ZZ Top @ Wild Horse Pass and Casino

How’s this as a recipe for unmitigated disaster? Three exceedingly old white dudes head into the studio with the guy who produced the last Linkin Park album to record a blues version of a Southern rap classic by DJ DMD, Lil Keke, and Fat Pat called (seriously) “I Gotsta Get…

La La Land Music Festival @ Phoenix Convention Center

In case you hadn’t heard, the bass-heavy hip-hop hybrid of trap music is becoming the flavor of the nanosecond in the EDM world, as big-name producers like Flosstradamus and Baauer (as well as locals like Trapzillas) are pumping its bombastic gravitas through sound systems around the globe. For Vancouver-born bass…

Club Candids: Original Latin Ladies Night at Sky Lounge

Anything with “ladies night” in the title is generally bound to be a good time. Us gals appreciate being able to get in for free (or at least for cheap), and most guys are stoked that a club is full with more ladies than usual, so it’s a win-win situation…

Your Holiday Heavy Metal Gift Guide

What’s the most metal gift you’ve ever received? I can think of several that stick out: Led Zeppelin vinyl, a miniature model of Dimebag Darrell’s Razorback lightning bolt guitar, spike-bedecked high heels that would make a dominatrix envious, a stripper pole paired with a handle of whiskey. But I’ll admit:…

Punch Brothers @ Crescent Ballroom

If Robert Fripp had discovered mandolin and bluegrass instead of guitar and classical symphonies, he might have formed a band like The Punch Brothers instead of King Crimson. The honor of actually founding the Punch Brothers goes to former Nickel Creek mandolin player Chris Thile. The MacArthur Fellow kick-started the…

Off With Their Heads @ Pub Rock

Minneapolis breeds a certain kind of musician, one that’s tough and able to thrive through biting, bitter winters. Fiery five-piece Off with Their Heads hails from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but don’t expect them to recall the band’s alt-punk heritage like The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. “I never really…

World Party @ Crescent Ballroom

Karl Wallinger has been conspicuously absent from the music scene the over the past decade — but with good reason. The former Waterboy and World Party founder suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm in 2001 that left him unable to walk and talk, let alone sing or play any of the…

Angger Dimas @ Wild Knight

Call it an occupational hazard: Almost every DJ or producer in the world has a tendency toward swagger and bragging. In fact, self-aggrandizement is as much a part of the job as remixing and learning how use Ableton Live or ProTools. So we didn’t bat an eyelash when Jakarta-born beatsmith…

Beat Circuit @ The Rogue Bar

It’s a good time to be a member of Beat Circuit. After all, the local EDM duo, which consists of siblings Miles and Demian Porter, produced a hot dance song (“Bring the Night”) that’s charted fairly well on the popular site Digital DJ Pool in recent weeks, they’ve finished their…

Club Candids: World of Beer

Getting drunk with Santa Claus would be pretty awesome when you think about it. St. Nick is already pretty generous with gifts if you’ve been nice, but just imagine what he would get you when you’ve been nice and kept the IPAs flowing? We can’t guarantee you that World of…

Here’s to Thrashgiving: Giving Thanks For Metal in 2012

The holiday season always calls for some self-reflection, no matter if you’re a Nordic Satanic metaller keeping track of virgin sacrifices, or Taylor Swift rolling in gold coins Duck Tales-style from sales of her new CD — oh yeah, did you know if you call Papa John’s to order pizza,…

Shadows Fall @ Joe’s Grotto

Look, you can keep the emotive rants and daddy-issue screeds, because at its best, metal’s always about doomsday. This is the year the Mayan calendar ends, making the title of Massachusetts metal band Shadows Fall’s seventh record, Fire from the Sky, seem not so coincidental. “These days, the world seems…

The Faint @ Crescent Ballroom

When The Faint’s seminal album, Danse Macabre, was released 11 years ago, its combination of pulsing synths and heavy guitars made the band stand out. Sure, bits and pieces sounded like New Order or Depeche Mode, but there was a modern urgency that still rings loud and clear over a…

Dethklok @ Marquee Theatre

It’s one thing to make a cartoon that affectionately sends up the theatrics of death metal. It’s another thing entirely for Brendon Small, co-producer and co-creator of the animated Adult Swim show Metalocalypse, to make three albums of astute extreme metal under the guise of his imaginary creation. Metalocalypse is…

12th Planet @ Stratus

Rock bands like Korn and Muse may be all about dubstep now, but even before emo rocker-gone-EDM-DJ Skrillex arena-rockified the genre, John Dadzie, better known as 12th Planet, was spreading the bass-heavy word. Let down by the drum ‘n’ bass genre’s refusal to change, the DJ started exploring the emerging…

RedMonkey: Work That Turkey @ Monarch Theatre

Thanksgiving is a time for traditions both good and bad, whether it involves gathering at Grandmama’s house for the annual government-sanctioned gorge on mashed potatoes and stuffing or tolerating your creepy uncle’s yearly onslaught of awful jokes. Meanwhile, local house music godfather Pete “SuperMix” Salaz will once again be staging…

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

We’re taking the day off to do the Thanksgiving thing: give thanks, eat too much, and pass out watching football. Hope you enjoy your day. We’ll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, turn up this funky Thanksgiving cut from Vince Guaraldi’s 1973 soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. If…

Club Candids: Sticky Fingers’ Finale at Bar Smith

The final night of Sticky Fingers this past Friday went down much like any of the other editions of the long-running indie dance night. Both floors of Bar Smith were packed with members of the young and hip crowd sporting a variety of quirky fashions, DJ favorites like Borisimo and…

Metal Mondays: Metal’s Vagina Monologues

To continue my rant from last week about bitches who rock (see The Butcher Babies, Boobs and Blood) and in conjunction with Revolver Magazine’s announcement of their 2013 Hottest Chicks in Metal calendar, I must pay tribute to two more female-fronted bands that I saw last week at the Marquee…