Christopher Danowski Danowski is the co-conspirator of Theater in My Basement, which is working on a new series of performance/video/installations on the nine muses and planning for the next Teatro Caliente festival in January 2011.When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play…
Phoenix-based rapper RoQ’y TyRaiD is no stranger to political discussion via hip-hop. His last album, The Podium, featured songs culled from weekly appearances on the Redy Set Radio Show on 99.3 The Beat FM, where RoQ’y addressed political issues and the news of the week with a new tune. With…
Former emo boy Sonny Moore is bringing dubstep to the masses as Skrillex. Benjamin Leatherman examines the roots of the bass-heavy genre and examines its rise in popularity. Meanwhile, indie rock supergroup Wild Flag brings their show to Phoenix for Halloween, and Das Racist puts the smart in smart ass.We’ve…
Just in time for Halloween, Tugboat has managed to creep the internet like it has never been creeped before. (That’s counting “Two Girls, One Cup,” by the way.)Just last week we told you about the series of creeptastic videos Tugboat released to promote their October residency at Long Wong’s. But…
This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. What’s the scoop on Up on the Sun’s new webcomic Record Heat? What songs best fit…
It’s a good thing there aren’t many residences near Big Surf Waterpark in Tempe. It’s creeping toward midnight on a Friday night in October, and the Sound Wave Music Festival is in full swing, causing a maelstrom of electronic beats to echo across the pools and slides. While Phoenix expat…
The knock on underground hip-hop has always been that it’s not sufficiently “fun.” Hip-hop radio stations routinely light up with requests for crass, chorus-driven ditties (often of the Southern variety), while alternative rappers are too often dismissed as humorless and boring. Sure, most people can agree that Mos Def and…
In 2010, former Sleater-Kinney guitarist and NPR blogger Carrie Brownstein announced she was starting a new band. A MySpace page went up. No music, only a cryptic message: “What is the sound of an avalanche taking out a dolphin? What do get when you cross a hamburger with a hot…
It’s a pretty common complaint around town that awesome acts often skip Phoenix on tour. Well, here’s a story that argues the opposite. New Orleans-based rap duo The Knux are kicking of their tour here in the Phoenix Metro, at Scottsdale’s Rogue Bar on Tuesday, November 8. The band often…
Clanging acoustic guitars, pitched somewhere between Led Zeppelin’s ballads and John Fahey’s American Primitivism, and then, a voice, singular and unmistakable. It is the voice of Lou Reed: “I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski / In the dark of the…
Catching the band at the Marquee will be an entirely different beast than getting sloppy at the Birds Nest at the Phoenix Open, where the band has played during the past two tournaments, but the Marquee show should definitely be sufficient for all of the local hippie chicks and jam…
I don’t want to get too hyperbolic here, but this year Jay-Z and Kanye teamed up for one of the year’s biggest albums, and I can’t help but make the comparison when I think about Phoenix emcees Mr. Miranda and Mega Ran hooking up for a combo album. Titled The…
A few months ago we brought you the story of Bryan Lightningrod, a 98- (38)-year-old vampire (dude) from Cairo (Chandler) who makes music (noise with titles like “I Want to Fuck Your Butt”) and creepy-ass music videos with young girls’ butts being (unknowingly?) taped at skate parks. …
There’s a glimmer of hope that Up On The Sun’s DMX Rap Sheet will finally be put on the back burner as the hip-hop artist returns to the music world, determined, reportedly sober, and with new management headed up by Jason Fowler of J Mike Management & Entertainment, based in…
Up on the Sun is proud to present the first installment of our new weekly comic strip, Record Heat, by Brad Dwyer. We’re pretty big fans of Dwyer around here, awarding his series Epic Tales of the Mundane a Best of Phoenix award last month. We love Dwyer’s dry jokes…
Turns out fans of post-hardcore band Eyes Set to Kill are pretty fanatical about their love for the band, so this week we’re bringing you FY [F**k Yeah] Eyes Set to Kill.More on what’s awesome about this week’s Tumblr of the Week after the jump…..
Holli Christensen The owner of Park Avenue Blow Dry and Beauty Bar is also a makeup artist and studio hair stylist who teaches a free class every first Friday of the month 6:00 p.m. at Park Avenue, demonstrating how to take the latest trends from the runway and translating them…
What exactly does a record label offer a musician in 2011? The internet has leveled the playing field in so many ways. No longer does it require a big machine to create awareness. But record labels can still be a big help; musicians can use them market and distribute their…
There’s so much to report and so little Internet to shove it in. First things first: the small bit of youth music we’ve witnessed in the Western United States convinces me thoroughly that my generation of American musicians has the studiousness and audacity to be emotionally unflinching in the face…
As much as ASU’s radio station The Blaze 1330AM still overplays the hell out of “The First Single,” The Format is still a lovable band that will always be in our hearts.One blogger has made it his or her mission to keep The Format’s spirit alive since the group broke…
In this week’s issue, Benjamin Leatherman takes a peak into the life of George Lindell, the motormouth Phoenix-based drummer who achieved internet stardom after a car accident yielded him a viral hit, “Reality Hits You Hard Bro.” Lindell could used some fortune to go along with that fame, he informed…
This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. What ten songs did we pick to soundtrack the Occupy protests? What legendary country stars are…
