There’s something about catching a band at a festival, especially when you don’t know them prior to seeing them,” says Marcus Pepperell, one half of London’s alt-pop duo Thumpers. He should know, given how many festival gigs his band has graced: MIDI Festival, Camden Crawl, Blissfields, South by Southwest, and…
The six members of Take Over and Destroy and Bob Hoag are gathered in the lobby of Flying Blanket Recording, the 1947 house in downtown Mesa that producer Hoag has converted into a studio. All focus is on the middle of the room, where two stacks of comic books lean…
Shovel is an underground rock band comprising many things — the transgressive squall of late-’80s pigfuck (Butthole Surfers, the Touch and Go Records brigade), the anthemic stomp of early Mudhoney and Nirvana, and bathed in a drop or two of Kat Bjelland’s sweat. However, if the frequent use of terms…
UPDATE (August 13, 9 a.m.): The Blairs report having a wonderful time at the concert and wanted to thank Paul McCartney for his generosity. They watched soundcheck and went backstage, and McCartney’s representatives gave Hayden a series of gifts, including one of Sir Paul’s guitar pics and a drumstick signed…
If the sum total of your knowledge of soul, funk, and especially Motown music is limited to either Urban Outfitters’ pithy vinyl selection or what you heard on the Get On Up soundtrack, you’re in desperate need of enlightenment. And some of the Valley’s best turntablists would love to help…
Dragonforce is a gateway drug to heavy metal for video game nerds. No, really — I’ve seen it happen. In the British band’s 15-year span, they’ve been able to develop a sound that truly stands a part from any other band within the genres they’re constantly rotated between. It’s as…
Local blues musicians and their acoustic guitars will get the spotlight Aug. 11 at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). Nina Curri, Jimmy Pines and Washboard Jere, and Mikel Lander and Meridith Moore from the Sugar Thieves will provide the entertainment, presented by the Phoenix Blues Society. Curri plays roots blues,…
They’re the oldest type of supergroup. Husband-wife team Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks have tightened the screws on their blues-rock for second album, Made Up Mind, loosening the caboose even as they sharpened their focus on song and melody over their 2011 Grammy-winning debut Revelator. The musical pair met when…
Everyone likes a good poop joke now and then — but Nashville’s Diarrhea Planet are quick to point out they are “not a joke band with a joke name. We are a very serious band with a joke name.” The weird moniker was chosen as a “fuck you” to the…
Believe it or not, Phoenix has a storied history of experimentalism. For Sir Richard Bishop (co-founder of the legendary Sun City Girls) and W David Oliphant, that history began in 1981, when Bishop saw Oliphant and immediately considered him to be “the leading exponent” of that scene. Fast-forward nearly 35…
Fame, for most artists, is short-lived. When stars come and go, a core network of lyricists, producers, crew members and musicians persists through the decades, typically unseen, giving support from one fresh face to the next. Errol Brown is a sound engineer who, within the industry, carries much name recognition…
Seminal jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis “Satch” Armstrong gets revitalized in 2014 thanks to New Orleans music maestro Dr. John. It’s not that Armstrong’s music isn’t forever popular; it’s just that the good Doctor has taken it upon himself to reinvent 13 Armstrong tracks — using funk to blues to…
Over a career spanning two-plus decades, Dan Potthast has never been short on new ideas. From six full-lengths with “psycho-ska” outfit MU330, to two full-lengths with indie-rock group The Stitch Up, five (soon to be six) solo records, an album leading the California traditional ska collective The Bricks, and an…
Hip-hop moves at the lightning-fast pace of the Internet these days, and Futuristic, a Tempe rapper on the verge of making it big, knows that better than anyone. In the past two years, the 23-year-old Bloomington, Illinois, native has written dozens of songs, released two albums, recorded enough tracks to…
As Josiah Johnson of Seattle’s folk-rock sextet the Head and the Heart describes it, the band has evolved from bright and sunny to darker and deeper. “The first record was very optimistic, ‘Follow your heart,’ and the second was ‘Even if you follow your heart, there are going to be…
When I saw this viral video the other week of the “most metal first dance at a wedding,” I couldn’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy. The goth couple created a playlist that included song snippets from Grave Digger, Pantera, Devil Drive, Cannibal Corpse, Lamb of God and…
“Mulher Moderna,” Amanda Soares “Mulher Moderna” maybe be sung in Portuguese, but any listener can enjoy singer Amanda Soare’s take on the power of modern, independent women making a difference in the Valley…
The Club Candids crew logged a helluva lot of miles and shutter clicks in July as we found ourselves venturing into some rather interesting places From shiny and new Scottsdale bars to the dark and sweaty rave venues out in Mesa, we crisscrossed the Valley and sought out wild times…
Dick Wagner, a guitarist who during his career worked with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Aerosmith, KISS and the Frost, died at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea Medical Center this morning. He was 71. Wagner, a Detroit-bred guitarist, moved to Arizona roughly a decade ago. He had struggled with his health since 2006,…
Nils Lofgren’s ranch in Scottsdale almost feels hidden. It’s not far from the city, from the clubs of Old Town and the shops at Scottsdale Fashion Square, but his large plot shares none of the bustle. It’s secluded and quiet, with mesquite trees rustling in a soft breeze…
You think you’re at a show, but as you walk in, you’re greeted by a “doctor,” who takes your cover charge. You’re whisked away from your friends and led into another room, guarded by two “nurses,” who begin to ask you a series of rapid-fire questions: “Do you go through…
In this week’s cover story, we speak with Phoenix-based guitarist Nils Lofgren about his new collection, Face the Music, which documents 45 years of Lofgren’s solo work. But his work as a sideman with some of the biggest songwriters in music history — including Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Ringo Starr,…
