Top 10 sellers at Eastside Records

What’s Selling Top 10 sellers at Eastside Records, 217 West University Drive in Tempe, for July 21 through 29: 1. The Locust, I Don’t Feel a Thing! EP (bootleg) 2. The Dillinger Escape Plan, Miss Machine (Relapse) 3. The Hives, Tyrannosaurus Hives (Interscope) 4. Dwarves, Salt Lake City EP (Sympathy…

Labor Party

If you’re going to the Phoenix school of punk rock, what better teacher to have than Jeff Dahl? Local trio Labor Party thanks the former Angry Samoan for his “support and expertise” in the liner notes of its new CD, Graffiti and Glass, a raucous nod to the psychedelic pre-punk…

Scary Kids Scaring Kids

Scary? Not especially. But the remixed, remastered and rereleased six-song disc from Scary Kids (who get their name from an obscure mid-’90s song by math-rock progenitors Cap’n Jazz) definitely has some punch to it. Scary Kids’ three-guitar assault, combined with a sprinkling of synths, is melodically pummeling, yet the songs…

The Muffs

The first Muffs LP in five years is like a quick sugar rush that doesn’t stick with you for long. Some of the band’s power-pop songs are catchy, but taken as a whole, the record lacks staying power. Kim Shattuck’s vocal inflections vary from a pouting little girl to a…

Ken Stringfellow

As a touring member of R.E.M., a late-era member of Big Star and a co-leader (with his friend Jon Auer) of the defunct Seattle power-pop band the Posies, singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Ken Stringfellow’s got nothing to prove in the capable-of-crafting-a-catchy-hook department. So on Soft Commands, his third solo album, he doesn’t really…

Van Halen

Eddie slowly walked into the room and lifted his tired eyes toward his two anxious bandmates. “He said, `I’m finally getting my solo career going, and Van Halen doesn’t fit into my plans.’ And then he hung up on me,” the guitarist whispered. “Oh God! Game over!” Michael sobbed, lunging…

Stiff Little Fingers, Throw Rag

Belfast’s Stiff Little Fingers are a legendary band, a punk classic despite the oxymoron. Their mixture of politics and smart songwriting brought them critical acclaim, but fast-forwarding 25 years and a couple of reunion tours and records later, the band is in the same category as the Buzzcocks: playing new…

Stan Ridgway

Stan Ridgway was there when the doors opened, and he never left the building. In the late 1970s, when L.A. punk was kicking off and Black Flag, X, and Darby Crash were climbing out of the primordial muck, still covered in La Brea tar, Ridgway was establishing his mutant view…

4th Dimension at Next

Local DJs David Epstein and Jonboy, veteran residents at Scottsdale’s Next (7111 East Fifth Avenue), are celebrating the completion of their first demo CD together with a bash in Next’s upstairs lounge on Saturday, August 7. The two DJs, collectively known as 4th Dimension, specialize in a mix they like…

Junior Boys

Go ahead and brand Junior Boys IDM (rank shorthand for “Intelligent Dance Music”). Just know that doing so would be a waste of time and precious consonants. Because what the Boys want to be are pop stars, and on their spectacular debut they manage to compress all that is right…

Roots N Blues Series

Songwriter/pianist/vocalist Leroy Carr, whose two-disc CD set is one of the highlights of the new Roots N’ Blues Series, was one of the first recording artists to make full use of the new electric microphone. With a crooning style akin to the coming generation of jazz singers, he cut 190…

Top 10 sellers at Stinkweeds Records

Top 10 sellers at Stinkweeds Records, 1250 East Apache Boulevard in Tempe, for July 18 through 24: 1. Low, A Lifetime of Temporary Relief boxed set (Chairkickers) 2. Polyphonic Spree, Together We’re Heavy (Hollywood) 3. The Album Leaf, In a Safe Place (Sub Pop) 4. Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse (Geffen)…

The Damnwells

Former D Generation singer Jesse Malin’s made no bones about his love for Paul Westerberg, following Ryan Adams down that now well-worn country-rock path on his last album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction, which Adams produced. Like most of Adams’ solo work, the album had more trappings than content, and…

The Phantom Surfers, and Neil Hamburger

Leaving behind much of the gimmickry of their contemporaries, the Phantom Surfers rose to the crest of the surf instrumental revival of the early 1990s, playing solid vibrato-drenched tunes with a wry sense of humor (their stage banter is hilarious). They haven’t put out a record since 2000’s XXX Party,…

Superjoint Ritual

When your logo is a pentagram with a pot leaf in the center, and your vocalist is “God of metal” Phil Anselmo (Pantera), you’ve got all the symbolism needed to pull off a skin-peeling speed-metal record. And that’s exactly what Superjoint Ritual did, creating 13 blistering tracks and christening them…

Panic! at Andersons

Every day is like Sunday um, I mean, Thursday for Robden Brethauer and DJ Manchester, the impresarios behind Panic!, the long-running weekly Britpop/indie/shoegazer/New Wave night that came to an end in March. This Thursday, July 29, theyre reprising the event at its old home, Andersons Fifth Estate in Scottsdale, with…

Jadakiss

In press interviews for his new album, Kiss of Death, Jadakiss, a member of the Lox, asserts that he wants to be thought of as one of the greatest MCs of all time. Though it seems like bravado, the fact that New York’s hip-hop community has taken his statements seriously…

The Hives

Of all the “The” bands swearing devotion to the Sonics/Stones/Stooges holy trinity of garage rock, the Hives have always seemed to have the most fun. Unhindered by the Strokes’ penchant for rock star clich or the White Stripes’ Machiavellian creepiness, the Hives reveled in the simple pleasures of three chords,…

Faithless

This English dance-pop outfit is one of the world’s biggest electronic acts in countries that aren’t the United States, where we prefer our techno nerds white, bald and annoying. This is despite the fact that Rollo Armstrong, the producing mastermind behind Faithless, is Dido’s brother and helped construct her easy-drinking…

Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco sent me a Christmas card back in 1996, along with a note listing her New Year’s resolutions: “Do more,” “Be more,” “Give more” and “Sleep at night.” She’s certainly done, been and given more in the past eight years, but I doubt she’s been sleeping at night. A…

Helio Sequence

Who’s your favorite two-piece act? The White Stripes? Mates of State? Local H? Donny and Marie? After this show, it might be the Portland duo Helio Sequence — singer/guitarist/harmonica player Brandon Summers and drummer/keyboardist Benjamin Weikel (late of Modest Mouse, where he spent a year subbing on the skins for…

Burden Brothers

Accidental supergroups make great rock ‘n’ roll. Take, for example, the Burden Brothers, whose founding members — vocalist/guitarist Vaden Todd Lewis (ex-Toadies) and drummer Taz Bentley (ex-Reverend Horton Heat) — got together to jam on some songs Bentley had written. The two liked the songs so much that they posted…