Phoenix Music Blog

As per Jimmy Fallon's request, Christopher Cross played his debut 1980 single "Ride Like The Wind" with the Roots

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You might not know this, but with Insane Clown Posse and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor coming to town within five days next week there is potential for unrest. Watch as these two teens discuss the feud between fanbases and who's a "fag" before trying to find common ground, all the while speaking in hilarious Kentucky accents. Someone really ought to sample that dude saying "they're still fucking wicked."

I was already planning to see ICP (read my Juggalo column here) but now I'm pretty interested in KUPD's End of Summer Scorcher too. These kids are awesome.

"They're still fucking wicked..."

Silver Medallion's Oren J. (left) and Carnegie.

​The bombastic electro-hop duo of Oren J. and Carnegie (a.k.a. Silver Medallion) have been crazy productive in recent weeks. Not only have they released a brand new CD (The Last of the Popstars), they've also been gigging all around the Valley, and held a rather swank release party at the W Scottsdale. The hits just keep on coming, as Silver Medallion released their latest music video online earlier today and it's quite epic.

Filmed and edited by local lensman Giulio Sciorio (who's photog work has been featured in New Times over the past few years), the three-minute video is for the single "Gravity" and is a vibrant nighttime tour of some of the cooler/funkier parts of downtown Phoenix. Oren and Carnegie hop onboard the light rail, take a jaunt through Civic Space Park, hang out at Bar Smith and the Clarendon, and even manage to make the Arizona Science Center look hip.

Click the link below to sample the video for yourself.

Luke Holwerda

Lil Wayne on stage at Cricket Wireless Pavilion

​Lil Wayne and his entourage fired up Cricket Wireless Pavilion with pyrotechnics, giant screens and all the hot dance moves they could Flash for the "America's Most Wanted Tour" on Wednesday.

Check out shots from the show in our Lil Wayne slide show.

Jamie Peachey

Sonny Long

If you've read this week's music feature Sonny Long you may have a grasp on who he is (at least in his own mind). Is he the next thing in Arizona music or just another dreamer? Read on to find out.

Ever since I interviewed Darkness Dear Boy for a column I did back in March, I've liked those crazy kids. Heck, we called them up to do one of our very first Sun Sessions. Here they are on video again, this time for "Domino," the single off their new album. Oh, and they'll also be playing Friday The Sail Inn on June 12, a Doggass Productions show with music, comedy and art.

One night. Two great slide shows. Check out these images direct from ASU's SRC Field featuring thousands baring it all for charity. Also don't miss these shots from Cinco central in Scottsdale. 

Jonathan McNamara

ASU Undie Run 2009
Sure, you could clean out your closet with a few Goodwill runs, but thousands of ASU students found a better solution: get (half) naked. For the second year in a row, ASU kids from all majors and years celebrated the last day of classes by stripping down to their undies and running around campus in the ASU Undie Run on May 5, 2009.

Don't miss: Photos from last year's Undie Run

Victor Palagano

Cinco de Mayo at Salty Senoritas and Dos Gringos in Scottsdale
Tequilla? Check. Crazy cover bands? Check. Cinco de Mayo memories direct from Salty Senorita and Dos Gringos in Scottsdale forever immortalized for posterity? Check it out for yourself.

Stephen Lemons

See more lowrider shots in our slide show.

Guadalupe's streets were packed Saturday with Street Kings, Intruders, and Majestics -- just a few of the car clubs represented at the greatest free lowrider car show in the Valley.

Check out the hydraulics action, with rear bumpers kissing the ground, and headlights reaching for the sky. Even some of the kiddie bikes were tricked out like all the sweet Impalas on parade. Big ups to Guadalupe's own DJ BigWill, for working security and keeping everyone safe and sound. And for the MCSO for not arresting anyone. Now that's what we call "a good day for law enforcement."

Check out the tricked-out cars in our lowrider slide show.

Victor Palagano

See more shots in our The Gaslight Anthem slide show.

The Gaslight Anthem played their "'59 Sound" to a packed house last night at The Clubhouse. See shots of their performance in our slide show.

Haven't heard of The Gaslight Anthem? Here are a few links and their music video for "Great Expectaions" to get you started:

The Gaslight Anthem Official Site

The Gaslight Anthem on Myspace

Leave it to Wired to break the important music stories. My last two posts on Up On The Sun have both been on the bullshit that the Major labels have been wasting their time on, and the reports in Billboard on it. Well Wired is breaking a story about about something that could change how we discover music, and no shock it is not coming from the majors, a major media company or anyone that was in the music world last week.

