As the songs were coming together for their sophomore album, the members of punk quartet Timeshares felt like the band was settling into a stronger identity. Already Dead, the follow-up to 2011’s Bearable, is a record of big guitars, sing-along melodies and recalls bands like the Replacements and Lucero, punk…
Jake Smith, a.k.a The White Buffalo, enjoys a good beer. In fact, he’s pulling off a small tour nightmare/miracle to play at Pedal Haus, a new Tempe Brewery, on Saturday, October 17, when he will lay down some mighty fine “American” music, as he likes to call his brand of heavy,…
July of 1990. Mudhoney’s set had just concluded and I had to piss so bad I ran to the bathroom at the now-defunct Tucson venue Mud Bugs and took the first urinal I saw. Luckily for me, I chose the middle urinal because the next two people into the bathroom…
Fresh off their ridiculous new hit “Downtown,” a song that’s literally about buying a moped, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis announced a nationwide tour today, including a stop in Phoenix. The hip-hop duo will stop by Comerica Theatre on Friday, January 9. I mean, look at that suit in the picture…
Here our our picks for music in Phoenix this week. Check out our comprehensive concert calendar for more options. Xavier Rudd and the United Nations – Monday, October 12 – Marquee Theatre Australian-born performer Xavier Rudd takes the multi-instrumentalist label far beyond its usual connotation. In addition to creating music with…
In making 2013’s Dormarion, Telekinesis frontman Michael Lerner says he was “bit by the synth bug.” Recording his band’s third album in Austin, with Spoon’s Jim Eno producing, Lerner for the first time got to experiment, just a tantalizing bit, with synthesizers. A drummer turned songwriter and guitarist, Lerner was…
Judging from the band’s album cover art alone — blobbish landscapes, overgrown hedges, phallic mounds of food — if nothing else, Battles understands texture. The New York threesome snubs genre with its mix of instrumental post-rock, intricate math rock, and complex, creamy rhythms. There is the raw propulsion of Holy…
After years of living on the edge, caught up in a world of rock ‘n’ roll hedonism, Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. eventually managed to break the cycle and get clean. Yet, it wasn’t before the band’s fabled aura of rock greatness was severely tarnish by a pair of lackluster…
Since early 1978, brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald have being working on a band, music, or some form of noise making either together or apart. At first they were The Tourists, then in 1980 they became Red Cross (but some nutty non-profit organization already had dibs on that name), and…
Here are our picks for the best concerts in Metro Phoenix happening Monday through Thursday of this week. For more options, check out our comprehensive concert calendar. Turnpike Troubadours – Monday, October 5 – Marquee Theatre The world is rapidly waking up to Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours, whose new self-titled LP…
The stage at Comerica Theatre went from pitch darkness to sudden illumination, revealing the presence of Don Henley and the members of his touring band singing “Seven Bridges Road” a cappella. Despite the many calls from the audience throughout the evening for Henley, who’s also the drummer and a vocalist…
There’s simply no shortage of things to see and do in October. Discounting all of the hullabaloo of Halloween at the end of the month, there are fall festivals to attend, tankards of German ales to quaff at Oktoberfest gatherings, pleasant weather to enjoy (no…really), and all the thrills and…
It’s all too easy to take a shot at Rascal Flatts in 2015. What’s easily remembered is the frosted tips, v-neck T-shirts, dismal awards show performances, and saccharine, phoned-in singles of the mid-’00s, but what’s rarely mentioned is the Ohio-based group’s prototypical status in country pop, paving the way for…
Sam Smith told the audience at Gila River Arena last night that it was one of the best crowds he’s had in America during this, his first international tour. The crowd of screaming fans was certainly loud enough to merit consideration. For the entire concert, fans erupted with the first…
Spiritual Warfare – “My Day Off” Joel Marquard has led a wonderful career in the local music scene for as long as I can remember, whether it was fronting Gospel Claws, founding Dear In The Headlights, leading The Through And Through Gospel Review, manifesting Samuel L Cool J, or his…
When we first got word of the Arzona Hip Hop Festival last year, we gawked. Organizer JustUs Samuel’s vision for a massive showcase featuring almost 100 hip-hop performers from around the state of Arizona was, in a word, ambitious. But after a full day of music that took over Comerica…
Every Wednesday is Heritage Hump Day! That’s because every Wednesday from now to the end of the year or before someone really big stops us, Heritage Hump Records (a temporary subsidiary of Onus Records) and New Times will be bringing you a limited edition collector’s item of a much beloved…
Max Frost sounds like your prototypical modern pop star serving up a cool blend of driving dance beats, chunky grinds, silky rhythms, and rich vocals. That we’re even talking about Frost is simply the case of him being in the right place at the right time — or rather, one…
There was no amount of banter, bad jokes, costume changes, or iconic rock songs that could save anyone with the last name Van Halen from lead singer David Lee Roth last night at Ak-Chin Pavilion. From the opening notes of “Light Up the Sky” the flamboyant frontman never stood a…
J There are headliners for festivals, and then there are headliners for festivals. The closing night of the Summer Ends Music Festival was undoubtedly the latter of the two, as every act to perform before Kanye West just felt like an opener for the man known to many as Yeezus…
Love him or hate him, Eddie Van Halen changed the rock-guitar world forever. I play guitar and have been in bands for many years, so he was always someone I was aware of. There was no way to ignore Eddie’s presence if you were interested in hard rock of any…
The Foo Fighters might be the most fun band in rock. Friday night at Ak-Chin Pavilion, Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foos played almost two-and-a-half hours of relentless rock ’n’ roll, and Grohl had a smile on his face the whole time. Not too many pop stars come…
