Hip-hop, not rap. Charming, not tough. Suburban, not street. Taste the Secret, Ugly Duckling’s latest laugh-in-the-face-of thug-life “realism” assault, continues the group’s brave struggle to carve a niche for intelligent, playful B-boy culture. Over the course of an engaging EP and a terrific full-length debut, Ugly Duckling sought to reanimate…
Phish begin their first summer tour in three years here in Phoenix, giving the locals an opportunity to witness what may prove to be a positive resurrection of the 90s most dynamic live band, which in its prime could turn an amphitheatre into a glowing bolt of aural lightning. It…
Dwight Yoakam first became known in the mid-80s as part of the new-traditionalist movement in country that included the more mainstream artists Randy Travis, George Straight and Vince Gill. The rise of these new traditionalists was a reaction to watered-down country they felt relied too heavily on pop elements, and…
Behind every successful rock star today, it seems, stands a couple of lousy parents who couldn’t care less. From Eminem’s pill-popping momma to Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte’s absentee dad to Staind frontman Aaron Lewis’ neglectful hippie procreators, dysfunctional couples with the poorest of parenting skills have inadvertently…
Dub is not a genre! It is a state of mind, with funhouse mirror eyeballs, a drop floor, a love of the unknown, and the knowledge that if a philosophical truth really does exist, it can be found in the mysterious, malleable ether. It’s been the soundtrack of a righteous…
Adam Panic found there was a better way to scrounge up lunch money than his boring drug store job. He recorded a full-length album at his home last November, titled it The Vamp, and set out for Chapparal High School in Scottsdale, which he attends. “I’d go to school, and…
Mississippi: The Album contains some of the funniest swearing ever committed to tape on a hip-hop record. When David Banner of the duo Crooked Lettaz cusses on his solo debut, it’s purposeful and ugly. When he says “bitch ass nigga,” a frequent insult, the delivery is so over the top,…
I’ve got absolutely no problem with the Y2K-pop model of producer-as-star: Timbaland; the Neptunes; Jermaine Dupri; shit, Jerry Finn–these folks practically guarantee a good time, with high-level artistry an occasional fringe benefit and brand-name consistency a handy way to organize skipping around the radio dial. But the Matrix, as much…
Brooklyn’s Freddie Foxxx (aka James Campbell, who also performs under the alias Bumpy Knuckles) seems to share a lot with 50 Cent, the rapper who rose from the streets of Jamaica, Queens, to offer the Dr. Dre-produced and Eminem-endorsed multiplatinum-selling album Get Rich or Die Trying. Both rappers look similarly…
“Dear fans, where to start?” Jewel writes in the liner notes for 0304, what she describes as a “lyrically-driven . . . modern interpretation of big band music.” While that sounds as appealing as Morrissey fronting Chicago, it actually resembles a smarter Shakira or a folkier No Doubt. And there’s…
As founding member Chris Dreja tells it, making a new Yardbirds album after 35 years seemed daunting: “That’s a long holiday. We’ve been dormant like some bacteria for all that time. Waiting to unleash itself.” While some might question the worth of a Yardbirds album without Eric Clapton or Jimmy…
To a certain fan of a certain subgenre of rock ‘n’ roll, and certainly to any rock critic, there are few things in life more agreeable than the disagreeably somnambulant snarl of Mr. Lou Reed. There’s just something relaxing about the deep, nasal croak that drones on like a distant…
Undeterred by four years of music business grief and languishing sales, incendiary rockers Supersuckers have named their new record Motherfuckers Be Trippin’. “As if we didn’t have enough hurdles putting this record out on our own. We had to put up this one,” remarks Eddie Spaghetti, the band’s proverbially good-natured…
In 1988, Metallica made an album called … And Justice for All, and it was extraordinary, filled with layered lead-guitar harmonies, whipsaw chord changes, near-orchestral structures and focused ferocity. It was, quite simply, one of the greatest metal albums ever made, despite terribly thin production. The songs, the ambition and…
For an impression of how things change, take a look at the two new Isley Brothers CDs currently on sale at your local Best Buy: Body Kiss, the veteran R&B act’s new DreamWorks album, and Legacy’s reissue of 3+3, the band’s classic 1973 LP. Six impassioned-looking young men stare out…
A tribute album to a critically acclaimed songwriter these days seems inevitable, as is the fact that it would be packed with luminaries. But while John Hiatt’s Southern folk-rock snapshots have been so widely covered as to nearly qualify as modern standards, It’ll Come to You shows them to be…
If you first saw The Song Remains the Same at a midnight showing, like I did, chances are the secondhand pot smoke led you to believe that Led Zeppelin had created the greatest cinematic achievement since the invention of film. Quite a different reaction when you saw the film on…
Cheer up, kiddies, the circus is in town. Art-rock freaks Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are coming, with their “this is what it might sound like to have an enjoyable seizure” sound. Sleepytime must be heard to begin to be truly understood, but here goes a modest attempt: An art supergroup of…
Retro’s been a fad for so long now that it, too, seems almost retro. But cool will always be cool, and Marco Polo Saldana, who sings and plays standup bass for local “psychobilly” band the Curse of the Pink Hearse, knows cool. He carries cool with him in an old…
Bust out the black light and the downers, Dead Meadow is here. An unlikely and largely unsuccessful merging of early Pink Floyd psychedelia and Sabbath’s dark metal, Dead Meadow’s music is mostly a bum trip. The music on Shivering King and Others represents an interesting idea, one even the modern-day,…
The atmosphere at O’Mallys on a late spring Tuesday night is pumped. The west Phoenix nightspot, an odd mix of sports bar, swank lounge and dance club, is an urban hip-hop magnet. Especially this night, when an amateur freestyle rap battle has drawn a triple-digit audience. Up-and-coming rhyming hopefuls throw…
“I wasn’t planning on doing this. It was just something I did out of necessity, and then it just kind of turned into my life.” Larry Elyea, veteran musician and guitarist for the hard-core metal band Gift, is the most sought after hard-rock producer in the Valley. He estimates he…
