Features

by Matt Neff
Photographs by Luke Holwerda

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The Stray Cats, The Pretenders, and Don Henley
Jobing.com Arena
August 8, 2007
Better than: 12,000 years of human thought, art, technology and history

~”It’s All a Bunch of Hipsters”~
A Review in Three Parts
In Which the Reviewer Considers the Artistic Merits of Those Three Groups Involved
In Addition to the Chutzpah They Put Forth in Displaying It

I. Setzer

Retro-rock is a hackneyed tactic and I generally have better things to do than catatonically ingest the wild gesticulations of aging MTV superstars but then again I figured that old dog Setzer knew how to mangle a Gretsch so I thought, “Hey, why not head down to the Jobing dot-com coliseum and catch a few good-time rockabilly tunes from my main man Brian” and wouldn’t you know it gee golly gosh wow gee, I was right. The man can sling an axe like it’s 1957 all over again. I technically haven’t experienced 1957 because I was but a twinkle in my old pappy’s nutsack at the time but I’ve read it was a very important year because Elvis got drafted (although he hadn’t yet been forced to kiss ass by singing with Sinatra) and Jerry Lee set an innocent piano on fire but skies were still sunny because the Big Bopper was in his prime putting the fear of god into every Mr. and Mrs. Smith who cared for their little Sally’s virginal sanctity and Eisenhower could go golfing whenever he felt it and wait wasn’t that the year Fonzie went water-skiing??? In any case the point is that the Stray Cats rocked the house LAME-ASS RETRO-SHTICK OR NOT and they should be COMMENDED FOR IT.

Cousins Of The Wize may be the closest thing to a hip-hop “supergroup” in Phoenix. Some members of the 8-piece collective have played with local luminaries Trik Turner and Phunk Junkeez, COTW MC Pie has released some much lauded solo work as Magnum P.I.e, and the group’s played with a host of hot acts that includes Incubus, Cypress Hill, Run-D.M.C., House of Pain, De La Soul, Fishbone, and Pharcyde.

Forget the mainstream-underground battle. In hip-hop, success at either end of the spectrum often depends on stereotype and formula. Either rappers get all blingy, or they waste all their time dissing the bling. Sage Francis is the exception. Operating outside the mainstream, Francis makes a different kind of poetry —…

In 1977, the Village People burst onto the disco scene, and by 1978, thanks to the success of their single “YMCA,” the homoerotic disco singers had become infamous for their costumes and “American man” personas: police officer, American Indian chief, construction worker, biker, cowboy, and military man. What you might…

When the members of Psycho Gypsy first applied makeup to their young faces in early 1992, it was at a time when their musical heroes had thoroughly scrubbed the stuff out of their pores, seemingly for good. Psycho Gypsy co-founder and bassist/guitarist Tim Cheney says, “Before we put together our…

Three sources have now confirmed the latest Van Halen hype: the band is reuniting with original singer David Lee Roth and embarking on a 50-date tour this October. (The sources are Web sites Melodicrock.com, BillBoard.com, and MSN.com).

The Meat Puppets: Rise To Your Knees
Anodyne Records, 2007

Since it was my brilliant idea and all to name our bouncing baby blog after a Meat Puppets album (not the best one, but we damn well couldn’t call it “II” now could we?) and considering my marked tendencies to fawn and drool whenever said Puppets pop up in conversation, it was only natural that I was ready and raring to kiss their asses up and down for this one. Well, you can imagine my consternation when I listened to it several times over and found it dull as snot. Flat vocals, plodding paces, boring drumming, with some nice guitar solos but not enough to pull the whole thing outta the muck. Almost seventy minutes long and a chore to listen to, see.

However…

WOW! RUSH WAS, LIKE, SO AWESOME! GEDDY LEE WAS PROBABLY THE BEST BASS PLAYER EVER! AND NEIL PEART WAS AMAZING! IT WAS SO COOL! AND THEN THEY PLAYED ‘TOM SAWYER’ AND IT WAS AWESOME! BEST SHOW EVER! THEY HAD PYROTECHNICS AND LASERS AND EVEN A REALLY HOT GIRL WHO CAME OUT AND BASTED THEIR CHICKENS AND…

Oof, sorry about that. Sometimes my little brother gets a hold of my computer thinking it’s one of them super-fun Speak ’n’ Spells and he just makes such a mess. G’wan, git! Ye rascally scamp.

