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America’s Best New Bands 2009

Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union
Our picks for the best new artist from each state in the union

By: PHOENIX STAFF | July 02, 2009

Michael Jackson: 1958 - 2009

The King of Pop dies
Phoenix articles on Michael from the last 30 years

By: PHOENIX STAFF | July 02, 2009

Reaction Jackson

How to mourn a mess
There was Michael the living, breathing, singing performer and Jackson the commercial spectacle. We surrendered to the former, he to the latter.

By: MICHAEL BRODEUR | July 01, 2009

Fightin’ words

Blaq Poet wants to battle
Rudy Giuliani ran his city the way a bachelor does his pad — shoving clutter and disaster out of sight while showcasing redeeming qualities.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | June 30, 2009

Head with wings

Remembering Morphine’s Mark Sandman
Mark Sandman died with his boots on. Or at least the rock-and-roll equivalent of the Old West gunfighter’s epitaph.

By: TED DROZDOWSKI | July 01, 2009

This week in optional listening
Plenty of great shit to get excited about this week: new Wilco and Jarvis Cocker, tons of Rolling Stones reissues, a double-disc Jonas Brothers DVD spectacular, and the long-awaited 31st edition of the venerable Now That's What I Call Music! series. But if you happen to have a few bucks left over . . .

By: DAVID THORPE | June 30, 2009

Inside out

Charlie Kohlhase's Explorer's Club, Lee Konitz + Minsarah, and Steve Swallow recanting
Charlie Kohlhase's love affair with jazz began with the avant-garde. As a high-school kid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he found that it was Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago who rocked his world.

By: JON GARELICK | June 30, 2009

Interview: Steve Swallow on the Gary Burton Quartet

An interview with Steve Swallow
DO YOU REMEMBER EXACTLY HOW YOU GUYS FIRST GOT TOGETHER? I have a memory. I tend to distrust them, but my recollection is that I met Gary when he called me up and asked me if I would consider playing in Stan Getz's band, which he was already in.

By: JON GARELICK | June 30, 2009

Interview: Michael Jackson's autobiographer

Stephen Davis, ghostwriter of Moon Walk, remembers the King of Pop. And his monkey.
"This was still a 30 year old black kid when I was working with him," Davis says, still incredulous at Jackson's death. "And the guy who just died looked kind of like a 60 year old white woman in garish lipstick. Kind of like the Joker."

By: CARLY CARIOLI | June 26, 2009

The Big Hurt: Durst pantsed, Michaels smooshed

Music news in brief
"This isn't a reunion, this is a comeback," quibbled the red-hatted irrelephant in a BBC interview.

By: DAVID THORPE | June 23, 2009

Technical difficulties

The trouble with Tristan da Cunha
Last week, Tristan da Cunha and I brainstormed some strategies by which they might finally hit the big time. Like, getting a charismatic frontman.

By: MATT PARISH | June 23, 2009

Guitartyrs?

Some unsung Brit guitar heroes
From the late '70s to the late '80s, Anglophile guitar rock went through a strange period of adjustment following the Year Zero history eradication brought on by capital-P Punk and its subsequent slaying of the Guitar Hero.

By: DAN BROCKMAN | June 23, 2009

Fail better

Jóhann Jóhannsson explores the ruins of dreams
It's another gross, rainy afternoon in Boston, and I'm on the phone to Copenhagen with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson talking about failure and despair. Great. Maybe I just had weird assumptions about Icelanders, but I expected we'd proceed on jollier terms.

By: MICHAEL BRODEUR | June 23, 2009

Cult classic

The Church need you to come to their party
"Everybody who knows anything about us knows that we completely transcended the '80s."

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 24, 2009

Wandering stars

Humanwine's mysterious substance
The line between art and entertainment gets thicker and darker every time someone opens a Facebook account. Most of us music types are entertainers, because entertainers just want attention.

By: BARRY THOMPSON | June 24, 2009

Recap: Bonnaroo 2009

Blog posts, slideshows, and more from Bonnaroo 2009
Live from Bonnaroo 2009

By: PHOENIX STAFF | June 19, 2009

The other river rave

Soul Clap and Marz bring life to the banks
When heads deserted the Chinatown-warehouse rave scene in the late '90s, the house loyalists from Soul Clap and Marz Entertainment were still cracking glow sticks.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | June 16, 2009

LA story

Little Joy's journey starts at home
Ask people around here why they'd never move to LA and "the traffic" will reliably top the list. That sure sounds reasonable, but check it out: by not languishing in belching cars and rotting the sky for hours at a time, by not submitting to the forced downtime imposed by cities like Los Angeles...we're missing out on a ton of good music.

By: MICHAEL BRODEUR | June 16, 2009

Mixed emotions

The beautiful mood swings of Camera Obscura
When at the end of the title track of her band's new My Maudlin Career (4AD) Camera Obscura vocalist/songwriter Tracyanne Campbell coos "I don't want to be sad again" over a bed of ethereally jaunty chamber pop, you'd be wise to take that with a grain of salt.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 18, 2009

Screaming from the gallery

Dan Deacon, live at the ICA, June 12, 2009
Last Friday night, Dan Deacon dug frantically through tangles of cables for one that might get a live signal out of the duct-taped pile of equipment in front of him. A fire truck and an ambulance, pulling up outside the windows behind him, filled the room with dueling strobes.

By: MATT PARISH | June 15, 2009

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[MUSIC] Casiotone for the Painfully Alone + Cryptacize + Pants Yell! at T.T.'s

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BLOGS

Rye Rye, our pick for best act from Maryland, has a new video directed by M.I.A.
On The Download | July 02, 2009 at 12:27 PM

Ticket On-Sale Alert: Dinosaur Jr., Múm, MGMT, Doomriders, and more
July 02, 2009 at 11:02 AM

CNN found Bubbles! Michael Jackson's monkey alive and well in Florida
July 01, 2009 at 11:47 PM

Out: Femi Kuti, at the Paradise
June 30, 2009 at 8:07 PM

MP3 of the Week: The Luxury, "Straitjacket"
June 30, 2009 at 4:40 PM