“Do you want to get a drink or see a show?” asks Charlie Levy. The local concert promoter stands in front of a pair of doors in the landing of Valley Bar, his new basement-level music venue and lounge in downtown Phoenix, as he poses the question. It’s more choose-your-own-adventure…
Comic books may have been considered kids’ stuff or something for nerds and geeks in the ’90s, but in 2015, comic book conventions are springing up all over the country and attracting thousands of people with programming and activities for just about anyone. Phoenix Comicon has taken to calling itself…
Every Wednesday is Heritage Hump Day! That’s because every Wednesday from now to the end of the year or before someone really big stops us, Heritage Hump Records (a temporary subsidiary of Onus Records) and New Times will be bringing you a limited edition collector’s item of a much beloved…
Chris Squire, the virtuosic bass player for YES, has cancer and will not join the band on its upcoming tour, the band announced today. Squire will receive treatment in Phoenix over the next couple months, a release on the band’s website stated. The band was scheduled to tour North America…
Just days since the world suffered the tremendous loss of music icon B.B. King, the Rhythm Room’s recent addition of a mural featuring the blues great, along with six other legends of the genre, feels especially poignant and significant. The venue has been a go-to spot for live roots and…
At Rock on the Range in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend, there was a ton of old and new metal. You had the classics, like Judas Priest, Dillinger Escape Plan and Slash; favorites from the last decade, like Slipknot and Halestorm; and artists that are starting to break big on…
Remember when everyone was really big into rapping and rocking and wearing backwards baseball caps all at the same time? Yeah, the ‘90s (and early ‘00s) were a weird era for music. It’s probably best that nu-metal hasn’t made a huge resurgence on the back of ‘90s nostalgia, but here…
Songs for Savages by the Freaks of Nature has been a long time in the making. It’s been more than a year and two personnel changes since Daniel Shircliff led his band of freaks into the studio to begin recording what would become his band’s long-awaited debut. But goddammit if…
“If you’re down with the SS say yes yes,” is one ad-lib that Bronze Candidate and Liaison of Shining Soul are going to be leaving in Phoenix this June when “the most targeted band in Arizona,” as Liaison AKA Alex Soto likes to say, takes their first tour outside of…
Numb Bats – “I Don’t Know Why/To Die” Here is a quick history lesson. There was once a band here called North Dakota, it was a lively trio that featured Emily Hobeheidar, Mo Neuharth and Michelle Blades. Blades went to Paris to write a new solo album and Hobeheidar and…
You’ll have to forgive Sam Groove if he’s been a little busy over the last couple of weeks. Its to be expected, considering the fact that the local DJ/promoter and others behind the scenes at Hades Entertainment have been busy getting everything ready for this weekend’s Dirty Disco out at…
Tempe rapper Futuristic recently released a song with Seattle MC Sam Lachow before the two went on a two-month tour of the country. Titled “Watch Yo Mouth,” the verse by normally apolitical Futuristic has a couple of lines about race and language. “All my white fans say the N-word /…
Every Wednesday is Heritage Hump Day! That’s because every Wednesday from now to the end of the year or before someone really big stops us, Heritage Hump Records (a temporary subsidiary of Onus Records) and New Times will be bringing you a limited edition collector’s item of a much beloved…
The Western motif that surrounded Lord Huron’s debut record, Lonesome Dreams, is gone, replaced by a collection of strange, mysterious characters who inhabit songs inspired by vintage pulp fiction. “Since the beginning, I conceived this new record as sort of an anthology of weird fiction, a collection of stories that kind…
It’s hard to believe, but EDM wasn’t always the heavily commercialized glut we see raving in Mountain Dew commercials during the Super Bowl. Infected Mushroom, the psytrance DJ duo formed in the Haifa District of Israel, can remember when EDM was considered a fringe genre. But now, thanks to the…
There’s a lot of talent floating around the Phoenix music scene both musically, and otherwise. Some people are creative promoters, others tremendous performers, and every once in a while you even bump into a devastatingly talented musician. Another talent that a few members of Phoenix’s musical world have shown quite…
Like the cassette player in your car, www.phoenixnewtimes.com is in need of a major update. Unlike your whip, our website is getting one. We will launch a brand new, redesigned version tomorrow morning…
Bursting out of a musically diverse scene in Miami in the early ’90s, The Mavericks found crossover success with a roadworthy blend of Latin rhythms, classic country, and a liberal dose of rockabilly attitude. Led by songwriter and vocalist Raul Malo, the band’s currently enjoying a creative renaissance. The band’s…
View image | gettyimages.com One of the most influential heavy metal songs has a pretty heavy metal backstory. And the album it belongs to is the most controversial in the band’s history. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett came up with the main riff on “Enter Sandman” while suffering from insomnia. It…
Editor’s note: Ever since the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ debut single “Love Me Do”) we’ve been on a half-century celebration cycle in which we are scheduled to relive every Beatles innovation, every release of the Beatles’ landmark career in real time, right until the inevitable 50th…
For a band that hasn’t been in working order for the better part of the past two decades, Bob Noxious and Barton Applewhite are certainly still well-versed in the rules of How to Run a Band, which they created many years ago. “We had rules like: If we get mad…
There may not be a more affirming happening for a hip-hop group than to get press from The Source magazine, and following the release of their newest video, “Washed Up,” Tempe-based three-piece Injury Reserve attained that milestone. Like all of Injury Reserve’s previous music videos, “Washed Up” is intelligent and…
