Phoenix band Destruction Unit’s 2013 album Deep Trip was among the finest of the year, a scary mess of nightmarish psych-punk that played out as body music, because each of the band’s members share two roles: making noise and conjuring rhythms. The band was formed 14 years ago by Ryan…
By Dennis Romero What’s it like partying with 134,000 of your closest friends? After a fourth year covering Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, the size and scope of America’s largest electronic dance music festival (and, really, one of the country’s largest music events, period) still just leaves us breathless…
Last year when heavy metal musician and horror icon Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare debuted in LA, I was pretty close to heading out there over Halloween to check out what The New York Times called “the best example yet of the upsizing of haunted houses in the last decade.”…
By Dennis Romero The Clark County (Nevada) Coroner is investigating the death of a 24-year-old who collapsed Saturday morning outside Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. An autopsy was being conducted this weekend, but results aren’t yet available to the media, an official at the coroner’s office told us. If…
By Sarah Purkrabek Electric Daisy Carnival goes down this weekend in Las Vegas. We’ll be providing coverage as the weekend progresses, never fear. But will you be there yourself? If you are, expect to hear, well, lots of songs you’ve heard before. In fact, whether it’s Hard, Coachella, or countless…
Bruce Cockburn has to be the most hot-cold songwriter operating today. On one hand, there are songs about sunrises, horses running across golden plains, the mysteries of life, and spiritual awakening. And on the other, Cockburn fires off songs about narco-politics, human rights, religious flaws, and environmental degradation, offering such…
The owner of >Lawn Gnome Publishing, Aaron Hopkins-Johnson, is one of the best slam poets in the country, and so it stands to reason that his store is a hub for those interested in the spoken word. Lawn Gnome once held one of Phoenix’s most popular open mic nights, it…
Lee Bains III is a white, Christian Southerner and, yes, knows exactly how that reads. Over the course of the 10 tracks on Dereconstructed, his sophomore album with his band the Glory Fires, he chews on and wrestles with the idea of Southern identity, reflecting on a place where segregation…
What do you say about a performer like Sage Francis? He plays with words? He slays them? He engages his audience using a medium that rarely witnesses such a truly spectacular mastery of the vernacular? His repertoire of rhetoric is frenetic, authentic, and polemic while being transcendent, resplendent, and a…
Beginning with MySpace, then on other digital platforms, Ingrid Michaelson has been recording and releasing her own brand of indie-pop music, with a mysterious artsy flair, for more than a decade. In April, she released her latest studio album, Lights Out, which has climbed to number one on the indie…
Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale were veteran songwriters — 14 solo albums between them, to be exact — before they began collaborating on what would become the duo’s first album, Prologue. But when they started writing songs, they stripped the sound from their previous projects and wrote melancholy, earnest tunes…
Despite all its nihilistic, anarchistic, and pugilistic leanings, Fight Club actually is a tale of hope and redemption. No, really. Strip away all the brutality, bedlam, and bathing products, and the overall message of both Chuck Palahniuk’s original novel and David Fincher’s flick is that one can attain salvation, albeit…
Those looking to get out of the Phoenix heat can find no better reason than the Flagstaff Blues and Brews festival on Saturday, June 21. The event goes from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Continental Driving Range. Eden “Little Boogalo” Brent is a good place to start. Her…
The heavy metal music community is one that’s pretty close. Last weekend, a well-respected veteran of the scene was killed. According to Phoenix police, on June 7 around 1:30 a.m., Chris Kutcher was driving east on Cactus Road when an intoxicated woman accelerated behind him, striking his SUV and sending…
Not sure if Spanish is indeed the loving tongue, but it wasn’t two minutes into “Peregrina,” the opening track of The Lovelost’s debut album, Foreign, before I decided I loved the Lovelost. It didn’t matter if Ixchel del Castillo was singing about a Mexican telenovela star or a mineral water;…
Things normally seem dead around these parts at this time of year, thanks in no small part to the heat kicking into high gear. So we were mighty surprised when the cats behind hip-hop lifestyle brand Coolin Out announced they were bringing back their club night Supreme Sundays this weekend,…
Once upon the ’90s, there was an underrated melodic grunge band named Failure. When it was seven years old and touring its third album, Fantastic Planet, the group fell off its proverbial horse. Its members subsequently wandered the music industry’s topography during a 15-year hiatus that ended February. And there’s…
Jared & the Mill was never meant to be a band. The group was never meant to garner national attention at South by Southwest, and it was never meant to become a local darling known for its vocal harmonies and relentless gigging. And it definitely was never meant to play…
Bobby Bare Jr. wants to make something very clear: Undefeated, his latest long-player isn’t a “breakup record”; it’s a “getting dumped” record. Written and composed following the parting with the mother of his youngest son, the record documents the end of a relationship, one that didn’t end on mutual terms…
You can blame Phish, but covering another band’s album in its entirety has become a cool and popular thing to do. Three Phoenix acts break from their normal routines in a benefit concert for the Lupus Foundation of Southern Arizona. Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra will perform Portishead’s Dummy, There Is Danger…
When trance gone electro, house and big room DJ and producer Ferry Corsten isn’t making music or spending time with his family, he’s likely got one thing on his mind: tearing down a mountain on his snowboard. Corsten, who plays at Maya Day and Night Club in Old Town Scottsdale…
Tucson favorites Lenguas Largas are making the trek up to the valley for a June 14 performance at the Yucca Tap Room with The Paul Collins Beat. Lenguas Largas began as recording project between vocalist/guitarist Isaac Reyes and guitarist Ricky Shimo in 2009, and has since expanded to the unorthodox…
