Bad news for fans of ’80s new wavers Blondie — the band has canceled its appearance, previously scheduled for October 4 at Foundry on First. Promoter Danny Zelisko confirms that the band had a “late scheduling conflict,” and on Facebook states that the gig may possibly be rescheduled. I spoke…
Ellie Elmore: The interior designer and Zumba fitness instructor. Teaches at Diverse Elements Dance Studio in Phoenix Monday nights. For more information on her classes, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Lately, 97.5-FM has been…
Seattle band iji have roots here in Phoenix. Songwriter Zach Burba started the group in Tempe, and played frequently at The Trunk Space, honing his weird funk-pop. I’ve always liked the Burba’s sensibility (full disclosure: a band I used to play in a band that covered the iji tune “Meet…
What kind of music do you listen to? It’s an honest question that rarely yields an honest answer. After all, the wrong answer could get you shunned in certain circles. However, a more complex question could very easily be, what kind of music does your band play? With lines blurring…
You’ll find this week’s issue wrapped up in our annual Best of Phoenix special. This week, Chris Hassiotis takes us into the world of teacher-turned-rapper MegaRan, who is taking the world of nerd-rap by storm. We’ve also got short features on blink-182, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who are scheduled to…
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 does NPR’s music blog have to say about Sister Cities? What does Halocene’s Addie Nicole…
Man quits day job. Spends hours a day playing video games. Speaks in rhyme. Travels country for weeks, never settling in one place. This could be a cautionary tale. This could be a diagram of a man’s descent into unemployment, antisocial behavior and, ultimately, madness. This could be game over…
It takes only about 40 seconds of “Up All Night,” the first single from blink-182’s new album, Neighborhoods, for the track to feel like a statement. That isn’t to say that what comes before that mark (skittering electronic flourishes and a punk rock riff huge enough for the stadiums) is…
It’s September, which means that most music nerds are deep into their “Albums of the Year” process. I’m no different. I’ve got about 15 drafts of my list, and the name Unknown Mortal Orchestra appears on most of them. The Portland-via-New Zealand band’s eponymous debut alternately recalls Led Zeppelin, Prince,…
This year has been kind of fantastic for Phoenix indie-rockers, Snake! Snake! Snakes! Aside from making their way into the trailer of the independent film Tanner Hall, their song “We Come Out At Night” is in The Morning Infidelity’s top 25 list of the year’s best local songs, and the…
Luz de Vida, a compilation featuring Neko Case, Spoon, Jimmy Eat World, Calexico, Giant Sand, Lenguas Largas, Robyn Hitchcock, Brian Lopez, The Meat Puppets, and many, many more, is set to see release in two formats, a 37-track digital album, and a limited-edition 12-song vinyl release, on October 18. The…
The rest of this week’s just announced shows: …
Polish up your wingtips and bust out your finest duds Tempe, you have a new dance floor to cut a rug on. Starting on October 6, Thursday nights are going to be a whole lot fresher with the start of Café le Swing. Hosted by Savoy Hop Cats, the same…
One of our most notable local musicians is the king of shock rock, Alice Cooper. We may know him as a radio DJ, celebrity golfer, and restaurateur, but the folks behind This Is The Coop reach way back to bring readers weird and wild pics of “The Coop.” More on…
It’s been a weird couple of weeks for strange collaborations — like that Jack White/I.C.P. jam — but there are few stranger musical team-ups weirder than the forthcoming Lou Reed and Metallica album, Lulu. The first single from the record, “The View,” went up on the Lou Reed and Metallica…
I won’t attempt to explain the amalgam of esoteric in-jokes that manifested into the tour poster seen above. There’s a perfectly good but lengthy explanation for why the four of us chose to put John Fogerty’s head on a French Quarter t-shirt, gave him dice for eyes and exhorted the…
After four weeks of competitive gigging, the dust has settled on X103.9’s Fall Frenzy Showdown. What started back in August culminated in last night’s seven-way battle for a slot on this year’s main stage featuring Blink 182, Matt & Kim and Jimmy Eat World. Local bands, Saving Shea, Halocene, Howard…
Big ups to the folks over at NPR’s All Songs Considered blog. Today they featured Sister Cities, the Phoenix band that our own Christina Caldwell wrote up back in August, telling the tale of the band’s global roots and dream-pop sound. “If you’re a band from the west coast, you…
They don’t come much more “multi-cultural” than Rupa and the April Fishes. Born in California to Indian parents, songwriter Rupa Marya was raised in France, India, and the United States. The music she makes with her group, The April Fishes, borrows sounds from all of her cultures. French nouvelle vague…
Jeff Moriarty Moriarty is the organizer of Ignite Phoenix. The next Ignite Phoenix is Friday, October 28 at the Virginia G. Piper Theater. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? I haven’t listened to the radio in years. I stream…
Sophia Gunn blends old and new professionally.She brings her “younger” humble beginnings to some of the Valley’s hottest nights and mashes them with fresh, new technology to give her turntabling skills new edge. She mixes vinyl with MP3’s. She has learned to adapt with the times. Now, she’s adapting to a…
On Saturday, September 24, the Musical Instrument Museum is scheduled to open “Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and Their Musical Instruments 1860-1915.” Featuring portraits from the collection of Mark Lee Gardner, author, historian, and musician, the portraits capture remarkable images of Civil War-era soldiers, housewives, children, the rich,…
