When you spend as much time on the road as blues artist Shawn Pittman, you come to savor places like the Czech Stop on I-35 in West Texas. “It’s this little gas station and has all these great Czech pastries and sandwiches and stuff,” he says during a phone interview…
The year is 1993. A crowd is gathered outside Underground Chicken Sound Studios in Huntington Beach, California, curious about the noises reverberating from inside. There’s something about the sounds that is different. The band is Korn, and it was just the start. Within years, the band would be headlining festivals…
Maybe you hear it directly, maybe you don’t. But there’s a spirit that sits in between the notes on Algiers, a spirit that guided the record, some decades-old essence of a converted Baptist church near the Mississippi River that Tucson’s Calexico drew on like a well to record its seventh…
Is there any better way to ring in the Christmas season than a Pitbull concert? His new album, Global Warming, is hitting shelves at the end of November, just in time for the holidays, no? If you’re not sure what to ask Santa for this year, how about a few…
Since the New Times is moving this column to coincide with the print edition, I thought I’d take a moment to re-introduce myself and give you a peek into why I’ve resided in Arizona for the past 17 years. It has a little to do with the glowing gray area…
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas–even though Halloween is still just around the corner. As grocery stores begin to stock their Christmas crap decorations, the last show announcements of the year trickle in. Historically, the line up for Alice Cooper’s Christmas Pudding gets announced every October, and while…
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…
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…
If you happened to be a member of the Valley’s old school DJ/rave scene back in the mid-1990s, there was one place where you almost always hit up for both your music and gear: Swell Records. Without getting too overly hyperbolic, the music and clothing emporium owned by Russel Ramirez…
Gabriele Bertaccini Bertaccini is the executive chef and president of Il Tocco Food and Culinary Mischief. For more information, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Is it boring if i say NPR? Yes, I am…
Two seems to be the perfect number when it comes to experimental rock music: Death From Above 1979, Lightning Bolt, Japandroids, and No Age manage to make a lot of noise for two-person bands, and Hella is no exception. Local metal/post hardcore duo Partners in Crime follows this tradition by…
In this week’s issue of Phoenix New Times, we profile Anamieke Quinn, Fervor Records publicist and musician in three local bands, including the group she fronts, Treasurefruit. The group recently lost their young bassist, which inspired Quinn to write “Giddy Up.” See also: Anamieke Quinn Leads the Charge of an…
Anamieke Quinn’s home in South Scottsdale is testament to her passion for music. There are shelves lined with records of soulful jazz from the ’30s, Brazilian sounds, world music, and classic rock, and a recording studio adjoins the bedroom of Quinn and her husband, producer Michael Quinn. Quinn, who grew…
The Glass Heroes were destined to fail. Yet in a staggering feat of rock ‘n’ roll defiance, the band has been pumping its brand of hit-to-the-gut punk out of venue speakers for 21 years. It’s a remarkably long time for any band, and even more remarkable considering the group’s stubborn…
Dan Deacon’s name is synonymous with “experimental,” and not just because of his quirky musical soundscapes. The man exudes the air of a guy who lives outside the box, from his thrift store chic clothing and co-founding Wham City (Baltimore’s weirdest art collective) to making viral videos with Jimmy Joe…
Lauryn Hill may be making headlines as a tax evader, but forget all that for a second and focus on one thing: her voice. She’s nothing if not accomplished. She won Grammy Awards back-to-back, for her solo debut and as the co-producer of Carlos Santana’s Supernatural. She acted as 1/3…
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…
Mesa reggae/punk outfitAuthority Zero has come a long way in the past decade. 2002 marked the release of the band’s first full-length album, A Passage in Time, and the start of a relentless tour schedule. The band went from playing free, intimate shows at Zia Records to a few years…
By now you’ve probably grown accustomed to starting every other week with a dispatch from “Chicken Little” himself, Maynard James Keenan. Up on the Sun is proud to feature Keenan’s column twice a month, and you folks have responded in a big way to the the winemaker/multimedia artist/musician/actor’s musings. As…
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…
