You can kiss the usual questions goodbye when interviewing a band comprising a 17-year-old girl and her dad. Ask about the sex and the drugs and you’ll find yourself retreating to something wholesome like the rock ‘n’ roll to keep from blushing before they do. Luckily, the novelty of a…
Mike Watt: musician, diarist, raconteur, philosopher, punk rock’s favorite uncle, and San Pedro, California’s goodwill ambassador to the world. He built his reputation by helping to lay the foundations of West Coast punk rock (the music, not the fashion statement it has become) with the tensile manifestos of the Minutemen…
It’s back to the Dark Ages for me lately, having recently killed off both my cable TV and Internet access at home. I dropped them and went medieval for two reasons — to save some money, but also to keep my ass from watching CNN or Fox News eight hours…
The Polish American Club in Miami, Florida, seems an unlikely place for the Faint to do a concert. It’s basically a banquet hall, the kind of space you might expect to visit for a polka dance — if you’re into that kind of thing. But to see a band that…
Slouching back into a booth at Casey Moore’s, Billy Goodman passes up a cheeseburger to nurse a Corona instead, quietly joking that he could use about three. The lanky Necronauts front man, with his dark-framed glasses and head of thick spiral curls, talks about needing to relax, yet he’s so…
It’s 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon and I’m almost 200 miles from home, about 20 miles as the crow flies from the Mexican border in southern Arizona. I’m visiting my buddy Andy Hersey, a genuine Sonoran cowboy who gave up horseshoeing a few years back to pursue a career as…
The air is thick and weird as I follow conservative talk radio personality Bruce St. James down the hallway past KTAR-AM 620’s studio toward his office. When we reach the lair of the white worm, we settle in across his desk from one another, exchanging small talk until I ask…
Hip-hop producer extraordinaire RJD2’s slight frame is nearly encircled by a heavy weave of electronic wiring and a half-ton of clumpy amplifiers and miscellaneous sound equipment. It’s the sound check for RJD2’s San Francisco album release party, and although he’s politely fielding questions, he’s also obviously distracted with the task…
The joke’s on Peachcake. When Stefan Pruett and John O’Keefe started a band last summer, they weren’t serious. Then 18, the two college kids were used to being in punk and hardcore groups with actual guitars and drums, and O’Keefe was only just getting the hang of his new Roland…
The plastic action figure I’m staring at several hours before the show is about eight inches tall, with a weather-beaten wrinkled face, probably in his mid-40’s, a club in his left hand, right hand outstretched in a ‘hey now,’ sort of gesticulation. He’s a centaur, found at a local thrift…
Like most of my hedonistic ilk, I was giddy with anticipation six weeks ago as the new, later last call time of 2 a.m. approached at the end of August. Who’s going to complain about having an extra hour out at the bars, an extra hour to hit up the…
From the outside, Jimmy Eat World’s Tempe studio looks just like another sterile office space in a quiet, out-of-the-way business complex. But walk through the nondescript entrance and the place is a surprisingly cozy rock ‘n’ roll den. There’s enough cushy seating for a decent-sized party, and instruments are strewn…
Meet Chico Chism, and that “six degrees of separation” theory could connect you with every major blues or rock artist of the past 60 years. It might be simpler to ask Chism who he hasn’t played with. On a cool night at the Rhythm Room, he sits on a patio…
Isn’t science remarkable? You can drop a laser beam on a silver disc and be musically transported back to some circa-1958 VA hall, slow dancing to the sound of a smoky-voiced gal accompanied only by her upright bass, some lonesome pedal steel and some minimal snare brushwork, all wrapped up…
It’s a beautiful fall evening, twilight at my house in downtown Tempe, mild temperatures at last, the scent of blooming night jasmine floating through my open windows. Across the street, a gaggle of my skateboarder friends are on their front porch drinking Budweiser and smoking cigarettes. Later on, another friend…
The two hottest job perks that come along with being a member of the Minibosses can be summed up by a pair of photos posted on a friend’s Web site. In the first shot, taken on the occasion of the Tempe band’s performance at the Atomix Gamers’ Choice Awards in…
These days, whenever he puts out a new album from either of the two bands he fronts — the clamorous Cursive or the comparatively subdued, acoustic-based the Good Life — Tim Kasher knows the phone calls are coming. Not from family and friends wanting to congratulate him for the achievement…
All across the country, punk rockers recognize him. New Yorkers know his byline. But if you’re neither, the name George Tabb might draw a blank. In short, he’s the “Professor of Punk.” Keep in mind, the man himself — dressed unassumingly in jeans and a mustard-colored tee shirt, with cropped…
There’s a reason crime and punishment stories work best in an antiquated setting. Bloody jpegs of a crime scene can’t match the romance of sepia-toned photos of outlaws staring blankly into an uncertain future. Even the preferred weaponry from the digital age, like an automatic weapon or a stun gun,…
Music people rejoiced when Kimber Lanning, owner of Tempe’s Stinkweeds record store, announced her plans to open a new Stinkweeds location in central Phoenix. The 800-square-foot space at 12 West Camelback, on the northwest corner at Central Avenue, is slated to open its doors on Saturday, September 18. Call it…
Some people dread reunions. It would be easy to assume that about Charles Thompson — the charismatic Pixies front man who shrieked and howled under the name Black Francis before launching a successful solo career as Frank Black, his current moniker — who is infamous for being a grouch. Interviewing…
I’m damn close to drawing blood from chewing on my lips, and my hands are shaking from a combination of shitty hotel coffee and simmering rage. No, I’m not at an AA meeting — but I will soon be driven to drink. I’m sitting in on the second meeting of…
