Many are the bands profiled in these pages who ask what a bunch of musicians has to do to get a cover story around here. Sometimes it’s by sheer popularity. Sometimes it’s sheer luck, a slow news week when some guitarist turns out to be more visually appealing than a…
Apache Lake Music Festival recently announced the dates of this year’s festival, October 23 and 24. With the announcement also comes the lineup speculation. ALMF in the past has pegged certain bands like Dry River Yacht Club, Japhy’s Descent, Sara Robinson and the Midnight Special, and Banana Gun to name…
One of the stand out acts of last month’s tremendous FestivALTAZ was without a doubt Family of the Year. Tonight they return to the valley supporting Lord Huron at Tempe’s Marquee Theatre. The band has released some singles deeply rooted in acoustic and folk rock the likes of popular tunes,…
Waka Flocka Flame is running for president in 2016, and he’s already establishing himself as a peacekeeper. The Atlanta rapper had a concert at Livewire in Scottsdale last night, and a Youtube video that will just another nug in the jar for the rapper’s upcoming campaign. DJ Whoo, Flocka’s DJ…
Apparently nostalgia is one hell of a drug because there was nothing new and very few kids in the crowd during the New Kids On the Block show last night at Gila River Arena in Glendale. Since NKOTB got back together in 2008 they have made multiple stops in the…
If you haven’t gotten your tickets for Lana Del Rey’s Comerica Theatre gig with Courtney Love a few days hence, better get a move on. Its arguably going to be one of the biggest concerts of the week, let alone the entire spring. Its not the only “can’t miss” show…
A few people have seen fit to inform us recently that there’s not much happening this weekend. Its an erroneous opinion, frankly, but an understandable one. With all the major music festivals of the springtime having come and gone, one might think that Phoenix is pretty much a wasteland between…
Ernie Halter is an alien. He’s an alien because he played one Star Trek: Voyager (he was beamed away), and he’s an alien because his time in cyberspace has defined, in large part, the direction of his musical career. Through dedicated, hard work, Halter’s music is now beamed (okay, streamed)…
Understandably, many in the Valley are dreading the month ahead. As the weeks roll by, the summertime season will be getting into full swing, everyone you know will start leaving town to escape, and there’s soon to be nothing but dreck on television (Game of Thrones nonwithstanding). It’s not all…
Here are your best options for musical entertainment this weekend. For more choices, check out our comprehensive concert calendar…
Like a front snap punch to the throat, Melt-Banana’s erratic noise will shower you with peals of explosive abandon not unlike Foetus’ or Drive Like Jehu’s. The Japanese noise duo — Yasuko Onuki, responsible for the band’s chirping, hyperactive vocals, and Ichirou Agata, who likes to layer his guitar riffs…
To say the evening was fun is an understatement. Sleater-Kinney played to a sizable crowd at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe Wednesday night who represented one of the most enjoyable gatherings of humans I have seen in a while. There was a true sense of excitement and anticipation in the…
Chilean experimental trio Föllakzoid’s newest release, the aptly titled III, has only four tracks, but there is nothing economical about what they do with their humble arsenal. Each song, including the opening track “Electric,” is an expansive, layered masterpiece that is organically constructed from the haunting rhythms inside their heads…
For the most part, electronic dance music is a realm of the young. For proof, look no further than this year’s Wet Electric in Tempe where a majority of the thousands in attendance at the two-day music festival were firmly in the under-30 age range and were definitely of the…
When the promoters of the annual Wet Electric at Tempe’s Big Surf Waterpark touted the event as the “biggest pool party in North America,” they weren’t lying. After all, the two-day electronic dance music festival on Saturday, April 25, and Sunday, April 26, took place within the confines of the…
Expectations can pollute an experience, but you’d assume a Saul Williams show would incorporate spoken word, hip-hop, and theater, the trifecta the New York rapper is known for. In this regard, Williams did not disappoint when he performed at Club Red on a Tuesday night in Mesa. In other areas,…
Darkness surrounds the Soft Moon. So does a sense of struggle, hopelessness, and want, the sound of a mind searching for searching for sanity and peace in a confusing world. The Soft Moon is the musical voice of Luis Vasquez, a man battling inner demons and willing to go to…
I had some technical difficulties on Monday night, so let me start with the fact that Matt and Kim, which performed at Marquee Theatre in Tempe, are spectacular in concert. I spent some time listening to the duo’s latest album, Lightning, before heading out to the show, and there is…
Veterans of the Riot Grrrl scene know that sustained success is not always easily defined or found. Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney knows a thing or two about the peaks and valleys of achievement. Tucker, who plays a fantastic rhythm guitar and sings with a powerful yet lovely voice, was one…
Sadly, I didn’t get my wish. I really wanted to see someone push their friend (or maybe date) into the pool at Talking Stick Resort on Sunday night while ZZ Top was playing and it didn’t happen. The other thing that didn’t happen was a good concert. At best, the…
Space Is Still the Place, the sophomore album from Austin psych-rockers Bright Light Social Hour, smashes past, present, and future together into a golden age of the band’s own design. From the lyrics to the sound, from the recording techniques to what the band drew as inspiration from meeting down-and-out…
After two records of inward-looking DIY folk-punk, Katie Crutchfield took a more observational route to her third Waxahatchee album. For her debut on Merge Records, Crutchfield shifted her songwriting toward the people around her and the world she saw touring the country. “Even the fact that the songs are observational…
