Oi! If you’re a hepcat scooter kid looking for somewhere to take your Vespa, head for the George & Dragon English Restaurant and Pub, 4240 North Central Avenue, on Wednesday, February 7, when local DJ impresario William Fucking Reed debuts his newest dance night, Style Council. Every hump day, Reed…
1. The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop) 2. Stone Sour, Come What(ever) May (Roadrunner Records) 3. Eminem Presents, The Re-Up (Shady Records) 4. Saliva, Blood Stained Love Story (Island) 5. Primus, They Can’t All Be Zingers (Interscope) 6. Killswitch Engage, As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner Records) 7. Bullet for…
Surreptitiously, like folkie snipers in the night, devoted aficionados of this Willcox-based duo have been sneak-listening to tracks from their most recent record, Just Like the Others, and waiting on official availability as the lactic acid built up in their cramped ear muscles. Shoot, it’d been so long that all…
While Ten Dollar Outfit shies away from the “jam band” label, they are sorta like Phoenix’s own version of Widespread Panic-meets-John Mayer, and singer/guitarist Brian Chartrand even admits, “I don’t like playing or singing a song the same way . . . ever, really.” And TDO really is more of…
Welcome to your Woodstock ’69 flash back! While you’re getting naked and covering yourself in mud like a dirty hippie, don’t forget to grab an empty coffee can and drum along to Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle, the best psychedelic ’60s-sounding cult band to come out of the new millennium. Dillon,…
Even if you aren’t familiar with Jack’s Mannequin singer and pianist Andrew McMahon’s former band, the undeniably emo Something Corporate, it’s easy to see the musician’s innate songwriting talent when he performs. Melding memorable choruses, clever turns of phrase and original piano-based melodies, McMahon’s work on Jack’s Mannequin is both…
While Oh Doctor doesn’t really fit comfortably into the “emo” category, its music does bear some resemblance to bands in that genre: the impassioned, “I’m-dying-from-intelligent-introspection” wails of the Nixon brothers, Acey and Kodi (who also play guitar and bass, respectively), and a taste for long, declarative-statement song titles (“Play the…
While they rose to prominence in America via a bewildering major-label deal and two high-profile stints on Lollapalooza, Japanese noise troupe Boredoms had been cult favorites for years leading up to their big break, with a slew of impish, onanistic and abrasive releases to their credit before Reprise dropped 1993’s…
The further Anticon strays from its original granola posi-artiste rap roots, the more intriguing this Oakland, California label becomes. England’s Bracken represents the latest link in the imprint’s evolutionary chain, though slotting We Know About the Need is something of a challenge. While it isn’t really a shoegaze record in…
Established in 1996 by producer Chris “Peanut Butter Wolf” Manak, Stones Throw serves as a benchmark for innovative hip-hop music. This compilation, originally released last year as an in-store exclusive through Guitar Center, arrives at the height of the L.A.-based imprint’s popularity. It collects underground hits (Lootpack’s “Whenimondamic” and Aloe…
The first words out of Lily Allen’s mouth here are on the song “Smile”: “When you first left me, I was wanting more/But you were fucking that girl next door.” So yeah, she’s got the cheeky British attitude that did so well for Lady Sovereign. But despite its lilting reggae…
Remember the first time you heard the Pixies classic “Where Is My Mind?”? It condensed the euphoria of cutting anchor and sailing into the abyss into a four-minute pop song. Now Jay Reatard (that Memphis garage-punker from the Lost Sounds, the Reatards, Angry Angles, and probably a dozen other bands…
Free time has got to be the eternal enemy of local DJ impresario Hyder. When the turntable trickster isn’t spinning at The Blunt Club on Thursdays at Hollywood Alley, he’s working the wax at Shimmy Mondays at Trax, hooking up with the scenesters of the Abstract Workshop, or teaching beat…
1. Mos Def, True Magic (Geffen Records) 2. Nas, Hip-Hop Is Dead (Def Jam) 3. John Mayer, The Village Sessions (SonyBMG) 4. The Beatles, Love (Capitol) 5. Matisyahu, No Place To Be (Sony) 6. Joanna Newsom, Ys (Drag City/Caroline) 7. Ben Folds, Supersunnyspeedgraphic (Sony) 8. Kooks, Inside In/Inside Out (EMI…
The Valley’s post-adolescent crusty punk rockers have been getting a lot of camera time lately, so Club Candids hit up one of Scottsdale’s most popular clubs, Myst, on Friday, January 19, and the only crust was found in the hair gel of the employed and freshly bathed Scottsdale socialites. DJ…
When we heard about the grand opening of Lady Luck Tattoo Gallery in Tempe, we packed our camera and hit the party for some freaky photo-ops. After all, tattoos and Tempe go together like drunk girls and frat parties; both are necessities for the college experience and may lead to…
In addition to boasting the slickest use of samples and instrumentation this side of a Moby/Diddy collaboration, Tomorrow’s Last Try also contains the most hardcore local hip-hop song ever recorded, in the form of track nine, “Zombie Jesus.” The song opens with some psychotic Latino threatening to fuck another guy…
The members of Liverpool’s Clinic are up to their surgical masks in Nuggets-worthy psychedelic splendor here, from the bass-driven pulse of an opening track whose instrumental section could practically pass for The Yardbirds paying tribute to the Far East, to the dark narcotic haze that hovers over “Gideon.” On “Animal/Human,”…
If you like The Glimmers’ penchant for spinning the best in disco punk, but just haven’t warmed to the Belgian DJ duo’s sense of rhythm, check out this album. The Glimmers’ new contribution to the indomitable Fabric series is an improvement over their 2005 DJ-Kicks mix CD. It starts out,…
Ever since Buena Vista Social Club, Afro-Cuban music has been on the radar of mainstream trend spotters both old and young. Yet the majority of new releases and rereleases since BVSC have concentrated on the Caribbean side of the equation (with the possible exception of Senegal’s Orchestre Baobab), to the…
How’s this for self-confidence: After finishing sessions for its debut album, Richmond, Virginia-based baby band Cassius was apparently so convinced of its own ass-kickingness that the band members broke their leases, bought a tour van and started booking gigs at any club that’d have them. Luckily for the band, I…
