I can hear the ghost of Billie Holiday now: “What the hell is that, a programmed drum beat? Why is it burying my vocals? How could they turn all my winsome wails into sound bites and samples? This is NOT the blues!” Perhaps the blues legend would be honored that…
It’s hard to tell if the musicians in Eroticide received too much attention from their mothers or if they received too little of it. Whatever the situation, it seems likely that the members of the band developed their rabidly misogynistic stage personas and live antics in response to some form…
Here’s a reconstituted ’70s classic-rock group with an otherwise engaged leader. Deep Purple’s grumpy guitar hero, Ritchie Blackmore, probably hasn’t even played the “Smoke on the Water” riff around the house since 1993, but clearly, Purple is the headliner. Besides the added value of having Dixie Dregs/Kansas guitarist Steve Morse…
This is not Frank Sinatra Jr. embarrassing his dad by warbling “My Way” for the Geritol geezers, nor is it Mercer Ellington working hard to do the Duke proud and missing the mark. And this is not a mixed bunch of ex-sidemen doing a songbook while a disembodied star with…
Most of the time, the songs that come to represent an artist in the public’s memory don’t do justice to the full scope of the artist’s musical accomplishments across an entire career. How many times do we find ourselves telling other people things like, “Yes, such-and-such band is really cool,…
Bust out the guyliner and yer Jack Sparrow duds, landlubbers, because the raving lunatics of Karma Productions and Nightowl Entertainment are, err . . . pirating Disney’s blockbuster high-seas adventure flicks for the theme of their latest all-night dance spectacular, Ravers of the Caribbean. SoCal spinsters DJ Jayvon and FESTER…
This week, Club Candids showed up to work with a hangover because we hit The Door on Wednesday night for the one-year anniversary of Groove Candy. The midweek hip-hop/R&B dance night was packed with folks dressed to the nines in their favorite urban garb. (Click here for more photos.) The…
Last weekend, we decided to bite the bullet and inconvenience ourselves with light-rail construction to visit one of our favorite central Phoenix standbys, the George & Dragon. (Click here for more photos.) With a decent crowd filling the pub, it was obvious that we weren’t the only ones ready to…
It’s not uncommon to jam some wax or silicone noise-stoppers into your ear holes while at the club, especially when hearing the Tempe-based, normally short-form punk trio of percussionist John Ryan Nelson, guitarist/effects-pedal fiddler James Fella, and saxophonist/vocalist/sometimes knob-twiddler Ashley Hohm, collectively known as Soft Shoulder. But when listening to…
It’s no small source of stupid pride for me that there are a million cool anagrams for my name, everything from Mr. Iodine Scene to I Sneer Demonic to No Dicier Semen. Any one of these would make a natty album title. But apparently, it’s equally no small source of…
Hard to believe, but in the 10-plus years that The Cremains have made rawkin’ their business, they’ve never been represented by a full-length recording. Besides the two EPs that started them off, there was the Sacred Stage album they did with Navajo singer James Bilagody. On that album, The Cremains…
The 2006 album Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms found Oh No sampling only from Galt MacDermot’s musical theater scores. In doing so, he discredited the theory that says pulling loops from one well yields rigid results — Exodus stings in champion pairings and expert compositions. Less than a year later, a…
One-man acts are a lot like power chords: Just when you think they’re getting a little old, you realize that you’ve still got a long way to go before you get sick of them. Tucson’s Bob Log III is certainly not above resorting to gimmick. After all, the man dons…
It’s unusual for an opening band to have better stage presence, greater energy, and a more dedicated fan base than the headlining act that follows it. But as rare as that is, nobody in the audience seemed surprised when Norwegian EBM/power-noise hybrid band Combichrist eclipsed industrial icons KMFDM at the…
Rachel Nagy is a strong, sexy frontwoman. Her vocals canter, strut, and shimmy with the knowing look of the much-adored — half coquettish tease, half jaded indifference. She coos to the rocked-up Latin swing of “My Delight,” swings her hips with rockabilly swagger on “If You Don’t Think,” and dives…
There’s much musical lore about the Lone Star State, but what is it about San Antonio, Texas? There are many songs about Houston and Dallas, but relatively few regarding San Antonio, considering the town’s alumni include Sir Doug Sahm, the Butthole Surfers, and Carol Burnett. (Is it the water?) Add…
Here’s the thing: Hair rock is a lot cooler now that it’s become ironic. Every year, band after band that used to be something somebody once cared about sometime in the ’70s reunites and hits the road together to milk whatever celebrity they have left for a few more dollars…
Wanna play doctor? The ghoulie girls and beastly boys of Club Hell definitely do, which is why they’re gonna transform the Ruby Room, 717 South Central, into a fetishistic freakfest of naughty nurses and devious doctors for Medical Fun 2.0 on Saturday, August 11. The ER goes BDSM as Club…
There’s nothing quite like dive-bar karaoke at 7 on a Thursday night. Especially in a No. 1 dive like Kay’s Lounge. When my guest pig, Zep, and I open the door to this place, it is immediately palpable that the new NO SMOKING legislation is a huge mistake for the…
I know there are people out there who spend their time considering what’s punk rock and what isn’t. I’m not one of them. But something happened not long ago that’s made me think a lot about what’s punk. And I can tell you that the most punk rock thing I’ve…
Janis Joplin Crap N Vomit likes to annoy. Scratch that. The bloody bastards love to freaking annoy. Whether it’s provoking MySpace’s Tommy boy to delete their original profile because of their apparently grotesque band name, or their anti-press release stating that “my mom doesn’t like us,” the Mesa-based three-piece makes…
Descriptions such as “quaint” and “charming” are not the way a hip-hop artist would like to have his music explained. But if the kicks fit, then all you can do is flaunt ’em. In Jelts’ most recent release, Sunset in the City (available for free download at www.wildlifecrew.com), the graffiti…
