As this issue was going to press, we received the sad news that Donnie Chiesa had died earlier this month, from complications following a stomach operation. He was 52. Anybody in the Valley who’s owned a working turntable has shopped at Tracks in Wax, the record store on Central Avenue…
When it comes to music, sometimes you need an evening of total fucking irreverence, abandon, chaos, loss-of-bowel-control hysterics. Take my advice: Look to the kids. I hit up Modified Arts a couple of weeks ago to check out a local band that fits the bill perfectly: We Fly Our Kites…
Sure, we could follow the lead of nearly every story ever written about Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo and spout off about what a weird guy he is. If one-tenth of the what-a-wing-nut tales are true, you could pretty much guarantee Cuomo a conviction in the court of strange rock-star…
When the Supreme Court ruled against Internet sites that enable peer-to-peer file-sharing this summer, it did music downloaders a favor. As anyone who’s ever visited P2P sites like Grokster and Morpheus can attest, sound quality is maddeningly dodgy and the catalogue is hopelessly disorganized. The imminent shutdown of these sites…
Some bands are fireworks, some wine. Some burn brightly and die quickly, others need time to develop their full bouquet. Ireland’s The Frames came out of the gate with a vengeance, led by the powerful, elegant voice of teenage front man Glen Hansard, who’d quit school at 13 and begun…
The tired, thirtysomething punk rocker believed his musical career was over. After chasing his dreams for so many years, it was finally time to give up — maybe even get a real job. Then everything changed. “When I joined Interpol, I was past 30 already,” says drummer Sam Fogarino, the…
Sure, we’ve got Americana up the wazoo in this dry-heated home state, but what about “Britannicana,” Britpop-rooted music made in three-digit temperatures? Could it ever happen here? It has, mate, in the form of Eurovox, a classic mod three-piece band styled after the Jam and the Who but without either…
Katrina Leskanich, former lead singer of the ’80s band Katrina and the Waves, whose one hit, “Walking on Sunshine,” became a top 10 smash in the summer of 1985, knew something was up when she checked on her Web site one day in late August and saw it was suddenly…
News of Hurricane Katrina’s unfathomable aftermath began hitting the airwaves around the same time that we were putting together this latest issue of New Times. And almost simultaneously, we started getting word from members of the Valley music community that fund-raising events to help survivors of the disaster were already…
All hail Doctor Demento, who has carried the torch of the novelty song for many years. For we are not some dour Radiohead fan who requires stone-faced “important” music. But novelty can be taken too far, and Universal Records has abused the idea with its new album, Crazy Frog Presents…
American music is a rich tapestry of historical elements, often evident in contemporary music. The White Stripes channel Delta blues with Detroit garage; bluegrass elements figure into almost every alt-country (or y’all-ternative) outfit’s output; New Orleans jazz is co-opted by post-prog rockers like the Mars Volta. But rarely do you…
Let’s just get this out of the way right now — the Redwalls are derivative, and what’s more, the bands they derive from are not hiply obscure. Hell, neither are the songs. So don’t expect to look like an authority when you play “spot the influence” with the tunes on…
Seems like gangsta rap has come a long way since the days of Casiotone beats and Jheri curl hairdos. But really, things haven’t changed at all. Take 50 Cent, who last week rereleased his so-so The Massacre not six months after its initial March launch. The new version features DVD…
The Emerald Lounge: open since 1949, an ironworkers bar turned black pool hall turned premier local music venue turned . . . another lovely parking lot? Another corporate retail space? File this under “I can’t believe it’s happening again,” but come September 15, the Emerald Lounge on Seventh Avenue and…
The Thrifty Ear wants to thank all you Little Stevie Hawkings out there who dutifully reminded him he hasn’t been deducting sales tax on all of the items he purchased last month, leaving him with a deficit this week of about, oh, 10 dollars. Bah! After serving you with a…
Riviera Broadcast Group, the new owner of The Edge (KEDJ-FM 103.9), did a curious thing on August 18, when it fired Marc Young, the program director who’d boosted the alternative station’s share of the Phoenix radio market by more than 60 percent since last fall. It was Young, after all,…
All hail that doe-eyed siren known as Fiona Apple. Though she can be pretentious and sometimes seem unstable, these are faults we can forgive. No, we do not fatwa Apple, even though her last album title had twice as many words in it than a standard Ramones song. We like…
The Thrifty Ear shamelessly confesses he waited until every Who and Kinks B-side was exhausted before inspecting the impeccable Hollies’ album discography. Since he’s never met anyone with Hollies albums to borrow, he’s had to dig into his pockets on many occasions to pick up the slack for the rest…
I know a thing or two about riding mechanical bulls. Exactly two, in fact: the brutal dual blasts of pain in my testicles after I rode one a few years back at the state fair. I was instantly convinced that cowboys must wear protective cups to pull off this feat…
If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many cryptic jabs at Arizona on The Simpsons — from Homer’s nixing of a Grand Canyon State vacation (“Arizona smells funny!”) to Ned Flanders’ unforgettable decree, “Looks like Heaven’s easier to get into than Arizona State” — a proclamation from Governor Janet…
Here’s a cultural riddle: Take an icon of a major pop movement and pretend the movement never happened: Ice Cube without gangsta rap, Ken Kesey without LSD, John Lydon without punk. What’s left? Would we ever even have heard of these guys? Like Lydon, Joe Strummer rose with punk and…
Bands: Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire Date: Saturday, August 27 Venue: Cricket Pavilion Ticket Price: $20-$65 Selling Point: These horn toads are survivors. Chicago survived the exodus of Peter Cetera, the fall of jazz rock and many insipid David Foster ballads. EW&F survived guest appearances on Phil Collins albums and that…
