Resident rapper Jaron Ikner, better known as Black One, may call Phoenix his home, but his heart still lives in his hometown. Tucson. Fresh off of his first full-length album, Black Sun Rising, Ikner looked to T-Town for a lot of the material that comprise the 14-track record. Only two…
This scene invariably has played out in every musician’s life — the point when one band member informs another he just proposed to his girlfriend. Following a stretch of confused ground inspection before resuming eye contact, instead of offering congratulations, his friend says something along the lines of, “Well, I…
You don’t know the meaning of “poignant” until Glen Campbell, sitting two feet from you, starts to sing “Ghost on the Canvas,” the title track of his new — and final — album. The country great, who’s going through the early stages of Alzheimer’s, sometimes forgets which family member once…
When The Darkness entered the spotlight in 2003, the parenthetical question was: “Are these guys for real?” Glam rock long had given up for dead. So, did these guys really and truly love all things ’70s and ’80s rock, or were the spandex unitards, feather boas, long hair, lavish stage…
Bon Iver is the new Arcade Fire of the Grammy Awards. In classic “Who is…” Tumblr fashion, a plethora of people have taken to the interwebs to express their disdain for Justin Vernon and co. because they won the Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album awards, simply because they…
Road trip anyone? The Beach Boys — you know, those old dudes in funny hats who played with Foster the People and the certified cool guy and totally-not-the-worst Adam Levin-fronted Maroon 5 at the Grammy’s — are coming to Arizona, but they are skipping Phoenix in favor of launching their…
If the Grammy’s taught us anything, it’s that despite Dave Grohl’s apparent objections, electronic dance music, or EDM, has stepped boldly into the spotlight, with artists like Skrillex and Deadmau5 leading the charge toward the mainstream. Director Amir Bar Lev’s RE:GENERATION Music Project, a documentary produced in part by the…
One of the great faces of Motown, Smokey Robinson, will be visiting the Valley of the Sun soon.Get ready to hear some of the best crooning that Hitsville, USA ever had to offer.Smokey Robinson, Kris Kristofferson, Maná and other artists will be visiting Phoenix in the coming weeks. The rest…
The Sun Club in Tempe. Mad Gardens on Van Buren. The Stumble Inn down in Tucson. In another lifetime (read: more than 25 years ago) these and a dozen other scuzzy dives around Arizona were all ground zero for punk rock.Flash forward to present day and many of the aforementioned spots…
Admit it, you don’t know much about The Jesus and Mary Chain beyond puzzling over what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation. It’s okay, you’re not alone. Jedidiah Foster, the singer and guitarist of The Bittersweet Way introduced his bandmates to The Jesus…
Doesn’t matter if you’re like me and have been mostly indifferent to fun. in the past, the band’s new single, “We are Young (featuring Janelle Monáe)” has been inescapable over the past few weeks. The song’s huge, and sounds like it was custom built for a car commercial (and yeah…
Fresh off his stint in the hospital, things are starting to normalize for Brad Dwyer. We were happy to have Jeff Owens, musician and mini-comic artist extraordinaire, fill in last week, but it’s nice to have Dwyer back. This week, Dwyer creates a whole new punk rock subset, adding “home-core,”…
A week ago, the Superbowl inspired Volkswagen to fork up millions to rework its Darth Vader commercial of Superbowls past. The New York Football Giants’ victory over Sith Lord Bill Belichick and his Patriots moved Giants fans to celebrate. Most fans were moved to the kitchen to grab a final celebratory Bud Light before calling it a night. One particularly famous fan and host of yesterday’s 54th Grammy Awards Ceremony, LL Cool J, was moved to write the song “Super Baller,” a Giant’s victory anthem that samples the NFL horns you hear at the beginning of every NFL broadcast.
Joey BradfischBradfisch is a producer for the Johnjay and Rich radio morning show on 104.7 KISS-FM. His segment, What’cha Doin At The Courthouse?, airs on the station every Friday at 7:40 a.m. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play? I’m…
It’s been a minute since we’ve mentioned Cypress Hill and Arizona in the same sentence. The last time we were on talking terms was back on April 22, 2010, the day before SB1070 passed. The puff, puff, pass rappers performed at the Martini Ranch in Scottsdale that night, but no…
We knew the daunting (impossible, really) task of picking 100 songs that define the sound of Arizona was going to be tough, but lucky for us, we had a lot of help, from you, our readers. We opened up a Gmail account and took submissions from you, reading through liner…
This week, New Times ran a list in our print publication highlighting some of the most interesting posts published at Up On The Sun over the past week. Here are links to those posts. How does Sweetbleeders handle performing PJ Harvey songs? Will Noel Gallagher play any Oasis songs at…
“Not alone for gold and silver / Is Arizona great / But with graves of heroes sleeping / All the land is consecrate!” — “Arizona March Song” The goal of finding Arizona’s 100 greatest songs was hardly easy. We asked our readers to tell us what songs have defined Arizona…
Does any label evoke doubt more than “white rapper?” For every Eminem, there are a dozen Vanilla Ices. “I agree there are authenticity issues with white rappers, and I think just rappers in general have some authenticity issues,” says Phoenix’s Moe’Z Art. Good thing Morley Simon Gordon, a.k.a. Moe’Z Art,…
Wordplay is essential for a rapper. Without it, what more is he than a dude who talks with music in the background? A love of language suggests a lot, and those who stayed awake through high school English class should be familiar with the rapper’s bag of tricks: simile, metaphor,…
By the time this issue hits stands, it will have been just over a week since Soul Train impresario Don Cornelius was found dead by a self-inflicted gunshot in his Encino, California, home. The legendary host of Soul Train was instrumental in bringing black music into prime time, and though…
“The Fool,” Sanford Clark (single, 1956, MCI/Dot) In March 1956, KTYL disc jockey, producer, and songwriter Lee Hazlewood was out of money — to pay for more recording sessions and record-pressings, that is. After more than a year of trying for a hit on his Viv Records imprint, his closets…
