Even as Haight was serving up a summer of love in 1967, something darker was brewing in the Bay. Not Altamont, which was still a couple of years away, but Blue Cheer — a thunderous blues act that delved into the shadowy corners of psychedelia rather than indulging the flowery,…
In 2002, Maroon 5 released Songs About Jane, which went on to sell something like a bajillion copies around the world. Consequently, the band hit the road for so many years that it didn’t have time to record anything other than live albums until this year’s It Won’t Be Soon…
Admit it: Sometimes you sit around listening to your Sex Pistols records and think, “I wonder which punk-rock icon has the biggest schlong?” Or perhaps you’re wondering, “What kind of pizza would that Food Network dude say goes well with the New York Dolls?” The Official Punk Rock Book of…
Diddy’s in town to throw his bling around for Super Bowl weekend, and you can bet your badonkadonk we’ll be partying with him. Thursday, January 31 is “Super Thursday” at Axis/Radius, and Diddy is set to perform for an hour and a half, along with sets by hip-hop stars Next and Valley rapper Pokafase. Not only will I be there in full regalia (that’s right, I’m actually ditching the ponytail/leather jacket look for once), but I’ll be accompanied by independent singer/songwriter Jody Gnant, who’ll be shooting exclusive video footage for this very blog.
“It’s like almond,” Anand Wilder says, “like the nut.” No, this isn’t a setup for a nut joke. Wilder, the guitarist/vocalist of the abruptly acclaimed, suddenly sanctioned experimental rock group Yeasayer is, at my request, clarifying the pronunciation of his first name. “It was definitely a problem in elementary school…
Ah, the new wave of British heavy metal. Affectionately known to metalheads the world over as the NWOBHM, the genre’s sound was characterized by galloping rhythms, operatic vocals, and guitars that straddled the line between wailing, classical-tinged solos and not-quite- thrash crunch. Epitomized, of course, by its most world-famous icon,…
For those of you going through “year-in-review” withdrawal, here’s a day-by-day account of what the year’s given us so far. January 1: Dick Clark’s “New Years Rockin’ Eve” hardly rocks, with Fergie, The Jonas Brothers, Carrie Underwood, and Miley Cyrus doing the honors. But for the third straight year after…
With Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers headlining Super Bowl XLII’s halftime show, we couldn’t help but wonder what other acts deserve the chance to play to one of the year’s biggest crowds. Of course, then also we got to wondering about what rare duets the event could motivate, especially after such great team-ups as Aerosmith and Britney Spears and Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake (which, okay, ended poorly). Here’s what we came up with.
Valley folk-rock guitarist extraordinaire Mat Weddle has gotten plenty of worldwide fame in the past 18 months, since the video for his acoustic cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” debuted on YouTube in August of 2006, including more than 1.5 million views, kudos from iTunes, and loads of press coverage from the likes of Spin.
And the attention just keeps on coming, as last week, legendary shock jock Howard Stern featured the song on his Sirius Satellite Radio show. Shoehorned in between pointed discussions about ABC reality show Wife Swap and Joey Buttafuoco’s new sex tape during the January 10 edition of the show, the self-proclaimed “King of all Media” heaped plenty of praise upon the bearded Obadiah Parker frontman and the song.
“I’m gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause even if this room gets filled with lies like these . . . somebody will listen to me . . .” — James Stewart, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington “Been broken down too fucking long . . .” —…
Environmental destruction, greed, suicide, and watching your elderly mother die may sound like strange topics to plumb for optimism, but that’s exactly what Oakland’s Rogue Wave manages to do on its latest album, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate. An exquisitely crafted slice of pop that harks back to the days when…
Sasha Frere-Jones, Jessica Hopper, and pitchfork-toting denizens of the blogosphere: You’ll be satisfied to know Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt experienced a road-to-Damascus type conversion. His iPod was shattered, and all pop sins — endorsing the catchiness of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” under-representing black artists in his numerous “artist playlist” exercises, and boldly…
If you’ve looked at the forums at Web site www.arizonabeats.com, you already know that my cover story on Phoenix hip-hop, “Raising Terrazona,” has ignited quite the firestorm of criticism from members of the local scene. For those who haven’t seen the forums yet, there’s a whole section titled “Arizona reacts to the New Times article ‘Raising Terrazona,’ wherein people in the forum level several complaints, including that the story was “racist,” that I tried to create tension that didn’t exist between two scenes, and that since I’m not a hardcore hip-hop fan, I had no business writing about the local hip-hop scene.
This week’s cover story on Phoenix hip-hop, “Raising Terrazona,” contains a scene where 5Fith Coast Records co-owner Roca Dolla and local artist Cinque exchanged words in the VIP room at The Door on Scottsdale Road. Since the story came out, I’ve received phone calls from both Roca Dolla and Cinque, who each want to clarify what really happened that night. The scene in question is below, followed by Roca Dolla and Cinque’s responses.
In high school, I quit guitar lessons after just six months. I have really tiny hands and got frustrated just making chords — plus, my teenage self thought it’d be more fun to date an ax master than to be one. Later, I decided that writing about rock bands was…
Mike Relm is single-handedly introducing turntablism to parts of middle America on his second stint with Blue Man Group, opening its current production, How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.1. With between 7,000 and 12,000 people at each show, it’s the San Franciscan’s biggest gig. He’s already a YouTube celebrity…
Overlooked amid the hoopla surrounding the recent Mitchell Report — former Senator George Mitchell’s investigation into the use of steroids and human growth hormone in Major League Baseball — was the release last month of the Quayle Report. The culmination of an eight-year, $77 million investigation headed by former Senator…
In conjunction with this week’s cover story on Phoenix’s hip-hop scene, “Raising Terrazona,” we’re putting a media blitzkrieg up here that highlights some of the hottest hip-hop acts in our great desert metropolis. Below, you’ll find photos, links, and embedded videos from some of Terrazona’s best. Consider it proof of an impending Southwest hip-hop explosion.
The holidays are a time of family, schmaltzy Christmas commercials that somehow make you cry, and if you are involved in music journalism, list-making. Lots and lots of list-making. Over the past few years, the availability of year-end critics lists has multiplied faster than the worry lines on Ben Bernanke’s…
Cleveland doesn’t have celebrities. That’s why our contribution to this year-end roundup is star-free. The biggest thing we’ve got (next to LeBron James, who was too busy playing basketball or something to talk to us) is the stripper-lovin’ host of The Price Is Right, Drew Carey. But we’re pretty sure…
For basketball star Diana Taurasi, 2007 was a stellar year. The 6-foot guard for the Phoenix Mercury helped lead the franchise (and the city of Phoenix) to its first-ever basketball championship, toppling defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock on its home court in the final game of a best-of-five series. The…
Margaret Cho has had her own TV show, a couple of bestselling books, a Grammy-nominated comedy album, and two feature films based on her national tours, but 2007 saw a new conquest for the comic: She became a viral video queen. Cho’s sexy, traveling circus-like spectacle, The Sensuous Woman, which…
