Writing a song that paints a picture of a fire in a Taco Bell is no easy task, yet Detroit’s Electric Six laughs at such a notion. The band’s infamous 2003 single “Danger! (High Voltage)” easily sums up what kind of effect the genre-bending band is going for. Dick Valentine,…
There’s nothing especially new about douchebag rock. The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, and countless others have shoehorned the subgenre into the larger pop canon. But in the present decade, plenty of indie boys have gotten in touch with their inner assholes: The Walkmen, Say Anything, The Strokes, and, most notably,…
If you miss following the Grateful Dead or Phish from gig to gig, munching a few funky brownies and spinning in circles as the bands play, fire up the VW bus this weekend and head up to the Spirit Room in Jerome, where Tempe’s Mojo Farmers host their semi-annual Mountain…
On last winter’s intriguing Watershed, k.d. lang’s first disc of original material in eight years, the Canadian-born singer/songwriter seemed to have picked up a few things from the legendary Tony Bennett, with whom she has repeatedly collaborated over the years since his MTV Unplugged special in 1993. The instrumentation on…
By Benjamin Leatherman Hip-hop, R&B, and other urban jams have always been big sellers at Circles Records & Tapes, 800 North Central Avenue. So it’s only natural a majority of the shop’s top 10 best-selling albums for this week are chartbusters from those genres. For instance, the No. 1 album…
Last Exit, Halloween, Club Candids
By Martin Cizmar
It’s not often an album I’ve never heard before makes me nostalgic for my high school days, let alone one that came out last year and is sang partly in Japanese. But so it was with Toybox’s five-song EP, Five Seconds To…, which really took me back. Despite the fact that it’s Toybox is three ASU Japanese-exchange-students-turned-locals, and perform some of their songs in Japanese, they sound like the bands all my friends were in during my school days, old school pop-punkers of the 924 Gilman Street persuasion.
By Martin Cizmar Halloween fun doesn’t end Friday, as the poster for this underground rave shows. This forum has some info, but for the location, call the infoline on the day of the show, (602) 501-5466…
As any 18- to 21-year-old will probably tell you, our fair city is in serious need of places where underage types can party. The folks behind The Spot at Johnny’s Uptown, 40 East Camelback Road, must’ve thought so, too, as they’ve launched a weekly after-hours shindig that’s sure to pack…
Boasting a new guitar player and radio-friendly appeal, the Secret Machines’ third full-length meanders through the band’s trademark shoegaze sound. Founding guitarist Benjamin Curtis left the band in 2007 to form his own band, but the remaining members recruited Phil Karnats of Tripping Daisy fame to fill the large void,…
With his final works, the American Recordings series, Johnny Cash had some of his biggest commercial and critical success, setting the bar ridiculously high for departed country singers. On Waylon Forever, billed as the country outlaw’s final record, Jennings doesn’t come close to Cash, though the record has a few…
Mambo was all the rage in the 1950s, thanks to Cuban maestro Pérez Prado. And among the best artists of the era was Bronx-born Ernesto “Tito” Puente, a prolific musician, songwriter, and bandleader whose legacy resonates to this day. Though his best-known tunes are readily available in stores, his earlier…
Yet another band moniker for a solo performer, Castanets is the nom de musique of Raymond Raposa, a San Diego singer/songwriter with a playfully warped approach to American roots music. Not quite country, not quite folk, not quite blues or gospel, Castanets weaves aspects of each into a haunted, doom-laden,…
Sometimes the journey is better than the destination. Take Oasis’ musical career. As hungry upstarts trying to become rock stars with their first two albums, there was no more exciting band on the planet. With stardom achieved, has there been a more boring one? Here’s the proof: Spot someone all…
The term “hip hop supergroup” gets thrown around a lot, but Bay Area outfit The Mighty Underdogs can make a pretty good case. Composed of MCs Gift of Gab (from Blackalicious) and Lateef the Truthspeaker (of Latyrx), and backed by producer Headnodic (of Crown City Rockers), the group just released…
Hip-hop punk rockers Kottonmouth Kings, fresh from their performance at this year’s Edgefest, return to the Valley with a show that is sure to be a frightful event. The band’s new The Green Album will no doubt fill out the night’s set list of bizarre theatrics and stoner antics, a…
Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers have mastered the art of thrash, that combustible buildup of noise and melody that so many others have tried to harness, only to fail in a miserable pool of fuzzy annoyance. Blending messy, raspy vocals with pummeling drums, writhing riffs and strident organs, the band produces…
After two solo live albums, it’s easy to forget Jackson Browne’s versatility as a musician, which might be boiled down to one key characteristic: He’s a great listener. On his first new album in six years, Time the Conqueror, and on its tour, Browne features background vocalists Chavonne Morris and…
Mickey Avalon’s been through some shit, man. His mom had him selling weed for her when he was just a teenager. She fired him a little while later, though, when she discovered he was shooting up smack at the age of 16. And things got only stickier and trickier from…
The Faint’s dystopian paeans to dysfunctional, metaphorically “mechanized” relations unfold beneath gloomy analog burble and synthetic beats. It’s not exactly ironic, nor is it particularly poignant at this point, though it may not matter after a dozen years building a passionate following. While the band’s fifth studio LP, Fasciinatiion, returns…
Comfort For Change
Stories that didn’t hit the page…
(Self-released)
By Martin Cizmar
It’s not often a local band without a record deal delivers a product as polished as Comfort For Change’s Stories that didn’t hit the page…
By Lilia Menconi Check the slideshow, will ya? They say it’s a good thing to step out of your comfort zone every once in a while. So we decided to push ourselves this past Friday, skip dinner to keep our bellies flat and amp up the glam factor with a…
