By all accounts local rapper Jose “Low Key” Hernandez was both talented and generous during his short time on Earth. According to his family, Hernandez spent Christmas Day 2015 with his friends, handing out blankets to the homeless and toys to kids as part of the charitable organization he founded,…
Diversity and adversity often go hand in hand. In the case of England’s Culture Club, the two words have always come bundled together, even if the former is more descriptive of what the group represents, and the latter is something they seemingly love to create. A product of the early-1980s…
The Vans Warped Tour is what you’d call a chaotic experience. In fact, during any of the various stops that the touring concert festival makes each summer, it’s easy to get lost in all the bedlam of the hectic cultural menagerie going on all around you and listen to a…
“Jameson,” the ninth track of Zella Day’s 2015 album, Kicker, stands out like a grassy meadow in a metropolis. Sparse in its vulnerability and despair, the song is just Day finger-picking acoustic chords as some gentle guitar lines float through the background. Day was just 18 when she wrote the…
Did y’all hear any rumors this week about a potential Rage Against the Machine reunion tour happening this summer? Probably so, considering it was a major topic of discussion after the mysterious-looking website ProphetsofRage.com was endorsed by a RATM-approved Twitter account on Tuesday, May 17. The relatively spartan-looking site, which…
Attention residents of Chandler: despite what you might have seen on Facebook recently, Slim Shady probably won’t be moving into your hood anytime soon. And if you’ve heard or read otherwise, it’s safe to say you’ve been bamboozled by an Internet hoax. Last week, a story from the website Dailynews11.com…
Waiting 364 days since last year’s Record Store Day probably put a serious ache in the hearts of record collectors, but that veil of sadness is about to lift. Saturday, April 16, is the day vinyl fanatics and music freaks have been rabidly awaiting. Collectors and fans will flood local…
If there were any doubts that Kendrick Lamar dominated 2015 critically, this should lay those to rest. Our former sister paper Village Voice released its annual critic’s survey, Pazz + Jop, today. The project tallied votes from nearly 500 music journalists, who voted for up to 10 of their favorite…
Although there’s something ghoulish about measuring a year’s passage by how many celebrities we lost to the Reaper, the Academy Awards’ and Grammy Awards’ “In Memorium” montages provide a much-needed public service in the “I didn’t know (insert name/pronoun) died!” department. Because everyone knows celebrities generally die in threes, a…
Chester Bennington will no longer perform as lead singer with Stone Temple Pilots, the band announced today. Bennington joined Stone Temple Pilots roughly two-and-a-half years ago. In a statement released by the band on its website, Bennington said the split boils down to scheduling. “The last few years have been…
Having smoothed over their explosive 2010 breakup, the duo of King Khan and BBQ locked themselves in a basement early this year and let the spirits get to work. “When we started recording again, in a way it was more fun than we’d ever had,” says Khan. “We were drinking…
Earlier today, news broke online that LCD Soundsystem would be reuniting in the next year, five years after their much ballyhooed end. Consequence of Sound was first out of the gate with the item, citing “multiple sources” confirming the rumor. Shortly after the post, which was, as you might imagine,…
They’re subtle — and sometimes sung in Spanish — but the questions that are scattered across Calexico’s Edge of the Sun carry the thrust of the album’s themes. Where? What? Why? The questions are prominent on an album about progressing, searching, and moving. And they’re at the core of interactions,…
Through the early 2000s, Phoenix wasn’t much of a music festival city. Outside of Lollapalooza’s initial stop in 1991, significant music festivals were virtually nonexistent in the Valley. Festivals weren’t the monstrous industry they are now, but as the scene began to grow and expand from a few festivals to…
Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Remember them? Tons of fun but, let’s be honest, super-frustrating, too, as every match, at least at my house, always degenerated into one combatant holding down both buttons and forcing his robot to push out both arms and move forward until one or both little…
Last time we heard about Upon a Burning Body singer Danny Leal, he faked his own disappearance as part of a mindblowingly ill-conceived publicity stunt just prior to a concert in Phoenix. Now, he’s acting up again, according to metal blog Lambgoat. Reportedly, Leal approached Dylla and some of her…
Nate Valdez is good with fingers. Take, for example, his care when removing jewelry from them. First he coats a finger with wax. Then he ties a string around its base and wiggles it up slowly behind the ring it’s wearing until the ring slinks off the tip at the…
Motown on Mondays is on the move. The DJs behind popular dance joint — which focuses on remixes of the Motown hits of yesteryear, as well as old-school soul, funk and disco classics — are planning to pack up their tracks and head across downtown Phoenix from the Crescent Ballroom…
S.O.S. Band vocalist Mary Davis’ entire musical life has been about timing — good times, bad times, taking the time to do things right, and watching the hit songs she recorded continue to stand the test of time. Davis and her band rose quickly to the top, dropped just as…
Read the next word aloud: Moist. Did the hair on your neck rise to the occasion? Did your coworker’s shoulders just curl into a disgusted shiver? The word makes us cringe, too. When Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard recently asked an interviewer to not use that word,…
Whenever DJ Akshen steps behind a pair of record decks, he tends to become a tempest of motion befitting his moniker. Such is the case on a recent morning in his Arcadia home, where the veteran turntablist is busy painting a small side room with a slew of scratching over…
Van Halen is retuning to Phoenix later this year for the first time since 2012. The band known for hits like “Jump,” “Hot for Teacher,” and “Running With The Devil” will perform at Ak-Chin Pavilion on Monday, September 28…
