Sami Ansari

Dave Grohl

By Whitney Friedlander

The lobby of Dave Grohl's Northridge-based 606 Studios has a Joan Jett book on the coffee table and a row of classic arcade games like Donkey Kong Jr. against one wall. On top of a photo booth sits an iconic "Moonman" MTV Video Music Award, festooned with a roll of toilet paper around the MTV flag.

See also:

-Dave Grohl's Sound City Documentary Is Coming to FilmBar in Phoenix

What it doesn't have on this chilly Thursday morning in January are helicoptering publicists or managers restricting access -- Grohl is unaccompanied as he heads into the studio for an interview. And he has no intention of avoiding controversial subjects.

More »

soundcitymovie.com/

A scene from Sound City

Maybe you're a Foo Fighters fan and maybe you're not, but it's impossible to deny that frontman Dave Grohl knows how to milk the "famous rockstar" thing. He plays on records with his friends, teams up with his idols, and drums every now and then just to remind everyone that he's really, really good at it.

His latest passion project might be his biggest. This week he releases a documentary/love letter called Sound City, named for the legendary studio of the same name in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, where Grohl's old band Nirvana recorded Nevermind. The grunge trio is hardly the only act to record a major work there: Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Dr. John, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Weezer, Foreigner, and more all graced the studio's rooms.

See also:

-Dave Grohl On His Film Tribute to the Studio That Gave the World Nevermind
-Foo Fighters' "Field Guide to Food": Greatest. Concert. Rider. Ever.
-Live Review: Foo Fighters @ US Airways Center, 10/16/11

More »

I missed Sound Wave, so my Saturday was not spent doing ecstasy in a drained swimming pool. Sad face. I also missed Justin Bieber's concert, which totally blows because he threw up, guys! He threw up on stage in front of hundreds of people and now millions of people will watch the video on YouTube and I missed it. Saddest face.

So instead, I watched Katy Perry's tour documentary Part of Me. The suggestion came from fellow New Times blogger and photographer Melissa Fossum, after she read my column on Katy Perry's terrible sex advice.

Like I told Fossum, I couldn't do this sober in the least, so I loaded up on lots of vodka, rum and cheap beer, turning this spectacle into a drinking ... activity. I hesitate to use the word "game," because this soon became a form of ethanol-based torture. And the Katy Perry Part of Me Drinking Thing™ was born!

---

See also: Katy Perry Gives the Worst Sex Advice Ever
See also: Five Totally Rad Things About Katy Perry
See also: Katy Perry's 10 Best Looks and Lyrics

---

More »

I missed Sound Wave, so my Saturday was not spent doing ecstasy in a drained swimming pool. Sad face. I also missed Justin Bieber's concert, which totally blows because he threw up, guys! He threw up on stage in front of hundreds of people and now millions of people will watch the video on YouTube and I missed it. Saddest face.

So instead, I watched Katy Perry's tour documentary Part of Me. The suggestion came from fellow New Times blogger and photographer Melissa Fossum, after she read my column on Katy Perry's terrible sex advice.

Like I told Fossum, I couldn't do this sober in the least, so I loaded up on lots of vodka, rum and cheap beer, turning this spectacle into a drinking ... activity. I hesitate to use the word "game," because this soon became a form of ethanol-based torture. And the Katy Perry Part of Me Drinking Thing™ was born!

---

See also: Katy Perry Gives the Worst Sex Advice Ever
See also: Five Totally Rad Things About Katy Perry
See also: Katy Perry's 10 Best Looks and Lyrics

---

More »

Anthony Sandoval

See also: New Documentary Bigger Than Sound Tracks the Career of Local Promoter Charlie Levy

---

If you didn't catch the screening of Bigger Than Sound at ASU's downtown journalism school last May, then chances are you probably haven't seen the student-made documentary that chronicles the career of local promoter Charlie Levy.