The new service called We Are Hunted is a simple clean music chart that will be great for music discovery. Old charts that track sales, either physical or digital. But according to WAH, "We Are Hunted is different in that it tracks sentiment, expression and advocacy."

How they track "sentiment, expression and advocacy" is the new part. Instead of looking at one metric or site they scroll a wide rang of music sites to find out what people are actully talking about. "We monitor the mainstream press, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Last.fm, iLike, bit torrent, Limewire, and more." The most not worthy part is the p2p networks, that have long been known to be a important metric for measuring how music is spreading, are included in their algorithm. 

The problem with the web and music discovery is a signal to noise problem. There is just two much music and no good filters. All of the options that WAH scrolls have their own advantages but with all these options there is not one great one for the causal listener, and so the causal listener has been tuning out unable to find new GOOD music. But it is out there.
 

The big music news today is a report from Billboard on iTunes price changes and their negatively affecting chart positions for the top 100 songs.

Last week, iTunes introduced variable pricing, with some newer and more popular singles priced at $1.29 while other songs remaining at 99 cents and some older songs reduced to  69 cents. (Some have pointed out the difficulty in finding tracks at the lower price). The price increase is something the major labels had long wanted. Shortly after the increase, both Wal-Mart and Amazon switched to the almost identical increased prices.

From the Billboard report:

"Two days after the Apple iTunes Music Store raised prices on some
individual tracks, there was evidence the increases have hurt the sales
rankings of songs given the higher $1.29 price."

The report shows that 47 songs priced at $1.29 lost an average of 2.7 chart positions over the first two days on iTunes top 100 download chart. The 53 songs that kept the $0.99 price over the first two days saw gains of on average of 1.96 chart positions.

Jonathan McNamara

See more St. Patrick's Day shots in our slide show.

The Valley saw green on March 17, 2009 as everyone and their blarney stones came out in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

PHX folks were Dublin their fun all night at bars and clubs across the Valley with green outfits, goofy-ass hats, and plenty of Guinness. We checked out the scene at a number of locales, including Scottsdale (Skeptical Chymist, the St. Patrick's Day Street Party), Tempe (Casey Moore's, D'Arcy McGee's), and Phoenix (The Turf, Rosie McCaffrey's, Padre Murphy's, and others).

If you were downing green beer, chances are you're in this slide show.

There was also plenty of music to be had, with dozens of bands performing traditional Celtic music and plenty of Irish rock for plenty of drunken revelers. For instance, check out this video we shot of the Keltic Cowboys singing up a storm at Rosie's:

When The Format suddenly broke up last year, it left a lot of people in Phoenix surprised, because they'd been one of the most influential bands to come out of this town in years.

Now Nate Ruess from The Format has a new band simply called Fun. Well this video of Fun playing a new song titled "All the Pretty Girls on a Saturday Night" live as surfaced on the internet. No word on when the band will make their first appearance in Phoenix.

In this week's music feature, Martin Cizmar explores how the last ten years have taken Ma$e from a rap super star and Puffy's right hand man to a passionate preacher man with his own flock in Phoenix and Atlanta.

This got us thinking: who are the other big named musicians turned to religion? Find out with this top ten slide show.

Amen.

Car collectors with discerning eyes and deep wallets cruised the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale. Their prey: hundreds of glistening vehicles waiting to go home with the highest bidder. And we mean high. Consider this slide show of car porn NSFW (not safe for wallets).

 

Judging from the traffic whilst journeying home post-party last night we can safely say that anyone and everyone was out last night ringing in the new year. In fact, we've got photographic proof in the form of these slide shows. Check out a few select shots from Downtown Phoenix, Scottsdale and even a few from Tempe.

Downtown Phoenix

The dancing didn't stop till dawn at Club PHX, Club Silver, Bar Smith and Sky Lounge...see more shots. 

By Jonathan McNamara

For this week's Sonic Truth, Music Editor Martin Cizmar got to know some of Phoenix's Juggalos: dedicated fans of Insane Clown Posse. But the story doesn't end there. Check out the following slide show and video for another look at this wicked subculture.

Slide Show: What Is a Juggalo?