Okkervil River’s new release, The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar), was created with an eye to fun and frivolity (per notes from songwriting frontman Will Sheff). Lucky us! ‘Cause the lyrics — featuring suicidal poets and porn stars, burned-out man-children and their shut-down lovers — could really harsh one’s mellow otherwise. Musically,…
Blues singer/guitarist David “Honeyboy” Edwards wasn’t just influenced or inspired by icons Robert Johnson and Big Joe Williams, he actually played with them. Born in 1915 into a hardscrabble existence in Shaw, Mississippi, Edwards was literally baptized in the crucible of the blues. Oddly enough, though, despite continuous activity, he…
P-Town has played host to a number of giants in the drum ‘n’ bass genre over the past six months, including Goldie, Dieselboy, and Dara, to name a few. And now, to top it off, one of the godheads of the d’n’b movement, Jumping Jack Frost, is gonna be thumping…
I learned a few things at the Slayer/Marilyn Manson show:
1) Slayer becomes more aggressive and tight as the band’s brutal set wears on.
2) Marilyn Manson is a consummate performer, but looks better clothed.
3) Some stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. The reason is they are true.
Should Amy Winehouse go to rehab? Should she retire from music? Should she divorce her husband? Does anybody care?
Get ready to crank your credit cards, PHX folks, ‘cause Future Shock’s back with the latest “just announced” concerts coming to town. This week’s edition is like a rock ‘n’ roll Baskin Robins, beeyotch, with acts representing the many different flavors the genre has to offer, from indie to emo to straight-out bizarro.
Thursday 23 Andersons: S.W.A.G. Thursdays with DJ Essence, DJ Astonish, & Bryce Breeze (hip-hop, reggae, R&B) Bikini Lounge: Sophisticated Boom Boom with DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro, R&B) The Blooze: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Dirty Pretty: Foxy Bitch with D-JR (rock, Top…
There’s nothin’ like a good old-fashioned drag show to kick off a CD-release party. Earlier this month, in what was quite possibly the wildest performance ever to grace the stage at Yucca Tap Room, a swarm of drag kings and queens danced, spanked, and stripped the roof off the joint…
I’ve been burping up the taste of local acid-punk band Blanche Davidian for the past two days — specifically, the carbonated cough syrup flavor of the band’s new “Orange Sunshine” shot, available exclusively at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. The shot was the first drink I had when I arrived at…
When we think of Willy Wonka, we think of a busy-bee eccentric, an inventor of sweet treats that capture the world’s imagination, a dude who’s content to plod away in a bizarre factory while ignoring societal norms in the process. So it’s fitting that a friend of Alex Votichenko (better…
Rich, hardcore jazz fans are different from you and me. They demand utter dedication to this art form from both artist and listener. Jazz is America’s “classical music” — serious, high art — and, to the aficionado, “pure” jazz is the only worthwhile music, period. Those folks have already stopped…
After a four-year absence, Marilyn Manson has returned to the public eye in the video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” porking his barely legal girlfriend in a rain of blood. That kind of flashy, trashy imagery may prevent Manson from ever being taken seriously as a credible artist (at least by the…
The psychedelic effects shine through sonically on Blanche Davidian’s second album. Songs like “Queef Action” and “Rottweilers Keep Following Me” brim with fuzz and roar with reverb behind singer Jamie Monistat VII’s spacey, snarky vocals, and the title track is a 61/2-minute raging jam. There’s even the occasional hippie vocal…
Ignore the cheesy cover art. Though it resembles a no-budget local LP pressing from 1970, Talk of the Town is one humdinger of a vocal album. For 40 years — you read right — Jerry Lawson was a singer with the long-lived a cappella group the Persuasions (who can count…
No one can accuse Gilbert’s Scary Kids Scaring Kids of lacking ambition. The local sextet’s self-titled second album is an epic song cycle characterized by the album-opening anthem “Degenerates,” which casts us into a jackbooted future, judging from all the clicks of pistol safeties and ominous helicopter hovering. The song…
Legend says that blues great Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil at the crossroads in exchange for ungodly musical skill. Dax Riggs, former singer/guitarist of indie-rock duo Dead Boy and the Elephantmen, seems to have had a similar meeting with Satan before recording this album. “Have mercy on…
Goodbye Tomorrow might sound like a ridiculously cynical name for a band that hasn’t even released its first album, but . . . well, okay, it is. One can’t help but imagine that lead singer Travis Bryant and his Phoenix-based crew are on some sort of suicide watch and, judging…
Digital Me is the perfect title for Step Kid’s debut EP. Combining the organic rhythms of hip-hop and jazz with the synthetic sounds of electronica and drum ‘n’ bass, the album has a pleasantly bipolar feeling that is slick and futuristic, but profoundly intimate at the same time. The solo…
From blandly cute child stardom to booty-licious, cold isolationism to diva-level, so-in-luv obsession to pan-media omnipresence — that’s the trail former Destiny’s Child centerpiece Beyoncé Knowles has blazed, and whether any of these poses/phases were sincere seems almost beside the point today. Knowles’ career has been such a master class…
If one band could be held responsible for the nü-metal phenomenon that rose in the wake of grunge, it’s safe to say that Korn would single-handedly take the blame. Defining the genre’s funky rock-meets-rap sound with the down-tuned guitars on their hugely influential 1994 debut, the group created a unit-moving…
Seriously swanky pool parties have been the “in” thing this summer, with tons of hotties and himbos hanging out at superchic swimming holes like the Mondrian and the Scottsdale Inn while downing designer drinks, catching some rays, and listening to DJs work the ones and twos. This weekend’s Wet Pool…
We’ve been spending a lot of time on www.dirtyscottsdale.com lately, so when the weekend rolled around, we were properly inspired to guzzle vodka somewhere in Scottsdale. We checked out Mickey’s Hangover on Friday, August 17, and to our relief, the boozers in attendance didn’t quite fit the bill for the…
