Jeez, was Mad Men strange last night or what? Last night’s episode was probably the closest the show has come to acting like a horror flick, with all the blurry, murderous details, and the blood splattered headlines (of course there was that moment with the John Deere tractor in season…
Ad Hoc, a DIY/experimental music blog collective created by editors of Pitchfork’s defunct sister site Altered Zones, recently succeeded in raising over $37,000 for the project through a Kickstarter drive and will be going live in the coming weeks. Editors Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander, after ending Altered Zones in…
Underground Cities has come a long way in the past few years. The band’s upcoming full-length album made our list of local releases to look forward to this year and the band is about to embark on its first national tour. The album was initially predicted as a February release,…
Kyle UnfugUnfug is the morning show co-host with Johnjay and Rich on 104.7 KISS-FM. When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? 104.7, baby! What’s the first album you bought? Salt-n-Pepa! The album with “Shoop” on it (Very Necessary)! Still know…
Arguably one of the best things to come out of last night’s American Idol episode was the emergence of a video on Yahoo! that Jennifer Lopez beau Casper Smart appeared in back in 2009. The loose-limbed dancer starred as a dancing bee in the Haagen-Dazs produced video in an effort…
Turntablists of Arizona, you’d better start practicing. A little more than two weeks from now, one of the biggest DJ contests ever will be bringing its regional battle to Phoenix and your shit better be tight. The DMC World DJ Championships, widely considered to be the most premier turntablist contests…
I couldn’t have asked for a better time to hear about the Summerland Tour. While waiting for a coffee in Venice Beach, California, I was browsing Up On The Sun on my phone and saw that Everclear was coming. I knew what I had to listen to, because I rolled…
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. Who are the hottest women in metal? Want to hear exclusive music from Isaac Brock of…
Donald Glover has it all wrong. At least from a historical perspective, anyway. How many times does the actor-turned-musician thing work? Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time,” anybody? But for the most part, Glover doesn’t fit the mold. Though he is best known for his role as Troy Barnes on…
The idea that the album — as a unified, complete statement from a musician — is finished has been the subject of many great think pieces and essays over the past couple of years. Until now, the release of his debut LP, Checkognize, Abelardo Gil III, who raps, sings, and…
John Gourley feels good. Tired, but really good. His band, Portugal. The Man, is chilling in El Paso following a rollercoaster ride of TV appearances, festival stops, a tour supporting the ultra-hot Black Keys, a jaunt to Alaska, a crusade across Europe, and a seemingly endless series of club dates…
It’s easy to imagine the sounds of Tempe in the ’90s dominated by jangle, over-driven amps cranked, and melodic singers crooning a Mill Ave export that would crack into the mainstream. But listening to Half String, a Tempe-based band that featured Brandon Capps, Tim Patterson, Matt Kruse, and Kimber Lanning…
We feature a lot of brilliant music-related Tumblrs full of funny Photoshopped pictures. What’s better than that, you ask?Sleevefaced, that’s what.Sleevefaced is a collection of photos of people incorporating vinyl album artwork into their posed pictures. These pictures involve anything from the photo subject playing an instrument to more creative situations…
In movies, the cutting-room floor is usually a cold, dark place where unused footage ends up, never seeing the light of day unless it find its way into a director’s cut somewhere down the road. The same is true when it comes to the music studio, but thanks to the…
Back in March, we spoke with Howe Gelb, of Giant (Giant) Sand about his new album, Tucson, in the first episode of our weekly podcast (We call it Up on the Sun: The Podcast. Ain’t we clever?). Well yesterday Fire Records debuted sprawling, echoing track from the “country rock opera,”…
Covering Depeche Mode without a synthesizer can be a bit of a challenge, but Fatigo pulls it off with a piano, a trumpet, and some cool bass effects. “We are going to integrate some of Depeche Mode’s synthy sounds [while] giving it that Fatigo south of the border sound,” says…
This summer is bringing in a miraculous flood of awesome shows if ’90s alt-pop rock is your cup of tea. Everclear, Sugar Ray, The Gin Blossoms, Lit, and Marcy Playground are hitting the road together for what is sure to be an absolutely epic dream of a Summerland Tour. We apologize…
When I photographed M83 a few months ago, I was expecting to hear a bunch of cinematic instrumental music. I thought M83 worked better as background music than a live show. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you also have M83 pegged as a run of the mill post-…
If our review and slideshow fail to make it crystal clear, let’s just say it: The PHX AM After Party with No Age, Radio, Moscow, and a host of local punk bands on Saturday night was crazy. And awesome. The outdoor stage, which hosted touring acts like the aforementioned bands…
It’s been several years since Chaka Khan has had a relevant, mainstream voice, but that hasn’t stopped her from speaking out in light of the February shooting involving Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and neighborhood watch commando George Zimmerman. Last week, the “Queen of Funk” best remembered for her 1984 cover…
Holy festival season, Batman. We’re two weeks away from the craziest confluence of big festivals I’ve ever seen. There’s Coachella (weekend one) in Indio, California, Country Thunder in Florence, Arizona, and McDowell Mountain Music Festival at the Compound Grill in Phoenix. Pretty much every spectrum of music is covered, but…
If you’ve attended a local punk show anytime in the last two decades, chances are good you’ve seen (or rubbed elbows with) Alvin Bitsue. The 36-year-old vinyl freak and punk fan has been a part of the Valley’s punk scene for years — whether working the door or hanging in…
