Life likes to challenge your ability to do what you love. The ones you stick with through the hard parts are the things you tend to care for the most. I suppose that is part of the challenge. Life wants to tell you that the only way to survive is paying the bills and doing the job to that end. I ask where the fun in that is. What fun would life be if you were to be part of the status quo? If you only have one life to…
Read MoreAround twenty three years ago, NOFX released their fifth album, “Punk in Drublic.” Flash forward to now and it has become a full-fledged beer sampling, punk rock show. Phoenix was lucky enough to be added to the list of cities hosting the festival. The line ups vary from city to city with NOFX across the board joined by multiple amazing punk bands such as Bad Religion, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Less than Jake, Goldfinger, and more. The Phoenix stop had the line-up of NOFX, Bad Religion, Goldfinger, Authority Zero, and Guttermouth…
Read MoreWhen Bomb the Music Industry started playing, I was too busy graduating from college and becoming a cog in the corporate machine. I fell out of following music outside of a couple bands while I worked for GameStop. After leaving that position, I had to work to find my stress free environment which brought me back to following music in 2011. However, by the time I got to discovering Jeff Rosenstock, it was after Bomb the Music Industry had ceased playing. The closest thing I could do was track down…
Read MoreMusic 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…
Read MoreThe 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…
Read MoreThe DIY scene goes hand and hand with the punk scene. Many come in the form of homes turned into venues. A couple DIY spaces are official establishments that cater to a broader range like 924 Gilman and our own local Trunk Space. One of the better ones to pop up was the Rats Ass. The venue since this show has shut down. Although fear not, it has reopened under a new name. Even under the new name, you must “ask a punk” to find the address. I arrived late…
Read MoreIt 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…
Read MoreThis was a Saturday that I had consigned to staying in. It was the beginning of a more stressful period at my day job, and I always have pictures to catch up on. I posted it to Facebook to try to hold myself to it. Alas, it seems that music calls to me despite all the attempts to stay in. Music brings me to a place I enjoy being. So, I went over to Last Exit Live to catch a mix of bands I mostly didn’t know. Opening up was…
Read MoreOne 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…
Read MoreWhat do you do after spending about ten hours out at a Warped Tour in Phoenix? If you’re me, you take the day off to rest and go out to music the next night. Plus given Harper and the Moths are taking time off to put toward a new album, the Real Fits show was on the top of my radar. The night opened on a fantastic touring band, then flowed into great local acts across two air-conditioned venues. That touring act would be Beachwood Coyotes from L.A. These awesome…
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