Years ago, when I lived in Dallas, one of the local bands threw a huge party for itself to celebrate its two-year anniversary. Keeping a band together for two years is a rare, extraordinary feat, its singer explained to me at the time. I remember being amused by his self-importance,...
There's only one serious drawback to being a musician: the musician's lifestyle. Sure, that sounds a bit like the old Thurston Howell III line about how the only problem with poverty is being poor, but in this case the issues go a little deeper than that. Most people get into...
Long Wong's is dead, even for a Monday. It's half past eight and the club's weekly acoustic showcase has started unusually early, smack in the void between happy hour and late night. While most of the assembled patrons are fixed to TV screens flashing returns from the evening's college basketball...
New Year's Eve will find some 150,000 revelers packed cheek-by-jowl along Mill Avenue and environs at the Tempe Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Block Party. Here are the Top 10 reasons to go.No. 10: It's big -- the "block" covers about 4 million square feet of downtown Tempe and Tempe Beach Park...
If you're dreaming of a white Christmas in Phoenix, maybe you'd better hit the snooze button. But if a bright Christmas will make up for any unfulfilled fantasies about precipitation, there are plenty of local light shows to give you a jolly holiday glow. Offering Yuletide eye candy and more...
The 110 famed lunchboxes sit neatly organized in a special collector's shrine in Robin Wilson's Mesa home -- just like the gold and platinum record awards the singer accumulated during his glory days with the Gin Blossoms, inarguably the most successful band Arizona produced in the '90s and the quintet...
Phoenix police officer Franklin Brown Jr. has returned to the scene of the crime."Right here is where it started," he says, standing on an isolated two-lane road at the city's southwest tip, on Lower Buckeye Road between 91st and 99th avenues. "This is where I got shot." Speaking in the...
McDuffy'sDon’t dismiss McDuffy’s just because it’s popular and smack dab in the weekend chaos that is Mill Avenue (next to the Bash on Ash). Be wary only if you have a phobia involving multiple TV screens. (McDuffy’s has 77 screens featuring every imaginable sports event on the planet.) The vibe is comfortable and festive, the […]
McDuffy'sDon’t dismiss McDuffy’s just because it’s popular and smack dab in the weekend chaos that is Mill Avenue (next to the Bash on Ash). Be wary only if you have a phobia involving multiple TV screens. (McDuffy’s has 77 screens featuring every imaginable sports event on the planet.) The vibe is comfortable and festive, the […]
Valley Art TheatreIt feels almost traitorous not to bestow this award on Harkins’ Camelview 5 in Scottsdale, which has pretty much single-handedly maintained what little independent and foreign film fare the Valley has to offer. But Dan Harkins has outdone himself with the Valley Art, a beautiful, modernized renovation of the spot where he claims to have […]
Valley Art TheatreIt feels almost traitorous not to bestow this award on Harkins’ Camelview 5 in Scottsdale, which has pretty much single-handedly maintained what little independent and foreign film fare the Valley has to offer. But Dan Harkins has outdone himself with the Valley Art, a beautiful, modernized renovation of the spot where he claims to have […]
The MuseTucked into a strip mall a ways east of Tempe’s beaten path is a charming little alternative to the noisy Mill Avenue chain coffee-house scene. It has all the prerequisites for a good coffee-house experience: lots of parking, plenty of comfortable seating inside and out, and (of course) a wide selection of hot and iced […]
The MuseTucked into a strip mall a ways east of Tempe’s beaten path is a charming little alternative to the noisy Mill Avenue chain coffee-house scene. It has all the prerequisites for a good coffee-house experience: lots of parking, plenty of comfortable seating inside and out, and (of course) a wide selection of hot and iced […]
Zia Record ExchangeSomeday, sometime, somewhere, somebody is going to sell his copy of that album you’ve always wanted, but could never afford at full price. When he does, he’s gonna sell it to Zia, and Zia’s gonna sell it to you, at a big fat discount. This venerable Valley institution has better than a quarter-century of history […]
Zia Record ExchangeSomeday, sometime, somewhere, somebody is going to sell his copy of that album you’ve always wanted, but could never afford at full price. When he does, he’s gonna sell it to Zia, and Zia’s gonna sell it to you, at a big fat discount. This venerable Valley institution has better than a quarter-century of history […]
In Andy Warhol's world, everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. Charles Banaszewski -- friends call him Chuck -- is looking to grab 30, maybe more.Closing the rear hatch of his black Nissan Xterra, he hoists a flapping stack of hand-lettered cardboard signs above his head and leads four other members...
How do you write a eulogy for a building? It's a question that's been asked fairly often in recent months, as we've been forced to mourn the loss of myriad local landmarks and nightspots here in the Valley. One of my long-held suspicions is that most journalists relish the opportunity...
Sandcasting GardenOur earliest memories of late ’60s/early ’70s life in the Valley are not of tubing the Salt River or visiting the Phoenix Zoo, but — well, okay, we admit it — shopping. The best excursions were to the elegant Biltmore Fashion Park, where we recall peeking in the windows at Rosenzweig’s Jewelers and Mills Touche, […]
Sandcasting GardenOur earliest memories of late ’60s/early ’70s life in the Valley are not of tubing the Salt River or visiting the Phoenix Zoo, but — well, okay, we admit it — shopping. The best excursions were to the elegant Biltmore Fashion Park, where we recall peeking in the windows at Rosenzweig’s Jewelers and Mills Touche, […]
When bluegrass combo Busted Heart takes the stage for the first time, the numbers will be staggering: Nine decades of musical experience, dozens of storied bands, tons of tattoos and more old junkie stories than you can shake a needle at.Fronting the new group is local legend, ex-hellraiser and current...
There are ominous rumblings emerging from singer Robin Wilson's much-maligned Gas Giants camp. The latest bit of info more or less confirms long-circulating rumors that the group has all but called it quits. According to Wilson, the band is on an "indefinite hiatus," but it appears that may be an...
Fifteen-year-old Sun Lynn Henage threatened another girl with a butter knife after the girl cut ahead of her in line for the shower at the group home where they both lived. The court sentenced Henage to 90 days at Black Canyon, the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections detention facility for...
