Phoenix may be known for bands of the Jimmy Eat World persuasion, but for each of those, there is a Vehemence. It’s true — the Arizona metal scene is alive and well. In an attempt to start another downtown tradition, a local production company, SMUT, has dubbed the night after…
1. Bright Eyes, I’m Awake It’s Morning (Saddle Creek) 2. Bright Eyes, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (Saddle Creek) 3. The Game, The Documentary (Aftermath) 4. Green Day, American Idiot (Warner Bros.) 5. Dresden Dolls, The Dresden Dolls (8ft Records) 6. The Killers, Hot Fuss (Island) 7. Papa Roach,…
Thursday 3 Acme Roadhouse: College Night with DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with AKA (gothic, industrial) Axis/Radius: DJ MCB (hip-hop, dance) Big Fish Pub: Reggae Thursdays with Selector J-Cut & DJ Blackstar (reggae, dance hall) Dos Gringos –…
For Cheryl Olson, a registered nurse who also chairs meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, the only thing worse than having her chatterbox, musical know-it-all husband hanging around the house all day, running his quirky little Internet radio station from the den, is having to listen to all the…
Don’t hold the six-word band name against Fear Before the March of Flames. The Denver band is neither indie rock nor attempting to cash in on a trend. However, FBTMOF does have one clear influence: hardcore genre-definers Converge. Until 2004, Converge had been MIA for three years, so it’s not…
After a long run at Boston’s/P.I., the Valley’s preeminent hip-hop night, Blunt Club, has made a temporary move to the Rio Salado Brewery on Mill Avenue in Tempe until it finds a permanent home. On Thursday, February 3, stop by to see your usual favorites: open mic sessions early in…
When you scribble about bands for a regional publication every week like I do, it’s an occupational hazard that shitloads of crap local CDs arrive in the mail daily, destined to become coasters for cans of Budweiser. It’s rare that a local’s disc I come across is beyond lackluster, and…
Rise Against is finally headlining a tour. No longer needing the big boys there to hold its hand, the Chicago punk-rock outfit is stepping out of the shadows of mentor bands like Bad Religion. With its first major-label release, Siren Song of the Counter-Culture (DreamWorks), Rise Against has shown it…
If a band is known for its kooky costumes and outrageous theatrics, people might assume there’s something lacking in its sound. Not so with the J-pop punkers in Peelander-Z, who back their whack with some solid songs. Their origins are a closely guarded secret, but news reports from Area Z…
The recurring mental image I get while listening to High on Fire’s latest molten sludge-metal opus, Blessed Black Wings, is that of Lemmy Kilmister being strapped into that electric chair on the cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, then bellowing a soul-paralyzing shriek as the searing juice jolt smokes his…
On her latest album, Ani DiFranco exorcises ghosts, feigns death, and once again opens herself up to the world. While she’s never separated the personal from the political, Knuckle Down comes across as a direct reflection of her recent personal heartbreaks. DiFranco’s divorce is the subject of a few songs,…
I love audacious titles like The Only Doo-Wop Collection You’ll Ever Need. How can you argue with such bravado? But in this case, the handle is more than just marketing-department bluster. Shout! Factory got it right: This may be the only such anthology that most of us require. Just about…
If Ike Turner’s name only draws mental images of a man violently mashing cake into Tina Turner’s face, that’s a great example of the instant karma that has beset one of the greatest guitarists in the history of R&B. Everything you’ve heard about Ike Turner may be true, but you…
It’s going to be a beautiful Apocalypse. That is, if San Diego trio Via Satellite’s new album, Cities Are Temples, is the soundtrack. A stunning ode to love in the end times, opener “Seven Winged Lions” begins with a bell-clear laptop melody that unfolds into dreamy percussion, snippets of squelch,…
With a name cribbed from a mysterious Air Force base that houses UFOs, you would expect Hangar 18 (the latest group to emerge from underground hip-hop stalwarts Def Jux) to sound like your usual X-Files nerd rap, i.e., long on consonants and light on grooves. But while its jittery, effects-laden…
Scratching, mixing, beat-juggling, all the elements of hip-hop DJing — they’re all good, but sometimes you just wanna hear a song you can dance to straight through, the way you know it, the way you loved it in the first place. And especially if you’re a dance-music recidivist, you need…
Thursday 27 Acme Bar & Grill: DJR (all genres) Acme Roadhouse: College Night with DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Tsunami (Top 40, hip-hop) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Panic! with DJ Manchester (Britpop, indie, New Wave) Big Fish Pub: Reggae Thursdays with Selector J-Cut & DJ Blackstar (reggae,…
It’s fitting that the band name Avail evokes the word “alive.” The best rock, like all the best art, is not some rarefied air breathable only to people who wear puffy shirts and pointy shoes. It’s music that makes everyday life feel alive. Richmond, Virginia’s Avail — perhaps the only…
When I run into Phoenix rapper Pokafase a few days before his record release party for Mastermind, the long-overdue LP he recorded back in 2002, I remind him we met several times years ago when he was in the hip-hop group Know Qwestion, back when his moniker was Cappuccino. “Shhh,…
Kyle Howard will make himself throw up for the Stiletto Formal. Dedication of that extent is rarely called for, but sure enough, on the third night of its first tour, the slender vocalist has to heave for his band. For the December show in Omaha, Nebraska, the Stiletto Formal wants…
Past a certain point in their careers, musicians tend to get more serious, putting away childish obsessions with pop culture in favor of creating something of more importance (or self-importance), sometimes with mixed results. The career of Mike Park, former vocalist/saxophonist for the ’90s third-wave ska supergroup Skankin’ Pickle, certainly…
Carson Daly prefaced Citizen Cope’s network TV debut with some blubbering comparisons to Bob Dylan and John Lennon, which Cope obliterated by performing a first-rate single (“Bullet and a Target”) that sounded like neither. Clearly the new Dylan/Lennon analogy has more to do with the engineer’s cap Cope sports on…
