The Father Figures started with a 50th birthday party, which is either the least or most punk thing ever. Traditional agitated punk wisdom would suggest that guitarist/vocalist Michael Cornelius, bassist/vocalist Tom Reardon, and drummer Bobby Lerma lead pretty square lives: All three are married with children (Cornelius is actually a…
It’s hard to know where to start with The Residents. The band’s press release claims that they neither exist nor play any instruments, and yet they have released more than 60 albums, a smattering of videos, DVDs, and short films, and produced a handful of theater productions as well. It’s…
The indie-folk movement has become a plague. What started as an innocent return to roots quickly became a fad and, somewhere along the line, the pining for simplicity and an authentic nod to American roots music turned into a push to get ahead. But the cynicism directed at Americana’s revival…
Maynard James Keenan drives around Arizona’s Verde Valley in an oversize green pickup. The truck’s wheels kick up clouds of dust as he rumbles down the dirt road that leads to Four Eight Wineworks, the barreling room where wine from his nearby Merkin Vineyards ages in casks. From here it…
Right now, there’s a Tool fan angrily venting about the lack of a new Tool album in some dark corner of the Internet. Right now, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan is most likely working on something other than a new Tool album. As detailed in this week’s Phoenix New Times…
Doing some crate digging at Tracks in Wax, I uncovered a rather strange relic: an album showcasing local music. The cover was a faded license plate with the words Arizona Sounds Vol. 1, sponsored by KDKB 93.3 FM. It was printed in 1977. As a Phoenix native, I’ve always had…
Welcome to our Label of the Month feature, where we’ll expound on some of our favorite music manufacturing companies, the folks that help mold the entire picture for amazing artists and shoot those ideas out into the world. This month, we’re aiming our sights on Ghostly International, the Ann Arbor,…
January isn’t the busiest time for concerts, but it is a month full of show announcements. It seems like a big and interesting show has been announced almost every week, and we can’t complain. Crystal Castles, Billy Bragg, and Jeff Mangum are all something to look forward to. The fun…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop…
McDowell Mountain Music Festival’s 2013 lineup, featuring The Shins, The Roots, Deer Tick, Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang, and more, has expanded to include a host of local Phoenix-based acts. The weekend festival will now Kongos, Mergence, Banana Gun, Fayuca, The Veragroove, Yellow Minute, Decker, and Jared and The Mill,…
Once a week, Up on the Sun features a new comic strip from punk rocker, cartoonist, and full-time dad Brad Dwyer. See the New Times print edition to check out the strip in glorious, inky newsprint each Thursday…
The news waits for no one — at least that’s what we read somewhere — so it’s perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of…
It isn’t hard to miss Alex King when he’s out and about at industrial or fetish events, probably because he rocks a foot-high multicolored Mohawk and a pair of goggles strapped to his melon. According to the 35-year-old musician and DJ, both help provide him with awesome powers when he’s…
Jennifer Pilates Pilates has been an advanced pilates instructor and celebrity trainer for more than 13 years. For more information, go here. What’s the first album you bought? You have stumped me. It’s a tie between Madonna and Michael Jackson. What’s the first concert you saw? Bon Jovi. I’m always…
I think everyone has a “forbidden song.” What’s that? It’s like, whenever I hear the tune “Freebird,” whether in the car or at some party or whatever, I have to turn it off. It’s like an obsessive-compulsive decision and I will be forever agitated until that song is no longer…
It’s less than an hour before last call at a recent session of The Blunt Club in Tempe, and resident DJ Pickster One is cuing up the Beastie Boys’ “Get It Together.” Girls in booty shorts shake it on the checkered tiled floor and PBR-toting patrons bellow to be heard…
Brilliant counterculture magazine Arthur roared back to life this month, dedicating glorious inky newsprint to the psychedelic pop art of Rick Veitch, record reviews by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, a fevered mediation on Waylon Jennings’ Dreaming My Dreams, and much more magical esoterica. The cornerstone of the rebirth issue…
Punk rockers don’t die, they just go acoustic. While that’s not exactly a great T-shirt slogan (and certainly would elicit some scowls from old-school punkers still plying their trade), it is something of a recent trend within the bluegrass realm, with bands like Split Lip Rayfield, Yonder Mountain String Band,…
On Tuesday we announced the details of New Times’ Carnaval Eléctrico at Crescent Ballroom, the festival which unites garage rocker Hanni El Khatib, psychedelic indie band Mergence, In the Valley Below, and headliners Cold War Kids on Friday, March 8, at Crescent Ballroom. We promised there’d be more — and…
So this one time, my college roommate was gonna buy this album. It came in two formats: CD and MP3. The CD version was a few bucks cheaper. I argued with my roommate that a CD was a better deal because you also got a physical copy of something, but…
Six years is a long time for a musician to be absent from the field. Unless you’ve reach “legendary” status, making a comeback after such a long period of dormancy is nearly impossible. With that said, Justin Timberlake’s last album, FutureSex/ LoveSounds, is one of the greatest R&B albums of…
Our sister paper, the Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop music critic’s poll is live, and the results are in: Frank Ocean’s neo-neo-soul record channel ORANGE is the album of the year, and Carly Rae Jepsen’s infectious (and impossible to escape) “Call Me Maybe” is the single of the year…
