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…
Pushing any kind of artistic endeavor through to the finish line is a process destined to involve evolution. Practically no book, drawing, film, album, Play-Doh sculpture, or whatever comes through looking exactly the way its creator originally envisioned it. If Scott Martin wasn’t already aware of this reality, he experienced…
Until I recently stopped, buying vinyl record albums was simply something I did, like sleeping or having a lot of opinions. Given a spare hour on a Tuesday, you might have turned on the TV or curled up for a nap; I went looking for records I didn’t yet know…
Maybe it’s just us, but does Robin Thicke have something against the Valley? The R&B/pop singer’s spokespeople announced this morning that his concert at the Phoenix Convention Center, which was originally scheduled to take place tomorrow night, has been canceled. So if you wanted to sing along with “Blurred Lines”…
A few weeks ago, I wrote a cheery little ditty titled Five Things I Hate About Music. In case you somehow haven’t read it (that was a joke, although I do seem to have a few deeply disturbed readers), one of the five was Obvious Songs. While expanding on said…
My friend Mary, a poetry scholar, e-mailed me last month. “Cher is kicking off her new concert tour in Phoenix,” Mary wrote. “Are you going?” “The Cher I would like to see in concert doesn’t exist anymore,” I reminded Mary, who publishes an online zine called Cher Scholar, which uses…
Sharon Jones is one tough woman. A former corrections officer and Wells Fargo security guard who once was told she was “too black, too fat, too short” to make it as the classic soul singer she’s become, Jones recently overcame the toughest battle of her life: beating pancreatic cancer. The…
Anyone who may have been there on the last night of business of a Tempe venue will tell you it’s a lot like the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Nita’s Hideaway, Long Wong’s, 6 East, Hollywood Alley — none of these beloved nightspots went down without a fight. In some…
Gunfire erupted early this morning inside a Latin-oriented dance club in Central Phoenix, resulting in the death of an employee and the injury of another individual. According to Phoenix Police Department officials, a patron at Mi Ranchito near 32nd Street and Oak was causing problems after last call and opened…
Why does brilliance so often offer a dichotomy of two contradicting personas? You won’t likely get an answer from Annie Clark, better known as the gentle fierceness behind St. Vincent. She’s keen to keep you at arm’s length, but whether it’s shyness or mania that compels her to shroud her…
When it comes to reggae festivals, the common thread among the bands is usually made out of hemp. However, the acts you’ll see performing Saturday, March 15, at sunny Tempe Beach Park extend far beyond reggae and hip-hop grassroots genre’s status quo. In fact, the four headliners — Rebelution, Atmosphere,…
A hazy night with Hot Rock Supa Joint, Arizona’s premier stoner rap wizard, begins with a hazy idea. Let’s smoke a joint from the Bob Marley bong. A joint bowl! It only works about halfway, so we give up and give my five-foot BuddyBong® a try, so named because it…
It’s difficult not to like something called “sunshine reggae” — even for those who aren’t the biggest fans of Marley dreads, Nag Champa and barefoot romps. Iration embodies the description of sunshine reggae perfectly, a mix of dub, reggae and rock, and the band’s live shows pulse with an undeniable…
