3/26-3/28 The Fifth Dimension said it best in its 1967 hit "Up, Up and Away": "The world is a better place" . . . from a beautiful hot air balloon. Nearly 40 years later, that magnificently cheesy tune (resist humming the melody within striking distance of anyone with a bat)...
My job just got infinitely more difficult. See, I just got word that Freedom, the dance-music mecca in Tempe, is closing its doors at the end of May. This is a pain in my ass because I write a little feature called "Needle Exchange" spotlighting a different DJ/turntablist performance every...
4/1-4/2 East and West, past and future . . . Desert Dance Theatre and New York's H.T. Chen & Dancers prance across cultural and spatial divides in Looking Back, Dancing Forward. The bridge has largely been one of incorporation. Think modern dance peppered with hints of classical Chinese dance and...
THU 22 We're not sure who the real star of a Chris Putrino Band show is: a bouncing, jumping Chris Putrino -- or his dark, flowing and, frankly, frightening mullet? Nevertheless, Putrino -- who jumps off the stage, and "the audience comes alive!" -- and the members of his band...
Thursday, April 15 Funny thing about Kevin Pollak: His dramatic films (The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men) have met with serious success. Yet -- while he's among the most successful standups on the circuit -- his comedies (The Wedding Planner, Juwanna Mann) tend to be, well, laughable. Pollak gets...
4/17-4/18 "We have all the answers now in terms of technology, clean water, clean air, transportation, building, education [and] social issues," argues SolFest organizer Belle Starr. "We have those answers, and it's just a question of accessing them." It's also a matter of disseminating them to a sometimes environmentally heretical...
Thursday, March 11 Take a revealing look at an industry where the G-strings are lined with gold. Addressing "the self-esteem, dependency and objectification issues that plague dancers' lives," True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl continues its run at ASU Thursday, March 11, and Friday, March 12. While Jill Morley's play...
Sat 6/19 The scorching hot days of summer really get our libidos going. Unfortunately, the trouble of finding someone to stick to the sheets with has left us about to dry up. If the batteries in your "electric toothbrush" have run out, maybe it's time to find a new way...
THU 24 Scoring points with the girly girls in the crowd, the Phoenix Mercury invite local ladies to America West Arena, 201 East Jefferson, for a Girls Night Out this Thursday, June 24. While the team puts the heat on the New York Liberty, we'll keep our cool with 10-minute...
CLUBS ACME Roadhouse: In its original Scottsdale location, ACME catered to Harley-Davidson weekend warriors. In its new Tempe incarnation, it entertains the college set with dancing and, on Sundays, local rock bands. Dance space is at a minimum, but there's plenty of room for other social rites. Sun: Live music...
Thursday, February 26 Three intertwining stories of terminally ill patients and their loved ones make up the compelling drama of The Shadowbox, presented by Phoenix College Thursday, February 26, through Saturday, February 28. "Even though the setting is a hospice of sorts, the play is neither morbid nor melancholy, but...
Thu 10 Let your soul glow on Thursday, June 10, as The Chi-Lites, The Stylistics, Cuba Gooding Sr. and Harold Melvin's Blue Notes take the Dodge Theatre stage, 400 West Washington, for the Super '70s Soul Jam. The big 'fros, polyester jump suits, and steamed funk of the blaxploitation era...
I'm all alone in the 'Zona this Saturday night. Jett's jetted off to NYC for a little vay-cay, leaving me by my lonesome in P-town. (Sigh.) Never thought I'd admit to missing 116 pounds of bitchy lipsticker, but I reckon I do. Thought I'd stay home, sip Hennessy, and play...
Whenever St. Valentine's Day draws near, my thoughts turn to cod. True, there initially may seem nothing so unromantic as the humble Gadus morhua, which spends its life swimming along the ocean floor, mandibles agape, devouring anything in its path. Fishermen have even been known to slit open these vacuum...
Live music in downtown Tempe doesn't get much better than a Phunk Junkeez show at the Bash on Ash. But after one last performance December 27, the veteran rap-rock fusion band will be scrambling for a new place to play. The Bash on Ash, the 600-person-capacity downtown Tempe club that...
Thursday, April 29 Shakespeare scholars love this labor lost. Touted as the Bard's great lost -- and possibly last -- drama, Cardenio surfaces this weekend at the Tempe Performing Arts Center. The Southwest Shakespeare Company makes something old new again, presenting the Southwestern première of the work, also known as...
CLUBS ACME Roadhouse: In its original Scottsdale location, ACME catered to Harley-Davidson weekend warriors. In its new Tempe incarnation, it entertains the college set with dancing and, on Saturdays, local rock bands. Dance space is at a minimum, but there's plenty of room for other social rites. Sun: Live music...
Jesus raps a bit like Tupac. Not in the content of his lyrics, of course -- he devotes his rhymes to condemning the vices of thug life, unlike 'Pac, who lived and died by them. But his delivery is definitely West Coast, his meter precise and masculine like a gangster...
Thursday, April 8 Thanks to a big phat deal with rapper Bubba Sparxxx, the Yonder Mountain String Band is reaching an entirely new audience. Sparxxx's track "Comin Round" sends a shout out to the Colorado jamgrass band, sampling its 2001 tune "To See You Coming 'round the Bend." YMSB comes...
Shane Saunders tugs the brim of his baseball cap, pulling it down tighter over his short red hair, and stares out over the row of turbocharged Corvettes, Vipers and F-body Camaros parked behind the high-performance tuning shop where he works. "Nobody I know says they're racing tonight," he says, shaking...
Polygamy Is Fundamental Financial planning: Far as I can tell, John Dougherty has done it again; provided clear information regarding the situation in Colorado City/Hildale ("Double Exposure," December 25). As a resident of Lake Havasu City/Mohave County, we have strong feelings regarding the lawless activities of the fundamentalists. Most of...
It's no secret that nostalgia is a powerful reason rock 'n' roll has so much influence on its fans -- you remember the hand-me-down, 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra you were riding in, who was driving and what you were smoking the first time you heard Sabbath's "Paranoid." You always will...
