“What hip-hop do you know that has a Kansas country girl singing?” Mynce, the turntablist for local hip-hop group the Smob, asks me this over beers the day after the band’s CD-release party. The answer is none. I don’t know of many female artists in local hip-hop, period. That’s what…
“I’ve never had so much fun standing in line in my life!” My friend Bones is thrilled that we are, indeed, standing in line at Scottsdale’s Martini Ranch on a recent Tuesday night, because when we get to the end of this line, we’ll be meeting the members of Tesla,…
If you happened to go out on Saturday night, you may have noticed the thick stench of rampant pheromones and incredibly attractive people completely losing their minds. We think it may have had something to do with the moon, because at the Clubhouse Music Venue in Tempe for FauxShow’s Menomena…
Paul DeGeorge describes Harry and the Potters as an indie rock outreach program. He formed the band with his younger brother, Joe, when all the bands flaked on their DIY backyard show six years ago. The duo penned seven bouncy keyboard and guitar-driven indie pop songs in less than an…
Kitchen cutlery and metal bowls. The Language Master tape card reader and a typewriter. More than 80 telephone bells scavenged from Dumpster dives. Old school analog intercoms and secondhand electronics. Sounds like a pretty cool yard sale, huh? Well, it could be, or you may have just stumbled upon a…
When Desiree Duponte, one half of Phoenix death metal duo Hellen, passed away on Friday, April 13, it was a tragic case of destiny unfulfilled. Desiree, along with her sister Mindy, had been creating some of the most innovative, eclectic metal to ever come out of the Valley, and the…
Remember in 1997, when you’d had just about enough of bands that would step on the distortion pedal and yell at the top of their lungs for the choruses, then everything but the bass and drums would drop out for the verses and get all spooky like the Pixies? Sure…
The heirs to the Replacements are hip-deep — Lucero, Drive-By Truckers, and Bottle Rockets leading the heap — but that shouldn’t dissuade you from parking your ass in front of Two Cow Garage. The Columbus, Ohio, trio is just a step behind that illustrious company, led by frontman Micah Schnabel’s…
Second acts in rock are mostly tiresome, so it would seem Radio Birdman’s reunion is a completely unnecessary exercise by a band whose existence was nearly as obscure as it was brief. But nearly 30 years of mythologizing dictated the inevitable comeback. Such is the case of these Aussie proto-punks,…
When legendary producer Brian Eno heard Giorgio Moroder’s studio work on the Diana Ross classic “I Feel Love,” he said that it was the most perfect track he had ever heard, and it was the future of all music. Though that might have seemed revolutionarily impossible in 1977, he was…
Hailing from Denver, The Photo Atlas sputter and jerk with convulsive rhythms, dancing over jagged guitars and frontman Alan Andrews’ nervy, falsetto squeal. Though the formula may not be the most original, the execution on the quartet’s debut LP, No, Not Me, Never, is so terrific, and the hooks dig…
Musicians shouldn’t be allowed to use the word “raw” to describe their own work. But the terrible twosome known as the Black Diamond Heavies is hereby awarded carte blanche. From the distorted “whoo!” that opens the song “Guess You Gonna,” it’s clear that the Heavies like to keep things as…
All right, you metal maniacs! Here’s a hard-hitting album that’ll give you a sore throat just from listening to it. 3 Inches of Blood takes all the melodic sensibilities of ’80s metal monsters like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and serves them with a heavy dose of modern thrash madness…
With the numerous lightsaber-wielding chicks adorning the promotional flier for female-focused rave She Wars, it’s likely a few nebbishy nerds or sci-fi freaks will show up at the Icehouse, 429 West Jackson Street, looking for their own personal Padmé. Unfortunately, the dozens of DJ dames from around the globe who’ll…
Thursday 21 Andersons: S.W.A.G. Thursdays with DJ Essence, DJ Astonish, & Bryce Breeze (hip-hop, reggae, R&B) Bikini Lounge: Sophisticated Boom Boom with DJ HFE (rockabilly, surf, jazz, classic country, indie, obscuro, R&B) Bunkhouse: DJ Doom (dance) Club Mardi Gras: DJ Dana (country) Crown Room: Naughty Thursdays with DJ Gable, &…
It’s Saturday at 2 p.m. I’m hung over from a mammoth drinking session in Apache Junction, but I woke up early this morning and started driving. I’m on a mission. See, I found this industrial ladder on Craigslist, but scribbled the address and now I’m lost in north Phoenix. How…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Last night our intrepid photographer friend Luke Holwerda hit up the Police’s reunion tour stop at US Airways Arena, and snapped some awesome shots (more after the jump). Here’s Luke’s report on the gig: The crowd was really truly excited when the boys walked on stage…
By Brendan Joel Kelley As I was reminded by my music editor, Niki D’Andrea, this morning, this weekend is packed with good music, some of it New Times related. First of all, tonight is the jazz/blues/swing installment of New Times’ Summer of Sound Series, featuring DJ Seduce, Sonorous, Calumet, Paris…
By Brendan Joel Kelley Recently I wrote a column about the use of certain pejorative words – “ho’s,” “bitches,” and “niggers” – in hip-hop and the controversy that’s sprung up over them recently. Luckily, it’s not just the media that’s concerned. Here in town, there’s a group called Make Hip-Hop…
A couple of weekends ago, I traveled down to Sonoita, near the Mexican border, to hit up my cowboy buddy Andy Hersey’s release party for his new CD, Between God and Country. The first song on the disc is called “Roughshod Range,” and I’d been sitting at his ranch with…
There’s a certain, what I call, celebration of summer in our culture. I don’t care who you are. If you live in New York City in a tenement or in Arizona on a ranch, there’s something about the freedom of summertime [that harks back to our childhoods]. You wake up…
One of the most volatile and acclaimed bands to rise out of the Washington, D.C., hardcore punk scene in the early ’80s, Bad Brains overcame novelty status (four men of color playing punk) by mixing blazing speed and virtuosity with reggae riddims and social consciousness. Fronted by the often unpredictable…
