Let’s face it. Most singer-songwriter music is lukewarm high school poetry without the hooks and energy that seem to make the lukewarm high school poetry you get with Fall Out Boy — or even Ashlee Simpson — that much easier to swallow. Then, there’s James McMurtry. It’s not that the…
Over the course of the past decade, and with four highly innovative — and sadly underrated — indie albums, L.A.-based hip-hop artist Busdriver built a reputation in the underground by spitting poignant rhymes with a sense of humor set against fiercely danceable street beats and eclectic instrumentation. He never seems…
Although temperatures might be cooling down with the onset of fall here in the PHX, San Francisco’s DJ Jacaranda and the flame-flinging freaks of local fire performance troupe S_T_3 are gonna be heating up your Thursday nights over at Ichiban Japanese Restaurant, 1435 East University Drive in Tempe. At their…
Be careful what you ask for. Detractors of the emo scene have complained since guys started wearing girls’ jeans and combing all their hair over their faces for something less wrist-slittingly depressing and overall less, well, emo. Well, here it is: From First to Last, a young band (the members…
There’s a goofy little beach scene on the album cover that could fool you into thinking these guys made a surf-rock record. But it’s nothing like that, really. Sure, they do a track called “Surf” that starts off as a shameless “Pipeline” knockoff, but before the song is through, they’ve…
The first CD from local bluesician Paris James harks back to the back-porch country blues of the 1920s, when players like Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson were finger-picking through a mix of folk, gospel hymns, and Delta blues. The sounds of spirituals and the South that dominate James’ CD…
Surrounded by mountains of amps stacked and cranked to unhealthy heights, Jucifer can shatter half of generic modern metal’s fibulas with just its feedback. The coed Atlanta duo literally rattles plaster loose, and drummer Edgar Livengood pounds the skins so hard he has broken his bones mid-set. The smash-riff-bash stoner-rockers’…
Rap producer James “J Dilla” Yancey, who died of lupus at age 32 in February, didn’t yet have the industry clout of peers like the Neptunes or Kanye West, but he sure had their respect, working with everybody from Ghostface Killah to Janet Jackson. This spring’s Donuts, an instrumental disc,…
Marriage is all about communication, compromise, and . . . psychedelic indie rock. At least it is for Kevin and Anita Robinson, otherwise known as Viva Voce, who have popped out four albums of the stuff since 1998. The Portland, Oregon, couple’s latest, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, channels marital…
Last fall, Art Brut was the hotness du jour, the toast of all things hipster and good. A year later, the South London band is still touring behind its now-old album, Bang Bang Rock & Roll. The quintet, whose album was issued this spring by New York label Downtown Records…
Queensrÿche has prompted many deep questions in the course of its 20 years as a band: What does it mean to be silently lucid? Has anyone ever been noisily lucid? Is Dr. X noisily lucid? (Ronnie James Dio certainly is.) Further: Does “conceptual metal” exist only in one’s head, and…
Summer festivals might be winding down elsewhere in the country, but since it’s sunny and hot nine months out of the year here, the Valley’s guaranteed to have a few more super-sized summer shows before we get the big fall festivals. Edgefest 2006, presented by “independent” Phoenix radio station Edge…
Frank Black could be living the easy life, riding the public’s insatiable thirst for the Pixies through another big nostalgia tour. But he’d clearly prefer to be doing his own thing. Consider the staggering volume of solo material he’s been able to crank out since putting the Pixies back together…
The lineup for the hip-hop/R&B-flavored “Up Close and Personal” extravaganza is everything the Arizona Diamondbacks weren’t this year — young, hungry, and well able to bash out the hits. Juelz Santana is the 23-year-old, Harlem-born rapper who first rose to prominence a few years ago as a member of Cam’Ron’s…
Riddle me this: Which award-winning, NYC-based turntablist has created best-selling dance mixes for MTV and Tommy Boy records, and remixed the likes of such superstars as Dido, Christina Aguilera, and Janet Jackson? The answer to the oh-so-easy brain teaser: DJ Riddler. Besides a gig at Gotham’s dance station WKTU (alongside…
As a bed of acoustic guitar is lazily strummed below Charles Westmoreland’s vocal gymnastics on “Driver,” the opening track off Portland-based band The Kingdom’s new LP, one may recall another NW purveyor of bliss-pop, The Shins. But it becomes clear early on that The Kingdom is more keen on injecting…
1. Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds (Jive) 2. New Found Glory, Coming Home (Geffen Records) 3. Fergie, The Dutchess (Interscope Records) 4. Ben Kweller, Ben Kweller (Red Int/Red Ink) 5. Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor (Atlantic/Wea) 6. Mars Volta, Amputechture (Umvd Labels) 7. Fear Before the March of Flames, The Always Open…
Nick Luca, front man of his namesake band Luca, sounds a little confused, and like he might need a hug. The Tucson group’s latest album, Sick of Love, has an abundance of lovelorn laments and a strange mixture of rock genres. Luca and his bandmates, Chris Giambelluca (bass and vocals)…
The guys of Kingfish Fiasco are weird. They cite beer and porn among their musical influences, but that is probably because they frequent the Yucca Tap Room in Tempe. They also claim to have bought their drummer, John Earl Gilmore, for $20 on eBay. Actually, the story goes that they…
If the contrapuntal Al Green-meets-Skynyrd soul-groove of My Morning Jacket’s 2005 heavy-hitter Z didn’t convince you MMJ was breaking into the mainstream side of the music biz, the band’s inside-joke cameo appearance performing “Free Bird” in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown should have. Either way, MMJ disciples will no doubt fall on…
Motörhead’s 27th album (and its 19th studio offering), Kiss of Death, doesn’t deviate from the heavy guitars, breakneck beats, and hoarse vocals that made the British band one of the most influential groups in the heavy metal genre. With the departure of guitarist Würzel, Motörhead’s been pared down to a…
Toronto-based post-punkers The Creeping Nobodies might have started as a one-off collaboration at a tribute show for The Fall, but the band’s come a long way from imitating The Fall’s Mark E. Smith for kicks. The Creeping Nobodies celebrate their fifth anniversary on Thursday, and while lead Creep Derek Westerholm…
