Benjamin Leatherman

The scene at Cheap Thrills over the weekend.

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Around 100 or so were in attendance at the hepcat party on Saturday night, dancing and debauching way past 2 a.m. inside underground CenPho art space The Quincy (the namesake of local photographer Quincy Ross) while DJs Sean Watson and Jared Alan were in control of the mixers.

Then a few of Phoenix's finest came a-knocking and asked that the venue stop a-rocking, the result of a few residents in the adjacent neighborhoods reportedly making the usual noise complaints. Bummer. Alan and his crew proceeded to shut down the music and began expelling partygoers, much to their chagrin.

Not only are Shane MacGowan and the Pogues visiting Tempe tonight, but the Monsters of Folk Tour will be hitting the Orpheum and Valient Thorr is putting on a free show over at Yucca Tap Room.

We've saved the best event for last: Vice Magazine is presenting a big-time affair called the Desert Bender Party over at Black Forest Mill German Restaurant later tonight. The long-running indie publication has a penchant for putting on swank shindigs in both New York and L.A. and are finally giving the Valley its own version.

In addition to free tastings of Hornitos tequila and ticket giveaways to upcoming indie shows, both Kinch and Brothers Backword (the quasi-hip-hop side project created by a couple of members of Chronic Future) will perform while hipster DJs Jared Alan and Sean Watson will also spin.

Here's the kicker: admission to the event is free, but you gotta RSVP through this site. Doors open at 10 p.m.

It's just after 11 p.m. on a Saturday night and the Party Crasher feels like his eardrums are about to burst.

Standing less than two feet from the quaking subwoofers of a monolithic speaker, the reverend of revelry's cochlea were getting blasted by a cacophonic storm of bass-driven dubstep and glitchy breakbeats. Feeling very much like the dude in that '80s Maxell commercial, the relentless thrum of this 150 BPM wall of sound is pounding into his chest like a sledgehammer and blows clothing around like that nutty plastic bag in American Beauty.

And why is the Party Crasher perched in the destructively deafening tweeter box? 'Cause it's the best spot to spy all the action taking happening at this past weekend's Jumpdown Sessions Vol. II dance party event at the Draw 10 Lounge.

New Year's Eve was a busy night for the Party Crasher. This sultan of celebration had more than a dozen destinations on his shortlist, including hanging with hot messes and douchebags in Old Town Scottsdale and knocking back a couple with William Fucking Reed's crew at The Rogue.

The main event of Auld Lang Syne, however, was the Epic Red Cup Massive NYE Extravaganza. According to the Party Crasher's sources, it was gonna be quite the boffo bash. Taking place at some secretive location out in the no man's land of P-Town's desert outskirts, a crew of PHX turntablists (including Norman Van Ness, Metatron, and Spyder) were going to fire up a generator, ice down the beers, and put on a rave-like dance party for their friends and fans.

Over on MySpace, the shindig was described thusly: "[We're] are gonna go out to the desert with too much firewood, too much booze, too much sound and too much, well, you know the drill...pretty much burn shit, get fuckered and play loud music on my new drivers and amps until the sun rises or they run us off."

It was definitely something the Party Crasher needed to check out.

There's a plethora of parties that go down each and every weekend in the PHX.

Whether it's hot DJ nights at Valley clubs, after-hours raves out in the sprawl, or house parties with kegs and local bands, this town knows how to get down.

Enter the Party Crasher. Since it's impossible to sample every single fete and fiesta, our nightcrawling investigator of the outrageous will be checking out the scene at a number of nightspots and off-the-hook hootenannies from Thursday until Sunday. Each and every Tuesday he'll be reporting back on all the action.

To wit: This past weekend, the Party Crasher peeped the vibe at the newly-opened nightspots American Junkie in Scottsdale and The Vintage Lounge in Tempe, and got plenty of face time with fired-up rockabillies and the lovely-and-large ladies of Club FullFilled.