Ed Masley

She's been part of The Spirit Squad, Runaway Diamonds' life-affirming wall of vocals, for nearly a year now. But when people ask Rhianna Riggs what the Phoenix band sounds like, she has no idea what to tell them. You're just like 'Well, Gabriel plays the beat machine and piano and...

You wouldn't think a guy who dusted off Artie Shaw's arrangement of Cole Porter's classic "Begin the Beguine" — on pedal steel, no less — would say his third release for Bloodshot Records was inspired by the advent of the iPod age. But that's exactly how Phoenix native Jon Rauhouse...

RJD2's The Third Hand is the kind of alternative hip-hop record that raises the question: When does a particular artist stop being alternative anything and start to step outside the confines of a single genre? What's even more impressive is that RJD2 did it all himself — the producing, the...

By now, you'd think Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert would be ready to slap the next critic he catches comparing the shimmering splendor of Silversun Pickups' fuzz-a-delic breakthrough Carnavas to Smashing Pumpkins. There's clearly more to Carnavas than a recurring Siamese Dream. And you'll find none of Billy Corgan's more...

Remember when it felt as if any band with loud guitars whose singer didn't make you think of Creed was being lumped in with the Vines as part of some ambiguous post-Strokes garage revival? This is what that music would've sounded like if it was real garage. The Love Me...