Local Grammy Award-Winning Group Changes Name

By Steve Jansen Earlier this week, the group formerly known as the Phoenix Bach Choir announced that they have changed their name to the Phoenix Chorale. Along with the more contemporary-friendly sounding moniker comes a slick new logo (as seen above) and a cool redesigned Web site that is still…

Seven nights of DJs and dancing

THURSDAY 28 Axis/Radius: Red Bull Thursdays with DJ MCB (hip-hop, Top 40, rock) Bar Smith: Peppermint Lounge with DJ Brazilia, DJ Mara, & guests (electro, funk) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Club Forbidden: Respect is Burning with DJ Tsunami, & DJ Red (Top 40, dance) Club Red:…

The worst jobs in rock

Labor Day is upon us once again, so we’re paying tribute to America’s celebration of the workingman by recognizing the worst jobs in rock. They don’t get any shittier than these, boys and girls. Guns N’ Roses’ management June saw the release of nine allegedly mastered tracks from Guns N’…

Judas Priest singer Rob Halford dishes on Nostradamus

A symphonic heavy metal concept double album about Nostradamus may not rank among such conceptual classics as Pink Floyd’s The Wall, David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, or the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but when the band making Nostradamus…

The Baseball Project

Long before steroids scandals, routine strikes (hey, it’s hard living on 175 grand a year), and the high jinks of Pete Rose and Darryl Strawberry made national news, baseball was considered America’s great national pastime. As near-religious zeal for Abner Doubleday’s invention cuts across generational lines, it’s only natural there’d…

David Bowie

It’s nearly laughable that this album is being marketed as “previously unreleased.” Bowie’s 1972 show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is, perhaps, one of the most-bootlegged concerts of the rock era, seen by most fans as the ultimate statement of what Bowie offered live in the ’70s. Broadcast on…

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

As the continued existence of the Warped Tour proves, I get older and the kids stay the same age. And as long as the latter is true, there will also be room for one more three-chord song based on a one-note joke. Hence the seventh full-length of pop-punk covers by…

F**k The Facts

In grindcore’s answer to the road movie (sort of), Fuck The Facts wrote its new album, Disgorge Mexico, while taking a group road trip from its Ottawa home to northern Mexico. As the popular expression goes, though, the point wasn’t so much the destination as it was the journey itself…

The John Butler Trio

The John Butler Trio is one of those jam bands that inevitably ends up compared to acts like, oh, John Mayer, The Dave Matthews Band, and Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. In the band’s native Australia, it’s more likely that those other guys get compared to The John Butler…

Funk Shui

We’ve always thought Geisha A Go Go, 7150 East Sixth Avenue in Scottsdale, was a pretty fly place, as the Tokyo-style bar and lounge boasts such ultra-colorful touches as clamorous pachinko machines, cartoonish cocktails, and huge pictures of rock stars like Jim Morrison and Sid Vicious behind its bar. Now…

Tonight’s Melvins show moved to Martini Ranch in Scottsdale

By Benjamin Leatherman Buzz Osbourne and the other members of the Melvins will be rocking Scottsdale tonight, and not downtown Phoenix. This is just an FYI for anyone planning on heading out to see the Melvins perform later tonight. The legendary sludge rockers’s concert, originally scheduled to take place at…

What’s Selling: Stinkweeds Record Exchange

By Benjamin Leatherman A crafty collection of alt-rockers and indie scene darlings make up this week’s edition of What’s Selling, which comes by way of Kimber Lanning’s long-running Valley music shop Stinkweeds Record Exchange, 12 West Camelback Road. Here’s a list of their top 10 best-selling albums for the week…

Judas Priest Singer Rob Halford’s Phoenix Favorites

I recently had the chance to speak with Halford about the Metal Masters Tour, the new Judas Priest album, and his favorite things about Phoenix. You can read about the former two things in the music section of this week’s issue (“Seer Review,” August 28, 2008), but we saved the desert dishing for this blog.

Winner’s Circle: The 2008 Summer of Sound Awards show recap

The Phoenix New Times Summer of Sound series was a success again this year, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our marketing department and some of the finest local bands in town. It’s been a long, hot summer, but we finally got through all seven shows in seven genres over the course of 15 weeks. Just like last year, we had audience members at each show vote for their favorite band. But unlike last year, we didn’t announce the results at the end of each night, choosing instead to announce all winners at the awards show last night at Big Fish Pub in Tempe.

Club Candids: Fibber Magee’s

Fibber Magee’s on Friday, August 22nd By Lilia Menconi These ladies are wild. Just like our slideshow. It’s not often we haul our cookies out to the East Valley for some cocktails. But being that Fibber Magee’s has established itself as a staple of the area’s nightlife, we just had…