If you are not a local band, it is a special treat to get to see one of your favorite touring bands twice in a half year span. Albeit, it has happened once already in the last year for me with Lagwagon who played two shows of two different albums and returned for Punk In Drublic, but that is a less common occurrence. This time around the special occasion was Beach Bunny returning for a bigger room in the Nile and with another set of cool touring musicians with Ky…
Read MoreDuring 2020 and into 2021 musicians performing livestreams were the place where many of our favorite musicians went. They were my go-to for catching music while safely quarantining at home. One of my regular streams was the monthly Four Eyed Horsemen streams. I could always depend on the four staples of it, Schaffer the Darklord, Mega Ran, MC Frontalot, and MC Lars, to perform once a month through that time. They always brought on a guest to open and for one of those was my first time watching and hearing…
Read MoreThere are artists that every time you see them is a bundle deal, always with one of their bands. That while some artists splinter off or do the solo thing as a side project, a lot just love doing it most with the family they call a band. Lars Frederiksen is one of those artists I’ve always seen in a band setting, whether it be with Rancid, Old Firm Casuals, or Oxley’s Midnight Runners. However, this year he has put together a tour going solo with a couple friends. This…
Read MoreWhile we have mourned a few of our favorite venues close over the past couple years, the good news is we are seeing birth of new venues too. It is wonderful when that new space is one about giving all ages, any musical creation a place to play. The new space I refer to is the Groundworks in Tucson that opened this past November. They had Sean and Ben, of AJJ, headline the big inaugural show. Since then, they have regularly been hosting shows and art down there. While it…
Read More1994 was an important year in the resurgence of a punk rock that had gone back underground the latter half of the eighties. It marked a couple seminal albums released that year, including Green Day’s Dookie, Bad Religion’s Stranger Than Fiction and Offspring’s Smash. Another one of those big albums was NOFX’s Punk In Drublic. In the time since its release, the album has crossed the one million threshold and stands a fan favorite in punk circles. Beginning in 2017, it became the name of a punk rock and craft…
Read MoreThere are artists that transcend genre. They start in one we love the most or hold dear enough. Though as they grow as musicians they branch further into others. One of those musicians is Dave Hause, who I know from punk rock origins with The Loved Ones and later The Falcon and All Brights. With his solo work, he has branched out further to showcase folk rock skills. This night brought him back to Phoenix with those skills. His band Dave Hause and the Mermaid with the talented Will Hoge…
Read MoreI’m back on pushing blind discoveries are exactly why you try to make it at the beginning and stay to the very end of a show. If you read my prior M3F coverage, you already know that was a bucket load of seeing rad new musicians for me recently. That is continuing as I came out for the Aquadolls in their co-headlining tour with Sitting On Stacy and their cool openers in Hoity Toity. Both latter bands I’d never seen or heard before. Let me tell you, all of them…
Read MoreThey say a change of scenery can do you well. For Skatercon 6, that meant heading to an entirely different city for the first time in Tucson. The five past prior ones have all been held in Phoenix. This time, we were about an hour and a half south with Mt. Lemmon in our backdrop at Santa Rita Skatepark. Skatercon in a different city did what it does best loaded with bands and skaters, local and touring. A little bit of technical issues playing into it made our Phoenix local…
Read MoreWith the first day of M3F under my belt, I was more excited going into the second day. I had already discovered so many new to me musicians and bands that it created a bigger anticipation for the second day. The sun was out this time that added warmth and to that feeling that it was going to be a good day. As for the festival, it did live up to that growing anticipation and the bar set by the day prior. First of the music would be another solid…
Read MoreThe now by the name M3F festival has been running since 2004. The three in the name originally coming from McDowell Mountain Music when it started in Scottsdale in view of the McDowell Mountain range. Since then, it has only grown and grown, moving into bigger digs in downtown Phoenix at Margaret T Hance Park. It only made sense for them to remove the direct name of McDowell Mountain and rename to the acronym of M3F. My first attending of the festival was in 2016 where I watched Beck for…
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