Tucson-based trio Best Dog Award’s greatest asset is its ability to inspire confusion. Singer/guitarist Joel Crocco, drummer Andrew Ling, and organist Nick Mazza lay out maps that may lead to nowhere and littering their music with clues that make the puzzle more difficult to solve. “We play ‘exploitation rock,'” Crocco…
Phoenix’s the Holy Coast didn’t exactly intend for the band to have the initials THC, but the coincidence couldn’t be more fitting, says Keith Walker, the synth-drizzled trio’s maestro of beats and programming. Plus, when singer Brett Davis suggested the name after their first jam session, he slowly reached into…
Many musical offspring have faltered under the pressure of trying to live up to the level of greatness once bestowed on their popular progeny. Stephen “Raggamuffin” Marley has refreshingly bucked those odds, and has in fact, become a modern-day legend of reggae music in his own right, and has done…
There’s a lot to love within our fiery little corner of the rock and metal industry. We’ve thelped breed some pretty legendary bands, like Sacred Reich, Flotsam and Jetsam, Job for a Cowboy, and Alice Cooper, to name a few. We have dozens of brutally talented underground bands, from melodic…
I put on The Ramones’ classic 1977 record Rocket To Russia recently in an attempt to join all of my Facebook friends in their collective sadness at the recent death of Tommy (Erdyli) Ramone. I used to love this record, but now, even though I wanted to feel some sense…
For Captain Squeegee’s last video off of their 2013 L.P To The Bardos, “Inevitable,” the atomic jazz fusion seven-piece tapped the amazing claymation skills of animator Johnny McHone. The resulting video was easily the most creative in town for the year 2013. As a follow up, Captain Squeegee may have…
Jurassic 5 are alternative hip-hop pioneers. Their influence can be heard in the beats and verses of mainstream rap icons like OutKast all the way to local hip-hop groups like Phoenix’s own Drunken Immortals. Though the band has never once gone platinum and have only once gone gold, their reunion…
They say that family is the strongest bond and, when it comes to 25-year-old ska-punk veterans Voodoo Glow Skulls, a band which contains three brothers, the proof is in the pudding. “The plus side is that family can communicate like no one else can usually; the downside is that there…
Concept albums are nothing new in the music world, but Within The Ruins is set to take it in a new direction — comic books. The metal band formed in the early ’00s and recently has been gaining momentum with the release of Invade in 2010 and and Elite in…
When Mesa’s Nile Theater first opened in 1924, it was a decadently decorated silent movie house. These days, what streams out of the theater is anything but quiet. The Nile Theater frequently hosts local and touring hardcore, punk and metal bands. Acts like Against Me!, Circle Takes the Square, and…
Blag Dahlia (birth name: Paul Cafaro) of the Dwarves is looking for women to come to the band’s show tonight at Yucca Tap Room with the Queers, Masked Intruder, and the Atom Age buck-naked and ready for fun. He knows it gets hot in Phoenix, so “Why not be comfortable?”…
The guys in Phoenix rock band the Oxford Coma can’t stand that image is important to making it in the music business, that you often need a certain aesthetic for a specific demographic to achieve success, and that you might have to act in a way you’re not passionate about…
“For some, like Kiss, it is pure spectacle. Alice Cooper varies between psychodrama and pure theater. Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson said he feels their performance is close to pantomime. Talking Heads did surreal theater. Lady Gaga does surreal shock. The Rolling Stones opted for large circus-like productions.” Arthur Brown For…
The Steel Horse Saloon hopes that Buzz Fowler and First String can make their club into a destination blues venue just as they have for the El Dorado Bar & Grill in Scottsdale. The idea is to establish the Steel Horse Saloon as the North Valley’s blues venue. Every Wednesday…
It’s sometimes easy to forget the preparations needed when going to a show of any kind. The Summer Slaughter Tour is no exception and planning for it ahead of time is important. The tour markets itself as “The Most Extreme Tour of the Year” and with such a death metal…
Heavy metal and hip-hop hybrid outfit Animus Divine (AD) is one of many low-profile and yet highly talented bands operating in the scorching deserts of Arizona. Based out of Tucson, the streetcore musicians have their eye on the prize to master the entertainment industry, but AD lead singer Chuck Clark…
More than anything musically, it could be said that Sun Bones’ primary influence is Newton’s laws of motion. A continuum of momentum and velocity is everything to the Tucson-based, self described “chamber punk” band. Establishing themselves immediately with their 2013 self released debut, Sentinel Peak, their relentless touring, songwriting and…
There is a freckled Playmobil figure on the cover of East Valley musician Jeff Gonzales’ 2013 six-track EP The Lights Just Went Out. His eyebrows are raised upward and his mouth is in the shape of a frown. Is this disappointed-looking childhood toy meant to represent the 32-year-old songwriter? “That’s…
For more than 40 years, Judas Priest has embodied all that is exhilarating, innovative, ridiculous, and wonderful in heavy metal. From their beginnings as a blues-influenced hard rock ensemble in Birmingham, England, through a string of genre-defining albums, surviving both the ’80s and what can only be known as the…
By Chris Walker Charlie “Bird” Parker has been called the greatest saxophonist who ever lived, a jazz legend who not only spearheaded the bebop movement but also laid the foundations of modern jazz. He was also a party animal. In 1952, Los Angeles would play host to one of Parker’s…
Poncho Sanchez has cancelled his Friday, July 11, show at the Musical Instrument Museum Theater due to personal issues. Sanchez also canceled a show in Las Vegas as well. MIM is looking at rescheduling the show…
Phoenix hardcore band Gay Kiss released Fault in December 2012, and some consider it to one of the better heavy albums to come out of Phoenix in recent memory. Now, the quartet’s work has paid off in the form of an opening slot touring for punk supergroup Off! — a…
