Plenty of bands profess bizarre origins, but few are quite as violent as Samuel L Cool J. According to the Phoenix-based group, lead vocalist Haendel Balzora and rhythm guitarist Joel Marquard teamed up after assassinating each other’s respective gang leaders, “Bernardo” and “Tony.” Instead of the electric chair, an extremely…
Few people in popular music today are as prolific as Robert Pollard. Pollard is best known as the leader of the influential indie rock band Guided by Voices, a low-fi legend whose albums are densely packed with pocket-size exercises in hooky rock magic, and he’s also released a steady stream…
Summer in the Phoenix Valley doesn’t wait for any official proclamation — it just comes on hard in early May. With that in mind, the Musical Instrument Museum’s summer concert series officially begins May 1. “We get some of the greatest [musicians in the world] here,” MIM music director Lowell…
Record Store Day is tomorrow. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when my editor said, “Hey, maybe you can write something about Record Store Day.” Makes sense. I do write under the moniker Record Store Geek. It’s just that my editor has only asked me for one specific column in…
Sorry to harsh your mellow, stoners, but we’ve got some bad news. If you were planning to attend the three-day Arizona 420 Festival this weekend at the Crowne Plaza Hotel — including seeing Fishbone or any of the four dozen other acts booked to play the event — said plans…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! 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…
Since Chromeo’s formation almost a decade ago, the band has become a leader in dance music with its innovative, modern take on funk. Most notably, the group’s third album, 2010’s Business Casual, released hits like “Hot Mess” and “Don’t Turn the Lights On.” Chromeo’s fourth studio album, White Women, is…
The first record store I worked in (and eventually co-owned for a time) was located on a dead-end side street in a nondescript beige building with no signage. It was down a poorly lit hallway and inside a converted 90-square-foot bathroom. A CD hung from the still-protruding showerhead. Random promo…
When is a new band not such a new band? Well, in the case of incendiary hardcore revivalists OFF!, it certainly makes a difference that two of the members have known each other for nire than 30 years. Bassist Steve McDonald first met singer Keith Morris when he was in…
There’s something in Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry’s voice — the way it floats just above the bass and synthesizers, its so-slight-you’ll-almost-miss-it Scottish lilt — that makes it always a little disarming when she drops an F-bomb. “So easy I bleed out / What the fuck were you thinking? / We…
Those who follow the music charts across the pond were surprised when Bombay Bicycle Club’s fourth album, So Long, See You Tomorrow, debuted at the top. For purveyors of fine indie music, the band’s first No. 1 album didn’t seem like a shock at all. The young eclectic quartet, who…
If you’d told the brothers Kongos two years ago that their second album would still be going strong in 2014 and, in fact, gathering strength by the day with no end in sight, they would’ve called you “lunatic.” But it’s true. Lunatic, the Phoenix band’s sophomore effort, self-released in 2012…
Punk pioneer Jonathan Richman looked small on the stage at Crescent Ballroom last December with an acoustic guitar and his drummer, Tommy Larkins. The crowd shouted requests at him in hopes that he would play something by Richman’s seminal 1970s band the Modern Lovers. He appeased them by putting a…
For Adam Lovelady and Josh Rodriguez, who make up two-thirds of the electronic experimental outfit Mallevs — along with Jen Deveroux, known for producing dynamic special events — there is no grand or ultimate band goal. Instead, they get their excitement on the regular by making new music that they…
There’s a new music editor running Up on the Sun. My name is David Accomazzo. Nice to meet you, Phoenix. I’ve spent my life in the mountains of Colorado, and nine days ago, I sold most of my worldly possessions, packed the rest in a U-Haul, and started the 13-hour…
I don’t even know you, and I want to argue with you. About music. That’s right. It’s been almost two years since the record store I used to own, Hoodlums Music, closed — and that’s the main thing I miss about it. Arguing about music. Seriously, Geek? You owned your…
If you pass by the front door of Palazzo tonight during First Friday, don’t be surprised if you hear the haunting sounds of darkwave and witch house wafting out its front door. That’s because the gothic nightclub has returned from the dead and is once again welcoming freaks, geeks, and…
Stephanie Carrico knows what it’s like to be an underdog, an outsider, the one who was picked on in her youth. The 38-year-old Trunk Space co-owner remembers not having a place as a teenager where like-minded misfits could hang, could exert their nascent creativity in an atmosphere where conventional notions…
The world never cared about Death. Until now. In the early 1970s, before even the long-revered “godfathers and godmothers of punk” were trailblazing the genre, the Detroit trio was doing it first (and quite well, for that matter). But nobody outside of sibling band members David, Dannis, and Bobby Hackney,…
Those able to picture Axl Rose adorned in an ornate, oversize sombrero or a bandanna-wearing Bret Michaels strumming a fat guitarrón or Mötley Crüe wearing rivet-edged chaps, vests, and pointy boots and eyeliner possibly can envision the spectacle that is Metalachi. Made up of five brothers and half-brothers, Metalachi combines…
Colorful streamers, balloons, and even a donkey piñata adorned the digs at the Trunk Space Sunday, adding an extra festive — not to mention silly — air to what was a major occasion: the kickoff of Indie 500, the 10-day music festival celebrating the Grand Avenue music and art space’s…
Even without an LP on which to hang their hat, Glendale-based reggae band Black Bottom Lighters have opened for Flogging Molly on St. Patrick’s Day, toured the West Coast, played the local stage at True Music Festival, and headlined a pre-Thanksgiving show at The Marquee. Suffice it to say few…
