Digital Leather Set To Rock Tempe’s The Manor on Saturday

Digital Leather is the lovechild of Shawn Foree and, well, Shawn Foree. He is the creative force behind the band — injecting dirty synths, subdued guitars and crunchy drum machines into his grimy sound. This paragraph, taken from the band’s website, best sums up Digital Leather’s live sound:The live Digital…

Concert Review: Gogol Bordello at Marquee Theater

Here are just a few of the scenes I witnessed last night at the Gogol Bordello concert at the Maruquee: Complete strangers linked arms like brothers and can-caned in a circle pit while avoiding incoming moshers. Lead singer Eugene Hutz at one point used not one but two microphones to…

Concert Review: U2 Gets Intimate in Glendale

There’s something inherently incongruous about the serene, relentlessly thoughtful music U2 made at its creative peak and the stadium-sized spectacle that came to Glendale last night. Sure, the band has been one of the few extant rock acts capable of (nearly) selling-out football fields for two decades, but I still…

Photos From the International Horror & Sci-fi Film Festival

Hard to believe the International Horror & Sci-fi Film Festival has terrorized the Valley for five years now. To our delight, the three-day affair returned to its original location this year, right in the heart of ASU student nightlife’s portion of the Mill Avenue District. What once was Harkins Centerpoint…

Wavves at Rhythm Room

“Oh yeah,” Nathan Williams of Wavves leered as I introduced myself last night at The Rhythm Room.  “You’re the guy who wrote the article with the ‘Wavves spits on a guy’ headline.”  That wasn’t the headline, exactly, but the article he was referring to clearly set the stage for an…

Matt and Kim at Craftsman Court

Third Thursday in Scottsdale proved a massive mish-mash of ages, scenes and reasons for attendance. Matt and Kim played a free gig for FM 103.9’s free concert series, Sean Kingston was at Venue of Scottsdale, plus, there was that whole art walk thing. The Brooklyn-based duo Matt and Kim took…

Nothington at the Phix: A private performance

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;}         I don’t think I have ever paid $10 to see a punk band before…

Concert Review: Elliot BROOD at Rhythm Room

BY MIKE ESCOTO If you were a music fan in Phoenix on Wednesday night and looking to hit up a concert you had plenty of acts to choose from. The obvious choices were Yo La Tengo at Marquee Theatre or Ghostface Killah and Mayer Hawthorne at The Clubhouse. With two…

Yo La Tengo at The Marquee

It’s been a pretty solid year to be a Yo La Tengo fan.  The Hoboken-based indie-rock institution (25 years and running) didn’t just release one new album this year, they released two. Their latest, Popular Songs finds the band exploring their entire stylistic breadth, indulging in the orchestrated pop, Motown…

Vivian Girls at Modified Arts

The Vivs sweet brand of Motown girl group pop shoved through a pure punk filter, a sort of freaked out Bangles sound, blared through Modified Arts last night. Reverb-ed vocals left the Urban Outfitted trio’s harmonies sounding like calls from the bottom of a well, and, humorously, made between song…

Wanda Jackson at Rhythm Room: Crowning the Queen of Rock

Wanda Jackson has been dubbed many titles, most of which are some play on “The Queen/First Lady of Rock/Rock n Roll/Rockabilly.” This year she finally got that official recognition when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an “Early Influence.” Last night, a 71-year-old Jackson…

Starfucker At Modified Arts: New Name Coming Soon

Portland indie-electro outfit Starfucker are at a crossroads. They’ll soon change their name to cope with their more widespread popularity — no doubt possible with their accessible, fresh music. Despite all that potential, last night’s show at Phoenix’s Modified Arts was more of a testament to the band’s dedicated fans,…

Former Ghosts At Trunk Space: An Early Haunting

By Frances Michelle Lopez The throngs of excited First Friday goers seemed to have been M.I.A at the Trunk Space Friday night for the One AM Radio, Former Ghosts, Knesset show. Having had a late start to my night, I wasn’t able to catch much of the Los Angeles-based One…

Civil Disobedience Part Wu Commercial

It’s hard to believe ASU’s Gammage Auditorium has never hosted a hip-hop show — even for ASU, that’s pretty whitebread — but organizers of this weekend’s Civil Disobedience Part Wu, are claiming the concert, a charity event for the Crisis Nursery of Phoenix featuring Gza of the Wu-Tang Clan, and…

Bon Iver: From The Cabin to Mesa Ampitheatre

BY LINDSEY HOLDER Think Bon Iver is too mellow and folksy to rock? Well, they’re not. At the Mesa Arts Center last night, they transformed their normally minimalist folk rock into a booming, volcanic eruption of a show that hypnotized the audience from the opening strum to the final trailing…

Insane Clown Posse at The Marquee: The Juggalo Lifestyle On Display

Say what you want about Insane Clown Posse: Never before in the history of popular music has a band created so complete a lifestyle for its fans. The Dead, Buffet, and Slipknot don’t even come close. No, the Detroit-based rap duo’s concert at Tempe’s Marquee Theatre last night wasn’t much…

The Cave Singers and !!! Converge at Rhythm Room

This show was supposed to be two shows. But, going up against Bon Iver in Mesa, promoters wisely combined the two very different sounds of !!! and The Cave Singers. In the end, !!! took the stage at Rhythm Room around midnight, following a long, long line of acts: Lightning…