Blog: So Much Silence

The fourth installment of 110 Percent , a series in which I talk to musicians about sports, features Canadian MC Buck 65 (born Richard Terfry), who's playing a rescheduled date at Chaser's in Scottsdale on Feb. 24 in support of his 2011 release 20 Odd Years, a title that reflects his lengthy music career. But Buck 65 nearly spent his life pursuing his first love: baseball. Injuries derailed a possible pro career, and Buck was cool enough to hold a lengthy chat with me (through a dying phone) about that, his song about [...]

It's sorta strange to think of Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws as an elder statesman of the indie-rock game, even with that vibrant voice. But here he is in his 40s, a little gray around the edges and performing live in oxford shirts and sport coats. Nobody could blame him for surrendering to nostalgia, as he does a few times on the new album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy , and especially on the wistful lead single, "When I Was Young." The video takes a pretty literal approach [...]

Everything is coming up Wilco lately. There's nothing quite like a 2 1/2-hour set - stuffed with a catalog-spanning 26 tracks ( check the pie chart! ) - to gently remind you of the greatness that exists in my Wilco collection. Since Saturday's show at Gammage Auditorium, I've gone on a little Wilco bender, from watching the band's NPR Tiny Desk Concert in October to falling in love with Summerteeth all over again. (Their newest rendition of "Via Chicago," which morphs from hushed acoustic stillness to a [...]

It was a collaboration that was likely bound to happen, but if bringing Philly's Zilla Rocca and Los Angeles' Open Mike Eagle together for a show I put on last February in Phoenix helped hasten the process, then I'm proud to have played some (very) small part in the birth of this jam. "Full Spectrum 23 is, as its name suggests, a sequel to the original that appears on Zilla Rocca's Nights and Weekends EP. Zilla and Has-Lo are back for leftovers, [...]

I'm still taking inventory on 2011, though I'm not committed to posting a year-end favorite albums list – something I also didn't do last year, and at this point, does anybody really care? I think it's fair to say that Portugal. The Man's In The Mountain In The Cloud would land in my mythical Top 10, an album that I came to late in the year (despite its mid-summer release) and dominated my listening habits in the final months of '11. In no time at all, as if by osmosis, I would [...]

It might be helpful if, before I go to a show, I do a little homework on the opening band. Then I'd probably know if said band was any good. I'd also probably know if it was led by someone that's in another fairly popular band. But then, sometimes it's nice to be surprised. And that was the case with PAPA , which opened for Handsome Furs on Wednesday night at Crescent Ballroom . Led by Girls drummer Darren Weiss (who also sings – a feat of coordination not often seen), PAPA had [...]

The third installment of 110 percent , a series in which I talk to musicians about sports, features Serengeti (born David Cohn), a Chicago-bred MC whose 2011 album, Family & Friends, was met with well-deserved critical praise ( read a great LA Weekly feature ). Serengeti is true-blue Windy City, epitomized by his alter ego Kenny Dennis – the O'Douls-chugging, softball-playing relative anyone from Chicago has (trust me, I know). Kenny loves brats, Brian Dennehy, Ditka and Da Bears. Not necessarily in that order. Check the video for "Dennehy" and I strongly encourage [...]

It was about four months ago that we heard "Boomerang," the first bit of material from the forthcoming Miniature Tigers album Mia Pharaoh . Now there's a release date (March 6 on Modern Art ), an album cover (above), a tracklisting (below) and another new tune ("Female Doctor") as the New York-by-way-of-Phoenix band follows up on 2010's Fortress . Spin premiered "Female Doctor," along with its (possibly NSFW?) cleave-teasing video that was spliced together from clips of Eastern European reality TV. As [...]

As usual every January, I've barely wrapped my head around the previous year while new songs and albums are emerging for what will likely make for another promising 12 months of music. The first song to grab my attention for the new year comes from the Yuma, Ariz.-born Shawn Foree (aka Digital Leather ), whose forthcoming full-length, Modern Problems , will be released Feb. 14 on FDH Records . The album is Foree's first since the death of his good friend Jay Reatard last January and, in his own words , "is [...]

• Digital Leather - Young Doctors in Love

Not to overly fetishize the notion of vinyl, but if any album belongs on wax - with all its clicks and pops and dusty imperfections - it has to be Morphine's sophomore breakthrough, Cure for Pain . Other than a rare, 20-year-old Brazilian pressing (copies of which fetch $200-plus on eBay), the 1993 album has previously never been pressed to vinyl in the U.S. But Light in the Attic - the Seattle-based label that specializes in reissues - has stepped up to fill the void, releasing a remastered, 180-gram version on its Modern Classics Recordings [...]

