The desert is dancing. At least that’s the impression you’d get from this list of the 10 best records of the year, which reflects the synth-y sound of Phoenix. Lately, it seems electro-pop/rock of acts might grow to define the Valley’s music scene in the way the jangly country/pop/rock of…
Tempe’s Last Exit Bar & Grill will reunite The Black Moods on New Year’s Eve, Wednesday, for a headlining performance. The once-hot high-energy trio, who broke up (guitarist Josh Kennedy is now in Violet Wild) more than two years ago, were unlike most bands in the local music scene and brought…
It seems like just yesterday we were reminding you how bad the Eagles of Death Metal are live while praising The Hives for putting on one of the best shows of the year. Well, the band Axl Rose so memorably dubbed The Pigeons of Shit Metal are coming back in…
In just a few short days (December 27, to be exact), the Valley Metro will be running. With those electrified cables comes the chance to drink down Phoenix like never before. Yes, soon you’ll be able to get booze from Mesa to damn near Glendale without forcing a friend to…
Kinch, one of my favorite local bands (and you’ll find out just how favorite when my column on the top 10 local CDs of the year drops next week) has posted a new video chronicling the recording of their upcoming record in Austin. You can click below to see the YouTube version…
So we’ve got one huge — and many small — concert announcements for you today. First, the big news: Lil Wayne is coming to U.S. Airways Center on Janurary 28. Weezy brings T-Pain, Gym Class Heroes and Keri Hilson along with him. He might want to watch out for Sheriff…
We just got an update on Jerry Riopelle’s New Year’s Eve show that might of interest to anyone heading down to the Celebrity Theatre on the 31st for his annual concert. The local legend will be releasing a new CD on New Year’s Eve, a re-mastered version of his live…
Some music fans will argue that the art form known as the Christmas album achieved perfection with Vince Guaraldi’s score to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Others will argue for the supremacy of A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. Either way, each year artists mine the rich cache of…
Let’s face it. Every year around this time, many of the non-Jewish among us struggle to understand (or spell) Hanukkah. Some mistakenly think it’s the “Jewish Christmas,” while others just know you’re supposed to get presents for eight days but aren’t sure why. So in order to help clarify the…
Most musicians have little more than quiet distain for video games employing a plastic guitar. Not Minibosses. Drinking Diet Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper while congregated around a puffy leather couch in the Chandler home of guitarist Ben Baraldi, they’re going ape shit over the PS3 version of Rock Band…
Kris Roe, picking at his gee-tar. We got a rather excited-sounding text message on our cell phone last night from Jeremiah Gratza (a.k.a. President Gator) of Stateside Presents informing us of a rather cool upcoming gig he just booked with Kris Roe, singer/songwriter/guitarist for pop-punk band The Ataris on Friday,…
Valley residents have often bemoaned the gentrification of Mill Avenue. Up until the late 1990s, the Tempe strip was a cultural mecca of mom-and-pop shops and rock clubs. But when corporate entities started moving in, landlords started raising the rent on retail spaces, forcing small business off Mill to make…
Old-timey prog rock band Yes is coming to Phoenix on Wednesday, February 25. This according to a press release filled with proclamations that’d make The Beatles blush:”A dominant force in rock music for more than four decades, YES has created some of rock’s most enduring and compelling hits and has…
It’s not even Christmas, but we have our first piece of big summer concert news today: Dave Matthews Band is coming to Cricket Wireless Pavilion on May 6.Yes, it’s time for “Dave” again, already.DMB’s first studio record in four years (oddly produced by Rob Cavallo of Green Day and My…
Costume designer Randall Christensen has dressed some very famous people throughout his career. Since 1985, he’s tailored for stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas, R&B singer Toni Braxton, actress Susan Lucci, and *NYSYNC member Lance Bass. He’s been the sole costume designer for the popular ABC TV series Dancing with the Stars since season two, and he won an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Costumes for a Variety or Music Program” in 2006 for his work on DWTS.
It’s not often that a bassist leaving your band can make you somehow much more popular, but that’s just what happened to Black Label Society. Of course the situation wasn’t exactly normal, what with Robert Trujillo leaving the band to join The Beatles of Metal, Metallica. Soon after Bobby T…
If anyone’s compiling a reel of defining Arizona 21st-century rock moments, don’t forget Kirkwood Dellinger’s January 2008 appearance on Good Morning Arizona. Falling squarely, and I do mean squarely, under what Elmo Kirkwood will frequently categorize as “corny crap,” the band briefly played to the commercial break a snippet of…
Where’s the love for rap’s elders? Almost 30 years after Sugar Hill Gang released hip-hop’s first hit single, “Rapper’s Delight,” the genre evinces less nostalgia than reel lawn mowers. While rock luminaries like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan still attract fans (some who weren’t even…
Zach Daniell is wiped out. It’s the night before Thanksgiving and the 18-year-old New Yorker has just flat-out sprinted through lower Manhattan with his 16-year-old girlfriend Kiki Fausel, his sister, and some friends. Bounding and pounding, they make the frenzied one-mile dash from Washington Square Park to a concert at…
This morning I woke up thinking “Hmmm, I’m pretty much done compiling my list of the top ten local releases of the year, I should write that column soon,” when I got an unexpected e-mail that threw the whole operation to disarray.That’s right, The Loveblisters record, The Nowhere West is done…
Perhaps recognizing that the tanking economy has hit the blue-collar sorts you’ll find at a massive multi-day country music festival especially hard, Country Thunder is introducing an installment purchase plan. Or, as we like to call it, “layaway.” Now on countrythunder.com you can get your tickets at the early bird…
Arizona’s own Maynard James Keenan, best known as the front man of Tool and A Perfect Circle, has scheduled a show with his new band, Puscifer and it’s nothing like what you’d expect from the enigmatic singer who was the subject of a New Times’ cover story last month. On…
