You may think that the days of punk songs sounding just like those of The Ramones are over. Not so. The Qt up a bit, and throw in some surf-y sounds. That sound is packaged for digestion with fast-paced, two-minute songs. The New Hampshire-based band (note the irony: New Hampshire…
There’s a little 80s darkwave goth kid inside all of us, so we were elated to get a serious fix Saturday night at Sanctum, everyone’s favorite local vampire disco. From Q Lazzarus to Concrete Blonde to Janet Jackson, DJs Dan and Noiz.Fkr went way beyond the stereotypical retro darkwave tunes…
Maybe you read Spin magazine’s October feature about how Kings of Leon remain defiantly popular despite the fact that everyone who knows anything about music thinks they suck?Maybe you also recognized the first quote in the piece was from a post on Up On The Sun. The quote has since…
Brian Coughlin, guitarist for local indie pop band Kinch, is famous.After The Thermals, whom Kinch play with Wednesday, November 17 at Rhythm Room, announced they were looking for fans to bring Furbies (those cute/creepy little toys) to shows, Coughlin decided to create a flier for the show based on his…
What’s Selling is now a battle of the best, a local music duel of sorts. Stinkweeds and Zia are going head to head with indie versus hard rock, rap and hip-hop.Which of two record stores had the best compilation of top 10 albums this week?…
Lots of people are eagerly awaiting Michael Jackson’s posthumous record Michael, which will be released December 14.So am I.But after listening to a pre-released single, “Breaking News,” I have my doubts that the recording was untouched after Michael passed away. It sure doesn’t sound like the song is 100 percent…
Oh, Kesha.It’s difficult to decide whether to commend or shake your head in disbelief at the pop singer based on her song, “We R Who We R.” Horrible spelling aside, Kesha actually wrote the number one debut song in response to recent teen suicides among gay youth. She wanted a…
Artist: Casket LifeTitle: Building a Better DisasterBasics: The band’s MySpace page reveals a fun little tidbit about the process of recording Building: “One year ago we recorded a record. It’s a pretty good record called “building a better disaster”. So we’ve been all stoked and chillin and getting pretty drunk and…
You can’t get more classic rock than Tom Petty and there’s no Tom Petty album more classic than 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes, which has just been reissued in a two-disc deluxe edition. The very foundation of a career that would lead Petty and his band, The Heartbreakers, into the Rock…
It’s not often you get to watch ice hockey the same time a rocking band performs, but that’s exactly what you’ll get at the Ice House Tavern this Friday, November 12 when Hung Dynasty takes the stage.The bar’s live music stage is attached to the Arcadia Ice Arena, and appropriately,…
When you think about that special brand of reggae rock popularized by frat boys in the ’90s, bands from Hawaii are not the first to come to mind. Still, Pepper, probably the most famous trio to emerge from Kailua-Kona, has managed to make a name for themselves in the genre…
The Thermals are an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. But who isn’t an indie band from Portland these days? The novelty-tinged charm that used to go with repping the Rose City has diminished over the years. The Thermals, however, never quite bought into the clichés attached to so many…
If you listen to one of Tim Kasher’s breathless indie-rock ballads and think to yourself “That reminds me a little of Bright Eyes,” well, no shit. Like Bright Eyes chief emoter Coner Oberst, Kasher grew up in Omaha and attended Catholic boys school while honing his musical chops. Later, he…
Though Melanie Safka may have fallen under the mainstream radar some time ago, she and her distinctive vocal style have remained a part of the collective consciousness. She’s best known for “Brand New Key” (a song that every outspoken pre-teen girl should listen to, to feel both independent and unabashed)…
Smashboxx in Old Town has been open for a couple weeks now, and the crowds couldn’t be bigger. We paid a visit to the “sports bar by day/lounge by night” this past weekend and witnessed a throng of the skinny and the stylish both inside the place and outside on…
Poor Lily Allen. Her pop music hiatus is now very understandable, considering how much drama she’s dealing with right now.Here’s a quick recap of the 25-year-old singer’s woes: First she suffered from being somewhat of a one hit wonder in 2007. Then in 2008, she suffered a miscarriage with Ed…
Title: Honey In My CoffeeBasics: Back to country this week — thankfully it’s not countrified rock about a fictional outlaw.There is, however, a song about a dog on Blaine Long’s record, but we’ll get to that later. Allow Blaine’s bio, compliments of blainelong.com, to help set the mood for the…
Does anyone else find the new Taio Cruz single with Kesha to be a little creepy? It’s called “Dirty Picture,” and you can probably guess from the title the track is about Cruz getting his lover(s) to send me dirty pictures for his enjoyment. It wouldn’t as be as disturbing…
Don’t freak out when you see this flier: sadly, The Beatles are not magically reforming to perform at Scottsdale’s The Rogue Bar this weekend. What is exciting, though, is that every single band on the bill for the Saturday, November 6 show is playing all-Beatles music throughout the night. Think…
Granola-rific folk siren Joanna Newsom is one of indie music’s few commercially successful singer-harpists. “Few” in this case being interchangeable with “otherwise nonexistent.” The California-bred performer fell in love with the instrument at age 4 and never looked back. (Okay, yes, she briefly dated an oboe in high school and…
A Perfect Circle doesn’t have a new record to support, but that hasn’t stopped the supergroup (featuring Tool’s Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel) from selling out all 15 of its dates in a five-city, West Coast tour. Sure, the venues are on the small side, but it’s still…
The decision regarding how to present songs in recorded form can be a tricky one for some bands. That’s especially true for acts like Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, a Indiana chamber-pop band that can’t even decide what to put on its records. Margot and Co. had a…
