With all the glitzy, glammy events happening for All Star Weekend, we felt the need to scum it up just a little bit. Sure, it’s fun to hit up Playboy parties or rub elbows with Snoop Dogg, but we tend to stick with the seedier side of town.Not that The…
I’m not sure what I like so much about this flier for Philly pop-punk band Valencia, but it sure is eye-catching. I don’t have much to say about the band, which is playing Modified on Valentine’s Day, but I love the flier…
If there’s one thing that P-town won’t be in short supply of this weekend, it’s pro basketball players, as seemingly the entire NBA roster will be hanging in the PHX for the league’s annual All-Star Game. Besides all the big ballers and shot callers, the Valley’s also gonna be filled…
Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy was once seen as the last great Southern hope. He had the ‘hood respect of T.I. and garnered the admiration of practically every drug dealer in North America with his rap sheet and lyrical references to his drug-dealing days. It’s not that he’s overly gangster or…
After his arrest in 2007, rapper T.I. was charged with possessing heavy artillery and was forced to spend months under house arrest. He also was sentenced to serve 1,000 hours of community service and will begin a year and a day in jail on March 27. But while it’s been…
Voted Tucson Weekly’s “Best New Band” in 2007, Mostly Bears have steadily been working their way up the list — a very, very short list — of innovative Arizona bands. Of course, they are from Tucson and not Phoenix, so they fit in nicely with the other bands emerging from…
If 2008 started things in motion for sultry songstress Jessica Lea Mayfield, 2009 may prove to be a banner year for the upstart musician. She released her debut album, the cleverly titled With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, in September and has been tabbed to open for the likes of Annuals and…
It’s been only a year since Z-Trip pulled a spin gig in his hometown, and over the past 12 months, the PHX native has been racking up frequent-flier miles like a motherfucker. The ultra-talented 34-year-old just returned from Australia, where he crisscrossed the continent with the Big Day Out festival…
Though he is, in a sense, crystallized in the public’s memory as the first act to perform at the original Woodstock, legendary folkie Richie Havens is arguably still in possession of the vitality and spirit that made him famous 40 years ago. Sure, Havens hasn’t had an onstage epiphany quite…
Cradle of Filth scaled back their twisted-burlesque spectacle on the Thornography tour, which, combined with the record’s unseemly catchiness, led to some dismayingly unfreakish sets. But the British metal provocateurs reverted to harsh thrash on last year’s Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder, a concept album chronicling the depravity of French…
North Carolina’s Annuals remain a gravity-defying whirlwind with the release of their latest disc, Such Fun. Pairing herky-jerky rhythms and over-the-top musical drama, the players follow the whimsical lead of frontman Adam Baker into robust country, rapturous string sections, and myriad other musical pathways. To wit: “Hot Night Hounds” peaks…
It sucks pretty hard that Tucson gets all the cool shows these days. Like Andrew Bird, who’s making a stop in the Old Pueblo this Saturday to gig at the Rialto, but won’t make a stop in Phoenix. This truly blows, since we’ve been digging on the talented singer/songwriter since…
So I’ve made a big deal out of the relentless first come-first served policy we have for You Asked For It, our weekly local CD review column, a few times before. This week, I’m breaking it. I’m only moving Kinch up one week, but I wanted to confess it up…
Those dudes are responsible for two years of drunken debauchery on the dance floor of the now defunct GLAM and we will follow their partying ways across this town as long as we’ve got legs.Speaking of having legs, we hit their newest dance party, Best Friends Forever at Club Red…
Do you like Arcade Fire? How about Gogol Bordello? Sure you do! So why not check out DeVotchKa’s show at The Clubhouse tonight?Cuz here’s the thing: As The Village Voice has pointed out, DeVotchKa was those bands before those bands were those bands. It sounds ridiculous to say an act…
The members of the ‘Nix’s hipster electro DJ crowd are spreading out across the Valley like some American Apparel-clad invasion force. It seems they’re effin’ everywhere, whether congregating at Homme Lounge for nights like Electrostatic, descending on Coach & Willie’s for Inside Out Wednesdays, or spinning up a storm at…
It would seem unlikely that indie-rock scensters, art-house film snobs, and video game geeks would converge in the same place at the same time, but those disparate groups will have a common bond Thursday night at the Clubhouse in Tempe. DeVotchKa, a foursome from Denver, started out as a backing…
Cockroaches and ska music have a few things in common. Both are reviled by a large portion of the population and, despite repeated attempts to stamp each out, neither will ever be exterminated completely. Hence the ultimate irony of the recurring Ska Is Dead tour (now in its fourth edition):…
What started as an innocuous side-project — a kitschy little experiment to pass the time in Palm Desert — has exploded into a full-fledged career for Jesse Hughes and his best pal, Josh Homme, of Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss fame. Things started out innocently enough — the…
There are a staggering number of new American indie bands out there. And that means there are plenty of bands going unnoticed. But Little Ones, from Los Angeles, somehow managed to stave off the anonymity that ends the careers of so many bands. How? Well, their sound is hardly original…
When you see photos of the grimacing, vaguely ethnic, dark-haired teenagers known as Black Tide, you may think for a split-second you’ve stumbled across vintage shots of legendary Bay Area thrash band Death Angel, which pretty much fit the same description when they started out over two decades ago. But…
I’ve been pretty hard on Mesa bands in general and Mesa punk bands in particular here in our weekly You Asked For It local CD review column. It’s not that I have anything against Mesa (I live there) or punk bands (I was a big fan of them in my…
