LA Weekly has announced the bill for our Village Voice South by Southwest showcase. M. Ward, Crystal Antlers, Cursive, Gomez and Bear Hands. Crystal Antlers and Cursive are the highlights for me. The new Cursive record, Mama, I’m Swollen — which I popped in today, and happened to be listening…
Less than a decade ago, an album would have to sell well over 100,000 copies in a single week to become the number-one album in the country. Single-week sales of over a million units were not uncommon for major acts. Now, with the collapse of the CD market, DigitalmusicNews.com is reporting…
For an album that doesn’t come out out until April 14th, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s have been creating a healthy amount of buzz for their next offering It’s Blitz. Last week saw the first two tracks off the album find their way onto the internet, much to the delight of…
Brooding rockers My Chemical Romance have posted a making-of-the video for their track “Desolation Row” on the band’s MySpace page.The track is a cover of a Bob Dylan song and is featured on the Watchmen soundtrack. Fans will hopefully see a new album drop later this later from the band, who…
Chris Martinez may be the best local rapper you’ve never heard of — but not for much longer. The 22-year-old producer and MC, who records under the name KonGeror (or, more recently, just K.), has called Arizona home since his family moved to the Valley from El Paso, Texas, nearly…
Attention, audio adopters like Diddy who think classic rock sounds better with a rap track laid down over it: Keep your hip-hop mitts off Frank Zappa’s songs. Dweezil Zappa, the oldest son of late avant-garde rock composer Frank Zappa, has been performing songs from his father’s career for the past…
Artists are more often like soda than wine: bubbling with ideas in the beginning, losing their fizz over time, before going completely flat. So though Chrissie Hynde’s led an eventful life — on hand for the Kent State shootings, worked for NME and Malcolm McLaren, befriended Sid Vicious, married and…
Gwen Stefani is reuniting with her backing band. Kidding! Seriously, folks, No Doubt announced a summer tour today, stopping in Phoenix’s Cricket Wireless Pavilion on Saturday, May 23. Paramore and The Sounds join them. Tickets go on sale next Saturday at noon here…
Move over Criss Angel – Britney Spears may be after your gig. The pop songstress, known for lip-synching her way through her shows, will bring some magic to her “Circus” tour, according to E! Illusionist/comedian Ed “The Misfit of Magic” Alonzo will be sawing Spears, his magician’s assistant, in half…
Happy opening day, Phoenix!Yes, today is the start of the baseball season. The real start, not the start they’ll be celebrating in the upper Midwest next month, the one that requires parkas. It’ll be 80 degrees and sunny across the Valley as the first pitch of the year will be…
It all started on Saturday Night Live in December 2005. Midway through a so-so episode of the New York institution, we were treated to a digital short featuring Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg. The premise was simple enough: two white guys rapping about their Sunday, cupcakes, and The Chronicles of…
Today marks an important day in the vibrant history of hip-hop music. 10 years ago, Philadelphia hip-hop pioneers The Roots released their breakthrough album, Things Fall Apart. Bolstered by the strength of the irresistible single “You Got Me,” featuring the vocals of Erykah Badu,Things Fall Apart became The Roots’ most…
The British lower class has been all over the news of late thanks to that 13-year-old kid, Alfie, who apparently knocked up his girlfriend. The music blog at our sister paper in Orange County has a link to a funny video about the hot “donk” trend hitting clubs full of…
Yes, that’s right, Jimmy Eat World’s masterpiece Clarity came out on February 23, 1999. We’re writing a lot more about the record in advance of their sold-out show at the Marquee on March 7, but I wanted to mark the date. Anyone have any memories about the first time they…
Today Dan Gibson, a Phoenix-based contributor to Idolator, e-mailed me about two shows we haven’t mentioned here yet, but which are definitely worth telling you about.Leonard Cohen is coming to Dodge Theatre on April 5 (presale tickets Tuesday) and Depeche Mode is coming. We didn’t get the Depeche Mode press…
It’s one thing to have a musical career that’s lasted more than a quarter-century. Impressive? Sure. Noteworthy? Not really — plenty of popular artists have pulled it off by this point. It’s quite another thing to have a musical career of comparative anonymity that lasts more than a quarter-century. When,…
Well, that was fast! The day after Mike Meyer’s feature on them ran in our print edition, local death metal band Landmine Marathon have announced they’ve signed with Prosthetic Records, home to critically lauded (by death-metal standards) acts such as Lamb of God, Gojira, and All That Remains. They’re also…
So if you’ve been reading our news blog, Valley Fever, you probably came across a link to a story about a Tuscon punk band called The Awful Truth who’s pissed off the entire town by using a photo of a slain city policeman on the cover of their record, Kill…
Old-timey prog-rockers Yes have canceled the rest of their “In The Present Tour,” including the show scheduled for Wednesday at Dodge Theatre. Bassist Chris Squire, the only member of the band to appear on every album, underwent surgery on his leg on February 11, and says his doctor told him…
It was announced this week that SXSW will be getting yet another addition to its already fruitful lineup: Tinted Windows. The band consists of Taylor Hanson (Hanson, duh), James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins), Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick) and Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne). It’s an eclectic group, that’s for sure,…
The Game’s reckless, bizarre, whiny tendencies make him a wholly unique hip-hop character. Though the Compton native is among the handful of rap stars who still have platinum potential, he’s no gangsta superhero like collaborator-turned-foe 50 Cent, and he’s no drug-addled weirdo savant like Lil Wayne. His flow is much…
There are few rap songs as important to modern culture as Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” a rallying cry against African-American communities for their political indifference. Well, it’s been 20 years since frontman Chuck D helped scare the hell out of white America, and a black man now sits in…
