Time hasn’t been kind to 1997’s parade of one-hit wonder artists. European imports like The Prodigy (“Firestarter”), Chumbawamba (“I Get Knocked Down”), or The Cardigans (“Lovefool”) haven’t released a hit album on these shores since their glory years. The Raybon Brothers (“Butterfly Kisses”) and She Moves (“Breaking All the Rules”)…
Death metal is the most divisive force in the world today. Yes, even more divisive than Palestine, or Europe’s proton-dividing Large Hadron Collider. To fans, death metal’s blast beats and growling vocals are awesomeness incarnate. To others, it sounds like a long, amplified belch. We suggest the latter group steer…
Country-noir singer Jesse Sykes looks like Lara Flynn Boyle and sounds like a cross between Marianne Faithful and Adam Sandler’s Operaman. Her smoky, strained, eerily spectral voice is seemingly poised between genders — like a dude doing a falsetto. Not that we’re complaining. Paired with guitarist Phil Wandscher (formerly of…
Blunt Club beat-juggler Pickster One is keeping things simple for his newest nightlife endeavor, Dirty Funk. “We’re just gonna be drinking beer and listening to some cool music,” he says of the event, which happens on Tuesday, January 19, at the Yucca Tap Room, 29 West Southern Avenue in Tempe…
School is almost back in session, but Hoodlums has kept busy even while the students are out of town. Tom Waits is at the top of their sales, local acoustic sereneders Dry River Yacht Club came in second, and Bobby Dylan’s Christmas album is still going strong even though Christmas…
Thee Jaguar Sharks Thee Jaguar Sharks (Wahalla Music) GRADE: B+ Surf rock can’t help but be a bit ironic out of the context of the time and space that it was created. That is to say, in the 2000s and in the middle of the desert, the meaning just doesn’t…
Everyone loves a birthdays party, especially when the guest of honor it is part of a kickass crew with tons of friends and fans. Thursday night’s Bombshelter DJ birthday bash (for DJ Emile) blew up Tempe’s Cherry Lounge & Pit, a venue that has recently gained some street cred thanks…
I’ve got no shortage of reasons to despise Watchout! Theres Ghosts, and perhaps it’s a mark of my growing pettiness that their music is pretty low on my list. Near the top of the list is the fact that they are willing to toss an exclamation mark after “watchout,” but…
Talentless poseurs? Hardly. In fact, these Vegas-based Prince and the Revolution impersonators are exquisite poseurs — a tribute band so meticulous and lovingly choreographed that they rated an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, where effete sidekick/bandleader/dude Paul Shaffer deemed their performance “fabulous.” Unquestionably, the source of the band’s…
It makes sense that Stephen Lynch grew up to be America’s most unconventional young recording star. After all, when a guy’s father and mother are an ex-priest and ex-nun, respectively, it should surprise no one when he takes an enormous shit on convention. To clarify: Lynch is a musician who…
Though the electronic indie rockers have long since ditched the Valley of the Sun for the Big Apple (via the Lone Star State) local music fans still hold Lymbyc System in high regard. And they should, as the duo, comprising brothers Mike and Jared Bell, have collaborated with Her Space…
Back in the ’90s, Alabama-bred Auguste Arthur Bondy went by the name Scott Bondy, and he fronted a hard-charging alt-rock trio called Verbena. They sounded so much like Nirvana that Dave Grohl — who produced the band’s 1999 major label debut, Into the Pink — probably had such intense flashbacks…
In case you aren’t up on the latest scenester gossip, here’s a juicy tidbit: William Fucking Reed is ditching the Valley for New York City in April. But before he changes his mailing address from the PHX to the NYC, the 32-year-old plans on working his local DJ gigs up…
The last time we were at Monkey Pants, it was a weird sports bar with enormous televisions, fluorescent lighting and carpeted flooring.My, how things have changed.We’ve been hearing favorable things about the little bar (that, incidentally, shares the same strip as hipster favorite, the Time Out Lounge) so we figured…
There’s nothing duller than a “retro” band. You know the type: decked out in the fashions of some bygone era, carefully assembling each song into a pastiche of genre signifiers, purposefully oblivious to outside influences that could spoil the illusion of their just having stumbled out of a time machine…
Say what you will about Roger Clyne’s talents (which are substantial), when it comes to instigating a party, the native Arizonan is skilled. The stories surrounding the raucous Refreshments shows he was a part of back during the Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy days have been trumped by the kind…
The imaginative mind of Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III would certainly make for an interesting place to visit. It’s likely littered with as many eccentricities and curiosities as the experimental noise “songs” that the oddly named artist creates. Made with objects and instruments as disparate as scrap metal and violins,…
When bassist Kyle Rose Stokes joined The Love Me Nots, a Phoenix-based garage act, last May, it meant more than simply acquainting herself with the band’s cache of high-energy surf-rock stompers — it meant submitting herself to a full-on, Sally Jessy Raphael-style extreme makeover. “In my natural state, I’m a…
Still feeling the brutal, toxic side effects of New Year’s Eve? There’s only one antidote for your suffering: punk rock! In all, five bands composed primarily of angry-sounding, undernourished-looking young men will rock Scottsdale’s The Rogue, including local acts Sharp Sticks, Die Like Dogs, and Good Men. A fourth Valley…
Just because the notorious underground venue Rasputin’s Equestrian Manor went kaput, that doesn’t mean clandestine wingdings at Valley mansions are gonna stop anytime soon. In fact, the beat jugglers and party instigators of Warsaw Pact Entertainment will hold their annual off-the-radar (and off-the-hook) Epic Red Cup Massive New Year’s Eve…
When throwing oneself a birthday party, you can’t go wrong with a Hulkster theme (of course, having 20-ish DJs, live art, a bike expo and a secret downtown location don’t hurt either). Ali Karim and crew put their party planning skills to the test this Saturday, and passed with flying…
To paraphrase legendary professional wrestler Hulk Hogan: Watcha gonna do, brotha, when an energy drink company wants to support a dance party put on by you? Such is the situation with DJ Bigie, who claims a certain local beverage company (we ain’t naming names) supplied him with several large posters…
