Isn’t science remarkable? You can drop a laser beam on a silver disc and be musically transported back to some circa-1958 VA hall, slow dancing to the sound of a smoky-voiced gal accompanied only by her upright bass, some lonesome pedal steel and some minimal snare brushwork, all wrapped up…
It’s a beautiful fall evening, twilight at my house in downtown Tempe, mild temperatures at last, the scent of blooming night jasmine floating through my open windows. Across the street, a gaggle of my skateboarder friends are on their front porch drinking Budweiser and smoking cigarettes. Later on, another friend…
The two hottest job perks that come along with being a member of the Minibosses can be summed up by a pair of photos posted on a friend’s Web site. In the first shot, taken on the occasion of the Tempe band’s performance at the Atomix Gamers’ Choice Awards in…
These days, whenever he puts out a new album from either of the two bands he fronts — the clamorous Cursive or the comparatively subdued, acoustic-based the Good Life — Tim Kasher knows the phone calls are coming. Not from family and friends wanting to congratulate him for the achievement…
All across the country, punk rockers recognize him. New Yorkers know his byline. But if you’re neither, the name George Tabb might draw a blank. In short, he’s the “Professor of Punk.” Keep in mind, the man himself — dressed unassumingly in jeans and a mustard-colored tee shirt, with cropped…
There’s a reason crime and punishment stories work best in an antiquated setting. Bloody jpegs of a crime scene can’t match the romance of sepia-toned photos of outlaws staring blankly into an uncertain future. Even the preferred weaponry from the digital age, like an automatic weapon or a stun gun,…
Music people rejoiced when Kimber Lanning, owner of Tempe’s Stinkweeds record store, announced her plans to open a new Stinkweeds location in central Phoenix. The 800-square-foot space at 12 West Camelback, on the northwest corner at Central Avenue, is slated to open its doors on Saturday, September 18. Call it…
Some people dread reunions. It would be easy to assume that about Charles Thompson — the charismatic Pixies front man who shrieked and howled under the name Black Francis before launching a successful solo career as Frank Black, his current moniker — who is infamous for being a grouch. Interviewing…
I’m damn close to drawing blood from chewing on my lips, and my hands are shaking from a combination of shitty hotel coffee and simmering rage. No, I’m not at an AA meeting — but I will soon be driven to drink. I’m sitting in on the second meeting of…
October 2003. You usually don’t find this many miscreants in the parking lot of Jugheads on a Sunday morning. You’ve got some rough trade in spiky leather jackets, a crying Indian, three-card-monte hacks, a pair of trailer-trash beauties, a tow-truck operator with Wolverine sideburns, a pool shark with a nasty…
Those Black Keys boys have been up to no good. Not far from the blues-rock duo’s studio inside a toxic old rubber factory in an Akron, Ohio, slum, Lockheed Martin is building high-altitude surveillance airships — battle blimps — in the Airdock, one of the largest structures in the world…
Anonymity doesn’t come easy for a dude with Technicolor forearms. But despite the many tattoos that checker the thin frame of Myk Porter — they distinguish the Brandtson front man at 30 paces, before you can even make out his features — he and his bandmates have grown accustomed to…
Ahmir Khalib Thompson is the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Musician. Producer. DJ. Actor. Talent scout. Social commentator. Svengali behind the Okayplayer hip-hop community. A man who can pull off punctuation in a stage name: ?uestlove. The kick-ass drummer of the ass-kickingest hip-hop collective on Earth. Oh, yeah. And then…
“I wouldn’t consider us a throwback, but I also wouldn’t say we’re reinventing the wheel of rock ‘n’ roll,” says Ronnie Vannucci, drummer for the Killers. “We’re taking the best parts of the music we were influenced by, putting them in our songs and making them our own.” The Killers…
My friend John has recently been tinkering with activism: When he’s bored at work, he’s been duplicating Kyle Goen’s infamous poster with a picture of President Bush that says “Elect a Madman, You Get Madness” and local artist Scott McKenzie’s Bush “i lied” stickers onto copy machine sticker paper, as…
If you love music, you can probably name a band that changed your life, that was a catalyst for your attitudes and tastes and ideas. That’s not to say you got stuck on it forever, or that you never branched out into other things. But discovering that band was such…
Behold, underachieving, Internet-surfing cubicle-dweller of corporate America: Your next great workplace distraction awaits. For we have invented it: Fantasy Rock Stars. Fantasy Rock Stars aims to combine two of modern society’s most debilitating obsessions — celebrity worship and fantasy sports — into one fabulous national pastime. For the uninitiated, the…
On Saturday, July 3, Ed Ryan, the owner of Drop In Skate Shop, was nearly fatally shot during a botched robbery attempt that happened while he was closing up for the night. The assault left Ryan in intensive care (from which he has since recovered) while his pregnant wife Kari…
Perhaps I’m an anomaly (“perhaps,” my ass), but I’ve recently concluded that making romantic-minded mix tapes and CDs is always an uncomfortable, if not completely humiliating, experience. Case in point: Some time ago I was riding in a close female friend’s car, when I noticed that her tape deck was…
Onstage in tight, flamboyant clothes, with his eyes smeared in makeup and pale platinum blond bangs brushing his super-high cheekbones, Rory Lewarne has the wiry, androgynous good looks of your typical rock ‘n’ roll sex symbol. He just looks like he should be in front of a crowd somewhere, sweaty…
There’ll be a lot of celebrating at Casket Life’s tour kickoff show on Friday, August 6, at Ziggy’s in Tempe — not only is the band headed out for a two-week Southwest/Midwest tour, it’s also become the first group to sign to Stomping Ground Records (www.stompinggroundrecords.com), a new local venture…
Metal is metal and punk is punk, and never the twain shall meet. Or at least that’s been the story for the last 20 years since the two movements’ brief convergence in the mid-’80s. Back in 1985 and ’86, releases by metal bands such as Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax forged…
