Paris, Milan, New York. . . Scottsdale? Okay, so maybe we aren’t top billing for fashion hot spots, but with the ever-increasing flow of higher fashion retail possibilities pouring into the Valley, we may get there someday, dammit. And if you happened to be in Scottsdale on Friday, November 3,…
Anyone with a dog-eared copy of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ debut The Gilded Palace of Sin knows the concept of old-school R&B played by a traditional country-and-western band is nothing new. But Tucson’s Hacienda Brothers don’t have to wage an awareness campaign for country-rock like the Burritos did, leaving them…
Over the course of a 30-year career, Joni Mitchell went from being a distinctive folk singer to a pompous artiste drowning in highfalutin orchestral arrangements. Whether Mitchell was her model or not, Joanna Newsom seems to have followed the same ill-advised path, but in only two years. Returning after her…
Pete Townshend’s clearly playing to the school of thought that says Who’s Next is better than The Who Sell Out here. And it goes beyond the way he “re-investigates” the oscillating synth riff of “Baba O’Riley” in the first few seconds of The Who’s first album in 24 years. This…
While purists continue splitting hairs over “true” heavy-metal style, Danava combs the genre into a weave of fantastic art-rock wizardry that leaves the shtick straight by the wayside. For its full-length debut, Kemado Records’ dark horse moves between kohl-cloaked glam and by-the-misty-bog Zeppelin hallucination fantasies; gargantuan stoner rhythms and high…
At 75, Ike Turner is still one mean motherfucker. Risin’ With the Blues, his first release of new material in three years, is as tough and weathered as the man himself, full of searing guitar work and his ever-prevalent tough-guy persona. Mixing half a dozen quality originals (including the signature…
Tucson may seem like an unlikely home for a French man who plays jazzy, eclectic pop-folk, but Parisian transplant Naim Amor is a man of many flavors. While his own melancholy music is filled with dreamy, soft instrumentation and his smoky-voiced accent, he considers everyone from the Sex Pistols to…
Roots-rockers the Damnwells may have had their first taste of major-label compromise when Epic Records blanked out the title to their debut’s 41-second leadoff track, “Assholes.” Come on, Epic — is that really still a bad word? Anyway, the band reprised the song in full, fleshed-out glory for last year’s…
Don’t let those could-be-Finnish song titles fool you. Anathallo hails from Michigan, its name draws reference from a Japanese folktale, and its debut, Floating World, bears little resemblance to any of the zillion CD-Rs recorded in recent years by Avarus or Avarus-associated concerns. This five-years-running septet fuses the reeling, jet-stream…
Damn, Diosa’s sure got some mad DJ skills. The punky female turntablist, who got into the scratching-and-spinning biz after witnessing a “life-altering” performance by Z-Trip in 2000, is not only a member of such she-jay collectives as Females Wit Funk, but she’s also been featured in the pages of Sonik…
If Las Vegas can have its homegrown Britpop, why not Tucson? The Killers acclimated us to Yanks and synths again, but The Year of Acceleration is here to say, “What about surliness and passionate songs about the sun never shining and prescription medicine, then?” This is no ironic re-creation of…
The last time you encountered Native American music, you were probably in the middle of a deep-tissue massage. Long Winter Nights, on the other hand, should be blazing over the PA at a bustling pub. This is round dance music — raw, joyous drum and chant, far from the sedative…
On Friday, October 20, Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale provided the perfect excuse to pair your ratty old Ramones tee shirt with some leggings at the Pretty Vacant! kickoff party, featuring DJ Marky Ramone. Indie kids, poppy punkers, and other Valley vagrants gradually drained in and boozed up, filling the…
It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark; under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart. . . There was no getting away from Michael Jackson’s Thriller at Alwun House’s Monster’s Ball on Saturday, October 30. The devilish ditty did the trick when…
Boobs and beer. The Georgia-based raunch ‘n’ rollers in Nashville Pussy don’t need much more symbolism than that, even though they’ve used the Confederate flag on their albums and show fliers for years, à la Lynyrd Skynyrd. But when you’ve got hot blonde guitarist Ruyter Suys kneeling down on the…
After watching these longhaired Canucks tear up the stage opening for Nashville Pussy at the Clubhouse Music Venue, I’m convinced they are the most impressive and diverse band in the current wave of retro metal-rock, surpassing such stellar company as ’70s-sounding acts Wolfmother, Danava, and The Sword. They have incredibly…
No rock-star kid ever made a more endearing record than Sean Lennon’s 1998 debut Into the Sun, a Double Fantasy for hipsters produced by his Japanese girlfriend, Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda. Taking cues from Tropicalia, cocktail jazz and ’90s art-pop, Lennon’s lounge-adelic take on the sounds of the British Invasion…
Don’t be fooled by “Welcome to the Black Parade,” the first — and rather lengthy — single off My Chemical Romance’s third disc. The entirety of The Black Parade, although obviously ambitious in its influences and concept, doesn’t ape Freddie Mercury. In fact, most of the record just sounds like…
If the first thing that comes to mind when you read the word “Scotland” is haggis-gnawing, lager-swilling soccer hooligans, listening to the rapid-fire tracks on Entomology will make you think again. Dubbed “The Sound of Young Scotland,” bands like Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, and Josef K ruled Britannia for a…
Culminating a decade of spiritually searching dance music and blistering punk rock, Moby made, arguably, the last great album of the 20th century with Play, a brilliant amalgam of old gospel samples and new studio wizardry. At a time when electronica’s trendiness was ending, Play gave the throbbingly impersonal genre…
The Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper? Can a classic rock bill even get any better than that? The Stones, of course, are still amazing live, still able to invest a song they’ve done no fewer than a billion times — from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”…
Few bands have made the trashy side of rock ‘n’ roll feel dirtier or more inviting than The Cramps, a psychobilly force of nature with a Ph.D. in EC comics, drive-in movies, striptease sexuality, and the fuzz-guitar genius of Nuggets. With Lux Interior channeling Elvis as the undead, G-string-wearing host…
