It’s almost too easy to slam South by Southwest. The cynical among us–and how can you observe the music industry at close range and not be cynical?–like to hold up the annual Austin confab as a case study of how greed and bloated ambition can submerge good intentions. You know…
Nothing’s more frustrating than interviewing a rock band en masse. Everyone clusters around your tape recorder and blurts out stuff all at once, but rarely does anyone say anything revelatory. Generally too inhibited to criticize or too diplomatic to take all the credit for the sounds, musicians tend to respond…
Hey Mikey–pick up the phone. . . . I guess you’re not home. Why don’t you come out tonight, baby. We’re either going to the Lava Lounge for Sinatra night or the Derby for the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. We might also check out Swing Night at the Viper. So…
The Phoenix Symphony’s Finova Classics concert on January 8 was titled “Love Duets.” Keith Lockhart, famous as the Boston Pops Orchestra’s conductor, led the PSO in a program that included love duets from opera and ballet, as well as purely orchestral music. The opera portions were sung by a Canadian…
Most people take a job in the music business because they secretly want to be rock singers. Mary Lou Lord became a rock singer because she secretly wants a job in the music business. “I want to have a baby, I want to have a real life,” says Lord, at…
When guitarist Steve Larson celebrated his departure from Dead Hot Workshop last June by setting fire to his guitar at a Gibson’s farewell gig, many assumed that the veteran Tempe band’s future had likewise been reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. After nine years of ups and downs, a…
There’s no denying that we live in a superficial culture, but it’s still a bit much to swallow when every couple of years the media collectively gush that Madonna has “reinvented” herself. What this profound reinvention usually amounts to is a new hairdo and a different Gautier ensemble. Beneath the…
When Franklin Roosevelt did it, they called it “packing the court.” When Richard Daley did it, it was known as “stuffing the ballot box.” In either case, it meant a way of massaging the numbers to guarantee the desired results. At the H.O.R.D.E. Band to Band Combat show on February…
In a world where Hanson outsells Fugazi and “girl power” conjures images of the Spice Girls rather than Bikini Kill, there’s a smug sense of satisfaction when entertainment institutions unwittingly recognize anyone from the indie-ground. Nearly a year ago, Elliott Smith was on the front porch of Revolver HQ, playing…
Turbulent times produce turbulent music. The jazz of the early ’60s is proof enough of that. As the civil-rights movement’s cries for justice became increasingly insistent, the music of young jazz titans also strained for greater freedom. These daring, noisy, almost cacophonous sounds were reviled by older listeners. Many white…
As the bowling ball plunges down the narrow wooden lane, Kevin Dye, guitarist and lead singer of Bldg 5, pivots on one leg, raises clenched fists and flashes a big-league smile. Before the group of onlookers at Tempe Bowl exhales so much as a cheer, the ball swiftly and unexpectedly…
James Iha Let It Come Down (Virgin Records) There are a couple of different reasons longtime band members make solo albums. One is fairly legitimate: to explore musical avenues that just don’t fit on your band’s itinerary. The other reason is more ego-based. When people like Mick Jagger, George Michael…
The phone rings and I let it go. (That the thing still operates is shocking enough, considering I haven’t opened a bill in months.) I sit some more and do nothing. The ringing stops. Then it starts in again, and instead of picking it up, I count off the rings…
Interviewing T.S. Monk is akin to setting a car on cruise control at the outset of an 800-mile trip. You know that you really don’t have to do much except glance up every few minutes to make sure you’re still on the road. The 48-year-old drummer, and son of legendary…
Lookout for Hope has its very own heckler. He shows up from time to time at various places where the Tempe jazz trio is gigging, and stands right in front of the band. The jazz dissident, described by tenor sax player Bryon Ruth as a “crazy-looking motherfucker,” generally stands in…
At the beginning of this century, the American labor movement galvanized behind a very simple premise: There’s strength in numbers. It didn’t take much insight to see that if you were working for the man every night and day, and you didn’t have a smidgen of power, the only way…
Cappuccino and Cash sit outside Tempe’s Coffee Plantation on an uncomfortably cold Thursday night. If it’s a little ironic that many customers inside are plunking down cash for hot cappuccinos, no one bothers with such ironies. Certainly not Cappuccino, Cash, nor their producer P-body Scott, who sits to the right…
Just a short time ago, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland were flat broke. The digital duo had to bum rides to and from work in their hometown of Las Vegas from a girl named Crystal. But in Vegas the drinks are cheap, and the couple were able to drown their…
Most people, especially those of you who just gawked at the photo on the right, wouldn’t disagree with the assessment that glam rock is dead. Few, however, might agree on what exactly is glam rock and when the bedecked patient actually stopped breathing. To some, it died when the New…
Only three months ago, Autumn Teen Sound heralded its name change with a big bash at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. The beloved local power-pop quartet took to the stage and played its Vic Masters-penned theme song one last time, while beneath it, a mock coffin slammed shut and buried its…
John Wozniak’s seen the review. It’s hard to miss. There, big as life, in a recent edition of Rolling Stone, Wozniak’s band, Marcy Playground, received all of one and a half stars in a record review by a critic who likened the band’s CD to everything bad in alternative rock…
A few months ago, indie folkstress Ani DiFranco complained to Rolling Stone that the media are so fixated on her image that they rarely consider what she’s doing musically. While her argument is valid, it overlooks one key facet of her career: She had a pretty big hand in sculpting…
