Harold Aceves, drumming for The Hobbit in 1966.

"Top of the Morning," the 1966 single by Phoenix garage rockers The Hobbit starts off with a simple rhythm, the sound of a clamped high-hat tapping out a simple 4/4 beat. Then it blows up: white boy soul vocals, bobbing and weaving organ, clanging guitars, and racing bass, all the while anchored by forceful, dead simple drums.

Harold Aceves was the guy behind the kit, and on Monday, February 27, he passed away. But not before living a life full of music -- after his garage rock days in Phoenix he made his way out to San Francisco, where he played with Country Joe & The Fish and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Eventually he found his way back to the Valley, and where he was a staple at downtown Tempe hangout the Sail Inn.

That's where his friends will gather on Sunday, April 15, to remember him and raise money for his mother Olivia. Restless Natives, Steve Larson, Ruth Wilson, Mansaray Blue Pony, Charles and Dylan Bond, legendary Phoenix bluesman Hans Olson, and The Noodles featuring Country Joe and the Fish guitarist Barry "The Fish" Melton will perform in Aceves' honor.

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See also: 2012 RPM Challenge: Five Valley Artists (And Yours Truly) Attempt to Record an Album in One Month

With the extra day provided by leap year, four of the seven Valley artists we tracked for this year's RPM Challenge were able to record an entire album from start to finish. That would be Sha-Pink, EPISODES, one Serene Dominic, and Tannix, who completed the album but, failing to mail it into RPM Challenge headquarters, is not being recognized as a finisher (more on that later).

Among the three non-finishers were Mike Skullbuster, who groused, "I couldn't get my four track going. The good news is I have a bunch of good new songs. Sorry." QUIBIQ bowed out because of remixing obligations and the concurrent recording of this year's Sha-Pink album, Thriller. The Feisty Felines' album was a non-starter after a computer crashed and the initial work was lost. Undaunted, Andrew Jemsek made a four-song solo EP during a marathon session four days after the Challenge ended and will be on hand to share the results at the RPM Listening Party this Thursday, March 8, at the Bikini Lounge, which will give all you participants a chance to reshare some cuts and give some hastily pressed CD-Rs away.

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Jonathan Davis (a.k.a. J Devil)

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As any DJ-producer hyphenate will tell you, it takes a huge investment of both time and money to get into the beat-crafting game. It also helps to have some primo equipment and a few skilled and savvy mentors to help guide the way if you have any hopes of becoming an electronica artist of any importance whatsoever.

Needless to say, Jonathan Davis of Korn possessed all of these things when he was becoming his DJ alter ego J Devil: Plenty of downtime between albums to twiddle with knobs and settings on digital audio programs, a rock star salary, and guidance from such dubstep gurus as Datsik and Skrillex.

Hence, his side gig laying dubstep doom and gloom on Korn crowd's before concerts and at various nightclub appearances, both of which he'll do tonight at both Comerica Theatre (when the nu-metal pioneers perform) and later at The Path of Totality afterparty at Crescent Ballroom.

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View our full MIM "I Am AZ Music" slideshow.

On Saturday, February 18, the Musical Instrument Museum debuted its "I Am AZ Music" exhibit, featuring over 40 installations that examine the scope and history of music in Arizona in celebration of the State's centennial. Reggae artist Walt Richardson performed, as well as psychedelic soul band What Laura Says. Deon Doughty, Such Styles, and Champ created art outside while the music filled the air, and visitors browsed through MIM's collection of guitars, memorabilia, photos, and musical equipment. The exhibit will run for one year, ending in January 2013.

The exhibit features plenty for music nuts to flip over. The Alice Cooper section features an awesome promotional inflatable pencil promoting "School's Out," the Condello exhibit features a Gibson acoustic played by the man on the Wallace and Ladmo Show, as well as colorful W&L art. Arizona's long-running Canyon Records is prominently featured, with a few examples of the label's discography (the minimal LP covers are truly striking). And of course, as the museum is dedicated to instruments, there's a plethora of guitars, trumpets, accordions, and percussion instruments.

View our full MIM "I Am AZ Music" slideshow.

