Daron Sutton Sutton is a broadcaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks. His 7th Annual Sutton’s Strokes for Little Folks will be held on Thursday, May 10, at Arizona Grand Resort. Proceeds benefit the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center. Find more info at Suttongolf.org. When you put your key in the…
Hip-hop superstar Nicki Minaj is bringing her “Pink Friday” tour to Phoenix on Tuesday, August 7, at Comerica Theatre. The 14-date North American tour finds her skipping some pretty big cities (L.A. and Philadelphia get radio shows) on her first headlining tour, but returning to Phoenix after supporting Britney Spears…
Local rapper Jaron Ikner has a varied palate when it comes to musical tastes, but it’s a little-known fact that the man who calls himself Black One has roots in turntablism and EDM. Ikner released a new track Wednesday called “Turning Out the Lights.” The song which he says is…
We’ve been having fun examining various one-hit wonders and FM curiosities of the ’90s each week with our Throwback Thursday columns, but now it’s time to get serious and examine one of the biggest records on the ’90s: Dookie by Green Day. Dookie was a game-changer, both for young millennials…
See also: Colorstore Brings Film and Rock Together at FilmBar With a Little Help From Their Friends Colorstore’s “My Life As a Beaver” starts with a fuzzy guitar, just like “Revolution” by The Beatles, then erupts into a blown-speaker pop opus. Whatever you do, don’t snicker at the title, though…
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. Does Phoenix need a heavy metal strip club? How did the “Real Coachella” festival compare to…
“Hiatus” is a tricky word. More often than not, when a band tosses the term out there, it’s shorthand for “we’re breaking up, guys.” Dustin Kensrue of influential post-hardcore, post-metalcore, post-pop punk, post-pretty much everything O.C. rock band Thrice insists this isn’t the case when it comes to the band’s…
From the late ’90s through the early ’00s, modern-rock radio was ruled by Creed, with singles like “Torn,” “One” and “With Arms Wide Open.” Three straight albums, My Own Prison, Human Clay, and Weathered, sold millions upon millions of copies each. They were labeled a Christian band even as they…
Hanging out with the guys from ENOVA is a lot like being inside a kick drum: There’s excitement and tension; limits are stretched. It’s a constant shift of high and low energy frequencies, just like the insistent force on a drum’s tightly drawn skin. Let’s call it a challenge. The…
See also: Record Heat, “Meta Commentary” Like haiku, the classic comic strip is simple, direct, and brief. There’s not room for the kind of exposition or development found in full-size comics or graphic novels. It’s direct and to the point, a quick shot at a joke or a feeling. Like…
What a wonder prime time slots at Coachella two years in a row will do for you. Everything’s coming up Milhouse for The Black Keys these days. The blues/indie/garage group played a sold-out show at Mesa Amphitheatre last year and will return to a much larger venue in October. Thanks…
See also: Frank Turner Discusses Touring, London Riots, and Drinking With Grandma I may be biased, but I think Frank Turner is one of those underrated artists everyone should know about. He blew me away at The Rhythm Room last year and stole the show once again when he opened…
Blues-rock masters The Black Keys have been on top of the world lately. They’ve toured the globe, sold out Madison Square Garden twice, and headlined every music festival under the sun (including this year’s Coachella fest, where they teamed up with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty during the second weekend).Lucky…
If you’ve happened to listen to last year’s AZ Gunslingaz moombahton comp, we probably don’t need to tell you about DJ Frank Mendez’s mixing skills. “Il Cattivo,” his collaboration with local dubstepper Sluggo, is arguably one of the disc’s best tracks and fully illustrates his abilities to craft exciting and…
“Remember, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Except herpes. That shit’ll come back with you.”– Jeffrey Tambor in The Hangover. Las Vegas’ epic Memorial Day Weekend Punk Rock Bowling Festival just got a little more epic: Our favorite local party boys Broloaf have been added to the bill. And…
See also: Should We Feel Bad About ’90s Nostalgia?We figured we’d keep our nostalgic ’90s kick going by bringing you some more of the best music you thought you had forgotten but will always remember. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, courtesy of >I Love the ’90s.As much as…
Rick PhillipsPhillips blogs on eateraz.com and owns the Tucson Taco Festival (Saturday, April 28) and the Arizona Barbecue Festival (Saturday, May 19 and Sunday, May 20.) When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? I listen to satellite radio, and…
Jamiroquai is one of the quintessential ’90s pop acts. And if you close your eyes and listen, you’ll hear that its music sounds as though it could have been released any time between the ’70s and today. The band’s acid jazz/funk may sound timeless, but the classic music video for…
There’s a new kind of rapper in town: compulsively stoned, inexhaustibly prolific, perpetually swagged-out. Rather than cloister themselves in VIP booths, they perfect their ground game in smaller clubs. They prefer the Internet to more traditional means of distribution. And unlike the Big Fucking Deals of three years ago (hi,…
I’m spending the afternoon with Joel Gion of The Brian Jonestown Massacre in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. You couldn’t ask for it any better: It’s like interviewing the Velvet Underground at Warhol’s Factory; Dylan in a Greenwich Village coffee shop; George Clinton on the proverbial Mother Ship. I…
When Mesa rock institution Hollywood Alley debuted in July 1988, Ross Wincek was there for the opening night. And pretty much every night that followed. For close to 25 years, the soft-spoken and curly-haired co-owner (dubbed “Ross the Boss” by many) has worked behind the scenes running the joint with…
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 is local rock luminary Jim Adkins working up with The Love Me Nots? What sounds…
