12/31/2014, 11 a.m.: This article has been updated and expanded from its original version. We at New Times were saddened to hear of yesterday’s passing of our columnist and friend, Steve Wiley. Steve might be best known for his years as the co-owner of Hoodlums Music and Movies, which helped…
Detroit’s Motown Records had “Hitsville U.S.A.,” an office and recording studio that housed the songwriters and musicians who birthed a sound that spoke to the soul of the nation. Motown’s competitor, Memphis-based Stax Records, discovered such groundbreaking artists as Issac Hayes, Otis Redding, and the Staple Singers and committed them…
It’s not often that an Arizona blues club gets an international act for New Year’s Eve, but the 44s will play the Rhythm Room in Phoenix as 2015 comes in. Arizona blues lovers will have to enjoy the 44s while they can, because the Los Angeles-based blues-roots-rock band will tour…
The holiday season is winding down, and we at New Times hope that you had a great 2014. As we look forward to the New Year, I wanted to recap some of the best Metal Mondays blogs of the year. These were picked based off of social media shares, how…
For those among the Replacements’ fan base who want to know how the sausage gets made, this is the ripper for you. (That, or it’s an elaborate prank.) A 24-minute, 22-second jam sesh titled “Poke Me in My Cage” was uploaded to Soundcloud recently. Credited to Paul Westerberg and Tommy…
Another year’s end, another pause for reflection. Maybe 2014 was awful; maybe it was a triumph. The punk rockers from Authority Zero, which formed in Mesa, put themselves closer to the latter side of this spectrum. While admitting that the end of the year brings unwanted politics involving the business…
Though it may take a bit of digging, Phoenix really does have a wealth of quality local dance nights on both the monthly and weekly level. So with The Blunt Club closing up shop as a weekly stop for not only hip-hop heads but also folks who just like to…
Whatever your religious beliefs — Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Athiest — there’s no avoiding the ruckus of the holiday season. For me, Christmas brings a lot of old traditions, love and charitable giving, but there’s a lot of needless commercialism that’s shoved down everyone’s throats starting the day after Halloween. So…
Ten bands will perform on December 21 at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix as a fundraiser for the R.d. Olson Blues Band, winner of the Arizona Blues Showdown, to help them afford competing Jan. 20-24 at the International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. and…
These days, punk and even so-called alternative music seems to be cut-and-dried. But it doesn’t have to be that way — just ask JJCnV, the Mesa trio who has been releasing some of the strangest tunes in the Valley for nearly a decade. Their crass sense of humor has spanned…
It’s easy to find new and interesting music these days. All we have to do is pull up an app on our smartphone, and in seconds we can find a song that will hopefully move, motivate, or make us feel that special something in the gray matter between our headphones…
Musically, Phoenix doesn’t have a ton to brag about. Sure,, we’ve had some locals make noise in the national circuit like Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, not to mention people like Rob Halford and Stevie Nicks, who have had homes in the Valley at one point or another…
Searching for the perfect gift for that music lover in your life isn’t so difficult. However, trying to find the perfect gift for a metalhead is a bit more daunting. It’s not that we’re picky — we just don’t particularly value the commercialized side of our beloved genre. Therefore, the…
It’s getting toward closing time during The Blunt Club Thursday night at Tempe’s Yucca Tap Room and it looks like no one’s in the mood to call it quits. The main bar is glowing with Christmas lights and busy with activity as DJ Reflekshin drops slow jams in between classic…
There are plenty of things we’ve come to expect around the holiday season. Crazy shoppers, long lines, snowbirds, traffic, and Alice Cooper’s Christmas Pudding. Now if you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, Christmas Pudding isn’t a holiday dessert your grandmother force feeds you after dinner, it’s…
Painting, to paraphrase the late Jackson Pollock, is an act of self-discovery whereby every good artist paints what he is and what he knows. And local painter Deon Doughty would certainty agree, since he’s spent the last three-and-a-half years doing just that. The 43-year-old artist is one of the biggest…
Naked Pizza was the brainchild of eccentric Phoenix-based saxophone player “The Artist Formerly Known as Austin Rickert,” as he requested he be called, and just like Rickert … it was really weird. They were a ska band that would play in crazy costumes looking more like theme camp at Burning…
Being an active member of the local music “community,” I often contemplate what “community” actually means. I believe community to be a tightly knit place of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and focus. Living and working as a musician by day, and being a regular “night owl” in the artist world by…
If you’ve ever wondered about the meaning or history of a specific online trend or concept –Doge, Bitcoin, Slender Man, or that creepy Nicolas Cage face — a remedy exists at Know Your Meme (www.knowyourmeme.com). The site dedicates thousands of pages to explaining the significance of famous Internet ideas, fads,…
Vocalist and guitarist Leighton Antelman’s musical career started early, when he and some friends from Gilbert’s Greenfield Junior High School got together and formed a band called Rolo 15. That band went through some changes, and ultimately it was Antelman and guitarist Steve McGraw who stayed together to create music,…
Rock music and annoying egos go hand-in-hand. In fact, the pairing is almost as guaranteed as headbanging and mosh pits. Groupies and tour buses. Dimebag and a Black Tooth Grin shots. Revolting disgust and the Kardashian clan. You get the picture. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a huge national act,…
Phoenix is on the cusp of something great, musically speaking. New festivals are popping up every year with big concepts and bigger headliners. As time progresses and the bands on top of the scene either blow up or fade away, it will be the younger acts out there stepping up…