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The 2012 RPM Challenge - who will finish and who will fold? Five Valley artists (and yours truly) pledge to record an entire album in the month of February

Some musicians get into the game for the instant gratification of sex, drugs, and money. The RPM Challenge is clearly not for those kind of musicians. You actually have to love doing the work so much that you are willing to record a whole album from start to finish, in some cases even write the whole thing from scratch, and design an album cover to boot. And the rewards -- aside from bragging rights and having another 38 minutes of new material to gig with -- are virtually nil. You get to post your album on the RPM website and maybe get your song played on NPR some remote Sunday afternoon when no one's listening. There is no iPad giveaway. No one signs you. No Clive Davis will come to your door.

And yet some are simply up for the challenge of coming up with the goods, driving songwriters to punish their bodies and minds by doing this year after year. This year 1,600 Bands worldwide signed up for it. Some will have their hard drives crash on them; Some get writer's block and turn in a steamy pile of shit. Most will actually finish.

Out of those 1,600, five bands (and yours truly) are representing for Maricopa County and we catch up with them at the midway mark and chart their progress find out what painful lesson they've learned, because there's at least one or two every year.

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Lenni Rosenblum

Matthew Mosher's meditative space rover, Tranquility

​Get ready, Tempe: Matthew Mosher is blinding us with science!

An unusually interesting vehicle recently caught my eye while I was walking around Tempe. It was Matthew Mosher's musical meditative space rover, Tranquility. Needless to say, I've never seen anything quite like it.

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Metal legends Metallica recently announced the two-day Orion Music and More Festival, where the band will headline each night by playing a different classic album, Ride the Lightning and The Black Album, in their entirety. There's a super-long video on the festival site featuring an interview with the band, conducted by a dandy British man, who totally refers to the members as "chaps." In it, the band say they hand-picked the festival's 22 confirmed acts, with more to come, and that some cool non-music offerings like film screenings and surfing activities will soon be announced.

Yet the festival, running from June 23 and 24 at Bader Field in Atlantic City, features some exceptionally un-metal acts like UK pop-punks Arctic Monkeys and Cali dreamboats Best Coast. In the promo video, Metallica drummer and expert pontificator Lars Ulrich said the band aimed to provide the wide diversity of acts seen at most major festivals. "There's only two kinds of music: Great music and less-great music," he breathlessly opined. But which one of these metal legends is secretly jamming Titus Andronicus? Through painstaking research and elaborate data-mining techniques, I have come to some conclusions.

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http://osptempe.com/

​As reported by our sister blog Jackalope Ranch, Tempe's Open Source Project is scheduled to close at the end of the month, making it another entry is a sad string of venues closures.

But the doors won't be shut before local prog-rockers The Oxford Coma have their way with the place.

"We know the guys who own it, and we wanted to give them a big hoorah before they close down," says guitarist Billy Tegethoff.

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Benjamin Walker (a.k.a. Mr. Puma MC)

​Here's a Christmas story that's bound to warm your heart: Local hip-hop cipher Benjamin Walker (better known by his stage name Mr. Puma MC) is at the tail end of a battle with cancer, partly due to the efforts of plenty of Valley DJs.

The 39-year-old emcee, who's been working the mic since the glory days of the Bombshelter DJs in the '90s, is currently "around 95 percent recovered" from his battle with retroperitoneal seminoma.

Walker's fight against the rare form of cancer, which caused a softball-sized tumor to grow on his aorta, has undoubtedly been aided via fundraisers that have been held in his honor by old school DJs and scene veterans like Pete "Supermix" Salaz, Senbad, and DJentrification.

And now local legend Z-Trip is even lending a hand to help out Walker, as he'll headline the "Merry X-Ray" benefit on December 25 at the Crescent Ballroom.

"It's a pretty large cross-section of guys that I've known throughout the years that have reached out and given their support," Walker says. "It's a little overwhelming, I'm still in recovery from cancer and it's been rather difficult."

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Stefan Pruett of Peachcake

​ For as much awareness that has been brought upon HIV in recent years, it's still called an "unhuggable" disease because of the stigmas and misconceptions surrounding it -- though, no, hugging someone with AIDS will not cause you to catch it yourself (duh).

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