Photo by William Westfall

Jason DeVore sings with Aarin Lugar of Inept Hero for a song

​New Times Soundcheck
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Club Red

Two stages: check.

Fourteen bands: check.

Sound: check.

The New Times Soundcheck Festival concluded last night at Club Red with 14 kickass local acts. Day two emulated Friday's kickoff with a varied musical palate that included an injection of Valley hip-hop flavor for your ear.

The bands were divvied up between the second and main stages and provided a welcome ebb and flow to the night.

See the full Soundcheck 2012 Day Two slideshow.

The smaller Red Owl stage played host to the bouncing hip-hop fans, while rock and roll ska heads perused around the main stage.

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Taylor Moon

​Casey Donahew Band

Denim & Diamonds

Friday, February 10, 2012

 

"Up all night sippin' on whiskey n' drinkin' beer."

Well that definitively described the concert by the Casey Donahew Band last night.

The energy level was so high, you almost didn't notice that drummer TAZ was missing. He was in the hospital, but the band stepped it up and soldiered on without him.

J.J. Soto, lead guitarist played drums for the night, while A.C. Copeland, keyboardist took over lead guitar for the night.

The parking lot was already packed, lines out the door and everyone singing and dancing of course.

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Photos by Melissa Fossum

The Love Me Nots: bringing sexy back.

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New Times Soundcheck
Friday, February 10, 2012
Club Red

It's been a great week for local music fans. The much-anticipated 100 Years of Music That Defined Arizona article came out a couple days ago, and we're halfway through a pretty big music festival.

Check out the full Phoenix New Times Soundcheck slideshow.

Last night, the New Times Soundcheck kicked off with 14 diverse and talented bands. Regardless of personal tastes, every performer was entertaining to watch. Like most music festivals, the artists played at overlapping times and made for some difficult decisions. Fortunately, the festival is arranged so that you can spend at least 15 minutes watching every band on the lineup.

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Doughty showing off his work.

​This weekend is going to be busy in the Valley of the Sun. Not only is New Times invading Club Red/Red Owl for Soundcheck Festival 2012, featuring Glass Heroes, Sugar Thieves, The Love Me Nots, Father Figures, Jason Devore, Crusher Sound System, The Insects, and many many more, but there are scads of other great shows popping off: One Be Lo takes on Stray Cat tonight, hip-hop Hybridist Moe'Z plays Long Wong's on Saturday, and Raphael Saadiq brings some soul-power to the Lenny Kravitz gig on Sunday.

But that's not all. This weekend will be an especially busy one for painter Deon Doughty. Doughty is a familiar sight at Tempe shows, where he can be seen with his easel and paints. He's in the middle of crafting a series of Tempe-rocker paintings, dubbed his Blue and Gold series. He started on April 20, 2011, and plans to wrap up a series of 20 by April 20, 2012.

Doughty, who works in web development for Village Voice, is pretty excited about this weekend's Mergence show. He stopped by the office to show off his painting of Mergence frontman Adam Bruce. He just wrapped it up and is heading to the Crescent Ballroom on Saturday, February 11 to show it off to the band. Once he wraps up this series, he'll be moving on to his stage series, where he'll paint an entire scene: full band on stage, gear, and audience. "I just want to expose the Tempe scene," says Doughty. "These are my favorite bands."

Mergence's concert is one of our "must-catch" concerts this weekend. Read on for more.

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Clockwise from top left: Gin Blossoms' 1989 debut Dusted, songwriter/hitmaker Doug Hopkins, the old Long Wong's on Mill, Sara Cina, and the band in 1991.

​Editor's Note: An abridged version of this article appears in this week's issue, featuring 100 Songs that Defined Arizona. In celebration of Arizona's centennial, we spoke with local music icon Sara Cina about one of the earliest songs of renowned Tempe band Gin Blossoms.

"All the lines you wrote to me were lies/The months roll past the love that you struck dead/Did you love me only in my head?"

Having spent close to 15 years booking the old Long Wong's on Mill Avenue, Sara Cina played a huge role in Tempe's vibrant music heyday of the '90s. 

She was as much a part of the venerated Mill Avenue dive -- an epicenter of the jangle-pop era that hosted local heavyweights like The Refreshments, The Beat Angels, and Dead Hot Workshop seven nights a week for more than a decade -- as its graffiti-covered walls or the colorful mural of memorable regular Elvis "The Cat" Del Monte.

As such, her favorite locally produced song from the last century is one of the bigger hits by Long Wong's most favorite sons. Namely, "Found Out About You" by Gin Blossoms.

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Adam's awful hairdo: just one more reason he shouldn't be playing with Queen.

​Rumors are swirling that former American Idol Adam Lambert is going to be teaming up with Queen for live performances.

We've got some bones to pick about this. While Lambert said he'll be doing this "to pay tribute to Freddie and the band by singing some fucking great songs," that can't possibly be his only motive. If he wants to pay tribute to Queen, he should start a tribute band.

Lambert isn't exactly the best pick for someone to take the place of Freddie Mercury, which, for the record, nobody should even be doing in the first place. He's Freddie Mercury. You can't top that. But if anyone is going to try, surely there must be some better options.

That's why we came up with a list of five guys who would be more suitable for this position than Adam Lambert.

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Photos and video by Melissa Fossum

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Unwritten Law
Roxy Lounge
Thursday, February 9, 2012

Unwritten Law has had an interesting career. Lineup changes are to be expected with any band that's been around for over 20 years, but most frontmen don't have "physical arguments" with (soon-to-be-former) bandmates.

That leaves Scott Russo, the only original member of Unwritten Law. Fronting a four-piece band, he continues to create new material. Did you know Unwritten Law released two full-length albums after 2002's Elva? Yeah, I forgot, too. After a brief tango with mainstream success (thanks to songs like "Up All Night" and "Seein' Red,") the band kind of fell off the radar.

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​Without music education, it's safe to say there would be no Bears of Manitou.

To help foster the local talent of the future, the band is pairing with Ear Candy Charity, a local nonprofit that seeks monetary and musical instrument donations to help with Arizona's dismal arts education funding, for the More Than Music Festival on Saturday, February 11 at Sail Inn.

The Tempe-based rockers, along with local acts Conjugal Visit, Adriene Blanco, Trinket and Peppermint James, donated their abilities, all thanks to their personal convictions.

We talked to guitarist Gabe Williams and drummer Brian Champ about what their music education meant to them and why they think the Ear Candy cause is a worthy one.

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Joey Bradfisch (center) with musical group Karmin

​Joey Bradfisch

Bradfisch is a producer for the Johnjay and Rich radio morning show on 104.7 KISS-FM. His segment, What'cha Doin At The Courthouse?, airs on the station every Friday at 7:40 a.m.

When you put your key in the ignition and turn on the radio, what station would play? I'm partial to KISS in the car in the mornings because it keeps me up driving at 3:30 a.m.! I'm a big fan of talk radio in general, so the rest of my car time is occupied by that -- seeing what everyone else in radio around the country is doing.

What's the first album you bought? Since I grew up being a complete dork, I think it was the Star Wars soundtrack bundled with the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. (I can't believe I said that.)

What's the first concert you saw? Boston was my first real concert, and it rocked. Unless the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live counts? [Editor's Note: YES, it counts.]

What's your favorite concert you've ever been to? KISS and Aerosmith. Believe it or not, KISS was the better of the two.More >>