It would be overly simplistic to imagine a chasm between the haves and have-nots in today’s psych-rock landscape, even between the ones with huge production values and the ones sticking it out with streamers and bubblegum. The reason: All the best bands these days carry some degree of scrappiness, no…
Like the volumes of Edgar Allan Poe and Allen Ginsberg that inspire Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s dark lyrical oeuvre, Robert Levon Been’s music has often dealt directly with death. So it’s only natural that the band’s latest album, Specter at the Feast, fearlessly approaches the Dark Angel, but this time…
When it comes to music, do kids today have it better or worse than the generations before them? I decided to do some research into the matter. By “research,” I mean I asked my teenagers some questions, and then compared their answers to my opinions. Around here, we call that…
The Lonely Island is a lot like one of those cans that’s filled with spring-loaded snakes — most of their humor comes from how long it takes for the joke to reveal itself, and how surprising it still is when it finally does. Their current string of #WACKWEDNESDAY releases –…
Let’s face it: We’re always going to be the red-headed step-artform at comic book conventions. Superheroes have dominated movies for years, and videogames hit the comic-culture demographic pretty naturally, but music — Jonathan Coulton and J-Pop and all the filkers on Livejournal aside — has been (naturally) resistant to adopt…
When people and brands re-create the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket promotion, they don’t always seem aware that Willy Wonka is kind of a sociopath. Regardless: Taylor Swift is re-creating the Golden Ticket promotion, and it’s coming to Phoenix. If you can connect a series of clues on Diet Coke’s Twitter…
Every once in a while I run into a record I’ve never heard of, even though it’s been out for a while. “We Run the Night,” by Australian DJ-turned-recording-artist Havana Brown, is one of those records, and I’m surprised it didn’t become a pop smash in the United States. It…
Listen up, local party monsters and EDM fans. There are a few things you’ll definitely need before going wild out at the massive outdoor dance fiesta and electronica rager known as Dirty Disco tomorrow evening. First, make sure to sport a colorful and eye-catching ensemble that you don’t mind getting…
Justin Timberlake is coming to Phoenix in December, and because he’s Justin Timberlake that means tickets are on sale today at 10 a.m. Also because he’s Justin Timberlake: The tickets, at least during limited presages, ranged in price from $62.50 to $1,950. That $62.50 ticket will get you high enough…
Finally, I get to write about music. I’ve been hanging out on the cultural side of the New Times site, Jackalope Ranch, writing a little column called Parent Hood. Not a “how to parent” column, more like a look at pop culture through the eyes of a parent (five kids…
Season 2 of the American version of The Office is my favorite TV show ever, and because I am a glutton for punishment, I’ve been using tonight’s series finale mostly as an excuse to understand how old I and my tastes (and the DVDs I watched all those Jim and…
Taylor Swift has always devoted herself to her fans. Now she has a brand-spanking-new website that allows you to break up with her, perhaps to inspire her next greatest hit! Just point your browser to BreakUpWithTaylorSwift.com, write yourself a tear-jerking Dear John letter, and push play! Wait. Let me redact…
Is it an ominous sign when a band’s first gig is broken up and shut down? For Sundressed, it clearly was inspiration. When the Phoenix quartet’s first performance ended before it began, they went into the studio to record a self-titled EP. Their first official full-length, Whiskey with Milk, is…
It’s been a little more than a year and a half since Crescent Ballroom opened, and about nine months since the downtown Phoenix venue celebrated its first anniversary a little early with the first Los Dias de la Crescent. The second Los Dias de la Crescent is Friday and Saturday…
My Bloody Valentine is headlining — of course you should buy FYF Fest tickets; this is a no brainer. Okay, the decision isn’t necessarily that simple. Backing up: FYF Fest is a two-day festival that takes place in downtown Los Angeles, featuring a variety of indie, electronic, punk, and comedy…
Earlier in May, Justin Timberlake announced he would be coming through Phoenix on his enormous solo tour, which set off a concert-excitement bomb the likes of which hadn’t been seen since — well, since those Prince shows, I guess, even earlier in May. More recently, the Backstreet Boys announced they’d…
Vampire Weekend — the album — sounded a lot like Graceland, inasmuch as most of us hadn’t heard that bright Afropop guitar tone on any other albums in the intervening 20 years, and Ezra Koenig’s lyrics were as epigrammatic as Paul Simon’s, if in a different way. It wasn’t just…
“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” asks Lana Del Rey in the chorus of her latest song, “Young and Beautiful” — the first single from The Great Gatsby’s soundtrack. Del Rey teamed up with the film’s director, cowriter, and co-producer, Baz Luhrmann, to bring…
Welcome to Ask Willie D, where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, “funny, serious or unpredictable.” Something on your mind? Ask Willie D! Photo courtesy of Peter BesteBURNED BY THE RELATIVE I LOANED MONEY Dear Willie D: I loaned my cousin $500 more…
I have never once been so confused by a song as I was the first time someone told me to listen to “Stick Stickly,” by Attack Attack! All I’d been told was that it was the source of the animated GIFs I’d started seeing all over the internet, in which…
Had Baz Luhrmann decided to take things even remotely seriously in his adaptation of The Great Gatsby, he could’ve just used the Bryan Ferry Orchestra’s 2012 album The Jazz Age in its entirety, instead of merely inviting Ferry to supply two incongruous songs for its soundtrack. But nothing about Luhrmann’s…
Arrested Development ruined the Segway. Lots of things ruined the Segway — don’t get me wrong — but the first time Gob Bluth made his dramatic, perfectly self-confident entrance into the frame on his fanny-packed Segway, he instantly summed up all the worries people had about them. Will this make…
