If you’re like The Decemberists lead singer Colin Meloy, then you enjoy folk-tinged albums rooted in verbosity and literary symbolism. Thank god, then, that for their sixth album, Meloy and his merry cohorts are staying true to what they do best. The King Is Dead lacks a concept — unlike…
Don’t be alarmed if you hear the sound of irritated groaning emanating from the campuses of Arizona State University and other local institutions of higher learning this week, as it’s merely the collective grumblings of students returning to class for the spring semester. Southern rapper T-Pain will offer an ease…
As I’ve been arguing for awhile, a “Silent Boycott” from SB 1070 is a serious concern — it’s not that people will put out press releases condemning our state for a law that probably won’t go into effect in any meaningful way, it’s that bands will quietly route their tour…
Does it seem like a full year since The Underground opened in downtown Mesa?It’s hard to believe, right?The venue opened on February 12, 2010 but there’s apparently another show that day (not on the calender yet). Also, the venue is kind of small so they’re doing it upstairs at the…
Name: Jake Goldsmith AKA: DJ Goldsmith Current gigs: Wednesday nights at Bar Smith for The Scenario with Hempsey in the Main Room. Genres spun: House, disco, techno, acid and many, many others. How did you get started as a DJ? I’ve always loved music and have always collected it. In…
Get ready for a night of hard and heavy alternative rock music that’s definitely worth checking out.Vayden, Warner Drive, and Ronin Meyer will be performing a big all-ages rock show on the outdoor stage at 910 Live tonight. Tickets are $10.All three bands have put a more artistic spin on…
Local legends The Meat Puppets will put out a new record, Lollipop, on April 12. The followup to 2009’s Sewn Together will come out on Megaforce Records. It was also recorded in Spoon’s HiFi Studios in Austin. Curt Kirwood produced the record himself — Curt lives in Austin and also…
Flooding in Queensland, Australia is bringing about plenty of benefit concerts, according to Spinner.While artists like Keith Urban and Mos Def are shuffling around some tour dates to work around the flood, other artists and promoters are putting a more positive spin on the disaster by organizing benefit shows.A charity…
The Flaming Lips have done an interesting musical experiment with smartphones, according to Prefix.Wayne Coyne and Steve Drozd of the Flaming Lips recently recorded a jam sesh that took place in a bath tub.The guys played different parts of a song they wrote by playing the tracks of each instrument…
Today marks the one year anniversary of the death of Jimmy Lee Lindsey, better known by his stage name, Jay Reatard. This year will see a flurry of Reatard-related activity: Reatard’s official site states that two songs Lindsey recorded two days before his passing, “You Get No Love” and “I…
Every year at Castles-n-Coasters, 50 bands play on four stages in front of crowds that could be considered big by any reasonable Phoenix standard. Odds are, however, that unless you happen to follow Christian music, you will not have heard of the bands on the two-day Rage Festival bill. Thousand…
Though they flamed out faster than John Bobbitt’s adult-film career, Air Supply can always lay claim to early-’80s light-rock godhood. In a post-Carpenters world, they kept us going, man. The group’s founding duo — guitarist Graham Russell and singer-songwriter Russell Hitchcock — have another, less obvious claim to fame: They…
Hardcore punk is one of those easily dismissed, oft-overlooked genres. Too frequently, people regard it as solely for teens — or irrelevant after the late ’80s. The reality is that good hardcore music does have a place in the music world, and bands like Madball are at the forefront of…
If you’re a loyal reader of all the New Times blogs you may have spotted a few familiar bylines over on our news blog, Valley Fever.All our coverage related to the tragic shooting in Tucson is there for convenience sake, but in case you missed some of the music-related (and…
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.What sort of music did Jared Lee Loughner listen to?Why does Alice Cooper have a naked lady…
[jump] Amy Winehouse – Valerie (Slow) by Pooh_BearPooh_Bear has slowed down some other songs, but I might point your attention to his sped up version of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” There’s a hint of some Amy Winehouse in there, too. Who know either speeding up…
Heard of Warehouse 201, the north Phoenix all-ages venue catering to hardcore, metal and punk acts? No? A lot of other people haven’t either, and that’s sort of a problem says Brandon Kellum, a local dude who’s played in Vera Lynne, The Hostage Situation and is now fronting a new…
Kings of Leon actually got sick of hearing themselves all the time at one point, according to Spinner.”We were all sick of Kings of Leon!” the band’s guitarist Matthew Followill said. “We couldn’t go 10 minutes without hearing one of our songs…It definitely got annoying after a while.”I’d say that…
Perhaps you’ve noticed that the ever-schizophrenic McDowell Mountain Music Festival alternates between hardcore jammy shit and cool kinda-indie shit. Flaming Lips and Matisyahu one year, Steve Kimock and Crazy Engine and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals the next.The 2011 lineup has been announced for the festival — again in the…
Leading the way, at least in my book, are 1990s alternative rockers Toad The Wet Sprocket. I’ll say it right now — I love me some TTWS. I cannot listen to their 1991 masterpiece “All I Want” and not just feel good inside, you know?I absolutely adored the song in…
Janet Jackson — who you may remember for such accomplishments as wearing the world’s worst shoulder pads, being related to the weirdest weirdo in the weirdo-filled history of popular music and letting Justin Timberlake expose her saggy and ugly pierced breast to the largest television audience assembled on any given…
John McRea and company have studied up in their six year absence, coming back with fresh ideas for their latest work – ideas such as the introduction of reverb, something the band had shied away from in the past. Helping balance out the reverb is another first for the band…
