Since 1983, the Melvins have influenced countless bands and carved out a path that is all their own. They constantly explore unexpected paths, even relative to their own work — with every album they wind up even further away from what people have finally pegged as a their “sound.” Over…
The B-52s’ funky, flirty, and groovalicious party sound is as unmistakable today as it was when the band formed unexpectedly in 1976, after the founding members downed a flaming volcano drink at an Athens, Georgia, restaurant. “We never planned on having a band. We were friends and crashed parties together…
Certain records seem to appear, somehow, at virtually every yard sale: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Foreigner 4, Carole King’s Tapestry . . . and Psychedelic Furs’ Talk Talk Talk. The first three make sense, given how ubiquitous they were, but the latter is harder to explain. Released in 1981, Talk Talk Talk,…
Rodrigo y Gabriela are known for taking plenty of extra guitars with them on tour, and for good reason: The force with which they play the instruments usually leads them to a grisly end. The duo tends to wield their guitars as though the only thing standing between the virtuoso…
June was an incredible month for hip-hop releases, with new records by Kanye West, Mac Miller, J. Cole, and Quasimoto, among others, hitting the market. The downside to the deluge of hype was the failure to acknowledge the world-class work of Dessa. The Minneapolis-based MC (and slam poet and author),…
You’ll have to forgive The Crystal Method for taking a little longer than expected to unveil its latest studio album. Yes, the follow-up to 2009’s Grammy-nominated Divided by Night has been more than four years in the making, but the venerable electronica twosome of Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland have…
At 43 years old, it seems safe to say that Jay-Z is on top of the world. Within the past year, he’s become the face of an NBA basketball franchise, had a beautiful child with his tremendously famous wife, and had a mega-collaboration with Justin Timberlake. Hell, he even picked…
Everything eventually turns into porn. Guitar porn–Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 is all about it–whiskey porn… well, regular porn. But recently, food porn has blown up. Which is great for me. You see, there are only a few things that I take voracious pleasure in consuming, and two of those…
Todd Rundgren’s breakthrough album, Something/Anything?, was a winding double-LP on which he wrote, produced, and performed nearly everything himself. That says a lot about 1972, but it says even more about Rundgren, who’s been seen as something of a pop-rock prodigy ever since. If it seems he’s never been quite…
What do you do when your once-formidable alternative bands fade into obscurity? Start an annual summer tour together! The Summerland Tour is the brainchild of Everclear frontman (and lone remaining founder) Art Alexakis and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath, and it’s back in 2013 for its second go-round. This year, Everclear…
“Weird Al” Yankovic once parodied “Rico Suave.” He’s parodied two separate Milli Vanilli songs. He been making parodies so long that he donned a leather-jacketed fatsuit for “Fat” before Michael Jackson was a pariah, continued to wear it for 20 years afterward, and has gone on parodying Michael Jackson now…
Long before the “Harlem Shake,” there was “The Rockafeller Skank.” Doesn’t ring a bell, huh? It should, considering the 1998 plunderphonics-heavy groove was one of the more epic big-beat hits in the enormous arsenal of British-born musician Norman Cook. Still clueless, bro? Perhaps you know the Englishman by his more…
Rather than stick to vague genre tags or invent new hybrids, the members of Sun Bones offer the term “malleability.” It’s fitting for a classically trained band that somehow manages to fit four-part harmonies, bursts of punk, comforting pop melodies, and avant-garde excursions under a single umbrella and make it…
Long before the “Harlem Shake,” there was “The Rockafeller Skank.” Doesn’t ring a bell, huh? It should considering the 1998 plunderphonics-heavy groove was one of the more epic big beat hits from the enormous arsenal of British-born musician Norman Cook. Still clueless, bro? Perhaps you know the Englishman by his…
June ended with a bang–Axis Radius closed down after one last blowout and temperatures spiked from “I guess I signed up for this” to “I did not sign up for this”–but our Club Candids photographers were busy all month, documenting Phoenix nightlife and consuming lots of fluids, probably. Here are…
So, the music video on MTV as a promotional tool is a thing of the past, is it? Well, on July 1, Fervor Records announced that you could see the new Glass Heroes video for “Let Me Down” on MTV.com, the reformed music channel that’s trying to establish its website…
Last weekend, after 16 years as an Old Town institution, Scottsdale’s Axis-Radius was the site of one last blowout before closing down for good. (It’s set to reopen next year as a new music venue and craft beer hangout.) We were there for Last Call. Here’s 20 photos from the…
When we interviewed Black Veil Brides lead singer Andy Biersack last week, ahead of their performance at Warped Tour on Thursday, lots of fans — from in and out of town — wrote in to talk about how much they loved the band. A smaller, very vocal contingent, though, wrote…
Can you handle the truth? If stuff like honesty and real-life stories are your kind of thing, and you also happen to be heading to Crescent Ballroom on June 27 to see Twin Shadow, be prepared get your fix via personal storytelling, an added element to the night of music…
Minibosses does exactly what it says on the tin: It plays video game covers, and it’s been doing it since before “Video Game Cover Band” was a genre. The group’s oeuvre focuses on the ’80s — its most-recent album included a medley of some lesser-known Legend of Zelda tracks, a…
The current version of L.A. Guns is at least the second band bearing his name to not feature Tracii Guns, the guitarist who founded L.A. Guns and briefly took part in the Sunset Strip mega-merger that begat Guns N’ Roses. This iteration features two longtime members, singer Phil Lewis and…
Wow . . . Talk about a time trip. As someone who lived through the ’80s and now accepts the inevitable hangover of artists such as Peter Murphy, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, and Morrissey still in touring mode, I have a question for young artists today: Why? Why the fascination…
