One man installs a recording studio in a house or a storefront, starts an independent record label, signs a roster of artists, and — boom — a music factory is born. It’s the stuff that fills whole display cases in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With minor variations,…
Summer of 2013 can more or less be summed up with three songs–Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness.” All three tunes are a little grim–“Blurred Lines” can be interpreted as glorifying rape, Icona Pop has no problem with trashing her car,…
They may not be active anymore, but you can currently hear four Arizona bands from the ’80s in a film-worthy setting. Nicolas Cage and John Cusack’s new film The Frozen Ground is set in 1980s Alaska, and classic AZ groups including New Wave band The Jetzons and power poppers Blue Shoes…
One Direction: This Is Us made $18 million over the Labor Day weekend. That means the One Direction movie did better than the Katy Perry movie and significantly worse than the Justin Bieber movie, which–fanbase-wise–seems intuitively right to me. But it’s not a lot of money for a movie. It’s…
People from Phoenix treat the summer like the zombie apocalypse. I realize this every time I stare out of a car window at people groaning and lifelessly shuffling in the heat. I think about how I would never dare go out there, for fear of being infected…
Remember Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill? Yeah, so does Eminem. If you doubt it, take one listen to the absolutely inessential “Berzerk” single from the forthcoming Marshall Mathers LP II, where he makes the emphatic case that we ought to “take it back to straight hip-hop.” It’s not terrible advice,…
When you are a certified music junkie like I am, you tend to weave music in and out of life. It influences every area of your existence. Does that mean music is part of my parental philosophy? Of course. It’s one of my greatest tools. In fact, I find that…
Perhaps you’ve read the weirdly fawning praise of Bob Dylan’s tenth installment in his famed Bootleg Series, Another Self Portrait 1969-1971. (“One of the most important, coherent and fulfilling Bob Dylan albums ever released,” some buffoon for Rolling Stone just claimed!) Perhaps, while in your collecting-every-Dylan-record phase, you presumed that…
When I first heard “Blurred Lines,” I was driving in my car. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place the song. So I Shazamed it. Still nothing. I didn’t recognize the title. About a half-an-hour later . . . Abracadabra! I remembered Marvin Gaye’s extended groove, “Got…
“With low expectations it’s very easy to surprise people.” You’ll never guess who said that. No, not Norman Vincent Peale — Pamela Anderson said that! See how this low expectations thing works? On a night when loathing everything came easy and liking anything new seemed doubtful, I caught The Prowling…
*NSYNC’s comeback was even more ephemeral than any of us predicted: Not even a full song, just enough of “Bye Bye Bye” to get J.C. Chasez in front of the Popping and Locking Triangle for a few bars. As it turns out, it was enough–people got their chance to gawk…
God, the internet is weird. Also *NSYNC fans, but mostly the internet. Just days after Lance Bass’s non-denial an *NSYNC reunion at Sunday’s VMAs was confirmed, in this order, by Joey Fatone’s dad and the opening of a verified Twitter account in their name. , which immediately drew 67,000 followers…
If the curtain hasn’t already been lifted for you, let me raise it with gusto: Most people who play in any punk band are, and always have been, pretty big nerds. But for every group of 1,000 Jello Biafras, there is at least 1 Henry Rollins in the bunch. A…
Some of my friends think I’m a music elitist. Totally untrue. After 25 years in record stores, and a lifetime of being a music junkie, I know more about music than the average bear. I cannot deny that. But an elitist? No way. I’m not even a decent critic. I…
Why should Phoenicians care about a festival that’s happening nearly 400 miles away, in rival territory no less? Some of you diehard sports fans are probably groaning that we’re featuring a music festival in the hometown of the dreaded Lakers, Kings, and Bruins. The short answer is My Bloody Valentine,…
Wildly psychedelic, stylishly dressed, always uplifting in spirit (so much that some considered them just another wayward Texas cult), The Polyphonic Spree has kept a relatively low profile lately. The band has been holed up in leader Tim DeLaughter’s home studio jamming the night away — but the pop-psych veterans…
In December 2012, Dagwood Reed was singing, playing keyboards, and writing songs for his sci-fi-inspired local band, Se7en of Nin9. His romantic partner of nearly 20 years had passed away a year earlier from Addison’s disease, but the self-proclaimed most positive person he knows stayed in high spirits. He loved…
NSYNC reunion talk has dominated music news this week, because everybody in America really, really misses the ’90s, and despite a non-denial from Lance Bass it seems like there’s still a good chance it actually happens, even if nobody at the VMAs was planning on it originally. (How could they…
This summer, I took a trip of epic proportions, leaving the hot, sweltering desert for the cool, mosquito-filled vastness of Alaska and points north. I saw amazing sights — bears, whales, glaciers, rain forests, and rivers two miles wide — before school forced my return to this urban existence. All…
Well, this is a surprise: Lil Wayne, just three years removed from a career-making feature in Weezer’s “Can’t Stop Partying,” is playing Phoenix on September 2, just over two weeks from now. Tickets–$50 each, all proceeds benefiting the conveniently named Carter Fund–go on sale tomorrow morning at the Celebrity Theatre’s…
My mom warned me about rock ‘n’ roll. She said it was a bad influence and a crazy lifestyle. Overflowing with sex, drugs, partying, and lots of other things God didn’t dig. She said stay away at all costs. So I made a career out of it. No, really. Not…
I went to see some of my favorite local bands at Tempe’s most notoriously seedy dive bar, the Palo Verde. If you haven’t had the privilege of checking it out, you can find it located in the scenic industrial district of Tempe. Nestled between a milk-processing factory and an array…
