Knurly, ass-length dreads, cleverly dowdy attire and a faint, oil-scented aura of some Rastafarian priest say the man could be some roots-revivalist south London hipster. In a Phoenix environ, he could be mistaken for an old-school weed connect, the one guy in tie-dye still clinging with bongloading fingers to a...
Anarchism Schism Freeform meddlers: The term "anarchist" has become an oxymoron on the order of "military intelligence" ("Anarchy How?" James Hibberd, May 11). Most dictionaries define the term as somebody who advocates little or no government, but all the "anarchists" I read about lately want to impose their vision of...
Two things on Tempe Butte are irritating corporate lawyer turned anti-corporate activist Randall Amster.The first is a City of Tempe sign that says "Enjoy your parks." It's a message on the westward side of the Butte, the section long owned by Bay State Milling that the city council quietly approved...
Tara Hitchcock, host of Channel 3's Good Morning Arizona, probably had no idea what she was getting into. It was just supposed to be another band doing another in-studio promotion. But the group in question was the Zen Lunatics. Members of the always eccentric power-pop quartet decided to turn their...
The Mad Hatter must have organized the menu and set the table for the First International Edible Book High Tea. The "tea" -- and I use the term quite loosely -- was held during one of Tempe's patience-trying street fairs on Changing Hands Bookstore's back patio during intermittent rain showers...
Quarter to five on Sunday afternoon and still in bed. Torn between a desire to catch up on my REM sleep and flicking back and forth from the Lakers' playoff game and a presentation of The Shining -- a Nicholson double bill. So profound was my lethargy that I actually...
Kiss Your Butte Goodbye The next target on the downtown Tempe development agenda: "A" Mountain, a.k.a. Tempe Butte. The construction, proposed by MCW Holdings and embraced by city officials, involves dynamiting a sizable chunk of ASU's beloved hillock to accommodate more retail stores, living space and movie theaters at the...
For local-music aficionados, there always seem to be a few trends without explanation, questions that go inexplicably unanswered. One that's vexed most observers in recent years is the lack of capable (or even willing) exponents of the much-maligned alt-country genre. For a city with a rich history of country and...
There's a full slate of news and shows worth mentioning this week, and it starts with word of the impending release of No Sense in Runnin', the debut from local postpunk twangers Truckers on Speed. The group, which recently changed its named from Shoeless Joe, spent the better part of...
Nestled comfortably in the dining room-cum-mixing studio of his south Scottsdale house, surrounded by walls upon walls of empirically filed (by beats per minute) records, local über-DJ Z-Trip is suddenly agitated. Midway through an interview set to coincide with the introduction of his new "Z-Trip Presents Funky Cornbread" night at...
Some pretty funky history is happening in downtown Scottsdale these days. Since the opening of The Velvet Room in late March, the Old Town neighborhood has been jettisoned back to the 1940s and the "Golden Age of Jazz." The supper-club concept has been reincarnated here, pairing the evening meal with...
In 1987, Derrick Lee was selling roofs in Huntington Beach, California. He had no interest in politics. But he had this unemployed roommate. One day Lee noticed some help-wanted ads for paid petition circulators -- the folks you see outside the library and the supermarket who ask you to sign...
My original New Year's Eve plan was to be in Redondo Beach, California, to see a rare solo performance by Beach Boy legend Brian Wilson. In my naiveté, I thought that ringing in the new millennium with a concert by a man whose music has been a symbol of all...
Click Here for the Photo Gallery In June 1999 as I began my first week at New Times, my predecessor as music editor brought a large box into my office. "What's this?" I asked. "Pictures." "Pictures of what?" "Local music pictures. It's an archive of our old stuff." Nearly 25...
As you walk down Tempe's Mill Avenue, somewhere past the Gap and Hooters but before you get to Abercrombie & Fitch, you'll pass Long Wong's, a funky bar plopped on the corner of Seventh Street. Within the shiny surroundings, it seems an architectural and cultural anachronism. It remains one of...
CITIZENS OF THE VALLEY: This is a code-red Mullet alert. In recent months, there has been a drastic increase in the number of confirmed Mullet sightings in Phoenix and surrounding cities. Estimates indicate we are rapidly approaching the crisis threshold of one Mullet Cut per hundred hair styles. Simultaneous outbreaks...
A kid limps up and offers his palm. He wears a black Misfits tour shirt and Marine fatigues, glittery combat boots and a teal-colored mess of hair. Framed by the hazy hues of Mill Avenue on a Friday night, he seems an antagonistic juxtaposition to the street's sugary chain-store harmony...
Bully-ish on Music When I was about 10 years old, some buddies and I were hanging around a canal ditch, having fun, looking for crawdads. Some older neighborhood kids came around on their bikes and started circling us and teasing us. I chose to ignore them and was bent over...
If you build a stadium, people will come," says William Garrard, former owner of Coyote Springs Brewing Company. But he adds, "It's a quickie effect." And when Bank One Ballpark opened its roof in downtown Phoenix, people did come -- more than 3.6 million fans in 1998 and 3 million...
Strolling the paved shores of Tempe Town Lake, I notice the water has changed in color since my last visit -- from antifreeze green to a sort of espresso-sludge brown. I stop amid a troupe of snowbird cyclists to watch a city employee methodically scoop garbage from the water with...
Fiduciary Duty I applaud Paul Rubin's article regarding further exposure of the malfeasance of fiduciaries ("Nancy Drew," January 20), whether public or private. These crimes against the elderly would be more frequently exposed if the judiciary would do its job and stop rubber-stamping annual accountings when they are presented without...
Phoenix wouldn't be Phoenix without its illusions about water. All its boats and pools and golf greens, all its fountains, irrigated farm fields and backyards have helped to turn some fairly extravagant wet dreams into everyday occurrences. That may be why last week's formal opening of Tempe's Rio Salado project...
