Wait, what? Katy Perry is being considered too sexy for China? And Lady Gaga is too controversial, you say? That’s unheard of! Well, not if you have any say in Chinese cultural authority.Katy Perry’s hit “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” as well as six songs by Lady Gaga have been blacklisted…
Jessica Cuff Cuff is the owner of The Coffee Shop and has appeared on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? 103.9-FM. I’m not hella into a ton of super mainstream bands, but I’d…
No doubt you read our awesome Q&A with Atmosphere’s Slug from the other day — but even if you didn’t, you probably want to go see the group on Saturday at Mesa Amphitheater. After all, the group’s latest record, The Family Sign, is loaded with taut rhymes and minimal beats…
Well, here’s one for the “nobody is surprised” bin: Rapper Earl Simmons, better known as DMX, was arrested Wednesday night. The arrest took place just before 9 p.m. after being pulled over for doing 102 miles per hour while driving westbound on U.S. 60 near the Power Road exit in…
In this week’s issue, we featured a story about Mergence, a Phoenix band that knows a thing or two about “weird.” We knew the group was out there — just check out singer Adam Bruce’s explanation of “Me and My Family Vs. The Robots” — but when guitarist Yod Paul…
Local funk band JUNKtheband wanted to positively impact the community when they wrote their song, “Protect Your Joy,” since the track was inspired by news of young people committing suicide as a result of bullying. “I was a small kid and bullied quite a bit growing up,” says singer/guitarist Marten…
This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. Why is College Dropouts returning to the same location where it closed only months ago? What…
How can a self-respecting weirdo rock ‘n’ roll songwriter stand apart from the crowd? How does one manage to craft songs about typical tropes (love, freedom, and self-discovery) without sounding, well, typical? For Adam Bruce, the frontman of Tempe-based indie-blues quartet Mergence, the answer is simple and unexpected: Wrap those…
BIG FREEDIA IS SHAKING BOOTIES AND TAKING NAMES. The evolution of “bounce music” in New Orleans has been a strange one. For more than two decades, New Orleans DJs have been using the same two hip-hop samples to get parties moving — the Showboys’ “Drag Rap (Triggerman)” and Cameron Paul’s…
Atmosphere, the duo of Sean Daley (a.k.a. Slug) and Anthony Davis (a.k.a. Ant) has been a commanding force in indie hip-hop since the group formed in 1989. Not only did the two help found Minneapolis-based Rhymesayers Entertainment, but their 2003 release, Seven’s Travels, co-released by punk-minded label Epitaph, helped expose…
To the surprise of an awful lot of people, it turns out that no illegal substances were found in Amy Winehouse’s body. Furthermore, a drug overdose was not the cause of Winehouse’s unexpected death. However, reports mentioned that alcohol was present in her system, but it is still unclear whether…
The concert gods giveth and the concert gods taketh away. Phoenix has been getting a whole lot on the giveth side lately. (Is this punishment for the whole Bon Iver-Fleet Foxes thing?!) The taketh part came with an announcement yesterday afternoon that Lil Wayne postponed his Ashley Furniture HomeStore Pavilion…
Good news for lovers of gravelly-voiced eccentric songwriters: There’s a new Tom Waits album coming down the pipe. It’s called Bad As Me and drops on October 25, courtesy Anti- Records, Waits’ home for the past decade. The title track hit both iTunes and Amazon for download today, and it’s perfectly…
Local rap-duo Cut Throat Logic is gearing up for the video release party of their dance jam “We Own The Night” this Friday, August 26, at Majerle’s in Scottsdale. The track is the lead single off of the group’s upcoming album, When The Lights Go Out, scheduled to come out…
As if anything could possibly tarnish Lindsay Lohan’s reputation more than her past actions already have, Lohan is reportedly suing Pitbull for defamation due to the lyrics he wrote in his annoying, overplayed hit song “Give Me Everything.” The lyrics that are getting Lohan fired up are “Hustlers move aside…
Sad news hitting the web today: Jerry Leiber, the lyricist who wrote classic songs from Elvis Presley, The Drifters, Stealers Wheel, and many more, passed away today at the age of 78. Leiber and Stoller worked as a team, with Leiber writing words to Stoller’s compositions (that man’s way with…
Twin Sister is a Long Island-bred indie-pop quintet that creates lush, dreamy music. The songs are an outburst of melody enriched with a deep sense of emotion and atmosphere, personified by lead singer, Andrea Estella’s warm, whispered vocals resulting in a remarkable set of songs that can only be described…
Last week marked the 16th anniversary of the tragic death of Mike Condello, who took his life on August 17th, 1995, in his Santa Monica apartment. Best known as the musical director of The Wallace and Ladmo Show, Condello’s musical career was marred by spotty promotion and record company politics…
Phoenix-based outfit Snake! Snake! Snakes! specializes in a sound well suited for high drama. The group’s 2010 self-titled release proved that the band had its gaze aimed at the big time, filled with tunes that earned comparisons to previous indie bands that wound up playing arenas: U2, The Arcade Fire,…
Mainstream and indie film actor Michael Cera knew what was up back in January. He hopped on the supergroup bandwagon and joined a band called Mister Heavenly, which is made up of Honus Honus of Man Man, Nicholas Thorburn of Islands and The Unicorns, and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse…
Last week we wrote about Alice Cooper’s new album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, set to be released on September 13. While the promise of a new “Coopster” (that’s what fans call him) record no doubt excited classic rock fans, we did lack one element in our blog post that could…
First came Cheap Trick’s disastrous performance at the Ottawa Bluesfest. Thankfully nobody was badly hurt in that disaster. Next came the Flaming Lips’ lighting rig in Oklahoma. The band wound up with $800,000 worth of damaged equipment. Last weekend it happened with Sugarland at the Indiana State Fair. Misfortune has…
