Haggis Piper Down (Epixuti Records) It’s not easy writing pop songs. That much can be heard at most any local club where musicians clang through words and notes that have no business in the same police precinct. So it’s refreshing to hear a band like Haggis, which, on this eight-song…
ROB SCHUH USED TO BE ABLE TO bench-press 500 pounds. These days, he struggles to lift a more pedestrian 150. Schuh — arguably the Valley’s finest jazz drummer — is only 36, but he looks more damaged than his years. His short, receding hair exposes his huge Vulcan ears and…
As 13,000 investors-turned-creditors of the bankrupt Baptist Foundation of Arizona try to figure out how to recover their $590 million, two state officials are researching ways to change state law to protect future investors in religious organizations. With $640 million total liabilities and $160 million to $200 million in assets,…
Rinky-Dink Los Arcos hockey arena supporters are worried that opponents may still thwart construction of the $1 billion project that will feature an 18,000-seat arena for the Guadalupe Coyotes and at least $352 million in taxpayer subsidies. The Vote Yes Los Arcos! campaign committee has asked candidates for the upcoming…
To hear them tell it, the 16 members of the Hispanic Citizens Advisory Committee went into their late-August meeting with Phoenix Police Department officials bearing a reinvigorated trust in the City of Phoenix and its police department. They came out with a dagger wedged against their spines, its blade inscribed…
The following is a draft of a public-service announcement to inform the community of the new police policy: Important announcement for undocumented immigrants living in Phoenix! To improve relations with the Hispanic community and to help the police solve more crimes, including ones in which you are the victim, the…
Vin-Fiz Step Off the Porch (Self-released) Somewhere between the wandering prog-rock of Tortoise and the teetering precision of 5ive Style, there’s a narrow path of tempting yet treacherous instrumental noodling possibilities. Local trio Vin-Fiz takes a successful trip down that road with Step Off the Porch, a four-song collection that…
While Kevin Smith’s Dogma does perhaps offer moviegoers the first slacker angels, higher beings are nothing new in the movies. Silent master D.W. Griffith actually staged the Fall of the Angels, quite spectacularly, in his 1926 epic The Sorrows of Satan. But movie angels since then have usually been folksier,…
Colleen Ryan Smith claims she was raped three times by a top executive of Phoenix’s Hypercom Corporation. The Scottsdale resident was one of Hypercom’s 1,000 employees, about 500 of whom work in the Valley. Hypercom is a big, if little-known, company. Its revenues reached nearly $200 million in 1997. Hypercom…
The story of the Phoenix chapter of Mothers Against Gangs — how it began, how it has evolved and survived over the years — begins with a 3 a.m. knock on a patio door. It was the type of summons every parent dreads, a startling middle-of-the night announcement that a…
This summer and fall, Tempe officials hid from the public a serious infestation of encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes that bred in a wetlands immediately west of the $150 million Tempe Town Lake, city records reveal. Records and interviews show that Tempe officials knew encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes were breeding in huge numbers west of…
Paul Bellanger, who died October 30 at age 68 after a long illness, probably wouldn’t have liked his memorial service. He hated people fussing over him. But the 200 or so friends — including many top Phoenix city officials — who came to Hansen’s Mortuary in Sunnyslope to remember him…
You wouldn’t know Judy Pollard is Bob Pollard’s sister just by talking to her. At least you won’t find any of the telltale signs that would brand her as kin to one of indie-rock’s most-recognizable and talked-about figures. You won’t catch Judy discussing the merits of Wire’s 154 or contemplating…
In 1992, the Evanston Human Relations Council in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, filmed a public-service announcement with an anti-gang message. The spot created an Olympics of hate crimes, showing a white skinhead, a robed Ku Klux Klansman and a black gangster receiving Olympic medals. It asked which hateful…
Sandy Bahr has a lonely job. As conservation outreach coordinator of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, Bahr is the only full-time environmental lobbyist at the Arizona Legislature. She’s usually the sole voice in opposition to bills that fly through the conservative legislature — bills navigated by her…
We are very prudent in our investments and closely watch our expenditures. All this adds up to a low-cost operation which provides higher yields to you. — From Answers to Your Questions About Investing with BFA, a Baptist Foundation of Arizona brochure On November 5, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona…
Now that the November 2 Los Arcos election has passed, will Scottsdale finally make public the crucial Flexer report? City officials have kept the financial analysis from becoming public since this summer, when city-hired private consultant Allen Flexer says he gave it to Scottsdale redevelopment director Gary Roe. Flexer tells…
Clippity Clop A loyal Flashophile passed along an interesting fund-raising letter mailed to Arizonans by the School CHOICE Trust. The trust is soliciting money to grant scholarships to poor kids who want to attend private schools. Nothing wrong with that. It’s an admirable goal. The fact that Arizona grants a…
The six dog has been doom for me lately. Two nights before Halloween, I had easy money on San Tan Mischief in the second, a two-to-one favorite. But the six dog, Golden Lady, got tangled up in the pack on the first turn, wiped out, and took San Tan with…
Just mentioning last year’s Arizona Juvenile Justice Evaluation Final Report, the latest and maybe the heftiest in a decadelong flurry of state-funded reports about gang and juvenile crime in Arizona, makes state Representative Kathi Foster sputter. “How many more times do we have to sit through and rehash what we’ve…
Fifty-eight-year-old Christina Acker, also known as Frieda Sabisch, was on the lam for a week, having mysteriously escaped from a maximum-security women’s unit at the Arizona State Prison Complex at Perryville on October 28. She was apprehended snoozing on a couch in the Memorial Union of Arizona State University on…
HELEN HESTENES, OWNER AND CURATOR of the Icehouse, can find raw material for creative inspiration in just about anything. Take breast cancer, for instance. Eager to explore the artistic aspects of the disease, Hestenes once invited the public to participate in an installation called “The Invisible Woman.” An interactive exhibition,…
