Pamela Lopez Grant/Otep Facebook

Get ready for Hydra

Imagine taking a demonic ride through a girl's mind, filled with fantastic illusions, haunting, heavy melodies, and vengeance against a world that has forgotten her.

To get there, you could spend an evening with Otep, one of the most prolific female-fronted bands of the past decade -- or have a listen to their newest album, Hydra, which was released in late January.

Based on a short story by frontwoman Otep Shamaya, the album evolved into a graphic novel based around a character named Hydra. Eventually, Otep realized that Hydra had become a creature all her own, and her story a vast musical excursion. But Hydra isn't just Otep Shamaya's latest work -- it's also her farewell to the music world.

Otep is playing with One-Eyed Doll at Joe's Grotto tonight.

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See my feature about the music of Leonard Nimoy. Also, the thing about William Shatner's best musical moments. Oh, and how about the thing I wrote about the music of other Star Trek actors. Who let me get away with this stuff?

Dear readers, let's get this out of the way: In nearly every possible way, being the music editor of Phoenix New Times/Up on the Sun has been my dream job. No joke: I've chatted with Brian Wilson (it was a terrible conversation, and my chat with Al Jardine was much better, but still); I had the pleasure of being in the same room as the amazing Mavis Staples; Wanda Jackson called me "baby"; I got to write weirdo think pieces about Drake. Nearly every day I received a local submission or stumbled upon a BandCamp page that encouraged my belief that Phoenix is indeed a great music town, and in my time, I've been contacted by respected Phoenix music vets willing -- and ready -- to lay some Valley of the Sun history on me. It's been a blast.

See also:

Jason P. Woodbury: 10 Best Things I Heard in 2012

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The news waits for no one -- at least that's what we read somewhere -- so it's perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants.

So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of our biggest stories from the week of October 8-12.

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The news waits for no one -- at least that's what we read somewhere -- so it's perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants.

So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of our biggest stories from the week of August 27-September 2.

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See also: Lamb of God's Randy Blythe Set Free; Five Finger Death Punch Weighs In
See also: Five Finger Death Punch's Jason Hook on American Capitalist, Playing For the Troops, and Spending the Night in One of Saddam's Palaces

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Five Finger Death Punch has been called a lot of things: overzealous, angry, a sell-out, fake (guess that sort of thing can happen when you name your third record American Capitalist during a period of economic turmoil). But forget it. FFDP knows how to rock and truly cares about the causes it stands behind.

American Capitalist likely will be the Las Vegas-based band's third gold album, moving serious units since it came out last fall. This weekend, they are swinging through the Valley of the Sun as part of the Trespass America Festival, along with God Forbid, Pop Evil, Killswitch Engage, and Triviu.

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http://www.facebook.com/DigitalSummerBand

Digital Summer

See also: Digital Summer Drummer Ben Anderson Plays Contra on Drums
See also: Local Hard Rock Band Digital Summer Hits the Road with Saliva

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Digital Summer is a popular fixture on the local rock scene, but its members have spent a great deal of the last year out of town, hitting up industry heavyweights and networking at festivals from coast to coast. The band's hellbent on solidifying their reputation on a national scale, and it's definitely paying off in regards to the band's third record, Breaking Point, which was released on Tuesday, August 7, 2012.

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See also: KISS/Crue Openers The Treatment Make American Rock 'n' Roll (But Hail From England)
See also: Gathering of the Juggalos or S.S. Coachella? We Break Out the Scorecard
See also: Alice Cooper's Mom Has the Original "School's Out" Panties
See also: Dee Snider Talks About His New Book, Shut Up and Give Me the Mic, and New Album

With Motley Crue, KISS in town tonight at Ashley Furniture HomeStore Pavilion, and the recent gig by Cinderella, is it any wonder that the makeup counters nearest the venues seem depleted?

To the best of my research ability, it doesn't seem any artist was ever sponsored by a Revlon, Max Factor or any other make-up producer, yet plenty of male-fronted bands have kept these companies in business by wearing makeup as part of the stage act (and for some, it's the daily look).

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​Up on the Sun favorite Dan Bejar and his band Destroyer released their newest album Kaputt more than a year ago. We liked it then, we liked it at the end of the year, we like it now still. It's a charming ode to the smooth sounds of late-'70s/early-'80s yacht rock, cannily balancing the line between straight-up pastiche and creative homage.

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​Inspiration is sudden, fleeting and often cyclical. Ask a musician and he will tell you that he doesn't write songs, he just picks up his instrument and out they come as if they had always been looping in the recesses of his conscience. Those recesses are really just a crate of their favorite records. When we pull a sample from the crate, it comes out slightly different, molded by our own experiences. In a way, we're all DJs.More »

Roadrunner Records

Don't count on Korn to stop growing anytime soon.

Korn has been full of announcements during the past year.

The veteran rockers added a fresh new chapter to their catalog with a 10th album, The Path of Totality, which found the band shifting its style onto a path a lot of people didn't see coming. Another "single rockstar" bit the dust when guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer tied the knot to his girlfriend Paris right after the New Year. Former Korn guitarist And Brian "Head" Welch said that enough time has passed now that he has an open mind about reuniting with his former bandmates musically (he even played a Korn tune live at the Alice Cooper Christmas Pudding event).

And now the announcement has come out that the band will be dubstepping into Phoenix's Comerica Theatre on Thursday, March 1. Singer Jonathan Davis will also show off his brand new DJ set as his J Devil alter-ego at the show.

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