Tomorrow evening is gonna be a big night in the life of local beat-juggler Luke Romero. The same goes for such other local mixer wizards as Brett Ortiz, Tonic Kemestry, Party Reaper, and Nemo. All five of these Valley EDM artists, turntablists, and producers are finalists in the Hometown Heroes…
On any given Sunday in Scottsdale, Old Town becomes something of a ghost town. Although many gin joints and posh watering holes are open and offering libations, the majority of the party crowd generally is at home nursing their hangovers from the night before or resting up for another work…
Aesop Rock is the most prominent of mega-verbose thesaurus MCs, but the veteran rapper has something the others don’t. Busdriver’s pranks are more smugly satisfying, and the proggy kinetics of Themselves more technically impressive, but Aesop creates entire realms with his cascading rhyme schemes. His new album, Skelethon, brought to…
Few things are as American as old-timey string bands. Maybe Huckleberry Finn and baseball, but it’s a difficult task to pick one. Two local string bands, South Mountain Witness and North Brother Island, will pick and bow at Jobot this weekend. The cafe’s wood floors and weathered charm should create…
There’s no shortage of female musicians strutting their stuff on YouTube. Notable Phoenix contributions include Michelle Blades and her ukulele and The Teeets, with their goofy PSAs, but stumbling across songwriter Jackie Cruz’s “Not Me” feels different. Before launching into a grungy guitar riff, she warns she may have ripped…
Like many denizens of Tempe, the folks behind popular UK Thursdays decided to take the summer off for rest, relaxation, and recreation. Now that classes are set to resume at Arizona State University later this month and the college crowd has begun making its return to town, the dubstep weekly…
Brooklyn songwriter Sharon Van Etten has made a brave record in Tramp. And brave records come with brave album covers, and Tramp possesses a great one: a stark, black-and-white portrait of Van Etten’s stoic face. “The artwork is just me trying to be simple and make eye contact,” Van Etten…
See also: Phoenix Producer Lifted Aims for Timeless Pop, Like His Boss Kanye West See also: The New F-O’s Explain “Town” See also: The New F-O’s to be Featured on FX Sitcom Wilfred and MTV’s Jersey Shore Despite a release date of Tuesday, September 4, and recently unveiled cover art,…
See also: Ten Favorite Playlists at Metro Phoenix Restaurants We like to think we’ve got similar attitudes about music and food: There’s a time for the out-there stuff, there’s a time for the cheap and greasy, and there’s a time for everything in between. Whether you’re into dining on bone…
Photo by Erik HessSee also: Lollapalooza Suspended, Resumed After Dangerous Weather Conditions See also: 10 Things Your Lollapalooza Outfit Says About You By Ian Traas With every year that passes, it feels like electronic dance music gains a bigger foothold in the summer festival circuit, and the climb in popularity…
See also: Six Desert Metal Bands That You Need to Hear See also: Alice Cooper’s Mom Has the Original “School’s Out” Panties There aren’t many bands that I hold higher than Deep Purple when it comes to putting down the groundwork for heavy metal, driven by British rocker Jonathon Douglas…
See also: Alice Cooper’s Ode to Teenage Rebellion Hits Middle Age See also: Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, The Tubes, Brian “Head” Welch at Welcome 2 My Pudding See also: Alice Cooper: No More Mr. Bad Guy In this week’s issue, we speak with Alice Cooper about the 40th anniversary of…
It hasn’t taken long for Kickstarter to seem as played out as a months-old Internet meme (I can haz money, plz?). But the fact remains, the crowd-funding service is all the rage with indie musicians trying to raise capital. For the average price of a record, you can secure your…
The Daughters of Fission are a band in search of an identity. A web search offers mostly misleading information and even features former bassists who doubled on “assorted mumblings” and “screams.” “There’s a lot of information out there that’s outdated,” says drummer and lead vocalist Jason Prichard. “We’re trying to…
The idea of Los Angeles and Phoenix performers uniting for a split LP of collaborative love may sound pleasant, but the results are hardly harmonious. Noise bands saddle up alongside experimental synth pop, and interpreters of video-game rock jam alongside glum folkies. There’s not one smooth transition here, but that’s…
Portland folk-metal conjurers Agalloch are among the best of a growing sect of earthy, naturalistic metal bands. The band’s 2010 full-length marathon, Marrow of the Spirit, is an hour-long journey that intertwines black-metal caterwaul with acoustic guitar flourishes, low-end piano stabs, and sublime cello arrangements. This approach is similar to…
If you ever need to get hold of Al Page on a Saturday afternoon, forget about trying to dial up the dope DJ and club promoter. The ringtone probably will get lost in the sweet sounds of whatever funk and soul blend he’s brewing up at that particular moment of…
See also: Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart Taps the Cosmos See also: Melvin Seals at JGB Aren’t the Jerry Garcia Band — But That’s Okay See also: Dark Star Orchestra at McDowell Mountain Music Festival Switching on the Grateful Dead channel this morning on satellite radio (yes, I have it…
During hot summer days, Mill Avenue is easy to navigate- you can easily find an unoccupied meter on Mill, and the lines in bars and restaurants aren’t too long thanks to ASU students going home between semesters. The same cannot be said for weekend summer nights, as certain Mill hotspots…
See also: Space-Alien Donald (aka “The World’s Oldest Gay Canadian Rapper”) Opens New Venue Called Funny World See also: Treasure Mammal’s Checkognize Is Seriously Funny See also: Treasure Mammal’s SXSW Real Talk Diaries Ladies and gentlemen, meet Phoenix’s ambassador to Los Angeles on Kingdom Mammalia’s new L.A./Phoenix compilation Bringing it…
See also: The Writer’s Guild Release Song in Response to Dark Knight Rises Shooting in Colorado Local music website PhoenixHipHop.net has been an advocate of the Valley’s hip-hop scene since its inception in 2009. Sticking to its promise to “help continue the growth of the Phoenix area’s hip-hop scene by…
See also: Monday Monday: Is Heavy Metal Really The Devil’s Music? The desert is the perfect place for heavy metal to spawn: desolate, hot, seemingly devoid of life, save for the plants and critters that spit poison or are encased in thorny flesh. Yet Valley of the Sun’s healthy metal…
