Concerts 

Saying Goodbye To Warped Summers

The last song of a Warped Tour was played on Sunday, in West Palm Beach and with Pennywise performing it. Huge props to Kevin Lyman, who put on the tour for 24 years. He managed to not only maintain a successful tour for over two decades, but evolve it to survive the entire period. It started as a punk dominated festival in its first decade. Then to the vein of a lot of vocal punks, found the blossoming Emo and Hardcore scenes as they were coming up in the 2000’s…

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Concerts 

Go With The Flow

There is a lot of new music hitting my ears weekly these days. Perhaps it is the exponential growth of bands I follow or just the coincidental concentration of bands releasing new music. With that comes the album release shows. It is a get together of musicians and a few of their favorite musical friends to celebrate their latest lyrical creations. This time around a few guys I’ve been watching since I was a teenager were celebrating their latest music, NEATO, with a few of their favorite friends. The show…

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Concerts 

The Triple Release

Album release shows are an excellent way to bring out everyone into one place to pick up and celebrate new music. They tend to usually be for a single release, and occasionally for a dual release. However, in this case we had three bands releasing three new albums of their own. This would be a first for my concert going, as Playboy Manbaby, T.O.S.O., and Not Confined had a brand new album this night. On top of those, we had Exxxtra Crispy playing to start the entire thing off. Exxxtra…

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Concerts 

80/20 Vision

You never know how long an endeavor is going to last. If it is something you are passionate about, you hope the rest of your life. It is why you celebrate each moment as the things that matter to you hit significant benchmarks. For 80/20 Records’ founder, Michael Zimmerlich, this year marks ten years of just that. It is ten years of him helping musicians get their music out there. I met him through one of my favorite locals that his label plays host to, Captain Squeegee. Then I kept…

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Concerts 

Moving Music

When I entered Friday, I already knew there was a tussle for where I should go watch music. However, when I got the email back that I could take pictures of Skinny Lister and Will Varley, I knew my starting point. These are two bands I fell in love watching when introduced to me through two separate Frank Turner tours. A week prior finding out our local Cockswain had been added as openers and I knew that show was going to deliver. Of course, Valley Bar shows start pretty early…

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News 

The 2017 Top 10 of the Arizona Locals

I’ll say it here, for all the complaints people have for 2017, and I have a couple of my own, the Arizona music scene is strong. They are killing it in this last year. It made my choices tough. Fighting the urge to make it the longest list since 2016, I have cut it down to my top 10 local Phoenix and Arizona band albums. You can see my genre of preference in it, but I’m sure you will find surprises. So without further adieu… Alex Squared “Mexican Fishing Tricks”…

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Concerts 

The Rockin’ Folk

Music is a therapy. It is something that is a great place to forget your stress. For me, it is how I started this frequenting of shows. The venues are a place of letting the mind escape on the chords of the instruments, the rhythm of the drums, and words of the lyrics. Catching the three bands of this night, Dirty Sunset, Foresteater, and Valley Queen, were another example of that amazing therapy. The night opened up a little more folky with Dirty Sunset. These guys play a bluegrass and…

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Concerts 

Did I Say I like a Rocking Guitar?

The annual Viva PHX music festival has been a place to see the bands that I love playing and catch some new ones. This year that included the guys of Rozwell Kid and their praise of the AT&T moon. Granted, these guys were touring with Jeff Rosenstock and the Menzingers so I would have caught them no matter where they played. However, they jumped high onto my radar once I saw them play at Viva PHX. For the first tour since, they came through with two bands I hadn’t heard…

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Concerts 

A Little Taste of Americana

It has been longer than I like to go between posting shows. At the volume I attend, this thing just piles up. Unfortunately, the day job that has funded this for four years has let me go. The past couple weeks have been applying to jobs and getting used to the additional stresses. I want to say an up front apology for the longer delay. With that though, I’m excited to get back on this. The show I left off with was that of Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold, two…

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Concerts 

Blind Discoveries

One of the merits since the Trunk Space started the Indie 500 was catching new bands. You can show up for a known band, but stick around until your eyes won’t stay open. In that time you see a large mixture of genre. You see bands you never knew the name of that stick in your memory as you leave. Good Ol’ Joel is one of those bands I first saw at the 2016 Indie 500. One thing that stuck with me was their guitarist made a skateboard into his…

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