With eight stages and over 200 scheduled performers, figuring out who to see and where to go at EDC Vegas can be a bewildering task. Sure, you want to be there with all the masses when Tiësto and Hardwell go on. But what to do before then? We’re here to…
Austin’s James McMurtry writes songs with the richness of novels, his characters struggling through life’s trials in vignettes sculpted as vividly as the world in front of your eyes. At 53, the celebrated songwriter remarkably is turning better with age, with his latest record, Complicated Game, garnering some of the…
Janet Jackson will play Comerica Theatre on Monday, October 19. Tickets go on sale Monday, June 22, at the singer’s website. The stop is part of the 36-date Unbreakable World Tour. Jackson’s 10th and most recent album, Discipline, came out in 2008. Jackson is perhaps best-known for a string of…
Phoenix isn’t just an incubator for bands with odd tunes like Treasure MammaL, RPM Orchestra, and Drunk and Horny — it’s also a beacon for them. From O.G. shock rocker Alice Cooper, who migrated to the Copper State from the Motor City decades ago to The Minibosses, which brought its…
Megan James and I have been trying to hunt each other down for a week. The Purity Ring vocalist’s tour has been riddled by sickness, due in part to the breakneck nature of supporting her band’s sophomore release Another Eternity. When we do finally get on the phone, James is…
You don’t really need to be an Aerosmith fan to appreciate the band live. This became clear at the band’s concert at Gila River Arena Saturday night. As the band ripped through its playlist, it was hard not to notice that almost every song the boys from Boston played had…
While we sometimes have to wait longingly for bands we love to visit for a live performance, the perpetually touring rock icons Cheap Trick seem to hit the Phoenix area on the annual. It’s always interesting to see where they land. A few years ago, it was a makeshift room…
Who says the music scene dies in the summer? Here are 10 great shows to pass the time this week. For more options, check out our comprehensive concert listings. Hamilton Leithauser – Monday, June 15 – Crescent Ballroom Hamilton Leithauser once hollered angrily into a microphone about a former love…
Cave Recordings Great Lake Swimmers sought out natural reverb in the wild. Great Lake Swimmers, the folk ensemble Tony Dekker began almost 15 years ago, found a niche in a calming, pastoral sound that perfectly framed songs inspired by the natural world. But when Dekker and his bandmates began working…
Think of iconic bands of the ’70s, and alongside British bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, there are the Bad Boys of Boston, Aerosmith, whose blues-soaked glam rock ‘n’ roll blazed a direct path to the hair metal of the ’80s. Fronted by the uncontainable and ever-entertaining frontman…
“We’re just trying to do something that’s cool and out there,” said Slade Echeverria of WLFPCK, a band with a mix of pop and ambient rock that has caught the ears of of fans around the Valley. WLFPCK comprises Justin Reece, Slade Echeverria, Matt Keller, Caleb Williams and Eric Guzman,…
If you ventured out to the swanky new Scottsdale venue Livewire on Friday night to catch Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts expecting a night of shenanigans from the former Stone Temple Pilot’s singer it only took about 10 minutes into the band’s 75-minute set to realize it wasn’t going to…
“Happy hour starts in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.” Immediately following that illuminated LED countdown on a massive two-story video monitor engulfing the stage at Ak-Chin Pavilion, Brad Paisley emerged into the spotlight wearing a cowboy hat, blue jeans and an officially licensed Stark Enterprises Iron Man t-shirt. A colossal…
Hamilton Leithauser once hollered angrily into a microphone about a former love on “The Rat,” The Walkmen’s signature track. Now he’s sporting a shiny grin for the cover of his first solo album. “I look like a politician on the cover.” Leithauser says. “I just wanted a smiling picture because…
If you listen to Beaumont, Texas, trio Purple’s debut album 409, released earlier this year, it will take no time to see that Purple’s sound hits you like a bolt of lightning shot out of a Jim Beam bottle with a thunderclap punk rock chaser. The unlikely bedfellows of garage rock,…
Serving the Self Clap Your Hands singer likes the new album, and that’s enough for him. A decade ago, bassist Tyler Sargent began mailing out copies of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s self-titled debut from his home in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before the indie pop band caught the attention…
’80s Again Bogan Via looks to the past on its new album while moving on to L.A. Like the ornamental desert flower from which the band gets it name (but not its spelling), Bogan Via’s Bret William Bender and Madeline Miller seemingly are everywhere this spring, but for a limited…
One of the biggest tropes about living in the Valley of the Sun is that once summertime arrives, there’s little to do that’s truly worth doing, save for waiting out the heat or maybe getting the heck outta Dodge. Like with most tropes, however, there’s a certain degree of truth…
To say Wynonna Judd is a positive person these days is an understatement. We caught up with her as she was putting the finishing touches on her 8th solo recording in Los Angeles about a week ago. The platinum (many times over) selling singer, who just turned 51 on May…
Tempe will do the mash at the end of October — the Monster Mash, a new festival announced by Lucky Man Concerts today. On Friday, October 30, and Sunday, November 1, a slew of classic rock and modern-ish bands will come to Tempe Beach Park. …
Toby Keith has employed a few personas over the course of his two-decade career. The Oklahoma-born singer started off as a tuneful neo-traditionalist before hitting it big as a political firebrand in the wake of 9/11, and paved the way for today’s “bro country” super stars with a series of…
Oklahoma has songwriters Rogers and Hammerstein to blame for the rest of the country’s perception that it’s only a place full of waving wheat and wind sweeping down the plain. Luckily, the Panhandle State can also claim ownership to the intricate, layered sounds of the alt-rock trio Other Lives, who…
