CANCELED: Mobb Deep @ Clubhouse Music Venue

Editor’s note: This show has been canceled. It has been painful to watch once-treasured New York rap duo Mobb Deep become a tawdry, self-implosive caricature. The makeover began in 2005, when Prodigy and Havoc were lured under 50 Cent’s G-Unit umbrella with promises of Ferraris and huge album sales. They…

Fabulous Thunderbirds @ Crescent Ballroom

As the song titles “Tuff Enough” and “Wrap It Up” suggest, you know what you’re going to get from a Thunderbirds show: straight-ahead, bluesy rock ‘n’ roll. Having emerged from the Texas blues scene over 30 years go, the T-birds are a throwback to a simple form of rock. No…

Judge Jules & John Digweed @ Wild Knight

Plush Old Town Scottsdale dance parlor Wild Knight will take on more of a European flair this coming week, which should mesh well with all the vaguely Medieval décor that fills its walls. A pair of the continent’s biggest electronic dance music pioneers will be in the house over the…

Club Candids: Rula Bula

The hustle and bustle of Mill Avenue makes it a fun place to be on a Friday night. There are plenty of bars for folks that are dressed to the nines and drenched in perfume and cologne, and countless opportunities to people watch. Rula Bula is located in an interesting…

Flier of the Week: Mikel Lander and Meridith Moore

Long Wong’s is hosting Mikel Lander and Meridith Moore of local blues bosses The Sugar Thieves every Monday. Brad B of hip-hop trio The Insects and Geehaad will be following up on the turn tables.The beer is cheap and there is no cover, so feel free to knock back a…

Saul Williams

Saul Williams’ credentials don’t hint at anyone you’d expect to associate with a genre as innocuous as pop music. After all, the outspoken wordplay wizard cut his teeth as the MC offspring of black activists, rose to prominence via the slam-poetry circuit, is a published and uncompromising poet, and gave…

Al Stewart

In the unlikely event that Al Stewart can’t make his scheduled March 2 concert, Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar could definitely fill in. Maybe he’s Stewart’s illegitimate love child, because, seriously, what are the odds two unrelated people could have that high, nasally vocal timbre? Either way, check out Destroyer’s “Painter…

Darkness Dear Boy

Three-chord alternative isn’t new, especially in Tempe. In the ’90s, bands like The Refreshments and Gin Blossoms rode the style all the way to the major-label bank. Unfortunately for Darkness Dear Boy, they seem to be running a couple of decades behind. But the Tempe-based band, which just celebrated its…

Shai Hulud

Can’t an emotionally complex, religiously ambiguous metal band get a break? Even though the members of introspective prog-metal titans Shai Hulud are neither uniformly spiritual nor sober, the band has been combating both the “straight edge” and “Christian” tags almost since its inception in 1995. Genre is apparently a point…

Sex Panther

Neither Ryan Fontana nor Aaron Cool are illegal in nine countries. Nor do they reek of pure gasoline or Bigfoot’s wang. Truth be told, there are scant similarities between Sex Panther the Orange County-based DJ twosome and Sex Panther the fictional musk of Anchorman fame. Fontana and Cool don’t settle…

Club Candids: Grimes at the Rhythm Room

As enchanting and entertaining as Grimes’ performance was at the Rhythm Room on Monday night, the real action was taking place outside of the CenPho music venue. While the Canadian indie artist charmed the crowd with her captivating voice inside, a chaotic scene unfolded in the Rhythm Room’s parking lot…

What’s Selling: Rock-It-Man Top Selling Albums

Want to know what new release discs and platters are moving across the Valley at local record stores? We’ve got you covered with another installment of What’s Selling. It isn’t hard to find an excuse to drive up to the city of Flagstaff. The charming community, green trees and patches…

Flier of the Week: Valley Fever Quarantine 3

We love us a good ol’ western music roundup! Those faded, sandy western colors on this flier make us long for hours of country music performances. Conveniently, Valley Fever Quarantine 3 will be providing that this week. Grab your cowboy hats and get ready for an entire day of boot-kickin’,…

Span Phly Drops Third Free Album in Spy vs Spy Series

In these cash-strapped days, music listeners can always do with a good free download. Since March 2010 local rapper Span Phly has been churning out a series of collaborative free-to-youn EPs. Spy vs. Spy Vol. 1 dropped first two years ago and featured LOST of The Council Productions, and Random…

Motorhead @ Comerica Theatre

They don’t come much more genteel than modern-day Nick Lowe, and they don’t come more with a more hell-raising reputation than Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead. Yet on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF with Marc Maron (consistently one of the best interview programs out there), Lowe discussed his…

Cursive @ Crescent Ballroom

Few bands can retain a dedicated following after throwing fans for stylistic loops the way Cursive has. Yet the long running Omaha-via-Los Angeles quartet pulls it off. The genre-defying group first turned heads with its post-hardcore-meets-cello masterpiece, The Ugly Organ, before jettisoning said stringed instrument for a horn section on…

Toxic Holocaust @ Clubhouse Music Venue

What’s in a name, anyway? Well, when you go by “Joe Grind,” plenty. Since 2003, Grind has released records under the name Toxic Holocaust, taking cues from the most disparate recesses of heavy metal, influenced by thrash, black metal, and d-beat punk. His latest, Conjure and Command, finds Grind and…

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Crescent Ballroom

It never fails: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks release a new album (like they did last spring, issuing Mirror Traffic) and just about everyone says “It’s the most like Pavement he’s sounded since . . . well, Pavement.” As you might imagine, it’s a common statement, and only sort of…

DanceMission @ Madison Event Center

If ever there was a time to jump on the electronic dance music bandwagon, it’s right now. Skrillex just took home an armful of Grammys (while Deadmau5 and David Guetta put on showstopping performances during the awards ceremony itself), the epic electronica documentary Re:Generation is screening in theaters nationwide, and…