File Great Lake Swimmers under “alternative Canadian country” — faster (sometimes) than a speeding Iron & Wine, less intense than a galloping Band of Horses and just about exactly as nasal as a youthful Neil Young (because though you can take the band out of Canada, you can’t take Canada…
Amidst the bombast of Nirvana-influenced alternative rock in the ’90s, a handful of Chicago-based musicians pioneered the genre of music tagged by critics as “post rock.” Mixing a heady compound of jazz improvisation and outsider indie mentality, post rock provocateurs established quiet musicianship as the overarching aesthetic in the face…
San Francisco mixmaster extraordinaire Lorin Ashton, a.k.a. Bassnectar, has spent the past decade in the Bay Area’s underground scene amassing a legion of fans who dig his exotic sonic concoctions, which blend thickly warbling bass lines, spastic techno glitchery, and throbbing breakbeats with generous dollops of funk, hip-hop, and freestyle…
Thursday 14 Andersons: S.W.A.G. Thursdays with DJ Essence, DJ Astonish, & Bryce Breeze (hip-hop, reggae, R&B) Axis/Radius: Ladies Night (hip-hop, rock, dance) Baja Tillys: DJ Adrian (old school, R&B, cumbia, reggaeton) Bikini Lounge: Sophisticated Boom Boom with DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro, R&B) Bobby Cs: Willy…
It seems like ages since we’ve been able to sit at a bar and enjoy a cigarette with our booze. This weekend, we may well have found the coolest patio in town. Bar Smith in central Phoenix has a real city vibe with its open-air bar, wedged between two other…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Since I assume that if you’re reading this you likely just don’t have enough to do at your place of employment, I thought I’d point you towards another site that’s got the potential to do some cool shit. It’s phoenixrockcity.com, a site with a plethora of…
By Brendan Joel Kelley A Second to Die If you haven’t noticed, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing metal lately, both in its traditional and innovative forms. It’s earned me the ire of some and the praise of others, and apparently broken up at least one band (that’s unconfirmed,…
By Brendan Joel Kelley My technical difficulties now resolved, here are the tracks I promised to give you from the Smob’s just-released-last-night album I Hate Your Face. Fresh off of a triumphant release party last night at the Sets with Zion I and Tajai sharing the bill, I’m about to…
By Brendan Joel Kelley I was going to grace you with some fresh new music today, being released tomorrow, but after wrestling with the internet for a while I found out that my capacity to upload and share music with you is temporarily hindered. Nonetheless, if you dig local and…
On a recent Thursday afternoon, disgruntled by the heat, Phoenix drivers, and the smell of my pants, I drop my Boston terrier, Murray, at home and high-tail it to a small bar in a strip mall marked by a fuzzy neon orange-red glow. I arrive at the Dilly Dally ready…
Having covered music in this town for more than a decade, I see and listen to a lot of bands encompassing all genres, styles, and persuasions, but what I rock and go see for my personal enjoyment is another, more specific matter. A few years ago and beyond, my steez…
Lindsey Buckingham is an artist. He peppers his conversation with references to Picasso and Pollock. He speaks of sounds as “colors.” And like the stereotypical artiste, the Fleetwood Mac guitarist has been characterized as enigmatic, remote, even flaky. “I am the Terrence Malick of rock,” Buckingham says with a chuckle…
Whatever your feelings about John Mayer, it’s difficult not to appreciate his hair, much in the same way it’s difficult not to appreciate Hugh Grant’s. Both share the same thick, wavy, dark brown locks that, let’s face it, make the lady-folk swoon. For example, British thesp Grant dated supermodel turned…
Actors and actresses have a long history of falling for musicians. But, generally, those musicians are rock stars, sexually ambiguous pop stars, and members (or former members) of boy bands. Country stars used to rank on the “cool list,” below white rappers but higher than reality show music competition winners…
Who coined the term “world music?” Was it foreigners, resigned to Yankee cultural imperialism, who created it for Americans to signify “music you aren’t expected to like”? Or was it Westerners themselves, who like to tap their toes to a snappy melody but are traumatized by any instrumental music more…
There’s a hippie hiding in here somewhere. Behind the dreamy, intentionally off-key harmonies, under the shuffling, soft snare drums, inside the closet with the plucky guitar that’s trying to fade out of all the songs, there’s something very sloppy-’60s-stumbling-into-silly-’70s going on. It’s pop, but it’s confused, as if somebody dosed…
More than the Grateful Dead, San Francisco’s Jefferson Airplane defined the summer of love’s hippie ethos: lysergic lyrics (“White Rabbit”), an anti-authoritarian, us-versus-them attitude, and sonic eclecticism (rock, folk, jazz, blues, and world music). Sweeping Up captures all this, with the original Airplane at the peak of its powers. Guitarist…
Of Rhode Island MC Paul “Sage” Francis’ fourth solo album, Filter magazine wrote, “You can call it emo or you can call it hip-hop.” (Cue the sound of squealing brakes.) Huh? Francis may have been a member of Midwest emo-rap group Atmosphere, but there is nothing emo about this album…
Effortless projects seem to be kissed by fate, just like the newly released EP by local indie-electronica trio Number Sine. Formed after a chance meeting at Pita Jungle, and signed after sending out only one CD, they’re gearing up for a national tour. Their self-titled EP is the quintessential summer…
Stand Still, Look Pretty is an apt title for pop-country duo The Wreckers. Not only are Michelle Branch and her former backup singer, Jennifer Harp, easy on the eyes, but their lilting, almost childlike harmonies are gorgeous. With practically interchangeable vocals on their debut CD, Branch and Harp chirp their…
Reality does bear out this theorem: The smaller the band, the greater the intensity. Trios have generated some of the loudest, most intense, most volatile squall: Cream, Blue Cheer, Minutemen, Painkiller (John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris), and Hüsker Dü. (Taking the point further: Japan’s math-core…
As the guitarist of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Jason Trachtenburg swaps singing duties with his teenage daughter (and drummer), Rachel, while his wife, Tina, operates a slide projector, casting old images of other families’ birthday parties and vacations to time with the music. Trachtenburg is equally quirky and innovative…
