Ra Ra Riot @ Clubhouse

Syracuse is famed for a few things: basketball, the college that has the basketball, and, according to my viewing of a Syracuse-based episode of Man vs. Food, hearty American grub. Those pop-rockers with a hint of chamber, Ra Ra Riot, formed there, too, and took off during the East Coast…

Deftones @ Fear Farm

You can’t keep a good pseudo-metal band down. So it goes with the Deftones, whose new album, Diamond Eyes, follows a disastrous mid-career detour that nearly derailed their shit permanently. It all started in 2008, when founding bassist Chi Cheng suffered massive brain damage in a car wreck, rendering him…

Club Candids at Giligin’s

Anyone who happens to hang out at Giligin’s in Scottsdale on the weekends should automatically have an interesting story to tell. Por que? Because of Chuey the Rock ‘n’ Roll Midget, that’s why. (For instance, how many of your tales of memorable nightlife exploits include the phrase “…and then the…

What’s Selling: Revolver Records

Locals were all about supporting hometown musicians this week at Revolver Records.Phoenix experimental improv rockers Sun City Girls came out on top at with their latest release.Indie darlings Belle & Sebastian were pretty trendy too, as were New York chamber pop musicians Antony & the Johnsons and the psychedelic Japanese…

Tigerface: Castlecore Pt. 1

Title: Castlecore Pt. 1Basics: Enough of this hip hop stuff, our weekly locals-only review column YAFI was built on emo-tastic pop punk.What better way to return to the fold than with Tigerface’s latest album Castlecore Pt. 1? Now, had this album — which is stretch for something clocking in just…

Flier of the Week: Iwrestledabearonce at The Nile Theatre

Michelle DonovanIwrestledabearonce​As if their name isn’t cool enough, Iwrestledabearonce totally hit the jackpot with this flier. There is an army of cutesy looking bears creating a bevy of psychadelic eye candy to the viewer, and they look so cool, they probably won’t have any people trying to wrestle them any…

Bloodfest

He sometimes DJs while covered in fake blood. A paper-bag mask or other strange disguise frequently obscures his face. And the grinding electronica tracks he produces feature such nasty titles as “Kill These Fucking People” and “Sexual Sacrifice.” Yup, it’s safe to say that Screamer Clauz is probably about as…

Vince Gill @ Mesa Arts Center

Vince Gill’s star has dimmed in the past decade. He hasn’t scored a country Top Ten single since 2000’s “Feels Like Love,” but it certainly has more to do with Nashville’s shift toward younger, pop-inflected artists than the 53-year-old Gill’s having lost his golden touch as a writer and performer…

B-52s @ Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum

It’s been over 20 years since “Love Shack” reached the Billboard Top 40. Since then, there hasn’t been one wedding, bar mitzvah, sweet 16, or retirement party that is safe from the song. Actually, though, the B-52s formed a dozen years before “Love Shack” hit the mainstream. Though they may…

Holy Fuck @ Rhythm Room

Affixing a tidy genre label to most music these days isn’t a daunting task. In fact, it’s almost like bands want to fit into a certain genre, for marketing ease, lest their eager fans be left in the dark. Toronto’s Holy Fuck have become adept at actively avoiding easy classification…

Paul Oakenfold @ Marquee Theatre

Paul Oakenfold is getting long in the tooth. Although the 47-year-old British-born trance superstar isn’t ready for AARP membership just yet, he’s been bringing forth the beats since the Studio 54 era and has outlasted his peers from London’s early-’80s DJ scene to become arguably one of the most successful…

Club Candids at Chaser’s

Psychobilly legends The Quakes shook Chaser’s Bar and Nightclub on Friday night and New Times was there to assess the damage. Check out our slideshow…

What’s Selling: Hoodlums Music and Movies

Bring in Le Noise, bring in da funk.Neil Young stole the top spot on the chart this week at Hoodlums Music and Movies.Guitar king Eric Clapton also made the list with his latest album, as did classic rocker Robert Plant with his most recent release. English indie pop band Mumford…

Mr. Miranda & Jimmy Nelson: The J & D Experience EP

TItle: The J & D Experience EPBasics: More YAFI hip hop? I could get used to this. This EP was passed along to me by resident PHX hip-hop expert Mike Meyer, so I knew I was in for something decent — if not actually good. Well, you know what? Miranda…

Discotroplis

European scientists recently discovered a method of transmitting sound waves through the lonely vacuum of outer space, which might be good news for German trance music heavyweights Cosmic Gate. The Deutschland DJ duo of Claus Terhoeven and Stefan Bossems have spent the past decade creating a slew of spacey and…

Phantogram @ Rips

Since 1994, Seattle-based indie label Barsuk records has proved that there’s more to the area than Sub Pop. It has released music by Death Cab for Cutie, Mates of State, Ra Ra Riot, Nada Surf, and Rilo Kiley. So when Phantogram — guitarist Josh Carter and keyboard player Sarah Barthel…

Atomic Punks @ Marquee Theatre

For some, the very concept of a tribute band flies in the face of traditional American values. It could be viewed as the easy way out: Rather than doing the hard work yourself and writing original material, you simply learn how to mimic a successful band’s style so well that…

Tech N9ne, & E-40 @ Marquee Theatre

Tech N9ne and E-40 are two of the most successful independent artists in hip-hop, so it seems like a no-brainer for them to tour together. Tech N9ne founded his own label, Strange Music, in 1999 and has gone on to release 11 albums, which have sold more than 1 million…

David Allan Coe @ Harold’s Cave Creek Corral

No outlaw-country music singer has labored harder to prove his outlaw bona fides than David Allan Coe. A few years ago, the Akron, Ohio, native led a Dallas TV crew through the Ohio prison where he was incarcerated in the 1960s, showing them the spot where he supposedly killed a…