By Nick Keppler It’s a Tuesday night and I am sitting on a yoga mat in the back of a former grocery store in Pittsburgh, spreading my legs as far as they can go. I reflexively turn to see how the woman next to me is managing her dragonfly pose…
Costume? Check. Drinking money? Yup. The phone number for a reliable cab company? Locked in. Looks like you’re ready to hit the town for some Halloween revelry. So where do you go from here? If our All Hallow’s Eve party guide (see page 44) doesn’t provide enough options, consider heading…
TLC/Courtesy of VH1[Editor’s Note: In his new column, award-winning goofball Shea Serrano writes about his life and times. Better put on your shoes because your socks are about to be blown off.] On Monday night I watched a movie about TLC, the most important all-girl rap group of all-time. It…
Eccentric Swedish metal act Ghost B.C. released their second LP, Infestissumam, in April and are currently in the midst of a massive world tour, bringing a theatrical, mesmerizing and ghastly show to the masses. For the most part, Ghost have maintained anonymity. Five of the musicians, dubbed Nameless Ghouls (which…
Animal Collective, the once-Baltimore based electronic-psychedelic act consisting of Avey Tare, Deakin, Geologist, and Panda Bear, seems to be in a constant state of flux when the band’s entire catalog is taken into perspective. From the combinations of the most disparate electronic and acoustic musical elements on 2000’s Spirit They’ve…
The Sugar Thieves, considered by many the best dance-blues band in Phoenix, have been busy for a while now, playing a regular gig every Wednesday at Copper Blues, touring across the state, and working toward getting an album out in 2014. Oh, yeah, and band members Mikel Lander and Meredith…
There’s been a lot in the news lately about vinyl records. Vinyl sales hit a 10-year high in Britain, and people are preparing for record store day, a mere month away. This past week on Up on the Sun columnist Steve Wiley presented five reasons CDs are better than vinyl,…
It seems like one has closed every month, lately–Hollywood Alley, Martini Ranch, Rocky Point Cantina–but the Valley is still blessed with enough music venues to make selecting some for each year’s Best of Phoenix a little nerve-wracking. In any case, we did it. Here are the music venues that picked…
The sinister sound-slinger known as DJ Bl3nd is a major freak. And that’s not a slight by any means. Catch one of his high-energy sets on YouTube or at various EDM events and you’re likely to witness the spazzy selector, who sports a Mohawked mask inspired by Chucky from Child’s…
The music is like Bad Religion meets Meat Loaf … the musical. The persona is somewhere between The Joker and Max Sterner. Travis James, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for Travis James and The Acrimonious Assembly of Arsonists, has been a lightning rod for controversy since he set one of…
Folks can dance their blues away and help the St. Mary’s Food Bank by attending the 12 Hour Blues for Food Benefit Festival October 19 at the El Dorado Bar and Grill in Scottsdale. The festival runs from noon to midnight. There’s no cover charge, but those attending are asked…
So Dave Mustaine said that he hates to be singled out. Yeah–absolutely despises being the center of attention. One time he was at a Kenny G. concert and the musician asked him to stand up in the crowd because he was going to play at that same venue a couple…
Forget gang and murder references. There is nothing more gangsta than singing about lines in the bathroom, getting high on purple stuff, and trees in your lap — especially when you’re 20 years old. No matter the bleached blonde hair or teddy bears she likes to bring on stage and…
Affixing labels is often a bane and a blessing for a band. For Savannah, Georgia’s Kylesa, the esteemed Southern psych-metal act that helped usher in the first waves of indie’s acceptance of sludgy, off-center metal, pigeonholing is hardly an option. There’s just too much to process, too many edges being…
As members of Vetiver, Daniel Hindman and Sarah Versprille explored the gauzy textures of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac (occasionally recalling the hazy mysticism of the Peter Green era, too). As Pure Bathing Culture, the duo fast-forwards the Mac dial to Tango in the Night o’clock. No, really: “Pendulum,” which opens their…
It’s been a brutal year for local nightlife insitutions, to say the least. First, Axis/Radius’ proprietors pulled the plug on the iconic Scottsdale dance club in late June. A month or so later, venerated Mesa music venue Hollywood Alley ceased to exist in early August after its owners were forced…
Housed on Grand Avenue, a road with quite a history of its own, Bikini Lounge is a Phoenix cocktail staple. In fact, the tiki-themed dive bar has been open since 1947, when Grand Avenue was at the Phoenix end of U.S. 60, long before Interstate 10 was completed. Because the…
By Stan Bindell At this year’s Arizona Blues Showdown, Paul Cruize Blues Crew Band won in the band category and Juke Joint won in the solo/duo category. Winning means that these two bands will represent Arizona during the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, from January 21 through 25. More than…
Punk has always been made to be atypical in both approach and presentation. In 2013, however, few would expect Fall Out Boy, the once-TRL darling pop-punk five-piece, and Ryan Adams, one of the most prolific genre-crossing musicians of our generation, to come together to release a hardcore, punk EP. In this case, the presentation, approach and the collaboration is anything but expected.
As if made in a perfectly hasty, indirect response to the vitriol spread by once-loyal fans (myself included), “Love, Sex, Death” is the perfect foil to Save Rock and Roll as the actual rock ‘n’ roll that needs to be resurrected. Given their radio success with mega-hit “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ‘Em Up),” Fall Out Boy’s upcoming PAX AM Days is finally the unlikely harbinger of the same message they set out to spread.
It’s hard to determine who to chalk this reinvigorated reincarnation of the band to. Adams, always the prolific eccentric, is no stranger to the hard stuff, writing under his black metal project Werewolph and releasing 2010’s space odyssey thrash concept album Orion. But while Adams as known in the mainstream scope as the voice behind “that ‘Wonderwall’ cover” and the uncannily-timed video for 2001’s “New York, New York,” he’s made significant ventures into hardcore and punk with The Finger, formed in 2002 with Heart Attack’s Jesse Malin.
Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk to Ministry’s legendary frontman and all-around heavy metal veteran Al Jourgensen. We had a slightly concerning start to the interview (Jourgensen was sick from food poisoning caused by Chobani yogurt that had since been recalled, and was sitting around, drinking vodka…
You know him as Johnny D., as in Mostly Vinyl with Johnny D., the radio program on KWSS that celebrates rare and obscure soul and funk. But John Dixon is also an obsessive collector of recorded music — mostly on vinyl — as well as a record producer, a former…
Just because Mother Nature’s dialed down the blast furnace and summertime is officially over doesn’t mean that the pool party season is done quite yet. Nope, it turns out that there’s one final water-wing wingding to enjoy before hanging up your swimsuit to dry. The promoters and EDM fiends behind…
