Liam Finn

John and Julian, Bob and Jakob, or Loudon and Rufus: The “like father, like son” adage in rock/pop music has always been a somewhat shaky proposition over the years. Liam Finn, son of Neil Finn (Crowded House) cuts a similar cloth in some songs, in which a few Lennon-driven melodies…

DJ Micky Finn

The hearts of local drum ‘n’ bass fanatics are thumping like some dope-ass Goldie track in anticipation of this weekend’s gig by the U.K.’s Micky Finn. Over the past two decades, the British beatmaster and producer (whose slogan states he’s been “mugging ya ears off since 1988”) helped pioneer and…

Club Candids: Hi Ho Silver

Silver Martini & Wine in Phoenix on Saturday, April 26. By: Lilia Menconi For more sultry scenery click here. It’s been too long since we hit the downtown scene, and we were beginning to miss our old digs. So on Saturday, April 26, we strolled down Washington Street looking for…

Booze Pig’s looking for the missing “T” at Closing Soon Saloon

Lonely days in Phoenix lead to lonely springtime in the desert. Everything is blooming and fornicating, humping, discharging, and collecting all the time, leaving you standing there waiting for that bee. The young dance in the light, on the lawns at spring training games, on small balconies, in backyards by…

Niki at Nite on Anal Blast and 8-year-old grindcore fans

The kid with the fluorescent green hair can’t be much older than 8. He’s wearing a shirt with a design that resembles the Heineken logo, but is modified to proclaim his love of Anal Blast, the band that’s just pulled him onstage. Singer Don Decker asks the kid, “What’s the…

Destroyer

For decades, critics have been leveling such denunciations as arch, portentous, heavy-handed, and precious at rock music. Destroyer’s Dan Bejar has managed to turn those denunciations into attributes. His vocals feature mannerisms that we’d usually find annoying in our U.K. cousins: feyness, enthusiastic offhandedness, melodramatics, self-importance, and smugness. (Think: Bowie,…

The Felice Brothers

If pre-electric Bob Dylan knocked up the Carter family and the offspring that followed were the ringleaders of a band of rebel Irish immigrant poets who lived in the Catskills and survived on red wine and petty theft, then you might be getting close to summarizing the nearly indefinable Felice…

The B-52’s

When we last heard from the Bs, their future seemed uncertain. Cindy Wilson had left the band, and though the remaining trio’s Good Stuff album of 1992 wasn’t bad, it didn’t set off any sparks, either. Then Wilson rejoined the band to tour behind a greatest hits compilation and they…

The Night Marchers

Three years after dissolving Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes nearly simultaneously, John “Speedo” Reis is back in the fold with a formidable new San Diego-based quartet called The Night Marchers. On the band’s debut CD, See You in Magic (released this week on Vagrant Records), Reis — collaborating…

Tegan and Sara

Though twins Tegan and Sara Quinn grew up on punk, they’ve demonstrably honed their pop instincts and graduated from folk-tinged New Wave/pop-punk to something more sophisticated over the course of their four albums. Last year’s The Con consolidates the gains made on 2004’s critical breakthrough, So Jealous, with crafted, well-polished…

Spyro Gyra

After more than 30 years of recording and touring, you’d think that these gentlemen would be jaded about making music, but listening to them perform, you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The iconic group — often regarded by fans as “the Led Zeppelin of jazz” —…

Ultra Lounge DJs

At most DJ and dance nights going down around the Valley, chances are you’ll be shaking your moneymaker to the same genres of music week after endless week. That ain’t the case on Friday nights at Medizona, 4240 North Winfield Scott Plaza in Scottsdale, thanks to the efforts of the…

Napalm Death

This 1987 album is widely regarded as the best album in the long discography of Napalm Death, a band that basically invented grindcore, combining elements of speed metal (barreling, crushing guitars) and death metal (growling, shrieking vocals) with blast beats. There are 28 tracks here, most of which clock in…

Club Candids: Cowboy Wow

Handlebar J in Scottsdale on Saturday, April 19th By: Lilia Menconi For more cowboy-girl action click here. Lately, we’ve been feeling like this town is tapped out. Every weekend, it’s the same faces, same get-ups, and same mornings of scattered memories and regrets. So we wallowed in our boredom by…

Dubstep at Blunt Club

Didja know that eardrum obliteration and neighborhood aggravation aren’t the only uses for pulsating bass-heavy music? Try ratcheting the Best of Bass Syndicate up to 11 while aiming your stereo’s speakers at the floor to simulate a minor earthquake, or blast “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side…

Cat Power

If, by magic, American Idol actually conceived a competition between this generation’s greatest professional female vocalists (not the semi-pro pop tarts the show usually offers), it’s hard to imagine who’d top Chan Marshall. The Cat Power singer proved an inspired interpreter on 2000’s The Covers Record, and again on her…

Pelican

Both Pelican and Thrice are stretching the boundaries of their sounds and others’ expectations. Pelican’s City of Echoes soft-pedals their usual throb, taking their complex art-metal instrumentals in a melodic direction. The tracks are still dense but don’t unwind as far, getting through each thematic movement with heretofore unseen concision…

Today Is the Day

An underground extreme-metal institution, Today Is the Day makes some of the most compellingly ugly music you could ever hope to hear. While pushing shock buttons is nothing new, bandleader Steve Austin has kept TITD at the cutting edge for almost 20 years, with a sound so harsh that bands…

Black Diamond Heavies

This Nashville duo plays fuzzed-out garage blues that sounds like Tom Waits sitting in with the Black Keys. It’s grimy, primal stuff led by frontman John Wesley Myers’ growl. They formed as a trio in 2004, but when guitarist Mark Holder left in 2006 after their debut EP, You Damn…

Dale Watson

Like a sepia-toned photo of days gone by, Watson embodies a sound Nashville disowned years ago for rhinestones and snakeskin. His deep baritone is dark as pumpernickel, smooth as steel, and haunted as that house in Amityville. His music harks back to the dusty honky-tonks and electrified swing of Bakersfield…

Club Candids: Got wood?

Hazelwood’s 1st Place Sports Grill on Saturday, April 12th. By: Lilia Menconi For more to fantasize about click here. This weekend, we decided to check out one of those places we’ve passed by a million times but have never bothered to stop in. Rumor has it that Hazelwood’s is loaded…