“You know the rose girl that goes around selling roses in bars and restaurants?” asks French-born, Arizona-based songwriter Marianne Dissard. “That’s what I used to do in downtown Tucson. Tucson is not like Paris. There aren’t a lot of people on the sidewalk. You’re isolated. So that job was a…
Marty Larson-Xu is confused. “I woke up and didn’t know where I was,” he says. “Was like, ‘What the hell is that smell?’ Then I looked out the window and remembered, ‘Yeah, I’m in L.A.'” It’s not quite home, but it works for now as Larson-Xu and his Eugene, Oregon-based…
All hail R.E.M.! They were the jingle-jangle morning of indie rock, and their latest albums are . . . not bad for a bunch of old farts. For all the great tunes, we have held our tongues in regard to goofy front man Michael Stipe. But no longer. For releasing…
On a recent Saturday night at Hollywood Alley, after Vin-Fiz and The Threads have run through their sets, Jared Christy, singer for The Liar’s Handshake, is perched on a stool onstage, smoking a cigarette. His bandmates Billy Culbertson and Nolan Thompson are setting up their acoustic guitar and upright bass,…
Bach. Beethoven. Brahms. Mozart. Mario. The five pillars of classical music. And while those first four dudes had a good run, it’s that last guy who enraptures us now: a Japanese-born yet ostensibly Italian plumber in a bright red jumpsuit who, in the mid-’80s, warp-zoned his way into 60 million…
It seems appropriate that local promoter Stephen Chilton (a.k.a. Psyko Steve) named his multi-venue music showcase Oh Shit! A Fest?. After all, many Valley scenesters likely will be invoking the expletive when figuring how they’ll make the most of the jam-packed lineup of 35 local and out-of-town acts spread across…
Ah, Valentine’s Day — that one day a year when you can say, “Baby, I love you as much as a diamond pendant from Zales.” Or, if you’re one of the unlucky ones, that one day a year when the loneliness actually gets worse. That’s because finding love ain’t as…
Maybe Jackie Wilson was singing about Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero when he sang “Reet Petite” — and if he wasn’t, he should have been, because Connie Francis was definitely the thing back in the late ’50s and early ’60s, the Teen Diva of Pop. Tuesday Weld opened her lips to…
“Roooooowwwwwrrrraaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrooowwwwrrrrrrr!” A guttural growl straight from the deepest pits of hell has just emanated from the throat of Melissa Cross, who follows it up with a giggle. “See, that didn’t hurt at all. But you should see the looks I just got!” That’s because the chipper, red-tressed, late-fortysomething voice instructor…
Oh, the bittersweet memories — hooking up with that nose-ring girl at the Bash on Ash, getting your teeth kicked in at the Nile, seeing some of the greatest local talent around at Neckbeard’s. . . . If you’re like most Phoenix music lovers, you’ve probably lamented the loss of…
The laws of probability and rock tradition dictate that 2006, like every year before it, will not end without a notable musical death or two. Eventually, all our rock heroes end up in the Afterlife All-Star Band. Those who went to the afterparty in 2005 — including Luther Vandross, Link…
All hail “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” That slice of ’70s-meets-’90s mass-market rock was a nice break from the sour-faced caterwauling of the “alternative” years. But Lenny Kravitz has far outstayed his welcome, and now he has debased himself for Absolut vodka. For slapping on the assless chaps and…
“My made-up age is 38,” Ryan Greene tells me while we’re sitting in his new recording studio before the immense console, overlooked by a flat wide-screen TV monitor showing some inscrutable B-movie. The legendary producer, who’s probably best known among ambitiously audiophiliac pop-punk fans, moved down to Scottsdale from the…
The most influential indie-rock record of the past decade reverently declares I love you Jesus Christ, features the songs “Two-Headed Boy” (parts one and two) and “The King of Carrot Flowers” (part one, then parts two and three combined), uses semen as a lyrical motif, crushes heavily on Anne Frank,…
Ch-ch-ch-changes! Always in favor of mixing things up, the local punk/dub genre-blenders of Authority Zero are all about switching gears lately. In a chat with New Times, Authority Zero guitarist Bill Marcks drops the skinny on AZ’s move from Lava/Atlantic, its new acoustic CD, and its ballooning DIY plans for…
The 2004 presidential election was accompanied by an almost universal outcry from the music industry for the dethroning of George W. Bush, but no one embodied this sentiment better than Green Day, with its punk-opera masterpiece American Idiot. That wasn’t the only band with something to say, though, as ska-punk…
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“Um, we better use Charlie,” Rob Kistler tells me when I ask how I should address him when referring to the country-rock band he fronts under the pseudonym Charlie Shooter, which just released its first CD a couple of weekends ago. Kistler finally capitulated to the cascade of advice suggesting…
Try to explain the depraved ethos behind films like Eli Roth’s new grindhouse pic Hostel to anyone other than a fan of the horror genre, and you’ll most likely elicit a series of concerned looks. The same goes for explaining hardcore death metal. Some people just don’t get it. And…
Loyal patrons of Neckbeard’s Soda Bar, the pirate-themed non-alcoholic music venue in Tempe that catered to teenage screamo and hardcore fans, have expressed a collective “Blimey!” since their beloved hole-in-the-wall was deep-sixed on January 10. While dozens of his former customers play the blame game on the message board of…
“I want to break into ‘Tiny Dancer’ right in the middle of one of our songs and just weird everybody out,” Andrew Pringle, pianist and vocalist for the Rescue Plan, tells me after one of the band’s practices. Elton John seems a bit incongruous an influence for the five-piece screamo…
If you didn’t look at the track title on the Treme Brass Band’s demo CD, you’d assume it was party music: jaunty tuba gets a jump on a buoyant melody filled in with trombone, trumpet and sax. The swaying rhythm is hand-clappin’, foot-stompin’, old-time New Orleans jazz — the sound…
