Lenni Rosenblum

​Citizen Cope
Marquee Theatre

Friday, January 27, 2012

I've been to more exciting Citizen Cope shows over the past few years, but last night's solo acoustic gig was still a tight show for different reasons than I'm used to.

Clarence Greenwood sounds fabulous when he plays with his band, but he held his own without them.

He didn't do a whole lot of strumming on the guitar, so the onstage activity was minimal, but it forced us all to pay attention to a facet of his music that can lost amid the funky jamming: his lyrics.

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Jason P. Woodbury

Graveyard

​Sundown Showdown IV (Night Two): TOAD, Sleep Money, Destruction Unit, Radio Moscow, Graveyard
Yucca Tap Room
Friday, January 27

See the full Sundown Showdown slideshow here.

Let's contrast, for a minute: During opening band TOAD's (it's an acronym: Take Over and Destroy) second song, "Midnight Hunger," a few straggling Yucca regulars, a little more keen on country and western than distorted guitars and tasteful blastbeats, headed for the door. But then there was "The Mad Alchemist," a feller old enough to be your grandpa, standing off stage, projecting oil bath visuals behind TOAD, Sleep Money, Destruction Unit, Radio Moscow, and Graveyard (he's on tour with the latter two).

Some folks just stick around.

Not that it was entirely easy to do so at the Yucca last night. Night two of the Sundown Showdown festival (the previous night featured Mr. Wax, Avon Ladies, and more at Palo Verde Lounge, and tonight features Otro Mundo, Mangled Men, Tokyo Electron, and more at Yucca) was packed. Like unintentional feel-ups, beer spills, elbows-to-faces, they-stopped-letting-folks-in packed.

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Clockwise from top left: James Fella, Seas Will Rise, Jimmy Pines and Washboard Jere, Nathaniel Nichols' Cloud Cave art

​Welcome to the latest installment of our weekly feature, Sound Off, in which Jason P. Woodbury is joined by a different guest each week to listen to and discuss three tracks from local Phoenix artists. If you would like your songs to be considered for future Sound Off columns, please email music@newtimes.com.

This week's guest is James Fella, a Tempe musician, who in addition to creating shredding art pop with Mangled Men and compositions on his own, runs Gilgongo Records, which has issued records by Woods, Zs, Raccoo-oo-oon, and a slew of local artists. I met Fella at his place in Tempe, where we sat in his car and listened to a CD-R containing songs by Seas Will Rise, Nathaniel Nichols, and Jimmy Pines and Washboard Jere. That's right -- dude only has a record player in his place.

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Bobby BrandNew

​Okay folks, start 'yer engines: It's looking to be a pretty good weekend for music in the Valley of the Sun. You've got a lot of choices to make. Do you want to take in the hippie-dippy good vibes of Citizen Cope? The anything goes, doom metal-to-psych punk Sundown Showdown festival? How about Mouse Powell and Phoenix hip-hop legends The Insects? What about a very adult (well, by their standards anyhow) performance by They Might Be Giants?

But perhaps you're looking for more options? Well, you want 'em, we got 'em. Tonight's performance by Bobby BrandNew at Red Owl ought to be a good weekend kickoff. The Phoenix via Los Angeles and Texas rapper has an airtight sound, demonstrated on "The People's Champ," with a funky, grooving soul intro into a club banger that doesn't sacrifice any of the soul. (Plus, there's a really funny shit/toilet seat joke. Works for me!)

Read on to hear Bobby, and read four more recommendations.

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​Dengue Fever
Crescent Ballroom
Thursday, January 26

The setting was the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, but given the atmosphere and exotic sounds emanating from the stage, it may as well have been Cambodia circa mid-1970s. Eyes closed, it hardly mattered, Dengue Fever was in its element, and that element joined seemingly incompatible cultures.

Phnom Penh was a swinging cosmopolitan city full of bustling nightclubs and music parlors as the 1970s hit the mid-point. That was before the Khmer Rouge rose to power and put an end to outward expressions of musical bliss. Yet, in the years prior, Cambodia musicians influenced by Western rock and roll and psychedelic music created some astounding works.

This is the jumping off point for Dengue Fever. The Los Angeles band, fronted by Cambodian singer Chhom Nimol, mixes lost Cambodian rock classics with similarly influenced and penned numbers. The result is a cross-cultural swirl where east meet west and both musical forms surprisingly complement each other perfectly.
While American psych or garage rock(with some surf overtones tossed in) is the underlying premise of many of the songs, a Southeast Asian spin of angular, off-kilter rhythms and leads is duly applied. The band had no trouble bringing this blend to life before this largely in the-know crowd.

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​Ludachrist
UK Thursday at School of Rock
Thursday, January 26

The scene: Two dudes in plaid vests, decorative cross necklaces dangling from their necks.

The song: "Jump," by Kriss Kross, colliding with "Ass" by Big Sean, then samples of Nicki Minaj fading into AC/DC's "Thunderstruck."

Boom.

Their name recalls Dirty South rapper Ludacris, but their spunky mashup was more in the spirit of Girl Talk. Opening with a mash-up between classic rock and club rap, Ludachrist drew the audience in. Throughout the performance I questioned how on earth can someone take such an absurd mix of different genre artists and manage to make it sound so well constructed.

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AP

​By now Fingergate has the web blowing up with commentary abound about the gull and audacity of Governor Jan Brewer for sticking her finger in the face of President Barack Obama.

As James King brought up yesterday, we can't help but wonder if Jan's actions were those of an impassioned politician or a calculated campaign move.

Either way it took some nerve to walk up to the nation's leader and in effect, pick a fight.

Imagine Jan waking up Wednesday morning, combing her hair and slipping on her red blazer before stepping into the government vehicle that would whisk her to the airport in Mesa to "greet" the president. She would have needed some serious tunes to get her in the right mindset.

Here's our guess at what she might have been listening to before her brazen display of disrespect.

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Lisa Kasanicky

​Lisa Kasanicky

Kasanicky is the founder of Arizona Spa Girls and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Girlfriend Getaways.
 
When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play right now? Uh, sadly, NPR but I'll switch it to 103.9 FM if the topic puts me in a driving coma.

What's the first album you bought? Synchronicity, by The Police. Or at least, it was the first album I ever bought that I played until the vinyl wore out.

What's the first concert you saw? Journey in Greensboro, N.C. Am I showing my age or what?

What's your favorite concert you've ever been to? Well, since I've already revealed that I was born in the stone age, it would have to be R.E.M. back when they were more of an underground band in the late 1980's. An unknown band at the time, 10,000 Maniacs, opened for them at a show at Duke University. Love at first listen.

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​Say what you will about our sustainability, the heat, or our wretched politicos, but Phoenix is a haven for nerds. We have The Minibosses, who play heavy covers from video games like Super Mario Bros. and Double Dragon; and Mega Ran, who raps over Final Fantasy and Mega Man soundtracks. Both are totally awesome.

I may not participate in cosplay (though I could totally pull off Vanille's look), but I do make a point to replay Final Fantasy VII and IX at least once a year. I may have never fully gotten into the whole anime thing, but I still have a penchant for Hayao Miyazaki.

The point is: Deep down there's a little geek in all of us, so we can all revel in these seven musicians that arose from nerdy sources and are fully badass.

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