“What hip-hop do you know that has a Kansas country girl singing?” Mynce, the turntablist for local hip-hop group the Smob, asks me this over beers the day after the band’s CD-release party. The answer is none. I don’t know of many female artists in local hip-hop, period. That’s what…
Paul DeGeorge describes Harry and the Potters as an indie rock outreach program. He formed the band with his younger brother, Joe, when all the bands flaked on their DIY backyard show six years ago. The duo penned seven bouncy keyboard and guitar-driven indie pop songs in less than an…
Kitchen cutlery and metal bowls. The Language Master tape card reader and a typewriter. More than 80 telephone bells scavenged from Dumpster dives. Old school analog intercoms and secondhand electronics. Sounds like a pretty cool yard sale, huh? Well, it could be, or you may have just stumbled upon a…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Last night our intrepid photographer friend Luke Holwerda hit up the Police’s reunion tour stop at US Airways Arena, and snapped some awesome shots (more after the jump). Here’s Luke’s report on the gig: The crowd was really truly excited when the boys walked on stage…
By Brendan Joel Kelley As I was reminded by my music editor, Niki D’Andrea, this morning, this weekend is packed with good music, some of it New Times related. First of all, tonight is the jazz/blues/swing installment of New Times’ Summer of Sound Series, featuring DJ Seduce, Sonorous, Calumet, Paris…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Recently I wrote a column about the use of certain pejorative words – “ho’s,” “bitches,” and “niggers” – in hip-hop and the controversy that’s sprung up over them recently. Luckily, it’s not just the media that’s concerned. Here in town, there’s a group called Make Hip-Hop…
A couple of weekends ago, I traveled down to Sonoita, near the Mexican border, to hit up my cowboy buddy Andy Hersey’s release party for his new CD, Between God and Country. The first song on the disc is called “Roughshod Range,” and I’d been sitting at his ranch with…
There’s a certain, what I call, celebration of summer in our culture. I don’t care who you are. If you live in New York City in a tenement or in Arizona on a ranch, there’s something about the freedom of summertime [that harks back to our childhoods]. You wake up…
One of the most volatile and acclaimed bands to rise out of the Washington, D.C., hardcore punk scene in the early ’80s, Bad Brains overcame novelty status (four men of color playing punk) by mixing blazing speed and virtuosity with reggae riddims and social consciousness. Fronted by the often unpredictable…
When industrial rock gods Skinny Puppy play the Marquee Theatre on Tuesday, there is only one thing that audience members can truly count on: fucking insanity. The band, which has regularly reinvented itself since its formation in the early ’80s, built its reputation by bringing nightmares to reality. Using elaborate…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Since I assume that if you’re reading this you likely just don’t have enough to do at your place of employment, I thought I’d point you towards another site that’s got the potential to do some cool shit. It’s phoenixrockcity.com, a site with a plethora of…
By Brendan Joel Kelley A Second to Die If you haven’t noticed, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing metal lately, both in its traditional and innovative forms. It’s earned me the ire of some and the praise of others, and apparently broken up at least one band (that’s unconfirmed,…
By Brendan Joel Kelley My technical difficulties now resolved, here are the tracks I promised to give you from the Smob’s just-released-last-night album I Hate Your Face. Fresh off of a triumphant release party last night at the Sets with Zion I and Tajai sharing the bill, I’m about to…
By Brendan Joel Kelley I was going to grace you with some fresh new music today, being released tomorrow, but after wrestling with the internet for a while I found out that my capacity to upload and share music with you is temporarily hindered. Nonetheless, if you dig local and…
Having covered music in this town for more than a decade, I see and listen to a lot of bands encompassing all genres, styles, and persuasions, but what I rock and go see for my personal enjoyment is another, more specific matter. A few years ago and beyond, my steez…
Lindsey Buckingham is an artist. He peppers his conversation with references to Picasso and Pollock. He speaks of sounds as “colors.” And like the stereotypical artiste, the Fleetwood Mac guitarist has been characterized as enigmatic, remote, even flaky. “I am the Terrence Malick of rock,” Buckingham says with a chuckle…
Whatever your feelings about John Mayer, it’s difficult not to appreciate his hair, much in the same way it’s difficult not to appreciate Hugh Grant’s. Both share the same thick, wavy, dark brown locks that, let’s face it, make the lady-folk swoon. For example, British thesp Grant dated supermodel turned…
Actors and actresses have a long history of falling for musicians. But, generally, those musicians are rock stars, sexually ambiguous pop stars, and members (or former members) of boy bands. Country stars used to rank on the “cool list,” below white rappers but higher than reality show music competition winners…
By Brendan Joel Kelley (Thanks to my friend Paula Harms for taking the lovely photos of Andy Hersey) Last weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, I took off down south to see my cowboy buddy Andy Hersey throw down at a barn dance in Sonoita to celebrate the…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Tucson This last weekend I took a road trip out of town to see some music (more on that later), visiting my favorite little town in southern Arizona, Sonoita, and cruising through Tucson on the way there and back. I don’t care much for Tucson, although…
By Brendan Joel Kelley The Heartless If you missed local pop/punk/rock outfit the Heartless at the band’s CD release party recently, you’ll want to check out the tracks below (if energetic pop/punk is your thing). When the band dropped its EP This Could Take Some Getting Used To last year…
Judging by the malevolently eager look on his face, whatever Dale Fox of Phoenix band World Class Thugs has been keeping in his trunk for the past six months promises to be good. It is. It’s three oversized masks of World Class Thugs singer Jocelyn Ruiz-Fox, blown up from a…
