The Besnard Lakes are more than a band whose name kind of looks like “Barenaked Ladies” if you look at it really fast. They’re also a four-piece from Montreal, centered on husband Jace Lasek (lead vocals and guitar) and wife Olga Goreas (vocals and bass). Yeah, a married Canadian couple…
Though it’s been 14 years since the death of Sublime singer Bradley Nowell — and the release of Sublime’s biggest album, the posthumous self-titled record featuring “What I Got” — the band is still incredibly popular and attracting young fans all the time. Shrewdly, a lot of other bands have…
The Album Leaf isn’t so much post-rock as it is post-soft. Sigur Rós protégé and auteur Jimmy LaValle’s five largely instrumental albums could be called road music, because what they evoke is too many undulating miles of asphalt. Unlike The Odyssey, LaValle’s music isn’t epic. Odysseus went somewhere, while The…
No one in Scottsdale was safe Friday night when WOW the Party took over Martini Ranch with three rooms of dancing and more than a dozen DJs. Check out the slideshow…
It’s always lovely to see local radio stations supporting local bands. Radio Phoenix always makes an effort, but this week in particular they’re spinning our local kids more than a little. Though MGMT’s record won’t be gotten over any time soon, Gospel Claws, Dakota Jeane, Harlem (originating from Tucson,) and…
Band: Pride of the GarageTitle: Young Man’s GameBasics: Pride of the Garage is 46-year-old Dan Miles, a self-labeled procrastinator. What’s better than procrastination when it comes to releasing an album? I don’t know. Perhaps self-mutilation? That’s what it feels like to listen to the 10-song Young Man’s Game — a…
The Surfside IV look like they’re ready for battle in this flier promoting their show tonight, May 6 at the Desert Botanical Garden. The fab foursome are veterans in the local music scene, rocking out since 2002 and looking like hip cats while doing so.Their show tonight is part of…
Aside from a dubious one-night stand with rap-metal in the late ’90s, former Dokken guitarist George Lynch has remained heroically faithful to his cock-rock roots. After Dokken disbanded in 1989, Lynch recruited vocalist Ori Logan and started Lynch Mob — one of the great no-brainers in the annals of ego-driven…
Phoenix-based swamp-rock band Hogjaw couldn’t have picked a better time to release their new album, Ironwood. After all, Arizona is descending into redneck depravity with the “birther” bill, SB 1070, and, most pertinent to Hogjaw, the legalization of carrying a concealed weapon without permit. We’re going to need a crazed…
Welsh imports Bullet for My Valentine aim for metal’s sweet spot: shred-tastic enough for headbangers and poppy enough to please the girlfriends with power ballads. They deliver plenty of clean vocals over chugging percussion with galloping riffage and soaring hypersonic solos that rip a page from Iron Maiden and Metallica…
Ray Manzarek, co-founder of The Doors, and critically acclaimed slide/blues guitarist Roy Rogers, best known for his collaboration with John Lee Hooker, are performing at The Compound. Rogers recently told a California newspaper that the two men realize they’ve formed an odd musical coupling. “It’s an interesting combination, seemingly incongruous…
It’s probably a safe bet that you’ve never encountered a turntablist as flamboyant as DJ Keoki. Just look at the dude’s ultra-colorful past: A veteran of NYC’s infamous “Club Kids” scene of the early ’90s (which inspired the 2003 film Party Monster), the self-described “superstar” rose to fame working such…
Here’s a look at what’s selling this week at local record stores.MGMT’s Congratulations holds steady with several number one spots, Record Store Day exclusives manage to still be selling well, especially at Revolver Records, even several weeks after Record Store Day, and comedian Brian Posehn makes an appearance on Zia’s…
Okay, folks, we’ve been doing Club Candids for almost three years now (yes, that’s a lot of hangovers) so we’d like to think that we know a good club night when we see one (here, check the slideshow).Such was the case on Friday, April 30, at the inaugural night of…
Title: Curse of the HagBasics: Sometimes in life, we get a raw deal — a particular instance or chain of events that presents us with an obstacle we must overcome. Perhaps it’s the passing of a close relative or the disintegration of a marriage or relationship. Whatever the case may…
While looking at this flier is similar to viewing artwork at an exhibition in itself, the show it’s previewing will also be chock full of beautiful pieces for you to peruse.That’s because when local fusion band Leaf takes the stage at the Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center in Phoenix…
Irony is dead — at least in the world of alternative metal. The organizers of the Family Values Tour shot it through the eyeball when they booked these Texas-based Christian rockers to play alongside the likes of Korn and Bury Your Dead in 2006. See what I mean? What’s the…
Reaching the top isn’t nearly as hard as staying there — a fact to which the Bone Thugs crew can attest. The quintet’s blend of gangsta rigor and R&B smooth revolutionized the rap landscape when they emerged in the mid-’90s. The rhymes were hard and quick, and they twisted and…
With their predilection for couture coifs and garish fashion, it’s sometimes difficult to tell one hipster DJ apart from the rest. So it’s kinda telling that William Fucking Reed differentiates some of the residents for his new Sticky Fingers weekly not only by names and music tastes, but by appearance…
Grammy-winning country duo Sugarland — Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush — will bring their pop-country sound to Cricket Wireless Pavilion in support of their platinum-selling third disc, Love on the Inside, which hit number one on the Billboard 200 and has sold 2 million albums so far. They’re not stopping…
Coheed and Cambria’s set at Coachella was a memorable one, even if the prog-metal act had to compete with the much hipper British buzz trio The xx playing at the same time on a nearby stage. A lighting instrument caused the stage roof to catch fire, briefly adding even more…
What a difference a couple of years and a Billboard chart-topping album can make. In 2008, A Day to Remember was just another bunch of doughy Florida pop-punkers in designer T-shirts harboring dreams of stadium rock stardom. Buoyed by the moderate success of their sophomore album, For Those Who Have…
