Q: Are we not metal? A: Yeah, sorta. Both bands on this bill are enormous-sounding, but they achieve their audio girth from dissimilar means, neither atypical metal. Most of Isis’ albums are three-fourths instrumental and all-fourths conceptual. The band’s previous CDs were sold in room-thrashing flavors like Oceanic and Celestial…
Costumed shtick in the rock ‘n’ roll world is a tough road to travel — just ask the guys from Dread Zeppelin and the Village People, if you can figure out which Holiday Inn Express lounge they’re playing this weekend. Even KISS spent more than half its career sans makeup…
1. Lil’ Jon & Eastside Boyz, Crunk Juice (TVT) 2. Ludacris, Red Light District (Def Jam) 3. Snoop Dogg, R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece (Geffen) 4. U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Interscope) 5. T.I. , Urban Legend (Atlantic) 6. Mario, Turning Point (J-Records) 7. Gwen Stefani, Love,…
This Saturday, December 18, the long-running but recently in absentia Rhythm & Form night at the Emerald Lounge returns for “Rhythm & Form — The Resurrection.” Resident DJs Jacob Delph, Brian Pfirrman, and David Siefert are bringing back their tech house stylings in conjunction with wall displays by local artists…
Thursday 16 Acme Bar & Grill: DJR (all genres) Acme Roadhouse: DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Tsunami (Top 40, hip-hop) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Piranha Room/Area 51 with DJ Jeremy (industrial/goth) Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night with DJ MCB & Josh Royal (all genres) AZ 88: DJ P-Body (all…
Before landing a record deal in 1978, the Police dyed their collective locks blond and posed as a punk band for a bubblegum advert. That wasn’t the only time a pop trio got its break via a TV commercial. The Dollyrots actually are a punk bubblegum group — one that…
Sitting outside one of his favorite haunts, Tempe’s Stinkweeds Records, on a bright December afternoon, Eli Kuner is clearly on edge. He seems relaxed at first as he chats about mundane, getting-to-know-you things, like how he’s a history major at ASU, and how he’s lived in Mesa all his life…
Bluewall Audience has been so busy reviewing and signing contracts, conducting meetings, and approving shirt designs that at least every other week, its members have to convene at their unofficial headquarters: Chipotle at Chandler Fashion Center. Any time the band needs to conduct business — and someone else is willing…
My guts are churning with anticipation and trepidation as I step into the dimmed alcove that is Cheerleaders, the topless gentlemen’s club on University Drive in east Phoenix. As my eyes adjust to the dusky illumination, I can’t help but focus on the bikini- and g-string-clad beauties lounging about the…
When talking to people from the other side of the country, there are usually three local bands you can name that they’ve heard of: the Gin Blossoms, Jimmy Eat World, and the Phunk Junkeez. And while the Junkeez have yet to tap the mainstream success that GB and JEW experienced,…
There may be a lot of bitchy backbiting in the music business at large, but on a local level, great P-town bands understand the spirit of the season. Local rockers Goodbye Tomorrow are the epitome of “good sports” — when the musicians parted ways with bassist David Roat, they posted…
David Allan Coe’s been looking like a redneck version of George Clinton lately, sporting a multicolored dreadlock beard, big sunglasses, and more tattoos than Skin and Ink. But the only thing funky going on behind the Confederate flag guitar is the booze-and-broads smell of a hard-livin’ country legend. The 65-year-old…
When local blues outfit Sistah Blue took second place at the International Blues Talent Competition in 1996, the band was just a year old. Over the past nine years, it’s built up a fan base by playing all over the Valley, opening for such acts as John Lee Hooker and…
While all the upstart pop-punk bands seem insistent on establishing their “maturity,” the Vandals are like the guy who shows up to the 20-year high school reunion wearing parachute pants and a joy buzzer, revealing he still lives in his mom’s basement and still works at the local comic book…
1. Iron and Wine, Passing Afternoon (Sub Pop) 2. Arcade Fire, Funeral (Merge) 3. Pinback, Summer in Abaddon (Touch & Go) 4. My Morning Jacket, Early Recordings, Chapters 1 & 2 (Darla) 5. Elliott Smith, From a Basement on the Hill (Anti) 6. Neko Case, The Tigers Have Spoken (Anti)…
Thursday 9 Acme Bar & Grill: DJR (all genres) Acme Roadhouse: DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Tsunami (Top 40) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Piranha Room/Area 51 with DJs Jeremy & Ricky (industrial/goth, electroclash) Axis/Radius: Ladies’ Night with DJ MCB & Josh Royal (all genres) AZ 88: DJ…
Your buddy pops an unknown cassette into your car’s tape deck. Your latest crush burns you a mix CD. One of your co-workers e-mails you some MP3s. Your cool older brother hips you to his vinyl collection. Shootin’ the shit in the mall, the quad, the break room: That’s how…
Guy Blakeslee, a.k.a. Entrance, plays left-handed on conventional guitars turned upside down, just like Jimi Hendrix. Blakeslee has also developed his own unique style, a blend of blues, rags, field hollers, ragtime and primordial Midwestern American church music that at times comes close to the sound John Fahey called “American…
‘Twas 16 nights before Christmas, and all through Glendale Arena, little punk rockers were throwing bottles of Aquafina. Stage divers were hung from the rafters by their hair, in hopes that someone would get them the fuck down from there. The stage was warmed up by Story of the Year,…
This English band, named after a Talking Heads song, originally formed in the late ’80s after all the members met in art school. After recording a debut EP, the group released its first full-length album, Pablo Honey, in 1993, which spawned the international smash single “Creep.” Although some thought it…
A friend of mine refers to all electronic music as “techno.” Doesn’t matter if it’s drum ‘n’ bass, jungle, house, down-tempo — to him, “it’s all fucking techno, man.” And with a little encouragement, he’ll launch into a rant that includes dead-on onomatopoeia of what techno sounds like: Sst. Umph…
For all the cynical talk of grave robbing and misplaced mythology, this much-ballyhooed, litigation-delayed three-CD/one-DVD Nirvana boxed set delivers an intriguing, entertaining, and periodically spine-tingling depiction of the trio’s seven-year journey — warts and all — with none of the voyeuristic guilt associated with reading 2002’s disgraceful journals. Opening with…
