My weekend began with the news that my favorite Zia Record Exchange location, near 40th street and Thunderbird, was closing down. Bummer. Now I have to drive even farther when I want to browse bins of 99-cent records or maybe pick up a novelty “boxing nun” puppet. I had to console myself with two bottles of red wine and a YouTube marathon of ‘80s commercials
The Phoenix New Times Summer of Sound pop show at The Sets on Saturday, June 21 was a lot of fun, and several local musicians came out to show their support, including Paul “PC” Cordone from Chocolate Fountain and Los Guys (who introduced What Laura Says Thinks and Feels) and Peachcake’s Stephen Pruett, who enjoyed the entire show while wearing a beanie cap shaped like a pink bunny head.
By Jonathan McNamara After last week’s call to action, we at New Times have received several MP3s from local acts. The first group to get their tracks into our inbox was What’s Left. Take a listen to their song “Post Cards.” Find out when What’s Left is playing next and…
Here are a handful of shows that were just announced this week.
So I walked into the Zia Record Exchange location near 40th street and Thunderbird this morning, hoping to sell a Jimi Hendrix box set and some DVDs for extra weekend cash. But when I walked in, the whole building was empty (save for a couple CD bins), and a work crew was stripping the walls. I asked the clerk what was going on, and she informed me that they were closed; they found out they were closing about a week ago. She suggested I take my potential trades to the Zia locations on 19th Avenue and Thunderbird, or 19th Avenue and Indian School.
By Jonathan McNamara Better Than: All the other bands that peaked while I was in high school. See more of Alien Ant Farm bassist Tye Zamora in our slide show: Alien Ant Farm at Tempe Marketplace for Third Thursday Make no mistake that the majority of the crowd out for…
By Steve Jansen OnePlace — the downtown music venue that infamously doubles as a church — announced last night on MySpace that they are closing their doors. The 2006 Best of Phoenix winner will be holding their final show on July 31…
By Jonathan McNamara Noise Boy Steve Jansen’s column on experimental studio band Carillons undoubtedly left you searching for an aural sample of the band’s eclectic musical stylings. No worries, we’ve got your fix. Check out the band’s twelve-minute song “Voodka.”…
By Adriane Goetz Better Than: Getting attacked by Killa Beez Wu Tang Clan master, The RZA, i.e. Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah, is known by many names (The Abbott, Prince Rakeem, Rzarector, and Bobby Steels, just to name a few) but his most notorious alias is the incorrigible Bobby Digital. Enamored with…
By Jonathan McNamara If you’ve delved into Benjamin Leatherman’s piece on JerkRag in this week’s Phoenix New Times you’re already aware of what it is that the Valley’s premiere Rock Band band does on stage. Here’s your chance to see their plastic controllers in action during a mid-April Sand Bar…
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, I stood in the garage of a Paradise Valley home, surrounded by carillons, chromatic bell instruments that had their heyday in the 1700s. The antiquated, Dutch contraptions — which sound like clinking church bells fused with sharp piano tones — are the namesake of local…
Down the list of least needy causes, it’s just below a man standing next to his Hummer bumming for gas. But any true lover of melodic pop music oughta sign a petition to get Graham Nash inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What’s that, you say? Nash…
THURSDAY 19 Axis/Radius: Divine Shady Whiteout Party with DJ White Shadow, Demar, & MCB (various) Bar Smith: Peppermint Lounge with DJs Brazilia, & Mara (various) Blooze Bar: DJ El Dedo (rockabilly) Bobby C’s: Willy B. (old-school R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Club Forbidden: DJs Domenica, Hill, & MJ (various) Club Red: The Blunt Club…
I’m driving to work. It’s not my usual pound-as-much-coffee-as-you-can-while-not-hitting-anything-and-still-drunk-from-last-night commutes. It’s a caffeine-free jaunt, filled with itching of uncontrollable proportions. If this itching is comparable to rehab — my skin coming off, the kind of itching you read about — then I’m never going to quit drinking. Let me start…
The members of JerkRag are having something of a shitty night. It’s an unseasonably rain-drenched evening in May, and the setup for their third-ever gig has been marred by endless difficulties, including missing equipment and soundboard snafus. They’ve spent weeks practicing in anticipation of rocking the rafters of Tempe nightclub…
Patchwork tapestries glued together from trash, cityscapes made out of discarded glass bottles, and junk mail assembled into fancy wall collages are just some of the scavenger exhibits you may find at your local contemporary art gallery. While it’s a hot trend in visual art, the hunter-gatherer/assemblage spirit hasn’t caught…
Fans of Irish folk-rock like Flogging Molly will go Paddy-batty for this local release, which blends traditional tunes like “Hag at the Churn” and “One Eyed Reilly” with spirited, fiddle-driven originals like the snarky title track (where guitarist/vocalist Liam Mackey wails “C’mon, c’mon, Annie, tell us all who’s the daddy?…
No, the world hasn’t been waiting for another folkish band fronted by a precocious, big-voiced singer, and the familiar nature of the strummier material on Let’s Build doesn’t help separate Girl Named Kyle from the pack. Take the concluding “Epar,” which contains the confession “I feel like I’ve been here…
On “I Feel Better,” the second track off Frightened Rabbit’s breakup diary The Midnight Organ Fight, frontman Scott Hutchison proclaims, “This is the last song I’ll write about you.” If only. It’s these moments of false affirmation and agonizing self-torture — voiced in Hutchison’s thick Scottish accent — that make…
Cyndi Lauper’s crazy hair, outrageous clothes, and Noo Yawk accent pegged her as a patron saint of goofballs, thrift-store queens, and misfits in the 1980s. But underneath her “she’s so unuuuuusual!” exterior lurks an understated pop balladeer and underrated singer who’s had a huge influence on many of modern music’s…
The third album is the one fans generally have to worry about. It’s usually the one in which a band has exhausted its supply of genuinely inspired musical ideas and now has to come up with brilliance on the fly. It has to point to some fearless new direction, one…
Back in 2004, DJ guru Rod Carrillo was all over the Valley’s airwaves and club scene, broadcasting his style of trance and progressive house on Energy Radio 92.7/101.1 FM and spinning at joints like Sky Lounge. These days, Carrillo is busy with getting tracks on the Billboard dance chart (his…