Filmmakers Kayla Frost, Alex Gregory, Mugo Odigwe, and Marissa Ochoa parted ways for Summer break shortly after the screening, and opted to wait until they reconvened for school before putting the film on the web for the rest of the world to see.

More »

Bert Stern

Mahalia Jackson

See also: American Artifact, FilmBar, 7/30/12
See also: See Alice Cooper's Dark Shadows Costume at the Musical Instrument Museum

Make no mistake about it: Jazz was once dangerous. Jazz was once the music of the youth, a force as divisive as rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, EDM, and whatever is coming next.

Jazz on a Summer's Day, the 1960 documentary by fashion photographer Bert Stern about the 1958 New Port Jazz Festival, showcases a moment where the definition of jazz was expanding in radical ways. Featuring performances by Chuck Berry, Theolonius Monk, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, the Chico Hamilton Quartet and more, the film is screening Thursday, August 9, at SMoCA Lounge in Scottsdale.

More »

American Artifact, directed by Merle Becker, 2009

American Artifact (2009)
Directed by Merle Becker
FilmBar
Monday, July 30, 2012

See also: 10 Awesome Concert Posters at SXSW's Flatstock 33

In recent years there have been a slew of rockumentaries about long gone golden eras, from the disappearance of the mom and pop record store thanks to the big chain stores, to the obliteration of freeform radio thanks to corporate intervention and the death of sampling due to the litigious climate preventing its creative use now. Happily, American Artifact, the 2009 overview of the American rock poster, shows a niche in pop culture that has continued to thrive without the infusion or intrusion of corporate dollars.

More »

Saturday, May 19: Yellow Submarine @ AMC Desert Ridge

The actual Beatles don't actually show up in the 1968 animated flick Yellow Submarine (not until the end at least, and that's not John, Paul, George, and Ringo providing voices), but don't let that dissuade you from taking in a special noontime showing of the new digital print of the movie at AMC Desert Ridge this Saturday. Not only does the movie exclusively feature one of The Beatles' grooviest rockers, "Hey Bulldog," but it's a visual swirl as a technicolor Fab Four take on the music-detesting Blue Meanies.

Some Beatles conspiracy theorists allege the movie is a twisted allusion to the Biblical book of Revelation, while plenty of parents are wary of taking their kids to what is obviously more of an acid trip than anything Sid and Marty Krofft dreamed up (but not by much). You (or your kids) don't need to be high to enjoy Yellow Submarine, but we're not judging if you are. --Jason P. Woodbury

More »

See also: Musical Instrument Museum Debuts "I Am AZ Music" Exhibit
See also: Alice Cooper: No More Mr. Bad Guy

When Alice Cooper, Phoenix's resident lord of the underworld/radio personality/Christian activist, pops up in the Tim Burton new flick, Dark Shadows, what he's wearing should look mighty familiar.

The duds, modeled after his 1970s leather daddy motif, have been on display at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix since its I Am AZ Music exhibit opened earlier this year. Surrounded by memorabilia from his years (including a promotional inflatable pencil from the "School's Out" marketing blitz), the costume is one of those used in the film, a humorous take the English goth-soap Dark Shadows from the '60s and '70s.

"[The outfit was] made specifically for Alice to wear in Dark Shadows by [costume designer] Coleen Atwood," MIM curator Cullen Strawn says. "It's based on an outfit he wore in the '70s."

More »

Zombie Popcorn

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that The Devil's Carnival showed up in Scottsdale on Easter Sunday. It was a perfect day for the gleeful underground horror/ rock musical freaks and geeks to get dressed up and go out to play while everyone else is decorating eggs and eating jellybeans?

The dark rock musical/experimental short horror film was put together by Repo! The Genetic Opera creators Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw I, II, III IV) and Terrance Zdunich, and features an impressive array of figures from music, including Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody, Clown from Slipknot, Nivek Ogre from Skinny Puppy, and more well-known actors like Paul Sorvino and Bill Moseley.

More »