Ziggy Marley

Put away the ganja: Four-time Grammy winner Ziggy Marley, son of Bob Marley, is making his latest U.S. tour family-friendly. Touring in support of Family Time (released in May) and B Is for Bob (released in June), his two new kiddy-friendly discs, he brings an eight-piece band into Dodge Theatre…

Dredg/Torche

No one will ever accuse dredg of under-thinking their shit. Formed in 1993, the darlings of California’s modern prog-rock movement have nurtured a reputation for trippy concept albums, feverish thematic forays, and bold multi-media exploration. Their 1998 self-released debut album, Lietmotif, was based on a short story about a world…

Kepi Ghoulie

Like a brain-starved corpse from one of the classic zombie flicks he loves, Kepi Ghoulie has risen from the dead. Admittedly, the founding member of the Groovie Ghoulies is missing a familiar appendage or two; when the Ghoulies “family” filed for divorce two years ago, the horror-punk pioneer lost not…

A-Trak

In the pantheon of superstar DJs, A-Trak is decidedly A-list. Kidrobot just released a vinyl figure dedicated to the 27-year-old’s likeness (albeit as an anthropomorphized polar bear), his remixes of Sébastien Tellier and Boys Noize tracks have been major club hits, and he dropped two killer albums earlier this year,…

Discovery

“Orange Shirt,” the first track off the debut album LP from indie electro-pop duo Discovery, sums up perfectly the funky electro-pop sound the band is striving to achieve. DIY laptop-pop drums and synths are greeted right away by light, cherubic, indie-rock vocals — a kooky amalgamation that works right from…

Rise Against, & Rancid

As a well-adjusted 28-year-old man, I’m not really the kind of guy who listens to Rise Against. Luckily, my little brother is. You know the type: Well into his 20s, he still holds grudges against his kinfolk for not being nice enough to him while he was growing up, so…

Club Candids: The Golden Rule Tattoo Grand Opening

The Golden Rule Tattoo certainly does “do unto others…” and one look at the employees’ heavily tatted sleeves tells you they’re ready to return the favor. The new tattoo spot opened July 3rd and Club Candids decided to check out their Grand Opening shindig during the monsoon-y First Friday.Golden Rule…

Flier of the Week: We Shot The Moon

Stateside Presents has really been on a hot streak, poster-wise, of late. Their Deer Tick flier has caught my eye a few times, as has this one for last Monday’s Men show at Rhythm Room. This flier for We Shot The Moon was good enough to make me look up…

Deer Tick

It’s hard to say exactly what Brooklyn-via-Providence alt-country band Deer Tick’s coolest claim to notoriety is: Hanging on NBC with Brian Williams, the undeniably fantastic cover to their debut album War Elephant (replete with enough girls and guns to make the late great Warren Zevon happy), associations with members of…

Beyoncé

Beyoncé, a.k.a. Sasha Fierce, is everywhere these days. She co-starred in Obsessed, a thriller that didn’t last long in theater. She’s always in the entertainment mags, whether it’s for her sense of style or cozying up to her boo, Jay-Z. “If I Were a Boy,” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring…

Copeland

Many have called Copeland a Christian rock band, but the group’s singer prefers to avoid the label. “I think that’s kind of a defective term,” Aaron Marsh has said. “It’s not our nature to have religious connotations. We are not a ministry band. We have some people in the band…

Adam Freeland

Unless you’re a hardcore EDM aficionado or crate-sifting turntable wizard, it’s likely you don’t know Adam Freeland from, er, Adam. Which is a shame, really, considering that the English-born DJ/producer was one of icons of the UK’s breakbeat scene in the mid-’90s, helping to pioneer the darker and dirtier sub-genre…

Abe Vigoda

If you take The Fader’s word for it, you pretty much have to see Abe Vigoda. In fact, if you take their word for it, you should probably stop listening to anything other than Abe Vigoda. The magazine’s editors have gone gaga for the band they dubbed “the lone practitioner…

Scream the Prayer Tour

It used to be so easy — so blessedly easy — to tell the difference between secular and Christian rock bands. The shrill U2 wanna-bes? Christian. The guys with the tattoos and dilated pupils? Secular. But that was yesterday. Somewhere along the line, these once-useful distinctions collapsed into each other…

You Asked For It: Serious Side Effects

Serious Side EffectsMay Include:(self-released)Grade: DDemonstrating even a small affinity for a band as roundly despised as Limp Bizkit takes some balls. Sure, Fred and the boys sold a gazillion records, but even the unhippest guy in the Valley — I picture him as baggy-jeaned dude inking Chinese letter tattoos at…

Club Candids at Sadisco

We’re clearly all about pushing family values with our Club Candids slideshows so it’s only natural for us to attend something wholesome like Sadisco’s Orgy of Baccus & Venus at Homme Lounge on Saturday, June 27th.They called it an orgy and while there were some pretty smokin’ make-outs happening in…

Flier of the Week: Sole Function

If you dig Black Carl, you’re likely to enjoy Tempe’s Sole Function, a funky soul band that made this week’s eyeball-blasting Flier of the Week for their show at Sail Inn. Actually, this very polished band also saves us the trouble of describing their sound in excruciating detail by helpfully…

Chad Krystal$

Grade: B- I generally try to make the weekly You Asked For It review at phxmusic.com more about music than career counseling, but there’s no way to avoid it with this week’s artist, Phoenix rapper Chad Krystal$. Krystal$ has some things going for him. His white-boy flow isn’t bad, he’s…

John Vanderslice

Few people have benefited from the Obama administration more than John Vanderslice’s fans. Whether you voted for McCain or Obama, you probably agree that the country would be a lot better off if we could come to a bipartisan agreement to stop writing songs for or against the war in…

A.A. Bondy

Last time you heard from Scott Bondy, he was fronting an Alabama grunge act called Verbena and ripping off, first, the Rolling Stones and, then, Nirvana, with the help of producer Dave Grohl. Now he’s going by A.A. Bondy and channeling Bob Dylan. The name change seems to be a…

Summer Slaughter Tour

Now in its third season, this smorgasbord of all things death metal proudly bills itself as “the most extreme tour of the year.” Hey, we ain’t arguing. When you put together a lineup that includes Dying Fetus, Decrepit Birth, Winds of Plague, Cattle Decapitation, and bunch of other bands that…

2 Live Crew

2 Live Crew have fallen hard. While they’re still on the scene — with a new lineup change — they’re not playing massive concert venues any longer. And when they come to Tempe this weekend, they won’t even be playing the Marquee Theatre or the Clubhouse Music Venue. The foul-mouthed…