The rock ‘n’ roll wife has always been a martyr figure of sorts. She raises the children while her husband’s on tour, endures his infidelities, supports his successes, consoles his failures, and usually ends up a mere footnote in her famous husband’s biography. Unless, of course, she writes her own…
As reports of rock’s resurgence in the music world have continued to flood the press, so has there been an increase in stories of rock breaking down on concert stages in the U.S. and abroad: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age collapsing onstage. Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome…
As a songwriter with nearly a dozen country chart hits to his credit — including four Top 10s with his former band, McBride & The Ride, and a few other chart-toppers for the likes of Kenny Chesney, Aaron Tippin and Lee Greenwood — Arizona-born singer/guitarist Ray Herndon is used to…
The bathroom sink is bathed in blood, the splatter extending up onto the mirror above it. Near the stalls there’s a guy holding his tee shirt to his previously gushing nose. That’s just what you’d expect to see at a Madball show — tonight I’m at the Marquee Theatre in…
All hail Quincy Jones! Never has such cool walked the Earth as the man known as “Q.” And now we praise him even more as the producer of Thriller, so we can praise that great album without mentioning Michael Jackson. Certainly, you would think that with two child-molestation charges (and…
Promised for June 2004, A Time 2 Love failed to appear even by December 31, the last day Stevie Wonder could’ve delivered it in that year and still been a man of his word. Fans were hotter than July under the collar, leaving angry posts on steviewonder.com that were beyond…
Back in the day, I regularly watched DJ Radar perform with his Bombshelter DJs crew at Nita’s Hideaway and, later, the Green Room. The scratch virtuoso and I became friends, and I rarely missed one of his sets, even if it was at a rave where he was the only…
By the time Henry Rollins carries his last box of merchandise out the back door of Celebrity Theatre, the building lights have been shut off and the parking lot is almost empty. But a handful of fans still wait behind the line of tape that separates them from his tour…
Battle Acts for week of September 29 through October 5 Battle Act: Green Day Where & When: Wednesday, October 5, America West Arena, $37 to $42.50 Strongest Selling Point: They’ve scored a career milestone by claiming American Idiot is “the first punk rock opera.” Somewhere, Meat Loaf is furiously mopping…
As this issue was going to press, we received the sad news that Donnie Chiesa had died earlier this month, from complications following a stomach operation. He was 52. Anybody in the Valley who’s owned a working turntable has shopped at Tracks in Wax, the record store on Central Avenue…
When it comes to music, sometimes you need an evening of total fucking irreverence, abandon, chaos, loss-of-bowel-control hysterics. Take my advice: Look to the kids. I hit up Modified Arts a couple of weeks ago to check out a local band that fits the bill perfectly: We Fly Our Kites…
Sure, we could follow the lead of nearly every story ever written about Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo and spout off about what a weird guy he is. If one-tenth of the what-a-wing-nut tales are true, you could pretty much guarantee Cuomo a conviction in the court of strange rock-star…
When the Supreme Court ruled against Internet sites that enable peer-to-peer file-sharing this summer, it did music downloaders a favor. As anyone who’s ever visited P2P sites like Grokster and Morpheus can attest, sound quality is maddeningly dodgy and the catalogue is hopelessly disorganized. The imminent shutdown of these sites…
Some bands are fireworks, some wine. Some burn brightly and die quickly, others need time to develop their full bouquet. Ireland’s The Frames came out of the gate with a vengeance, led by the powerful, elegant voice of teenage front man Glen Hansard, who’d quit school at 13 and begun…
The tired, thirtysomething punk rocker believed his musical career was over. After chasing his dreams for so many years, it was finally time to give up — maybe even get a real job. Then everything changed. “When I joined Interpol, I was past 30 already,” says drummer Sam Fogarino, the…
Sure, we’ve got Americana up the wazoo in this dry-heated home state, but what about “Britannicana,” Britpop-rooted music made in three-digit temperatures? Could it ever happen here? It has, mate, in the form of Eurovox, a classic mod three-piece band styled after the Jam and the Who but without either…
Katrina Leskanich, former lead singer of the ’80s band Katrina and the Waves, whose one hit, “Walking on Sunshine,” became a top 10 smash in the summer of 1985, knew something was up when she checked on her Web site one day in late August and saw it was suddenly…
News of Hurricane Katrina’s unfathomable aftermath began hitting the airwaves around the same time that we were putting together this latest issue of New Times. And almost simultaneously, we started getting word from members of the Valley music community that fund-raising events to help survivors of the disaster were already…
All hail Doctor Demento, who has carried the torch of the novelty song for many years. For we are not some dour Radiohead fan who requires stone-faced “important” music. But novelty can be taken too far, and Universal Records has abused the idea with its new album, Crazy Frog Presents…
American music is a rich tapestry of historical elements, often evident in contemporary music. The White Stripes channel Delta blues with Detroit garage; bluegrass elements figure into almost every alt-country (or y’all-ternative) outfit’s output; New Orleans jazz is co-opted by post-prog rockers like the Mars Volta. But rarely do you…
Let’s just get this out of the way right now — the Redwalls are derivative, and what’s more, the bands they derive from are not hiply obscure. Hell, neither are the songs. So don’t expect to look like an authority when you play “spot the influence” with the tunes on…
Seems like gangsta rap has come a long way since the days of Casiotone beats and Jheri curl hairdos. But really, things haven’t changed at all. Take 50 Cent, who last week rereleased his so-so The Massacre not six months after its initial March launch. The new version features DVD…
