When DJ Astonish isn’t busy dropping the hip-hop hotness over Valley airwaves every Saturday night from 9 to 11 on KISS-FM 104.7, the banging beatmaster can be found at the new nightspot John Q’s, 7000 East Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale, presenting Naked Wednesdays. While, sadly, no one actually drops trou…
These days, NYC ain’t the only hip-hop haven bustin’ out lyrical clicks and renegade rappers. Straight outta Boston, Mr. Lif is bringin’ back that ol’ Beantown rap sound with Mo’ Mega, a politically charged followup to his highly praised 2002 album, I Phantom. The pseudo-optimistic dread-head is keepin’ it real…
Either Andy Partridge has way too much time on his hands or he’s simply too prolific to be reined in by the confines of XTC, the proto-punk band-turned-Beatles/Beach Boys disciples he founded nearly three decades ago. It’s likely a bit of both; after all, it has been practically 25 years…
1. Jay-Z, Kingdom Come (Roc-a-Fella) 2. Brand New, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me (Interscope Records) 3. Killswitch Engage, As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner Records) 4. Snoop Dogg, Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (Geffen Records) 5. Tenacious D, The Pick of Destiny (Sony) 6. The Game, Doctor’s Advocate (Geffen Records)…
The Phoenix indie crowd has a new pit stop on their Friday-night boozing agenda. Glam (formerly Ky’s Place), at 32nd Street and Indian School Road, is a perfectly petite dance club stuck in a strip mall. The place goes nuts after midnight, when the pre-drinking is over and an ass-shaking…
Face it, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen your friends make asses of themselves at karaoke. On a Saturday night in mid-November, I’m about to launch an alcohol-fueled audio assault on the croaky-oke crowd, along with my friends Bones, Chazz, Toxic JuJu, and JuJu’s dad Papa JuJu, who’s visiting P-town…
Kurt Cobain loved The Melvins. Without that band’s influence, there would be no grunge. The outfit un-cheesed Sabbath and created truly evil-sounding metal that directed future generations toward methodical bass lines and sick distortion. Cobain (the band’s most tragically beloved roadie) tinker-punked The Melvins’ sounds and made them palatable to…
Somewhere, “power-pop” sticklers are brooding that these Oklahomans can’t possibly apply that mantle to what it is that they do. According to most universally accepted theorems, most power-pop bands are in their late 30s and early 40s, unless they had some estimable RIAA success in the ’70s — then they’re…
Piano rock, schmiano rock. What Copeland produces is something much more than the recycled Ben Folds schmaltz typical of most ivories-oriented groups. Both Beneath Medicine Tree, the quartet’s 2003 debut, and In Motion, its 2005 breakthrough, were awash in lush, dreamy indie pop that eschewed irony for introspection. The guitar…
Best known for incredibly catchy punk songs about murder and monsters, Misfits-Samhain mastermind Glenn Danzig is the only alumnus from hardcore’s original old-school scene to land an album at No. 1 on Billboard’s classical album chart, with 1993’s Black Aria. More sophisticated and eclectic, Black Aria II is instrumental, but…
Lady Sovereign may not seem as revolutionary as the last great British hip-hop export, M.I.A. In fact, at times, her record feels a bit like M.I.A. and Dizzee Rascal sitting down to tea. But it’s the pintsize rapper’s cheeky personality that ultimately matters here (although the quirky synth hooks certainly…
We’ll take the esteemed word of Vogue — along with reports of Karl Lagerfeld’s collection of 60,000 CDs — as evidence that this two-disc comp of the iconic fashion designer’s “favorite songs” isn’t the product of a focus group. But there’s something tragic about a man born in 1933 (according…
The Clash may have scavenged the past for inspiration — calypso, Beat poets, film idols, rockabilly, the Spanish civil war — but never for the sake of nostalgia. And while boxed sets sometimes embalm history, this one suggests the spirit of discovery Joe Strummer might have felt poring through record…
Is there anything that Paul Oakenfold hasn’t done? The London-born wax worker has been dubbed the world’s most successful DJ (per Guinness World Records), toured with Madonna, sold zillions of CDs, reportedly has collected as much as £25,000 or more for certain gigs, and collaborated with actress Brittany Murphy on…
The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year, alternately known as “Black Friday” and “Blitz Day,” when people get up at 4 a.m. to barrel over each other in shopping carts and take advantage of the ridiculous rollbacks. If you’re not in such a hurry to…
This is not an album that will translate into catchy ring tones or make you bounce in your car seat, bang your head, shake your booty with friends, or write angry/gushy diary entries about your recent ex. It’s thinking (wo)man’s music, a sweeping soundscape that re-creates a horrible moment in…
SMoCA Nights has become the quintessential fashionable event for Valley clubgoers who want to hang up their ho-bag clothes for the night and feel high-class. With fine art as the backdrop, social sophisticates showed off their stiletto pumps and designer dresses. The crowd at “Luna: Fall SMoCA Nights” on Thursday,…
“All music shows are better with booze,” according to Josh Preston, lead vocalist and guitarist of local band A Few Random Drunks. True to its name, the group formed out of “four men who accidentally stumbled into each other” over brewskis, and their shows are all about bonding over beer…
“Fetti Profoun” is a horrible hip-hop handle, but the hooks here are hot as hell. The CD opens with audio clips from local news stations, spliced together to sound like a big, controversial story about Fetti, then busts into the title track with hydraulic-bumpin’ beats and suspenseful synths, where Fetti…
“It would mean so much to me to know mystery,” Brock Ruggles announces early on in The Great Saturday Night Swindle, but he and his new band Tierra del Fuego have crafted a debut album even Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe in the study would have no trouble figuring…
Ben Lee may be headlining the “Fun! Fun! Fun! Tour,” but the artist most likely to live up to the spirit of that tour name is Rooney, a band whose infectious self-titled debut felt like the Beach Boys bringing in Rivers Cuomo to save the day when Brian Wilson had…
Holy cowbell, biker babes! This co-ed stoner metal band sure has some gritty gee-tars and hard rock chops on its fourth studio effort, Their Rock Is Not Our Rock. The album takes its title from Deuteronomy 32:31, but the only gospel Fireball Ministry seems to be preaching is the gospel…
