Colson Miller of the Thin Bloods and Robbie Pfeffer of Playboy Manbaby both describe their bands as more of a live experience than something that oughta be listened to at home. That said, it hasn’t stopped either band from releasing multiple cassettes this year through Rubber Brother Records. While the…
Raheem Jarbo — a.k.a. Mega-Ran, a.k.a. Random — has managed to blur the lines between hip-hop and video games by delivering a unique blend of 8-bit and heavy hip-hop beats while managing to display a certain level of vulnerability and intelligence. Now, Random has teamed up with director Mike Cardoza…
No, Lady Gaga will not perform with Tony Bennett at Mesa Arts Center. There’s long been talk of a collaboration CD between the two, and it seems that come September, the two finally will release Cheek to Cheek, an album that finds the unlikely collaborators crooning jazz standards, backed by…
Local rapper Trap House isn’t afraid to tackle current events in his music. Three days ago, he penned a song called “Imagine (Mike Brown Tribute),” and now, the rapper is teaming up with a group of locals to shoot a video for the song…
La Cerca singer/songwriter/guitarist Andrew Gardner is an idealist. No, he’s a cynic. In any case, he’s a master songsmith who speaks most articulately through his guitar playing. He found his calling in the early-’90s twee-pop of Beat Happening and Unrest, along with New Zealand indie bands like the Clean. The…
“I know where every exit in this room is.” Luna Aura’s eyes scan the room, peripherally watching everyone in it as we speak just inside the door of Jobot Coffee on a particularly blistering day. You’d think it would be a distracting trait, the indication of someone uninterested with engaging,…
Geoff Tate has always been seen as one rock ‘n’ roll’s archetypal frontmen. As singer of Queensrÿche, he sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and sold out shows in dozens of countries. Tate is ranked in the top 20 on Hit Parader’s 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time,…
Whether it says more about Jordan Prather or Tucson’s downtown music scene that the Head Over Heart singer/multi-instrumentalist likens himself to a punk rocker is up to you, but what’s certain is that he sees himself as an outsider in his community. “I remember reading in an Arcade Fire interview…
Ten years ago this December, a musical icon was taken from the world of heavy metal far too early. When Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott was gunned down performing with his band Damageplan in Ohio, we didn’t just lose a guitar legend. To those who knew him, he was one of the…
By Steve Brennan Like it or not, Pharell Williams’ “Happy” is likely to be the top-selling single of 2014. And yes, its buoyant ’60s soul vibe and simple, positive message is modern pop perfection. But scanning the rest of this year’s biggest hits, one is struck by a consistent theme:…
With apologies to Andrew Jackson Jihad, there’s no doubt Kongos is the hottest musical export Phoenix has created in years, and we have the news to prove it. Their smash hit “Come with Me Now” has now gone platinum, meaning digital sales of the song have exceeded one million…
The prominent representation of electronic music in the Valley obviously is the club scene in Scottsdale. The biggest names in electronic dance music play around Old Town every weekend, and thousands of people flock to expensive bars in flashy clothes. The opposite, that is, of what the members of Provisions…
There’s something about catching a band at a festival, especially when you don’t know them prior to seeing them,” says Marcus Pepperell, one half of London’s alt-pop duo Thumpers. He should know, given how many festival gigs his band has graced: MIDI Festival, Camden Crawl, Blissfields, South by Southwest, and…
The six members of Take Over and Destroy and Bob Hoag are gathered in the lobby of Flying Blanket Recording, the 1947 house in downtown Mesa that producer Hoag has converted into a studio. All focus is on the middle of the room, where two stacks of comic books lean…
Shovel is an underground rock band comprising many things — the transgressive squall of late-’80s pigfuck (Butthole Surfers, the Touch and Go Records brigade), the anthemic stomp of early Mudhoney and Nirvana, and bathed in a drop or two of Kat Bjelland’s sweat. However, if the frequent use of terms…
UPDATE (August 13, 9 a.m.): The Blairs report having a wonderful time at the concert and wanted to thank Paul McCartney for his generosity. They watched soundcheck and went backstage, and McCartney’s representatives gave Hayden a series of gifts, including one of Sir Paul’s guitar pics and a drumstick signed…
If the sum total of your knowledge of soul, funk, and especially Motown music is limited to either Urban Outfitters’ pithy vinyl selection or what you heard on the Get On Up soundtrack, you’re in desperate need of enlightenment. And some of the Valley’s best turntablists would love to help…
Dragonforce is a gateway drug to heavy metal for video game nerds. No, really — I’ve seen it happen. In the British band’s 15-year span, they’ve been able to develop a sound that truly stands a part from any other band within the genres they’re constantly rotated between. It’s as…
Local blues musicians and their acoustic guitars will get the spotlight Aug. 11 at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). Nina Curri, Jimmy Pines and Washboard Jere, and Mikel Lander and Meridith Moore from the Sugar Thieves will provide the entertainment, presented by the Phoenix Blues Society. Curri plays roots blues,…
They’re the oldest type of supergroup. Husband-wife team Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks have tightened the screws on their blues-rock for second album, Made Up Mind, loosening the caboose even as they sharpened their focus on song and melody over their 2011 Grammy-winning debut Revelator. The musical pair met when…
Everyone likes a good poop joke now and then — but Nashville’s Diarrhea Planet are quick to point out they are “not a joke band with a joke name. We are a very serious band with a joke name.” The weird moniker was chosen as a “fuck you” to the…
Believe it or not, Phoenix has a storied history of experimentalism. For Sir Richard Bishop (co-founder of the legendary Sun City Girls) and W David Oliphant, that history began in 1981, when Bishop saw Oliphant and immediately considered him to be “the leading exponent” of that scene. Fast-forward nearly 35…
