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Shan Man of 98 KUPD You can hear 98 KUPD’s weeknight DJ from 7-11 p.m. every weeknight and find his KUPD blogs at www.98kupd.com. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Is this a trick question and are…

Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop…

Bob Weir is a restless soul. Already fully engaged with Furthur — his latest and perhaps most true-to-form post-Grateful Dead venture — his solo band Ratdog, assorted musical projects at his TRI Studios, activity in various political and environmental organizations, plus the occasional mountain bike foray, Weir now prepares to…

If you’re the sort who tracks hot EDM blogs and remixes, you might surmise that the popularity of moombahton, the genre DJ Dave Nada invented three years ago by slowing Dutch house records to reggaeton speed, is waning. The style is losing ground to “trap music,” a subterranean take on Southern…

Comedian Gregg Turkington was watching when Arizona’s equivalent to Walter Cronkite said President Reagan’s fake son was being brainwashed into becoming a punk rocker by the evils of sociology (that’s right: sociology, not socialism). Turkington was a teen living in Tempe at the time, collecting punk records and devouring movies,…

Election years tend to carry more chaos then normal ones, but there was something else going on in 2012. Maybe it’s the aura of apocalypse made people a little stranger this year. We had the Syrian Civil War, the Aurora Shooting, Israel being dicks to Gaza and vice versa, Mitt…

Did anyone watch David Letterman Monday night? Well, if you didn’t, you missed the greatest rock band of all time, Led Zeppelin, interviewed after receiving a Kennedy Center Honor. Something about seeing them together made me feel…overwhelmed. They’re still alive but they have no intention of getting back together. How…

The news of Mark Erickson’s suicide in September hit the Phoenix music community hard. Erickson was a familiar face on stage, performing in local groups including ROAR, Gospel Claws, and Sweetbleeders. But it was Colorstore, the band he fronted for nearly a decade, that most reflects Erickson’s commanding, singular vision…

This week’s Take Cover session is a little different, as it’s the first time we’ve featured a touring band. Kopecky Family Band drove 16 hours straight from Norman, Oklahoma, to the Musical Instrument Museum to play a few songs and explore the museum. Tonight the band is scheduled to perform…

The DIY method might be the record-releasing choice of local bands around the country — after all, the Internet opens all kinds of possibilities for self promotion, recording, and pressing — but increasingly, Phoenix artists seem to be signing to small labels. And it seems the Valley’s Mike Zimmerlich is…

Once a week Up on the Sun features a new comic strip from punk rocker, cartoonist, and full-time dad Brad Dwyer. See the New Times print edition to check out the strip in glorious, inky newsprint each Thursday…

The news waits for no one — at least that’s what we read somewhere — so it’s perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of…

Of the many pearls of wisdom that Yoda dropped on Luke Skywalker’s ass in The Empire Strikes Back (“Size matters not,” “Wars not make one great”) it was the green-skinned Jedi guru’s Zen-like mantra of “Do or do not…there is no try” that probably resonates the most with Joe Maldonado…

Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer The composer hosts the podcast Trainwreck in Progress. Listen to it here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? I drive a scooter! (You know, the orange one with the green, fuzzy seat.) So no…

Local Latin, reggae, and punk peddlers Fayuca have seen their fair share of success as a productive year comes to an end. Now the trio is ready to step up their game with a brand new album that’s almost within earshot. We document the band’s 11-year run in this week’s…

By Dan Moore Psy’s Gangnam Style is now the most-viewed YouTube video ever, and as we go to press Monday morning that means it’s been watched coming up on 830 million times. That means that the single biggest pop culture event of 2012–the video you’re most likely to talk about…

David Bazan was a pretty cool Christian in 2002. His band, Pedro the Lion (of which Bazan was the sole consistent member) had a string of impressive releases to its name, including 1998’s It’s Hard to Find a Friend and 2000’s Winners Never Quit, plus a couple of singles and…

John Reis’ musical résumé includes at least four defunct bands that people would pay lots of money to see today. One is Hot Snakes, a San Diego-based quartet that blends the simplicity of three-chord garage rock (à la the Wipers) with the downstrummed aural assault championed by Johnny Ramone. But…

“Fayuca” is Spanish slang for the contraband markets that spring up in Mexico. These are places where any assortment of illicit goods can be found and purchased, from televisions to leather jackets, prosthetic limbs to staple foods. And it is where that Phoenix’s reggae-punk-Latin rock band gets its name. “We’re…

Each Monday, Up on the Sun starts its week with a missive from cartoonist Brad Dwyer. Dwyer earned attention with his self-published collections, Epic Tales of the Mundane, and his Record Heat series for UOTS parallels the themes of Epic Tales…: melancholy, punk rock, geekery, and a bruised-and-battered optimism, all…