Mike Watt doesn’t waste time. Picking up the phone in San Pedro, the town he’s called home since his childhood, he answers with a distinct, direct bark: “Watt!” He plays music the same way he greets interviewers, with no time for introductions and pleasantries. We’ll recap anyway: He was one-third…
Nirvana or Pearl Jam? It’s the Beatles-or-Stones query of the flannel era, a sort of musical litmus test, almost a line in the sand. Nirvana, of course, has the tragedy going for it (like The Beatles), and the successful followup projects (Foo Fighters is Nirvana’s Wings, and Eyes Adrift is,…
Officials from the Tempe Police Department recently arrested a second suspect in connection with the now-infamous shootings that took place outside of the Clubhouse Music Venue earlier this year. According to documents from Maricopa County Superior Court obtained by Up on the Sun, Tempe cops apprehended Bryston Zavion Ware a…
There’s nothing more annoying than when your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend just can’t move on — especially when it involves her posting adorable animal pictures on his Facebook page. It’s that kind of ex-girlfriend misbehavior that inspired local musician Haley Grigaitis, aka Ruca, to write the bluesy song, “Hands Off.” “‘Hands Off’…
Our man about town, Alice Cooper is a busy guy. In addition to all that rocking and rolling, he’s currently holding down the Halloween guest editor spot over at Village Voice’s Sound of the City blog. And of course, he’s ironing out the details of his annual Christmas Pudding event…
When The Compound Grill closed in April, 2012, it set the future of the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, which had taken place there since 2010, in uncertain light. See also: Compound Grill Closes See also: All New Times McDowell Mountain Music Festival Coverage Of course, the festival (winner of our…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? 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 help you stop…
My house got robbed over the summer and among the items taken were my laptop and iPod. I had backed up none of my data. I would estimate I lost somewhere around 12,000 songs. It also feels safe to estimate that 95 percent of my MP3 collection was not purchased…
A lot of folks were buzzing about seeing Green Day in a club as intimate as the Marquee Theatre in Tempe on Monday, December 10, but it looks like folks will just have to keep imagining (or read our review of the Foxboro Hot Tubs gig at the dearly departed…
Once a week Up on the Sun features a new comic strip from punk rocker, cartoonist, and full-time dad Brad Dwyer. See the New Times print edition to check out the strip in glorious, inky newsprint each Thursday…
Bummer news Moz fans: Morrissey’s upcoming stop at the Marquee Theatre on Wednesday, November 21, has been postponed. The singer is returning to to England to be with his ailing mother. Current ticket-holders are advised to hold on to their tickets, as replacement dates will be “announced shortly.” A representative…
Got any plans for Halloween? There’s certainly gonna be a slew of scary soirees and shindigs that will go down on the night of All Hallows Eve on Wednesday, October 31, and Boris Bon Bon’s Fright Fiesta! at Bikini Lounge will be one of the better affairs to attend. The…
Kristy Aguirre Aguirre is the booker/promoter for Tickle Your Bone Comedy at Brigett’s Last Laugh, Tuesday’s at 8 p.m. For more information, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? I’m without a vehicle at the moment,…
When you spend as much time on the road as blues artist Shawn Pittman, you come to savor places like the Czech Stop on I-35 in West Texas. “It’s this little gas station and has all these great Czech pastries and sandwiches and stuff,” he says during a phone interview…
The year is 1993. A crowd is gathered outside Underground Chicken Sound Studios in Huntington Beach, California, curious about the noises reverberating from inside. There’s something about the sounds that is different. The band is Korn, and it was just the start. Within years, the band would be headlining festivals…
Maybe you hear it directly, maybe you don’t. But there’s a spirit that sits in between the notes on Algiers, a spirit that guided the record, some decades-old essence of a converted Baptist church near the Mississippi River that Tucson’s Calexico drew on like a well to record its seventh…
Is there any better way to ring in the Christmas season than a Pitbull concert? His new album, Global Warming, is hitting shelves at the end of November, just in time for the holidays, no? If you’re not sure what to ask Santa for this year, how about a few…
Since the New Times is moving this column to coincide with the print edition, I thought I’d take a moment to re-introduce myself and give you a peek into why I’ve resided in Arizona for the past 17 years. It has a little to do with the glowing gray area…
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas–even though Halloween is still just around the corner. As grocery stores begin to stock their Christmas crap decorations, the last show announcements of the year trickle in. Historically, the line up for Alice Cooper’s Christmas Pudding gets announced every October, and while…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? 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 help you stop…
Once a week Up on the Sun features a new comic strip from punk rocker, cartoonist, and full-time dad Brad Dwyer. See the New Times print edition to check out the strip in glorious, inky newsprint each Thursday…
The news waits for no one — at least that’s what we read somewhere — so it’s perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of…
