Love him or hate, you cannot deny the artistic impact of Kanye West. Since his debut album, The College Dropout, came out in 2004, West has managed to influence and sculpt the hip-hop world, whether is through the speed-up soul sampling of his early days to his avant-garde, auto tune-heavy sound of…
Lita Ford picked up the guitar when she was 11 and has been shredding the hell out of it ever since. As a kid, she was inspired by classic rock and spent hours learning her favorite songs, and jamming with other musicians in her California ‘hood. In 1975, at age…
For my money McDowell Mountain Music Festival – taking place Friday, March 11, through Sunday, March 13 – is the best festival in the Valley by far. The first festival I ever went to was Bonnaroo 2011, and those four days on the farm changed my entire life, and while 3MF…
It is clear that hip-hop star Fetty Wap likes to have fun whenever and however he can, a face that was apparent prior to his concert at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe this past Friday. When I first drove up to the venue, a small crowd of a people was…
Punk rock music blares from a scrappy classroom inside the Phoenix Center for the Arts, but inside isn’t a pierced, tatted-up group of Kurt Cobain-looking rockers, but a group of adolescent girls. On February 27, Girls Rock! Phoenix hosted it’s first official rock and roll camp. Girls Rock is a…
Looking for a great show to see this week? Here are our picks for the best concerts to see this week in Metro Phoenix. For more options, visit our extensive online concert calendar. Mutemath – Tuesday, March 1 – Crescent Ballroom The emotional documentary-style short film for Mutemath’s latest single,…
Major changes are afoot along Grand Avenue in downtown Phoenix these. New businesses and art spaces — such as Tuft and Needle’s new showroom and galleries like Chartreuse and Unexpected Art — have been debuting along the thoroughfare the last several months, helping to bring a new life and energy…
Think the idea of a Donald Trump as president is the absolute worst? As repugnant as the billionaire blowhard and bigot might seem, however, he ain’t got nothing on the late Andrew Jackson. Our country’s seventh president was an all-around vile bastard and tyrant who gladly endorsed slavery, locked up…
Rick Estrin and the Nightcats – Friday, February 26 – Rhythm Room For more than 30 years, the synergy between guitarist “Little” Charlie Baty and singer/harmonica player Rick Estrin has made Little Charlie and the Nightcats one of the best (and most entertaining) jump-blues bands around. With Baty’s “soft retirement”…
Americana, blues, surf, rock, avant garde, soul-guitarist Bill Frisell has dabbled in it all in his own jazz-infused way. His latest project harkens back to the Golden Age of television and film. When You Wish Upon A Star finds Frisell reclaiming 14 classic soundtracks of his youth, from James Bond…
The FORM Arcosanti festival is back for its third year, and the organizers released the lineup today. The festival is eschewing “headliners” in the traditional sense, but there are some pretty big names slotted for the festivities, which will take place Friday, May 13, through Sunday, May 15, at the…
In the world of Netflix and Audible, we all know what it feels like to climb out of a serious media binge — whether it be a TV series, a book, Kanye’s most recent album or, yes, a podcast ( as Serial listeners can relate.) Trying to fill that post-binge void…
The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico is often associated with the popular cable TV shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. When Brandon Dooley, member of Phoenix-based band The Iris, gazed upon the empty trailer they rented to carry their music equipment, a completely different television program came to his…
The summertime concert lineup in the Valley just got a little weirder. That’s because legendary parody musician “Weird Al” Yankovic will be headed to Phoenix during the sweltering season for a performance at Comerica Theatre on Wednesday, August 3. Tickets for the show will be $39.50 and go on sale…
Robyn Hitchcock, who will turn 63 on March 3, the day he performs in Phoenix, formed the Soft Boys in 1976 and went on to front the Egyptians in the ’80s. He has been performing a vast amount of solo material in various incarnations ever since. Whether he is fronting…
All the Haymarket Squares cofounders Marc Oxborrow and Mark Sunman were trying to do seven years ago was start a band so that they could perform at local watering holes for their friends. Now, they are on the cusp of releasing their fourth full-length record, Light It Up, and playing…
Recently, there has been considerable effort to determine the best thrash metal albums of all time. There has been a list in the paper and the lists of some internationally famous dudes. In the course of our research for the story, we asked 17 people, of local, national, and international acclaim,…
The National Public Radio Tiny Desk Concert Contest is really neat because it gives musicians at every level an equal chance to catch the eye of the arbiters and find their way onto the famed web series. Bands from all over the world have submitted their own personal versions of…
Paul Meany, the lead singer of MUTEMATH, seemed almost over-prepared to talk about the video for the band’s latest single “Monument.” The emotional, short documentary-style film, which has gone viral with the help of Ellen DeGeneres, features Charles “LaLa” Evans. He built a shrine to his widow, to whom he…
The conventional wisdom when you mention pawn shop instruments is that whatever price you wind up paying, it’s more than you should. And if some poor musician puts his axe in hock, it more than likely is presold before it is defaulted on loan. True, pawn brokers like the ones…
Looking for a great show to see this week? Here are our picks for the best concerts to see this week in Metro Phoenix. For more options, visit our comprehensive online concert calendar. Metalachi – Monday, February 22 – Rhythm Room What would happen to a young Mexican American musician,…
Here are our concert picks for this weekend. For more options, visit our comprehensive concert calendar. Ringo Deathstarr – Friday, February 19 – The Rebel Lounge Ringo Deathstarr are fucking sick of the word “shoegaze.” Even before they’ve played a single note at gigs, Elliott Frazier — singer, songwriter and…
