John Dixon is an absolute guru of vintage and obscure vinyl, a wizened historian of Arizona music, and one helluva esteemed disc jockey. The 60-something record hound, who goes by DJ Johnny D. when he’s spinning, boasts a meticulously compiled and catalogued platter collection (which numbers into the tens of…
With Phoenix Comicon right around the corner, it’s a good time to highlight nerdcore, and with Nerdzerker’s album release party less than a week away, the nerdy punk three-piece is one that should be mentioned. Their music is punk enough to stand up next to just about any punk act…
“Stoner rock” has yet to gain entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, but few bands define the genre better than Fu Manchu. Yet, like so many genres, the name hardly fits the sound. Pink Floyd is stoner rock, while Fu Manchu storms in all heavy, sludgy, psychedelic and fuzzy with plenty…
By now you may have heard about the story of how Sublime With Rome singer Rome Ramirez alleged on his Twitter account that Linkin Park had snitched on the band for smoking weed, prompting “cops” (Rome’s words) to seize the band’s drugs. Read a detailed play-by-play of the “Linkin Nark”…
Update 5/29 12:45 p.m.: Sublime With Rome’s manager said that Brad Delson, Linkin Park guitarist, is responsible for alerting the police to Sublime’s stash. Read more here. Update 5/28 4:30 p.m.: Read the entire police report here. Update 5/28 1:57 p.m.: We are starting to get somewhere. The Pima County…
Looking at local musician Brian Chartrand’s musical biography, you might say he has an identity crisis. There are his solo acoustic releases, which include his unique arrangements of well-known songs from contemporary artists as well as strong guitar work on his original numbers. There’s his work with the critically-acclaimed local…
It is with heavy heart and fond memories that I write this piece as Louis “Louie” Bocchini, whose Vans California Daze (and the off-shoot, Whatever) were integral parts of the Phoenix punk rock and skateboarding community, died on Saturday, May 17. Many longtime Phoenicians will recognize, at very least, his…
When it comes to list compilations of the “hottest” musicians in rock, there’s no shortage by any means. In the heavy metal genre alone, you can Google endless lists detailing the sexiest guitarists, frontmen, drummers, bassists, keyboardists — you name it. But the majority of these lists are based completely…
Demon tied to a chair in my brain/ black bird a-tapping on the window pane/ sittin’ and smilin’ at a stray dog in the rain/ demon tied to a chair in my brain. With these haunting, bluesy lyrics, Dax Riggs opens with on the first track of his 2007 album…
In the 12 years the Blunt Club has been around it has built a reputation as the Valley’s premier weekly hip-hop show. Its founders, Dumper Foo, Aran “Catalyst” Kelly Emerge McVay, and Keith Nickels (among others) are local legends in their own right. And some of the acts they’ve managed…
What better way to label yourself Phoenix’s ultimate party band than naming your group after the Roman god of merry-making, theater, getting wasted, and feeling “ecstasy”? Bacchus and the Demonsluts did just that, but its roiling river of funk, jazz freakouts, and frenetic, instrumental jamborees is just the tip of…
For Floor, Florida’s coolest export since medium-pulp orange juice, the opportunity to be both influential and derivative is a badge of honor the band should wear with pride. The sludgy stoner rock trio has existed for the better part of 22 years now, even though it took years-long hiatuses and…
Saxophonist Maceo Parker calls his band “the tightest little funk orchestra on Earth.” It should be. Parker was schooled in tightness as the bandleader for James Brown in the 1960s. Brown was notorious for his demanding ways, but Parker, despite not being a hard-ass, still knows exactly how to keep…
It was 10 years ago when indie rock started to seep into pop culture. The Internet had emerged as a way to distribute music (legally and illegally) and became a barometer for 20-somethings who wanted to discover something new and obscure. The popular television show The O.C. was actually shining…
Not the first post-punk band to emerge from Leeds, England, and most assuredly not the last, Eagulls made its U.S. television debut in January on the Late Show with David Letterman. Not a surprising coup for a band with such a big buzz, but one made more exciting for the…
If ever there were a soundtrack to Memorial Day Weekend, it’d be electronic dance music. That’s because EDM will be in abundance during MDW, whether it’s in the clubs, around the pool, or at your local bar. And some of the Valley’s more prominent dance music promoters and venues are…
If ever there were a soundtrack to Memorial Day Weekend, it’d be electronic dance music. That’s because EDM will be in abundance during MDW, whether it’s in the dance clubs of Scottsdale, Tempe, and Downtown Phoenix or around the pools of the nearest swanky boutique hotel. As such, some of…
With hardly a whisper from the collective music community in the past two weeks, the 10th anniversary of a defining record for one of this generation’s most prolific musicians came and went. Ryan Adams’ Love Is Hell, his fifth solo record and what may be his darkest offering to date,…
In 2012, Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace took the world by storm when she publicly revealed herself to be transgender. Though had we been paying attention, we would have noticed the not-so-subtle cues in the band’s lyrics, like these from “The Ocean”: “If I could have chosen / I would…
It’s okay to make money in today’s world. Even necessary to survive and raise a family. But when somebody becomes greedy in the process where they cheat, pollute and hurt others, well that’s not cool. That’s the message in the song “Greedy,” which is on Tommy Castro’s new CD The…
With eight critically acclaimed projects under his belt, Phoenix-based hip-hop artist Trap House has become one of the most prolific and influential hip-hop artists to come out of Arizona. Some of his accolades include being chosen by Vitamin Water to give a personalized tour of the city and being chosen…
“We play more shows a year than any band out there right now, unless you have a residency in Vegas.” –Dez Fafara, vocalist of DevilDriver. Upon reading that, there are probably a dozen bands most people would list off the top of their heads — and probably none would be…