Anywho. As someone who generally thinks still-existing classic rock bands are by and large old, fat, greedy, boring corporate thunder lizards who deserve to be swept off the face of the planet to make room for fresher bands, I’m basically required to hate Rush. But then again I know the best way to destroy any pretenses of trying to be hip is to say they were great. And that’s the flat truth that I’m dealing with on this grey morn: I basically liked ‘em. In spite of the corporate rock trappings, in spite of the hype around their musicianship, in spite of the cheese…they rocked hard ‘n’ heavy.

Welcome to Up on the Sun, the new and improved New Times music blog. I am your new blog captain and man-on-the-scene, Matt Neff. As the new reporter on the, uhh, thriving Phoenix music scene, it’s my duty to inform you of what I plan to write about.

Two married pop-country superstars, one stage, one burning question: Who would win in a celebrity death match between these two happily married artists? Why Faith Hill Will Win: With hits like “Wild One,” “This Kiss,” “Breathe,” and “Mississippi Girl,” Hill has established herself as one of the greatest country music…

Curly, raven-haired Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) is a beautiful dork and potential prom queen of the science and math magnet school, seemingly groomed like the protagonist of Princess Diaries for the indie-pop throne. A quirky, imaginative musician, Clark’s played guitar for Polyphonic Spree, Sufjan Stevens and Glen Branca, which…

It took the hills of Tennessee to shake The Comas’ singer and guitarist, Andy Herod, of his bad habits. But the story goes back farther, to 2004’s breakout release, Conductor, penned in the wake of his breakup with Dawson’s Creek star Michelle Williams, a heartbreak immortalized in the woozy song…

Buy a ticket to the Projekt Revolution concert and your purchase could help eliminate an estimated 167 tons of carbon emissions this year. That should make you feel pretty good about yourself. In fact, give yourself a pat on the back for hitting up a tour that donates $1 of…

While it’s become standard practice for bands to slog through the same old set list night after night, Portugal. The Man has come up with a novel approach to providing audiences with a unique experience each and every time it takes the stage. Nowadays, coming up with a new song…

Perhaps more significant to today’s audiences than Sgt. Pepper’s 40th anniversary was the Beatles’ contribution that same summer to the program Our World. As part of the very first live global television link, the show was broadcast to 26 countries and watched by 350 million people via satellite on June…

Picture this: You’re walking down a street, circa 1983, and soaking in all sorts of music from the cool cats carrying boom boxes on their shoulders. Or imagine you’re making a cameo appearance in that killer scene in Amèlie, when the lo-fi sounds from the old dude’s portable record player…

Fergie, probably the most lusted-after hip-hop artist in the world, released her solo debut, The Dutchess, last year. It features 13 tracks of brainless dribble, including “London Bridge” and the barely literate “Fergalicious,” which, upon topping the charts, proved once and for all that hip-hop often specifically targets the dumbest…

Every week, a band breaks up, ending more often with a whimper than a bang. That’s a fate South Mountain Lights sought to avoid with The Last Word, the release of which they’ll celebrate with their final show. “We’ve both been in bands where the band falls apart and you…

Rock music history is paved with the asphalt of failure and obscurity — in their respective eras, the now-venerated watersheds the Stooges, Nick Drake, Velvet Underground, and Tim Buckley moved units in the teensy-weensiest figures. But as someone in the blues field observed, “Give me the flowers while I’m living.”…

OZZFEST IS FREE THIS SUMMER! As the words tolled out over the alkali flats, the rejoicing hordes of twitching, gibbering headbangers nearly swept away the bricks and mortar of our fair nation. Thousands of angry white men went into spasms on guitar showroom floors as police reported an unprecedented outbreak…

The next guy who calls 2007 “the year of the reunion” is gonna get his nose separated from his face. Sure, 40 years removed from the Summer of Love, it’d be nice to think there were larger Utopian forces at work beyond common greed and stalled solo careers bringing together…

No Use for a Name has been around for 20 years now, which is staggering when you consider that just about as many people know the punk band’s name today as in 1987, though that may have something to do with the fact that it has no use for one…