I've long pestered my brother about his band doing an INXS cover – preferably something off Welcome to Wherever You Are (such a good album) and preferably the song "Not Enough Time." Maybe that'll happen in the future, but in the meantime The Twilight Sad is offering a dark, lo-fi version of the INXS song "Never Tear Us Apart," from the equally excellent 1987 album Kick . It's available as a free Christmas gift – inspired by its appearance on the soundtrack [...]

As promised , I sat down Monday night for an interview with Jeremy Yocum, co-founder (along with Joel Leibow) of Wooden Blue Records , a short-lived but well-respected punk label based out of Tempe in the early 1990s that put out the very first recordings of Jimmy Eat World (among others). A sold-out benefit show featuring JEW, Aquanaut Drinks Coffee, Haskel and Halema'uma'u takes place Friday at Crescent Ballroom, with all proceeds benefiting Phoenix Children's Hospital. I've known Jeremy and Joel since around the late '90s but never had the occasion to [...]

Looking back, is there anything more terrifying than The Rock-afire Explosion, the animatronic house band from Showbiz Pizza Place back in the day? I had heard about the documentary that was made about the band and a man's nostalgic quest to purchase his very own Rock-afire Explosion. And now Mayer Hawthorne's new video for the song "Dreaming" has reminded me to add the movie to our Netflix queue. Nostalgia was a key theme to Hawthorne's video for the song "A Long Time," also off his new album [...]

Last month, Phoenix's Djentrification held a benefit at his 602'sdays night at Bikini Lounge for longtime local MC Puma , who has been battling a cancerous tumor (retroperitoneal seminoma). Puma told me recently he had his last chemotherapy treatment, but the bills likely won't stop anytime soon. That's why more of Puma's peers, friends and fans are coming together on Christmas night at Crescent Ballroom for Merry X-Ray , a benefit show headlined by the homecoming of DJ Z-Trip , who used to run with Puma back in the Bombshelter DJs days. [...]

I've been fortunate to hang around the Phoenix/Tempe music scene long enough to meet creative and ambitious people from every angle – musicians to promoters to writers and more. And inevitably in Phoenix, being the small big town that it is, paths cross. It usually makes for an enlightening game of six degrees of separation: This band has a guy who played in that band with so and so from another band ... and on it goes. I've often thought of what a local music family tree would look like – probably a sprawling but familiar web of so [...]

• Aquanut Drinks Coffee | Jeremy » Aquanaut Drinks Coffee - Jeremy.mp3

Brassland , the label founded by Alec Hanley Bemis and twin National guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month by giving away a song a day in November. Now, I'm only about 19 days late on this, but there's still time to get free goodies – and you can easily find some of the tracks Brassland already has given away. The National, now playing to some 18,000 people these days , got its start from the New York-based label, and any fan [...]

The second installment of 110 Percent , a series in which I talk to musicians about sports, features Open Mike Eagle , whose newest album, Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes , is one of the year's must-haves. He returns to Arizona tonight for a show with Blu at Club Red in Tempe. Born and raised in Chicago (and now based in L.A.), Open Mike Eagle took time to talk about his love of the Bears and Bulls and why he doesn't follow athletes on Twitter. [...]

Welcome to 110 Percent, a new, recurring feature that brings together two of my greatest joys: music and sports. The goal is pretty simple (if not a little broad): I plan to talk to musicians about sports, be it their favorite team, the news of the day or anything in between. Everything is, ahem, fair game. First up is Scott Hessel , drummer of Phoenix band Source Victoria , who will unleash a new album , Slow Luck, with a release party on Nov. 25 at Crescent Ballroom. [...]

It's hard to believe, but the time for year-end list making is upon us (unless, like me, you sort of, um, just didn't make one last year). In some ways, these lists feel a lot like the NCAA Tournament - we're swayed by what's fresh in our minds. Who has been most impressive most recently? Albums in the first quarter tend to be forgotten as we fawn over the next Greatest Album of This Week. I hope that line of thinking doesn't keep Telekinesis' 12 Desperate Straight Lines from garnering [...]

We heard the first bit of the new Source Victoria album in July with a three-song EP for the single "Once I'm Dead" (available at Bandcamp ). Now with CDs for Slow Luck in hand, burning a hole in the cardboard box they were shipped in, the band is offering a listen of another new track, "Nobody Knows But Me," at its website (and below). It can also be said that the album release show will be on Nov. 25 – that's Black Friday – at the shiny new Crescent [...]