Music

Valley trio Fred Green loves to get you grooving to good-time vibes and bouncing to reggae beats. The band’s fusion of ska, rock, and funk is a glorious mix, particularly on their latest album, Still Burnin’, which features some guest percussion by Primus drummer Tim Alexander.

This week’s “Flier of the Week” comes from Valley punk band Labor Party, who’re having a CD release show at J-Head’s on June 7. We dig the crazy “pulp” theme going on here.

A few years ago, a psychology lecturer at a British college came up with the formula for the “perfect” mood-lifting pop song. Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic posited a certain equation involving pitch, positive lyrics, and serotonin levels that, when tweaked in precise amounts, would result in a vastly improved emotional state…

Young bands — New York’s Rapture, most notably and successfully — cite Robert Smith’s London outfit The Cure as a holy source, a development nobody apart from the Cure’s planet of black-clad fans might have guessed. The Cure sold records, claiming and saving lives during the ’80s, when Robert Smith…

It’s 4:30 on a windy Friday afternoon, and I’ve driven nearly 400 miles across the desert to see a musician no one I know has ever heard of. Norwegian artist Hanne Hukkelberg is performing the final gig on her first-ever U.S. tour at Hollywood’s Hotel Café, and I’m doing my…

If you haven’t kept up with Sammy Hagar since his rockin’ “I Can’t Drive 55” days, you might find yourself alternately shocked, horrified, and amused by Hagar’s recent plunge into country music. Then again, the public had more or less the same reaction in 1985 when Hagar was announced as…

Few American cities have suffered a corporate dicking as thoroughly as Phoenix, what with every one of its stadiums bearing names like U.S. Airways Center, Chase Field, Wells Fargo Arena, Jobing.com Arena, and, though a little outside city limits, our personal favorite, Tim’s Toyota Center. It seems sports teams are…

A decade ago, I used to be big-time into collecting bootleg concert videos of my favorite bands. I’d habitually visit stores like East Side Records in Tempe or Shirts ‘n’ Things in Mesa to scope out their latest tapes, or log onto eBay to buy up shakily-shot VHS vids of groups like the Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Dead Kennedys, Nine Inch Nails, and Rage Against the Machine.

Festival spirits will be resurrected and entertainment demons will be exorcised this weekend, as three huge music festivals take place across the state. From Top 40 hip-hop to local jam bands, there’s something for everyone in the ‘Zona — especially for those willing to take a road trip.

Phoenix New Times Clubs Editor Benjamin Leatherman finds more cool and quirky YouTube videos than anyone else I know. He’s responsible for embedding stuff like this intense-looking hamster in the comments on my MySpace page, and also subjects me to things like this twisted Chris Benoit parody on occasion.

The Raconteurs, the much-lauded side project of White Stripes front man Jack White, will be performing at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. tonight — and you can watch the show, live on the Web, at www.NPR.org/music.

Last week, I posted a challenge of sorts to local music artists, specifically, the disgruntled bands who complain that we don’t give press to them. I vowed to review local CDs in the order in which they were received, and to be completely honest about my impressions of the music. I’m still waiting for more Valley bands to send me their CDs for review – particularly the Video Nasties (no, not the British group of the same name, nor the band of the same name from Pennsylvania, but a Mesa band), whose “Dally Dirtnap” sent an e-mail to our editor-in-chief, Rick Barrs, complaining about our recent cover story on Digital Summer He said DS wasn’t cover material, and his band was “much better,” “without even trying.”

As Music Editor at Phoenix New Times, I usually run around town every weekend, going to various events and meeting up with any number of people, sometimes falling into misadventure and often falling into disrepair. My weekend often starts on Thursday and doesn’t end until Monday morning, when I have to drag my ass back to the office and affect some image of wakefulness/awareness. I figured I might as well be as self-indulgent as music critics are now alleged to be – at least those who are still walking the plank. Might as well document these times of my life and simultaneously share my experience of the scene and happenings around P-city, before I am too old to stand in front of another amplifier and dying from some debauchery-rooted disease.

The first New Times Summer of Sound show took place Saturday, May 24, at Exit 7 in Glendale. This was the punk show, and it lived up to its name, as locals Harlequin Babies, Asses of Evil, Dephinger, and Glass Heroes warmed up the stage for the legendary Dickies with spasms, spit, and attitude.

Arch Enemy singer Angela Gossow has fired back at a fan that she feels disrespected her and her webmistress.

Here’s a handful of shows that were just announced this week.