tempe to hang out at Groove Candy this coming Hump Day, a minor course correction is in order, yo. That’s because the crackalackin’ Wednesday-night hip-hop affair has flipped the script and moved northward to Lyte Lounge, 7419 East Indian Plaza in…

What’s Selling: East Side Records

By Benjamin Leatherman It always takes some dexterity to maneuver through the cramped aisles of the seemingly closet-sized East Side Records, 217 West University Drive in Tempe. But believe us, a little fancy footwork and extra is totally worth visiting the shop, since East Side’s got all the good shit,…