The flow of music coming into Phoenix is trickling to a summer-induced halt, so make sure you get out to see shows while you can. Check out these five recommendations, and if you don't see anything you like, check out our comprehensive concert listings for many more options.
Jack's Smirking Revenge - Monday, June 16 - Trunk Space
Alex Pelissero was one of the people behind the Danger Zone, a short-lived DIY venue in Boulder, Colorado. In addition to helping maintain welcoming places for people to play, Pelissero, as Jack's Smirking Revenge, also writes wonderfully profane, politically charged, sometimes scathing but always uplifting and humorous folk songs, performed in a punk style. While the intensity and energy of those tunes could be compared to the folk punk of bands like the Fainting Fansies and Drinking Gourd, their lyrics, which reflect on broken relationships, skew more toward Billy Bragg. Like Pelissero's live shows, his sprawling and inspired 2012 release, Project Arcturus, for which he wrote one song a week over the course of a year, spans styles and moods with aplomb. -- Tom Murphy
Electric Six - Monday, June 16 - Crescent Ballroom
Maybe it's best to start with a short list of things that Electric Six are not: measured, restrained, self-serious. If you're looking for those qualities, you're way better off listening to your Radiohead albums for the thousandth time. Forget highbrow -- E6's tempos, lyrics, and riffs are laser-guided directly to that animal part of your brain that only wants to get laid and start fires. The band have a surprising work ethic and release an album almost every year, but their music revels mostly in an adolescent, cartoonish take on sex (try to find the Eric Wareheim-directed video for "Body Shot"). E6 want you to show up at their keg party, but only if you're taking your top off. -- Ian Traas
Papa - Tuesday, June 17 - Crescent Ballroom
The band is named Papa, but really it's founder Darren Weiss' baby -- the one constant through years of his participating in other musicians' projects, including a much-loved band called Girls, and now finally the total focus of Weiss' musical life. Recent debut full-length Tender Madness is a crazy-but-it-works mix of Springsteen-ian hard-times arena rock and sentiment ("Don't it feel right to be held in the arms," Weiss asks, "of a rich and white American man?") and bands Springsteen probably secretly likes, like the early Stooges and mid-period Pixies. What does this mean to you? Big beats and guitar, lyrics that make you feel as if we'll make it together if we make it at all, and fireworks choruses that'll make you shout and cry at the same time. This is a headlining gig, and they'll headline the hell out of it, I'm sure. -- Chris Ziegler Vans Warped Tour 2014 - Wednesday, June 18 - Quail Run Park
Thousands of punk fans will brave the heat on Wednesday to check out the Vans Warped Tour 2014, which will feature dozens of bands on multiple stages at Quail Run Park. Check out New Times' recommendations for bands to see here, and make sure you don't die from heat stroke by following these rules here. --Phoenix New Times. The Mountain Goats - Wednesday, June 18 - Crescent Ballroom
Between The Mountain Goats that created early solo boom box recordings and the collaborative band that toured its 2012 album, Transcendental Youth, with a horn section were the duo years. And it's as a duo that The Mountain Goats will perform at Crescent Ballroom on Wednesday, June 18.
Peter Hughes first joined John Darnielle's burgeoning project to record 2002's Tallahassee, marking a shift from lo-fi singer-songwriter material to a folk-rock approach. With Darnielle on guitar and vocals and Hughes on bass, The Mountain Goats toured as a duo for the next several years, steadily growing an audience enamored with the lyrics of Darnielle, a natural-born storyteller often touching on dark but relatable themes. --Eric Swedlund
Find any show in Metro Phoenix via our extensive online concert calendar.
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