Guide for the Over-40 Set to Viva PHX

Viva PHX is back and you’re a year older, 40-somethings. Bolder? Maybe. Clever, definitely, and probably more inclined to party downtown than last year. In fact, it’s obvious the over-40 set is taking back the night, since so many of you are out and about on a regular basis, running…

A Guide to Catching Phoenix and Arizona Musicians at Viva PHX

2014’s winner for Best Festival, Viva PHX is back for round two and this year it is even bigger. Bigger headliners, more touring acts, more local acts, more venues involved, more activated spaces, and lucha libre wrestling. The only thing that Stateside is leaving out is the kitchen sink …..

A Confident Best Coast Tops the Bill for Viva PHX

By her own admission, the 2015 Bethany Cosentino is far more comfortable in her own skin than the 2009 version. Cosentino, the lead singer and principal songwriter (along with multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno) for Los Angeles indie-pop duo Best Coast, first burst into public consciousness with the unfathomably catchy “Boyfriend,” from…

10 Sleeper Bands to Catch at Viva PHX

Viva PHX 2015 offers festival goers 90 bands at 20 different venues for an incredibly reasonable $24 ticket price. For you mathematicians, it works out to an average of 4.5 performers per venue and if you were to catch say, five of them during the course of your night, that’s…

How Adia Victoria Got a Buzz Off One Single

In an age when the Internet immediately determines the popularity of an artist, it seems presumptuous to heap the hype on a musician after releasing just one song. After listening to the malaise-filled anthemic “Stuck In The South” by Nashville-based artist Adia Victoria, the song legitimizes the practice of being…

Fishbone Continues to Experiment With New “Reality” Show

With seemingly every alternative rock band of note reunited to dolefully tour the classics, Los Angeles band Fishbone remains a vital exception to the “play the hits” rule. For 33 years, the group has experimented and evolved, incorporating influences including ska, punk, hardcore, psychedelic rock, soul, funk, reggae, and jazz…

Neighbors to SXSR Festival: Turn It Down!

Friday night’s South by South Roosevelt festival in the older neighborhood (older as in less gentrified) went off without a hitch but Saturday night was apparently alright for fighting, as one perturbed neighbor, intent on playing Mr. Wilson to SXSR’s Dennis the Menace, started complaining about the noise to police…

8 Best Concerts in Phoenix This Weekend

On any given weeknight in Phoenix, at least one band covers Eric Clapton’s “Crossroads” (probably without giving ASCAP a dime). The song is a blues-rock masterpiece, adaptable to the widest range of skill levels, and well known and catchy enough to please even the most mainstream of tastes. Tuesday night…

Viva PHX Releases Schedule

Viva PHX has announced its schedule, giving a pretty complete picture of who’s going to be playing where during the festival, which will all but dominate downtown Phoenix on Saturday, March 14. Check it out…

Cursive – Crescent Ballroom – 2/23/2015

Seeing Cursive perform its seminal 2003 record, The Ugly Organ, in its entirety is a dream come true for most fans. The album arguably is the band’s best work (with Domestica coming in a close second), and The Ugly Organ is the last record to feature cellist Gretta Cohn. The…

6 Best Concerts in Phoenix This Weekend

It’s a good time to be a music fan in Phoenix with disposable income. Over the next few weeks things are going to get busy, what with a dozen or so festivals slated to hit the Valley in the next eight weeks. Call these next few weeks the calm before…

6 Best Concerts in Phoenix This Week

Yes, the man behind commercially ubiquitous songs like “Old Time Rock and Roll” and “Like a Rock” is coming to Phoenix this week. Bob Seger’s legacy includes 17 studio albums that have gone platinum 20 times, a co-writing credit on the Eagles hit “Heartache Tonight,” and countless, mind-boggling numbers of…

Riff Raff Gets On Stage, Raps, and That’s It

I’m unable to decouple Riff Raff, the rapper, from the character of “Alien,” as played by James Franco in Harmony Korine’s 2012 film Spring Breakers. This is not an uncommon thing, as even Riff Raff himself is insistent that the character is not just inspired by him, but is him,…