The 25 Best Phoenix Club Photos of June 2013

June ended with a bang–Axis Radius closed down after one last blowout and temperatures spiked from “I guess I signed up for this” to “I did not sign up for this”–but our Club Candids photographers were busy all month, documenting Phoenix nightlife and consuming lots of fluids, probably. Here are…

Glass Heroes Launch New Music Video — on MTV?

So, the music video on MTV as a promotional tool is a thing of the past, is it? Well, on July 1, Fervor Records announced that you could see the new Glass Heroes video for “Let Me Down” on MTV.com, the reformed music channel that’s trying to establish its website…

20 Photos from Axis Radius’ Big Going-Away Party

Last weekend, after 16 years as an Old Town institution, Scottsdale’s Axis-Radius was the site of one last blowout before closing down for good. (It’s set to reopen next year as a new music venue and craft beer hangout.) We were there for Last Call. Here’s 20 photos from the…

Why Do So Many People Hate Black Veil Brides?

When we interviewed Black Veil Brides lead singer Andy Biersack last week, ahead of their performance at Warped Tour on Thursday, lots of fans — from in and out of town — wrote in to talk about how much they loved the band. A smaller, very vocal contingent, though, wrote…

Twin Shadow @ Crescent Ballroom

Can you handle the truth? If stuff like honesty and real-life stories are your kind of thing, and you also happen to be heading to Crescent Ballroom on June 27 to see Twin Shadow, be prepared get your fix via personal storytelling, an added element to the night of music…

Minibosses @ Yucca Tap Room

Minibosses does exactly what it says on the tin: It plays video game covers, and it’s been doing it since before “Video Game Cover Band” was a genre. The group’s oeuvre focuses on the ’80s — its most-recent album included a medley of some lesser-known Legend of Zelda tracks, a…

L.A. Guns @ Club Red

The current version of L.A. Guns is at least the second band bearing his name to not feature Tracii Guns, the guitarist who founded L.A. Guns and briefly took part in the Sunset Strip mega-merger that begat Guns N’ Roses. This iteration features two longtime members, singer Phil Lewis and…

The Superhumanoids @ Crescent Ballroom

Wow . . . Talk about a time trip. As someone who lived through the ’80s and now accepts the inevitable hangover of artists such as Peter Murphy, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, and Morrissey still in touring mode, I have a question for young artists today: Why? Why the fascination…

Axis-Radius’ Final Weekend @ Axis-Radius

The nightlife-loving cats at Scottsdale’s Axis-Radius are planning one helluva party this weekend that likely will go down as one of the most memorable in the club’s 16-year history. Sadly, that’s because the iconic and influential establishment is about to become history. If you haven’t heard the news, the double-sided…

As a 26-Year-Old White Woman, I Can Really Relate to Jay-Z

A confession: When Jay Z writes his lyrics, I feel as if he is writing them for me, a white woman from suburban Pennsylvania. His soulful rhymes about drug-dealing, his forlorn verses about incarceration, and his triumphal beats about being a pioneer in the music industry are all things I…

Heavy Metal World Records: Five of the Loudest Bands Ever

Last week at the O Music Awards, rock musician Andrew W.K. set the world record for Longest Drum Session in a Retail Store after he spent 24 consecutive hours (from June 19-20) at his drum set. While the songwriter/instrumentalist/party connoisseur was hitting the skins, lots of other rock musicians sat…

The Six Funniest Lines In Kanye West’s Yeezus

Everyone’s tripping over themselves to parse out the complicated and conflicted political posturing going on in Yeezus, myself included, so it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that, for all its ground-breaking, this record is still chock-full of hilarious Kanye lines. He’s always been funny (that light-skinned/dark-skinned Michael Jackson…

Ke$ha’s Heavy Metal Persona Might Make You a Satanist

Much to the enthusiasm of my pop-loving girlfriends, I agreed to go to Wednesday’s Ke$ha show at Ak-Chin Pavilion. The tickets were free, and we had a car with a driver, so I figured I could at least drink enough whiskey to dull the shame brought on by my seething…

Cyndi Lauper @ Talking Stick Resort

Watch enough infomercials for Time-Life ’80s compilations, and you’ll come to this conclusion: Some albums are of their time because they were released at the peak of a particular trend, and some albums were a trend. She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper’s famous debut, is so important to our conception of…

Courtney Marie Andrews @ Crescent Ballroom

Courtney Marie Andrews has been a Phoenix institution seemingly forever — she was on our cover three years ago — but she won’t turn 23 until November. In the five years since her debut release, Urban Myths, she’s toured and recorded with fellow institution Jimmy Eat World, continued to release…

No Volcano @ Crescent Ballroom

It’s almost like a local indie supergroup! No Volcano features Colorstore guitarist Jeremy Randall, bassist Jake Sevier of Letdownright and Kingfathand, and drummer Chris Kennedy and vocalist/lead guitarist Jim Andreas of the mid-’90s outfit Trunk Federation. And perhaps you’ll recall Trunk Federation’s mirrored head that would spin like a disco…

Kendrick Lamar @ Mesa Amphitheatre

Kendrick Lamar isn’t the first young rapper to spend the better part of his breakthrough album asking what it means to be a good person. He’s not even the first young rapper to frame said album with a vague concept. But where Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon: The End…

DJ Defense.Mekanizm @ The Rogue Bar

It’s been a couple of weeks since Edward Snowden ratted out the National Security Agency, and most of America’s still in a twist over revelations of our government’s Orwellian-style surveillance tactics. And maybe in the mood to riot, stage a few protests, or — at the very least — preach…

Why Kanye West’s Yeezus Is the Best Punk Rock Record in Years

Given what we know about Kanye West, a comparison between his newest (best, maybe) record and the long-dead punk rock movement seems like a tough case to make — the dude telling God that he’s stacking his millions seems like an odd choice for a continuation of Never Mind the…