Melissa Fossum

Black Carl

Los Dias de la Crescent 2013 was defined by what's local -- the music, the beer, the food, the fans. This year's schedule looked like a tightened-up version of last year's format -- and it somehow found a way to bring "Stairway to Heaven" into a celebration of Arizona music in the process.

Day 1 brought an explicitly Latin night of Arizona music, with Sergio Mendoza y la Orkesta's frenetic mambo leading a parade of sounds and styles that included cumbia (Vox Urbana), salsa (Jaleo), flamenco (Flamenco por la Vida), mariachi (the all-female Mariachi Pasion), and the globetrotting beats of DJ Seduce.

More »

Clockwise from top left: Sam Groove, Louder, Josh Evans, and CIK.

Listen up, local party monsters and EDM fans. There are a few things you'll definitely need before going wild out at the massive outdoor dance fiesta and electronica rager known as Dirty Disco tomorrow evening. First, make sure to sport a colorful and eye-catching ensemble that you don't mind getting a bit sweaty or dusty, as the 12-hour-long event on Saturday at Canyon Speedway Park in Peoria will be recorded for posterity.

Oh, and don't forget to bring a mellow attitude and plentiful supply of glowing playthings or other illuminated flowtoys to help light up the night while moving to the beat buffet laid down by close to a dozen local DJs, including electro specialist Damien Helzcoming, dubstep freak Jay Spark, happy hardcore she-jay Maromi, and psytrance wizard Alpha1. There's plenty of others scheduled to perform tomorrow -- including several local DJs we've featured before as a part of DJ Dossier.

Hit the jump for more info on some of the talent at Dirty Disco on Saturday, such as headliner Josh Evans, co-promoter Sam Groove, and rave fave David "CIK" Sankey.

More »

America wants to be close to Jay-Z and Beyonce. Desperately close. Hashtag close. Because they are officially the last celebrities who have not turned their life together into a weekly show on Bravo, they've hoovered up the country's remaining supply of Camelot-style mythos and gravitas. And because it's 2013, the result is an intense desire to name their child with hashtags.

Beyonce is pregnant again, and #BeyonceBabyNames returned to Twitter with a vengeance on Friday, after a year and a half off. The best part about it is that right now it seems like half of the tweeters are making jokes and the other half just really want to give Beyonce an adorable baby name to use on Blue Ivy's sibling. Here are our 10 favorite examples (so far.) Feel free to use any of them yourself, in case Beyonce (for some reason) doesn't.

Read More:
- Top 10 Miranda Lambert Songs about Brutal, Brutal Revenge
- Top 10 Ridiculously Overproduced Matchbox Twenty Songs (I Love Anyway)

More »

All photos by Melissa Fossum

Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley (see the full slideshow.)
Desert Sky Pavilion
May 16, 2013

For me, the night the Desert Sky Pavilion (or whatever else it's called from year to year) opens its gates for the first show of the season marks the beginning of summer. And the 2013 summer concert season kicked off with some red-blooded American country music -- Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley's Locked and Reloaded tour.

As I approached the pavilion, a man was lounging in a lawn chair that sat on the roof of his car, blasting country music with the doors open, chanting and chugging beer and offering his own unique rebellion against parking lot security.

Inside, the crowd was almost as enthusiastic.

More »

One brand-new way to validate your musical tastes in front of your friends: Tell them that you were a fan of Huey Lewis and the News before he put on a raincoat and murdered Weird Al Yankovic with an ax.

Murdering Weird Al is a classic sell-out move, but you can go see him in Chandler on Saturday anyway. That and more awaits you in today's five shows to see in Phoenix this weekend.

More »

Justin Timberlake is coming to Phoenix in December, and because he's Justin Timberlake that means tickets are on sale today at 10 a.m. Also because he's Justin Timberlake: The tickets, at least during limited presages, ranged in price from $62.50 to $1,950.

That $62.50 ticket will get you high enough up the steps at US Airways Center that you'll be able to pretend the rest of *NSYNC is there with him. The $1,950 ticket will get you "a table for two in the 20/20 VIP Bar & Lounge" and some other perks (detailed herein) that unfortunately do not include, say, Justin Timberlake recording "Take it to the bri-i-i-dge!" onto your outgoing voicemail message.

All the information you could possibly need to either buy Justin Timberlake tickets or sneer at those who do, after the jump.

More »

Finally, I get to write about music.

I've been hanging out on the cultural side of the New Times site, Jackalope Ranch, writing a little column called Parent Hood. Not a "how to parent" column, more like a look at pop culture through the eyes of a parent (five kids aged 11 through 30) and a hoodlum (not a criminal, just a rowdier-than-average person).

So what is some unorthodox parenting clown doing Up on the Sun? Actually, this is where I belong. This is where I figured New Times wanted me to be when they said, "How'd ya like to write?"

Why? I've been in the music business in the Valley for a little over 25 years, managing both corporate (Wherehouse) and indie (Zia) record stores for the first 10, and owning an indie record store (Hoodlums) for the past 15.

That fact does not mean you should read on. It's just a quick background check. My qualifications for adopting the moniker "Record Store Geek."

Hopefully, the reason to read is that I'm a lifelong music fan with an opinion . . . and the tendency to stir up shit, er, debate (and you like debate, don't ya?) about all things music.

See also:
- Parent Hood: Discussing Your Rowdy Past With Your Kids and a Punk Legend
- Parent Hood: Help! My Kids are Corporate Branding Machines.

More »

At the time I was friends with Pam Beesly on MySpace.

Season 2 of the American version of The Office is my favorite TV show ever, and because I am a glutton for punishment, I've been using tonight's series finale mostly as an excuse to understand how old I and my tastes (and the DVDs I watched all those Jim and Pam moments on over and over) are getting.

For instance: When I think of the best years of The Office, two songs come immediately to mind. One is "Mambo No. 5," Michael Scott's increasingly sad paragon of coolness. The other is "Sing," by Travis, which Jim and Pam listen to (so poignantly) with one set of white iPod earbuds on a date they refuse to admit is a date.

The "Mambo No. 5" fad was an embarrassing six years old during Season 2 of The Office. That non-date aired seven-and-a-half years ago. If your musical self-identity was ever wrapped up, as Jim's is in the moment, with hunting down new music and downloading it (or ripping CDs!) to a big white iPod, you must confront this fact: Your new music is getting old.

More »

By Caleb Haley

For nearly two decades, Cody Canada has been a driving force in the musical sound blowing out of Oklahoma, like the dust bowls before it, known as Red Dirt music -- a raw combination of southern jazzy blues, folk, country, and rock 'n' roll.

For the first 16 years of his career, Canada spread his homegrown musical styling out of Stillwater with the band Cross Canadian Ragweed. Now, with that behind him, he's fronting his newest act, The Departed, alongside fellow Ragweed member Jeremy Plato and longtime friends Seth James, Steve Littleton, and Chris Doege.

The Departed are scheduled to perform Friday, May 17, at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale.

More »

There's a new Spotify competitor in town, and its name is -- take a breath here, if you're reading out loud -- Google Play Music All Access. What separates it from Spotify, besides the increased time it will take to type (or speak into your Google Glass)? It always costs money -- $9.99 a month, after a 30-day free trial.

That is probably not the differentiating feature streaming-music consumers were looking for.

More »