VagFest 5: Those Women About to Rock, We Salute You

Gone (hopefully) are the days when underground rockers like Kathleen Hanna, Exene Cervenka, Kim Deal, and Kim Gordon needed to prove themselves as musicians. It’s no longer about women in rock; it’s just about women making good rock. Oh, and having a damn good time doing it. It’s one of…

MarchFourth Marching Band Is a Show Unlike Any Other

Last time MarchFourth Marching Band graced Phoenix was in 2012 at Crescent Ballroom — and it went through hell to get there. The Portland band’s tour bus — carrying a troupe of about 30 performers — broke down just as it rolled into town. Midway through a sweaty show for…

10 Reasons Music Lovers Should Avoid Urban Outfitters

Courtesy Flickr user Casey Hugelfink We all know it, but it’s time to show it. Urban Outfitters is a creative wasteland, a shortsighted cul-de-sac of trends and trash culture bent for capital gain — one large, unthinking slab of cultural masturbation. But, by and large, it’s a beast we feed…

Blue Öyster Cult’s Eric Bloom on Video Games and Lady Gaga

Creatures of habit are often seen as boring, but that isn’t the case with Blue Öyster Cult. The band has made a career out of a particular routine: forging new paths and experimenting with the unknown. Since their self-titled debut album in 1972, the band has sold more than 24…

Twenty Years of Urban Bohemia with the Dandy Warhols

Dandys rule, okay? They have never not ruled, they still rule, and I suspect they always will. Turning 20 years old, Portland’s premier rock band, the Dandy Warhols, can claim one of its generation’s most eccentric careers, making the quartet one of the last great rock ‘n’ roll acts in…

Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard Brings His Art to Phoenix

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…

MIM 2014 Summer Concert Series Begins May 1

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? More Like Record Store Life.

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…

Is Playing Festivals a Waste of Time for Unknown Bands?

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…

How Chromeo’s Patrick Gemayel Broke His Wrist in Phoenix

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…

Record Store of Your Dreams — How Do You Find It?

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…

Scotland’s Chvrches Won’t Be Pinned Down

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…

Bombay Bicycle Club Thinks You Seem Underdressed at Festivals

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…

Neutral Milk Hotel Returns to Finish What It Started

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…