Last year, local hip-hop duo The Premiere self-released a phenomenal album, London Paris New York — an audio opus packed with instrumentation from garage-rock guitar solos to New Wave synths, all layered over beds of bouncing beats and clever raps (“Patrick Swayze” still gets our vote for catchiest local song…
To hell with Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, and the other aging Spice Girls and their so-called reunion. We’ve found a better outlet to get overloaded with girl power — Platform Wednesdays, a hump-day hootenanny and “queer dance party” that goes down at E-Lounge, 4343 North Seventh Avenue. Every week, smokin’…
We don’t want to hate on downtown Phoenix. Sure, it has its problems, but bagging on this city is as played out as skinny jeans. We’re over it. So when a new bar opens up, we get super-stoked. Such was the case when we hopped into The Rose & Crown…
Ahhh . . . Mexico! Nothing like starting out the New Year on a long stretch of beach with a trio of lovely, successful women. Trouble is, I was just one of the girls. We drank wine, cooked meals, and wrote resolutions on paper, then burned them in the fire…
After having participated in the soundtrack of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (she provided the singing voice of Jenna Fischer in “Let’s Duet”), Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Angela Correa emerges with her own three-track EP, in anticipation of her upcoming full release. On this short sample, one gets the idea…
Beanie Sigel’s rough-and-ready new CD stands in direct contrast to his onetime mentor Jay-Z’s latest. While Hov reminisces about his pre-posh days on American Gangster, Sigel is still living them on The Solution. Since his last album (2005’s The B.Coming), Sigel was acquitted of attempted murder and spent some time…
His name may not be familiar, but Bishop Lamont is becoming one of the craftiest MCs on the West Coast. He’s released a series of buzz-building mix tapes since signing with Dr. Dre two years ago, the latest of which, Caltroit, is an impressive collaboration with producer/rapper Black Milk, a…
In 2006, gay singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright re-created gay icon Judy Garland’s 1961 smash album, Judy at Carnegie Hall, note for note in concert at the venerable New York venue. Well, almost note for note. Wainwright couldn’t quite match Garland’s zingy swing. But he was so determined to get it right…
In the underrated Allison Anders movie Grace of My Heart (in which Ileana Douglas starred as a singer/songwriter loosely based on Carole King), Bridget Fonda has a cameo as a teen-dream 1960s pop singer who’s a closeted (duh) lesbian. The song Fonda’s character sings in the movie, “My Secret Love,”…
As one of the most prolific composers of his generation, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington wrote, throughout his long career, movie soundtracks (Otto Preminger’s 1959 Anatomy of a Murder is a great example), classical scores, and many tunes that are now considered American standards. More than 30 years after his passing,…
Mainstream indie rock may seem like a contradiction in terms, but that hasn’t stopped The Bravery from winning over new fans. Hailed as “the next big thing” by MTV and the popular music press after the release of its 2005 self-titled debut, the band emerged as part of a new…
Magic Bullets’ bouncy New Wave pop (often sung with an affected British accent) sounds like a lot like Echo & the Bunnymen, but this San Francisco sextet puts its own spin on things. For example, the song “Spent Nights,” from the group’s 2006 debut, a CHILD but in life yet…
“The Fresh Prince” himself, Will Smith, is rumored to be coming to P-town for the big game. Same with George Clooney, Vince Vaughn, and numerous other glitterati who’ll jet into the Valley sometime during the next 72 hours to partake in the non-stop partying going down in honor of Super…
Considering the stiff penalties for drinking and driving, it’s not often we make our way to the outskirts of town for a cocktail. But on Friday, January 18, we were feeling particularly sober and decided to check out a brand-new joint in north Scottsdale called Vocé Ristoranté & Lounge. Being…
The first two lines on Joe Jackson’s new album are: “Hey, can you hear me now, as I fade away and lose my ground? Maybe you’d like to know what I’d have to say, if I was still around.” Are the words merely song lyrics or is ol’ Joe wryly…
On his previous disc, La Kahena, San Francisco-based, Algerian-born DJ Cheb i Sabbah explored the sounds of his native North Africa, adding tracks and loops to the material he had recorded there upon his return to the U.S. This time around, the focus is the music of the Indian subcontinent,…
Kate Nash’s debut LP, Made of Bricks, was released last summer in the U.K., where she became an overnight sensation; both the CD and single, “Foundations,” charted at number one. The 20-year-old from a London suburb pals around with Lily Allen, with whom she’s frequently compared. Yet unlike Alright, Still…
Too many movie tie-in collections put profits before cohesion. Tunes by widely disparate performers, most of whom just happen to record for companies affiliated with the film studio, wind up being tossed together willy-nilly in the hope that one of them will stick, thereby inducing fans to purchase all the…
Keeping it real is always tricky. People who hate “new country” complain that it’s not “authentic country.” Though that may be true, it’s no guarantee that every Gram Parsons-influenced, alt-country shit-kicker will be any more genuine. Jesse Dayton and Brennen Leigh’s Holdin’ Our Own is neither “new country” nor “alt-country.”…
Southern-fried piano swamp funk doesn’t get better than Leon Russell. His greasy R&B cadges a hopping, Delta blues stomp, fueled by his gravelly croak and his percussive pounding at the piano. Russell left Tulsa for L.A. at 16. There, he learned guitar from rockabilly legend James Burton and soon became…
Remember way back (like, to the early ’90s), when suddenly, almost out of nowhere, you heard a ska song on the radio? You inevitably thought to yourself, “What the fuck? Ska hasn’t been popular in the U.S. for ages!” Shortly thereafter, you found yourself practicing “skankin'” in your apartment when…
Sons? Unquestionably. Bastards? Probably. Of Johnny Cash? Who can say? We are all the bastard sons of Johnny Cash if we so choose to be. If, in fact, we are talking about a band and that band’s themes, musical and otherwise, Mark Stuart and the other Bastards’ songs inhabit that…
