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Teenage Halloween Comes to Arizona

While 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…

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Punk In Drublic Returns To Phoenix

1994 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…

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Aquadolls and Sitting On Stacy Visit Valley Bar

I’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…

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Different City, Same Skatercon

They 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…

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PEARS Return to Phoenix

The very first time I saw PEARS was in a Las Vegas backyard in 2015. That was near the beginning with their first album under their belts and Fat Wreck had just signed them. Since then, they have only gone up in trajectory in success, music writing and performances. That includes their self-titled 2020 release being their best to date. However, they never had a chance to tour on it until now. The great one two punch of the tour included Neighborhood Brats who unfortunately dropped due to continuing issues…

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Doll Skin’s Hometown Show

There are shows you circle on your calendar as must go. After the last year and a half, that has only further magnified those you miss seeing live and those you just have newly discovered. Doll Skin was of those I had circled from the moment it was announced. They are such an excellent band to watch live. For bonuses on the night, that would be getting to catch Winterhaven, An Awful Mess, and Rio Wiley additionally. Opening up was a bouncy and fun band called Winterhaven. This is the…

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Hot Mulligan Brings a Fire Tour to the Van Buren

Going into a show blind can lead to just a bigger high when you discover another awesome band. It is the reason you should always go to a show from the beginning, as those openers have become a few of my favorite bands. However, in the case of Hot Mulligan, they were a band I actually had never listened to prior to this show going in. Additionally, Super American on this tour too. I was there for Sincere Engineer and Prince Daddy and the Hyena. Combined though, all four just…

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Lagwagon’s Two Nights of Blaze and Double Plaidinum

Getting to see a band once is a pleasure, but getting to see them two nights in a row is a double delight. There have been a handful of times that I’ve been able to watch a band two, or more, nights in a row like that. AJJ and Authority Zero are ones I have in the same venues back to back. The Slackers and Crazy & The Brains are two that come to mind that I’ve pulled off in two nights in two different cities. Regardless of whether the…

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I Fight Dragons Back In Phoenix

Music is one of the biggest joys in life. It takes us on journeys about personal lives to where the societal changes need to happen. It goes down the roads of humor, but sometimes serious and direct. In the world these days, the bands that bring that positive joy are what we need most. I Fight Dragons fits that bill with music and motivating lyrics while an engaging on stage presence from all five members. Bolstering this bill was Acne Superstar and Badger Springs from right here in Phoenix. Up…

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An Acne Superstar Release

I’ve always thought if I had a couple million dollars, part of my goal would be to get a few local bands recorded and promoted out to the larger audience they deserve. One of the best examples of that would be Acne Superstar. This idea has roots in after the band took a little break from performing, when their lead singer, Nav, went to Florida for a summer. They played their first show after a couple months, once again standing out from the crowd that night. It had me questioning…

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