Concerts

Here are a handful of shows that were just announced this week.

By Sarah Ventre Better Than: A release party for a four song EP. The legendary Yucca Tap Room is perhaps best known as a training ground where local bands come up before they hit it big. Many Phoenix stars has graced the stage with the neon beer light situated just…

By Jonathan McNamara Better Than: All the other bands that peaked while I was in high school. See more of Alien Ant Farm bassist Tye Zamora in our slide show: Alien Ant Farm at Tempe Marketplace for Third Thursday Make no mistake that the majority of the crowd out for…

By Adriane Goetz Better Than: Getting attacked by Killa Beez Wu Tang Clan master, The RZA, i.e. Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah, is known by many names (The Abbott, Prince Rakeem, Rzarector, and Bobby Steels, just to name a few) but his most notorious alias is the incorrigible Bobby Digital. Enamored with…

By Paul Rubin The best shows are the ones where you go through some unexpected things in your head as you’re watching and listening. It’s really about the magic — the sound and sights of surprise — that transcendent music and performance can be. It happened to me last night…

Surely Tempe-based Americana/rock bands get tired of the Gin Blossoms comparisons. But that’s the best measuring stick we can come up with for many of the bands making music off Mill Avenue now – including Los Guys and Tramps & Thieves. The music harks back to the days when Mill Avenue was a rock club strip, and heartfelt confessions made their way through lyrics draped over solid Americana strumming and time-tested rock rhythms. The sound always reminded me of Heartland Rock, lost in the desert and trying to find its way back.

By Jonathan McNamara Better Than: Spinal Tap. Sure, this animated band owes a lot to its comedic predecessor, but sheer technical skill from the band that makes Nathan Explosion, Pickles the drummer and all the rest of these rogue rockers live puts Dethklok a few notches higher. See more shots…

By Benjamin Leatherman Better than: Hanging out with the dicks in Scottsdale. Back in mid-1996, Zach de la Rocha and the rest of Rage Against the Machine ruled the alt-rock world, with stations like The Edge (then on 106.3/100.3 FM) broadcasting the foursome’s aggro agitprop songs from their second album…

Eartha Kitt is 81 years-old. But you’d never know it by the way she sang, joked, teased, and pranced around the stage at Phoenix Symphony Hall on Saturday Night. Perhaps best known for her role as Catwoman on the Batman TV series in the 1960s, Eartha Kitt proved herself to be a consummate performer. And she showed that she can still pull off the sex-kitten shtick with startling aplomb, repeating showing her shapely leg (the slit in her dress was longer than the Wall of China) and grinding her hips like something out of Grandmothers Gone Wild. It was hot; I won’t lie. I know that sounds weird. Eartha Kitt seduced me — she and her 76 wingmen, in the form of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra Ensemble.

I guess we should consider ourselves lucky. Foxboro Hot Tubs (a.k.a. all three members of Green Day, plus Jason White of Pinhead Gunpowder, Green Day backing musician Jason Freese, and Kevin Preston of Prima Donna and the Skulls) only announced ten dates for their U.S. tour, and the band’s stop at the Brickhouse Theatre in Phoenix on Sunday, May 25, was one of those precious ten.

By Joseph Golfen Better than: No music on Mill Avenue. If Mill Ave. Inc, a new documentary by local film maker Nicholas “Nico” Holthaus centers around the idea that the iconic street to ASU just isn’t as cool as it use to be, tell that to the bands that performed…

When I arrive at the Brickhouse Theatre to see Lake Havasu City band Blackmarket open for Eisley, there’s a line winding around the side of the venue. It’s hot outside and “I’m on the list,” so I push my way through the crowd of fresh-faced emo kids who’ve already been waiting an hour and charge up to the door. “I’m on the list,” I tell the guy at the window. “Don’t you know who I am, biotch? I want my VIP wristband and my comp tickets NOW.”

By Jonathan McNamara Better Than: Listening to music in only one language and/or style. Pink Martini is what every band wants to be even if they don’t know it yet. From the first note of their show at the Scottsdale Civic Center Mall Amphitheater, it was unquestionably clear that the…

First, let me just say that my friends Bones and Chazz – longtime cohorts for my “Niki at Nite” column – were super-stoked to see Jackyl. They’re both big fans of raucous, rowdy metal, and Jackyl is one of a handful of bands they can agree upon. Bones is an ‘80s metal chick with an affinity for Poison, Cinderella, Bon Jovi, and a bunch of other pretty boy bands that manly men cannot, in good conscience, admit to liking. Her husband Chazz is a self-professed “redneck” who loves beer, boats, and big boobs. He wouldn’t be caught dead with a can of hairspray and a pair of leather pants. But a metal band like Jackyl, where none of the members wear makeup and the singer dances around with a chainsaw – now that’s something guys can get into with no shame.

When I heard there was a KISS tribute band comprised of “little people,” I knew I couldn’t miss this show. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I’ll admit I was curious. Whenever a band has a gimmick that’s as awesome as being “Minikiss,” I immediately question their musical validity. I wanted to see if these little dudes could actually play their parts, as opposed to just looking like them.

Twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin spread their musical wings on their sixth (and latest) album, The Con, adding a bit more depth to their arrangements and increasing the potency of their New Wave/indie pop/freak-folk cocktail. But it’s their onstage banter that’s garnered them the most attention lately. It provided the angle for a recent story on the sisters by The Associated Press, and even Sara had to talk about how much she talks onstage at the duo’s gig in Tempe.

By Luke Holwerda The show was already going at 8:45 p.m. I fumbled through the door with my camera bag, quickly getting a hand stamp and a wrist band, and I made my way to the front of the venue. The place was pretty full for a Thursday night. I…

By Sarah Ventre Every third Friday of the month, Mesa-based Hollywood Alley turns their space into a place where art and music can come together with good food and cheap beer. Less upscale and underage than First Fridays downtown, Theonix Arts Showcase doesn’t follow the formula of taking an art…

Fans of industrial music – a.k.a. “rivetheads” – know that the best industrial events in the Valley are thrown by the local collective known as Sadisco*. Every month, Sadisco* throws a themed party at Homme Lounge, wherein the collective’s “house” DJs break out some wicked wax mashups. The event on Saturday, April 19 was dubbed the “Sadisco* Goes to Leary’s * Town: The S*uicide Cool-A©is Test!” on the flier, and the décor at Homme was fitting. The entrance was decked out in bamboo and fake foliage to resemble Jonestown, Guyana, where the mass suicides of Jim Jones’ cult took place on November 18, 1978. Inside, there were a couple life-size skeletons, centerpiece dishes filled with a hodge podge of bizarre items like rubber chickens and baby doll heads, and more stroboscopic effects than a vintage Pink Floyd show.

By: Megan Irwin Get well soon Chan! (photo by Steve Gullick) This space should be filled with a review of what I’m sure would have been one of the best shows to hit the Marquee Theater this year: Cat Power was set to perform with her new band the Dirty…

“This is where I start talking about my mommy issues and how I go through men like fucking underwear.”

There’s something for everyone in this week’s edition of Future Shock, whether you’re a classic rock fan, a goth rock fan, or an indie rock head. Read on to see which concerts have been announced this week.