Music

Dear Ladies, Valentine’s Day may be past, but don’t worry, your number-one loverman has a special night of romance in store when I slide into town. First, I’m gonna set the mood right so you won’t even remember you’re in a club surrounded by hundreds of other screaming women –…

“First of all, fuck Bush, that’s the all, that’s the end of it.” With the first line of his latest CD, Audition, Minnesota’s P.O.S. wastes no time arming his verbal brass knuckles, and everything he brings to the hip-hop game on this impressive LP is what both mainstream and backpacking…

Few people dispute that Wu-Tang Clan is the supergroup of the hip-hop world. The eight remaining members of the group — RZA, GZA/Genius, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, U-God, Ghostface, and Masta Killa — have all enjoyed some amount of individual success or notoriety, and it seems like everyone’s curious…

On a typical weekend night, it’s not at all unusual to see dozens of people socializing on the sidewalk in front of Modified Arts, or smoking in the parking lot at The Trunk Space — spots on Roosevelt Street and Grand Avenue that, not so long ago, were vacant. What…

Within 30 seconds of popping in Greenhaven’s new disc The Last Powerful Second, listeners will be ready to slam shots at a bar with several hairy, gregarious men making dirty jokes — and those guys may actually be the members of Greenhaven. Much like their key influence, stoner metal kings…

Be careful where you listen to the new self-released xrayok EP Like Life — you’re likely to find your pulse quicken and your body move without permission to the throbbing, ’80s-informed dance-rock sound. With atmospheric vocals and haunting keyboard lines, xrayok mixes enough New Wave appeal to tempt you to…

A lot has happened to Nada Surf since the NYC trio’s introduction to the record business a decade ago. Its Ric Ocasek-produced debut album on Elektra, 1996’s high/low, spawned the scathing high school satire “Popular.” But just two years later, the same label refused to release a darker but equally…

Isn’t Tony Lovato the dreamiest? With that unruly mess of spiked blond hair and those baby blues of his, you know in your heart of hearts the tattooed cutie-pie singer of bubblegum punk foursome Mest is singing just for you, be it live in concert or during an appearance on…

As the six-string slinger for Georgia raunch ‘n’ roll band Nashville Pussy, Ruyter Suys has all the finger-chops and flash of her idol, AC/DC’s Angus Young, plus big boobs that never manage to stay contained onstage. But rather than go off on a whole “respect me for my music only”…

Compared to the pandemonium you’d encounter on, say, a Mariah Carey tour when the wrong color limo arrives, the relative bedlam of a well-oiled machine like the Taste of Chaos tour might seem sedate. Created by Warped Tour mastermind Kevin Lyman as a successful off-season counterpart to Warped, Taste of…

In the 2003 documentary Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, Prime Minister Tony Blair gets more screen time for his contributions to the genre than Supergrass. Maybe that’s because Gaz Coombes, Mickey Quinn and Danny Goffey weren’t directly responsible for ’90s Britpop’s rise or fall as much…

Local impresario Joe DiPadova’s StraightNoChaser night at The Loft in Tempe has blown up to the point where he’s expanding the sophisticated, jazzy lounge night to Los Angeles this spring. Meanwhile, SNC continues to bring in top-tier talent to rock the decks alongside the eclectic roster of local residents. This…

These days it seems that for a band to be credible, it has to reference some predecessor or style, preferably prefixed with “post.” There’s “post-ska punk à la Reel Big Fish,” “post-hardcore minimalism screamo,” and pretty soon, there will simply be “post-post.” This is not the case with Glendale’s Dietrichs…

Horror novelist (and recovering goth) Poppy Z. Brite once said, “You can only maintain a gothic frame of mind for so long before you either go crazy or kill yourself.” To wit, Joy Division singer Ian Curtis and Christian Death singer Roz Williams both shuffled off the mortal coil, but…

When I listen to Closing In, the new riff-fucking-tastic retro-metalfest from Early Man — the duo of singer/guitarist/bassist Mike Conte and drummer Adam Bennati that, thanks to the power of overdubbing, sounds at least three members larger — several things rush into my mind all at once: Heavy Metal Parking…

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, there were two notable occurrences last year — one intentional, one less so. The official celebration came in the form of a repackaged Born, complete with a DVD and other extras. But perhaps the livelier honoring of that album’s…