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…
Wet Electric, Arizona’s annual EDM-tastic water park festival, returns to Tempe this weekend. A long list of producers, including Tiesto and Dillon Francis, will hit Big Surf Waterpark on Saturday, April 25, and Sunday, April 26. To those who have attended the event in the past, this year promises major…
It’s hard to have a song in a Verizon commercial but still come off to the public as down-to-earth, but Brooklyn-based indie-pop duo Matt and Kim finds a way. Naturally, part of it is carefully crafted public image, forged at the cost of thousands of dollars and hours of meetings…
Even with all the great gifts the internet blesses us with (gag me), booking shows can still be a frustrating chore. For musicians, knowing which venues are ideal or which promoter might actually, you know, promote you can involve a lot of who-knows-who and nepotism. For promoters, it can be…
David James SwansonIkey Owens on October 11 in Mexico City, performing with Jack White.[Editor’s Note: This is not really a Coachella post. I’m not speaking to you as a music journalist. Or as a fan. Just as a guy remembering a friend.] Had he been alive to see it, last…
We love you, Coachella, but sometimes you bring us down. Here were the biggest bummers of weekend two. The Lack of Enthusiasm at the Entrance Walking into the venue around 2 p.m. on Friday, Coachella staffers were attempting to engage with the strings of attendees filtering through the security gates…
Damn, Coachella. How do you do it? Every time us weekend two folks start to feel discouraged by the barrage of snark and dissatisfaction on social media from the wealthy one-percenters of weekend one, you come along and prove that the second round of the festival really does belong to…
If we examine Hozier from a purely statistical standpoint, for the moment he is what Billboard classifies as a “one-hit wonder.” That distinction is bestowed on artists who place one song in the Billboard Top 40 while the rest of that artist’s single releases fail to trouble the upper regions…
Timothy Norris/OC Weekly “The Coachella Experience” is tough to define, because the behemoth annual festival means different things to different people. For some, it’s all about a sunset ferris wheel ride. For others, it’s about dancing your heart out in the Sahara tent all damn day. For me, it’s about…
By Andy Hermann and Besha Rodell Our Coachella team had a blast rocking out to AC/DC, getting our swerve on in the craft beer garden and stepping over passed-out bros in the Sahara tent. But we would have had an even better time if we had gone into the weekend…
Nate JacksonJason Eppworth giving a high five down low.Jason Eppworth giving a high five down low.Smack!…Smack!….Smack! “Woooo! Coachellaaaaaaaahhh! Gimmie five!” That’s the sound of a loud, burly Kentucky man high-fiving his way through the sunburned Sunday crowd on weekend one of Coachella. Though he appears to be just another dude…
By Adam Lovinus Time for weekend two of Coachella 2015, or amateur hour for doing drugs in the desert. Hopefully by now you’ve got your stash procured already. If not, there’s always Palm Springs Craigslist if you know the right search terms. If you think consuming drugs at Coachella is…
I’ve already extolled Laura Walsh’s virtues already, but I have to reemphasize her talents once more. It’s a shame that she’s still not Phoenix-based, as her vocal range alone could place her in a number of genres. She subscribes to the pop country label, which may deter some hardcore country…
Before indie rock was a thing, like the hip, Urban Outfitters thing we know today, there was Built to Spill, one of the most indie of indie bands to ever indie. Which is kind of confusing, because the band has been on Warner Bros. Records for most of its career,…
