So when did metal bands decide it was a good idea to have a DJ? Who decided that since metal was cool and funk was cool, they would be twice as cool when you put them together? And why did so many angry young dudes relate to this thinking so…
There are very few performers whose musical and visual qualities have firmly established them atop the Rushmore of Hard Rock, like Heart. Its climb up the majestic mountain of success and enduring relevancy can only be matched by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, The Who, to name a few…
It been a helluva two weeks for the local metal-playing Ned Flanders aficionados in Okilly Dokilly. It’s not too often a band goes viral in the way they have. What started as a joke in line at the grocery store has grown into a worldwide point of interest, and now…
The Slipknot show on Saturday night at Ak-Chin Pavilion was far from your normal metal concert. It was more of a changing of the guard, and there were plenty of underlying themes and realizations to accompany the best heavy show of the summer. Of course there was enough pyro onstage…
Here are our picks for live music this weekend. For more options, visit our comprehensive calendar. Jill Scott – Friday, August 28 – Comerica Theatre R&B artist Jill Scott went from speaking her heartfelt thoughts to singing them, after she was discovered by Questlove from The Roots at a poetry reading…
Kid Rock is getting old. And he seems fully immersed in the phase where he really wants to explore his aging. If there was a pervasive sentiment to Wednesday night’s jam-packed show at Ak-Chin Pavilion, it was the idea that time changes a person. No earth-shattering news there, but at…
You can take one look at California band Mystic Braves and see the 1960s oozing from its members — from their shaggy bangs to their fashion sensibilities, which include everything from colorful striped pants to swirly paisley and floral-print shirts. The look is surely what helped inspire their landlord to…
A love letter to pop music was belted from the diaphragms of some seriously talented, fun-loving musicians Tuesday night at Ak-Chin Pavilion. Arizona welcomed America’s sweetheart, the original American Idol, and very pregnant Kelly Clarkson as well as Pentatonix, who won The Sing-Off a cappella competition in 2011 on NBC,…
January marked one of the hardest moments of Luna Aura’s life: the tragic passing of the singer’s 15-year-old brother in an accident at a boys’ camp in northern Arizona. Instead of paying tribute to her sibling mournfully, the 22-year-old pop singer released an upbeat song she says her always-happy brother…
When a band loses its last original member, it’s typically the signal for the remaining members to call it quits. In the case of Yes, which began in 1968, the musical legacy outshines the sums of its parts. Yes is a band that was always destined to continue after Phoenix…
Here are our concert picks for this week. Check out our comprehensive concert calendar for more options. Roar – Crescent Ballroom – Monday, August 24 Changes are incoming for the band New Times awarded Best Local Band in our 2013 Best of Phoenix issue. Longtime bass player Aaron Burke is leaving…
Metal is a way of life that isn’t suited for the average radio listener. It’s a genre that, more often than not, is in your face and relentlessly assaulting your ear-drums from the beginning of an album to its conclusion. Metal can be violent with its lyrical content and in its live…
Chris Cornell’s concert on September 17 has been postponed until November 4. Tickets for the old date will be honored at the new one, and tickets can be returned at point of purchase if necessary. No reason was given for the announcement. So for now, just remember the time Cornell,…
Taylor Swift is just like you. Taylor Swift is your friend. Taylor Swift is life. Taylor Swift is love. They say with enough repetition, even the most asinine messages start to have a ring of truth to them. Hell, that’s not even just true in government propaganda. It’s the whole…
When you set about the task of marking a musically milestone 30 years in the making, you plan out carefully and try to execute to make the event a living embodiment of that landmark. The Jesus and Mary Chain did exactly that as it hit the stage of the Marquee…
“I call it my nerd medley,” Lindsey Stirling explained to the crowd at downtown Phoenix’s Comerica Theatre Thursday night after performing her own blend of the themes to video games The Legend of Zelda, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Halo, and Assassin’s Creed. She thanked her longtime gamer fans as well as…
It’s not like George Clinton is underrated. After all, Kendrick Lamar featured Clinton on the opening track of To Pimp a Butterfly, the very funky “Wesley’s Theory,” which finds Clinton spouting vintage P-Funk psychobabble — wise observations encased in psychedelic word play (“Lookin’ down, it’s quite a drop / Lookin’ good…
Be sure to browse our comprehensive concert calendar for more options. Circuit Des Yeux – Friday, August 14 – Valley Bar With the release of In Plain Speech, Circuit de Yeux singer Haley Fohr’s fearless forays into cinematic drone have shifted from solo production to collaboration inspired by collective living…
Together for a decade, with six albums and a whole lotta touring under their belt, New Jersey band Screaming Females aren’t losing any steam. In fact, they don’t seem to stop evolving into a stronger, more abominable force. Featuring Marissa Paternoster on guitar and vocals, King Mike on bass, and…
Sam Smith is asking fans in Phoenix to stay with him, at least those who bought tickets to the singer’s August 12 concert in Glendale. The singer announced today that the concert had to be postponed — Smith’s vocal chords, for which the singer recently received surgery, need more rest. …
“It feels good to get into weird stuff,” Heaters bassist/vocalist Nolan Krebs says of the trio’s deep, spaced-out, fuzzy psychedelia, the kind that comes only from full immersion into the darkest recesses of the form. “It’s hard to say why that is, and I don’t think any of us feel…
If you’re headbanging on stage and happen to smack your bass with your skull and split open your forehead, splattering blood all over yourself, what do you do? If you’re Metz’s Chris Slorach, it’s a no-brainer: You duct-tape that shit and keep going. The musically abrasive Toronto trio is bloodied…
