Vintage Arizona Crooner Connie Conway Makes Mad Men

See also: Remembering Kirby Allan – The Man Behind the Mystique Arizona’s rich music history is often forgotten, but luckily local label Fervor Records is doing its part to preserve some of that legacy with their dynamic catalog of vintage recordings. Coupled with pop culture’s continued love affair with period…

Take Cover: Avery Covers Damien Jurado

See also: The Rolling Blackouts Cover Kongos The cello is a tremendously under used instrument, but perhaps that’s a good thing. In most cases, the scarcity of the instrument makes a band’s sound that much more interesting. This is the case for Avery, whose unique sound derives from a cello,…

Record Heat: The Wanking Dead by Brad Dwyer

Every Monday morning 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. In this week’s Record Heat, Brad and Shannon take on the approaching…

Top Phoenix Music Stories of the Week

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…

Take Cover: The Rolling Blackouts Cover Kongos

See also: Kongos are Huge in South Africa. Is Phoenix Next? See also: The Serene Dominic Show: Kongos Tear it Up Are you stoked for Kongos’ album release party tonight? Well, you should be. The band’s latest album, Lunatic is doing quite well in South Africa. Banana Gun, Iamwe, and…

George Michael: Better Today Than Yesterday?

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads; just a synthesizer, eyeliner, and a touch of androgyny. Welcome to Flashback Friday. So this totally missed my radar last year … or maybe it didn’t and I just plum forgot. But apparently George Michael almost died late last year…

Shawn Putnam, What Are You Listening To?

Shawn Putnam Putnam is a stand-up comedian and comedy writer. Catch him with sketch comedy troupe Bully Mammoth Thursday, August 2 at Stand Up Scottsdale. For more info, go here. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? On…

New Commenting System Added to New Times Blogs

Dear Readers, You may have noticed that we’ve installed a new commenting system to our site. Comments from our old system may not appear at the moment, but they’re being uploaded and will reappear shortly. The new system, called Livefyre, takes the place of Disqus and has several new features…

No, Seriously: Chumbawamba Has A Storied Anarchist Past

Last week Chumbawamba, the nonsensically named band responsible for the ubiquitous nonsensically named hit “Tubthumping,” announced it was calling it quits after 30 years. The news item drew reactions ranging from “Oh yeah, that ‘I get knocked down’ ’90’s band?” to “They were still around?” and also “God, that song…

Kongos Are Huge in South Africa — Is Phoenix Next?

Don’t worry, Arizona hipsters: There still is time to get behind Kongos. I know how you fickle fans operate. You drop a band and put your faith in someone more obscure the minute a band you formerly championed begins headlining shows and making money, with thousands of fans shouting out…

The Young Rock in the Great Wide Open

Texan Hans Zimmerman started The Young — with its nearly-impossible-to-Google moniker — as a solo project, but it quickly blossomed into something else. 2010’s Voyagers of Legend (Mexican Summer Records) was a psychedelic masterpiece of pieced-together garage rock riffs, ramshackle drums, and distinct melodies, something like The Replacements lost in…

From Print: Blogs Teased in Our July 19 Issue

This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up on the Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. What are the weirdest instruments we found in Phoenix thrift shops and on Craigslist? What’s the…

Lamb of God Controversy: Tempe Metal Band TOAD Sounds Off

See also: We Spoke to Lamb of God’s Chris Adler Before the Band’s Future Was Up in the Air See also: Vintage Violence: TOAD’s Rotten Tide Oozes Analog Menace The arrest and detention of Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe in the Czech Republic has held the attention of metal…