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Sampling of Music Articles

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Phoenix New Times •

12 Heavy Metal Vinyl Releases To Pick Up at Phoenix Record Stores on Black Friday

I have personal issues with Black Friday.
I just don't get it. Why would you leave your house after a perfectly good day of football and feasting to embark on a wild goose chase for yet another flat-screen television or deep fryer, no matter how deeply discounted they are? Rabid consumers, zombified from food comas, feeding into the frenzy of heightened commercialism -- and before you know it you're bulldozing an 89-year-old woman for a $3 copy of 22 Jump Street.
Isn't the concept just everythin...
Phoenix New Times •

311's Doug "SA" Martinez Discusses the Band's Fans

See also: 311 Live Made the Crowd Feel So Good
See also: P-Nut of 311 on Perry Farrell, Secret Summer Events, and Rocking a Boat
See also: 311's Doug Martinez Talks Cover Songs, New Record, and Summer TouringIt's been an eventful 24 years since they decided to do so. Anyone who's bothered to turn on a rock radio station in the '90s or 2000s is well-acquainted with 311's vast catalog. They've put out 10 albums, including their most recent,Universal Pulse, in 2011, and have charted Billboa...
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Phoenix New Times •

6 Amazing Classical Versions of Heavy Metal Songs

At Rock on the Range in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend, there was a ton of old and new metal. You had the classics, like Judas Priest, Dillinger Escape Plan and Slash; favorites from the last decade, like Slipknot and Halestorm; and artists that are starting to break big on the scene, like Highly Suspect and Motionless in White.

But over the course of the three-day music festival, there was an act that truly stood out among dozens of bands — one that embodies the past, present and f...
Phoenix New Times •

After Bassist's Death, Suicidal Tendencies Singer Talks Life

There are three bands about to come through Phoenix that have, collectively, been writing, recording, playing and influencing heavy metal for around 100 years. One. Hundred. Years.
You might think, yeah, okay; that's impressive. What if I also said that, collectively, these bands have released more than 30 studio albums, sold more than 10 million copies, have five Grammys nominations, helped pioneer thrash metal as one of the Big 4 Acts, and have been dubbed the "fathers of crossover thrash."
W...
Phoenix New Times •

Alice Cooper: No More Mr. Bad Guy

In the 1970s, Alice Cooper was the poster child of "the devil's music," a sexually ambiguous, mascara-smeared heavy metal demon with subversive lyrics and mock-drama stage theatrics. In 2011? Well, this year marks his 11th Christmas Pudding, an annual variety show-style bash featuring rock stars, magicians, and comedians that has raised more than $100,000 for Cooper's Solid Rock Foundation, a Christian ministry for at-risk youth.

Yep. Good and evil are just different sides of the same c...
Phoenix New Times •

A Metalhead at Bonnaroo: Four Hippie Myths Debunked

Shortly after writing Are Out of Town Music Festivals Worth The Hassle? I decided to embark on a cross-cultural adventure. The mission? To explore the Nashville music scene and attempt survival at the 80,000-person music festival Bonnaroo.
Four days of camping in the heat (actually, we slept in the trunk of our SUV) surrounded by dirty hippies tripping on everything from moonshine to bath salts, all contained on a 700-acre farm with carnival rides, raves, seven-plus stages, and security guards w...
Phoenix New Times •

Arch Enemy's Alissa White-Gluz Talks Authenticity and Being a Woman in Metal

The members of Arch Enemy have always set the bar high for themselves and their genre. Then again, let's be honest: any band labeled Swedish melodic death metal provokes high expectations. It combines the strongest elements of heavy metal, like super heavy riffs and refined melodies, set in an environment where some of the most influential -- and deadly -- metal bands were founded.
After originating almost two decades as a proclaimed "super group," with members from bands like Carcass, Mercyful...
VICE •

Axe Painted Blood: An Interview with the Artist Who Drew Lucifer in Blood on Gary Holt’s Guitar

Music of the heavy variety is rooted in the act of sacrificing blood, sweat, and tears, often in the revelation of truth, darkness, and passion. But what about adorning one of the most important parts of the music, the instrument, in your own blood, as an extension of yourself, changing the way the crowd interprets the music?That’s what Slayer’s Gary Holt unveiled to the world at NAMM 2016, after commissioning 33-year-old Brooklyn artist and tattoo artist Vincent Castiglia to drain him of 18 via...
Phoenix New Times •

Black Veil Brides' Andy Biersack Talks Being Hated and Taking Panties in Stride

Many things define the popular hard rock/metal band Black Veil Brides, depending on whom you ask. For some, it's their distinct appearance of black makeup and paint (decreasing more each year), tight black studded clothing and long hair. For others, it's their inspiration (some might call it a blatant rip-off) drawn from such '80s glam metal acts as KISS, Twisted Sister, and Motley Crue. And for others still it may be the band's supporters, which include such legends as Zakk Wylde, and their ins...
Phoenix New Times •

Blue Öyster Cult's Eric Bloom on Video Games and Lady Gaga

Creatures of habit are often seen as boring, but that isn't the case with Blue Öyster Cult. The band has made a career out of a particular routine: forging new paths and experimenting with the unknown. Since their self-titled debut album in 1972, the band has sold more than 24 million albums worldwide. Their music videos, particularly 1981's "Burnin' for You," helped develop and spur the popularity of music videos in pop culture. The lyrical content of countless songs circle around science ficti...
Phoenix New Times •

Brian "Head" Welch: "I Feel Like I'm Living A Resurrected Life Right Now"

Back in 2009, Brian "Head" Welch was hosting auditions at his Phoenix studio in order to craft a band for his own brand of music. The legendary former Korn guitarist experimented and jammed out with a few members, but then went back to searching for his ideal bandmates. In 2011, two weeks before his project was to go on tour, Welch found 14-year-old J.R. Bareis and chose him as his new guitar player. Rounded out by drummer (and Phoenix resident) Dan Johnson and bassist Michael Valentine, the fin...
Phoenix New Times •

Butcher Babies: "It Wasn't About Sex -- It Was About Punk Rock"

Sunset Strip darlings the Butcher Babies have been one of my favorite acts for a while now. They first gained notoriety from a YouTube video performing Pantera's "Fucking Hostile" and the two frontwomen, Carla Harvey and Heidi Shepherd, started out performing in leather pants with electrical tape over their nipples, as an ode to Plasmatics singer Wendy O. Williams, who had a song called "Butcher Baby."
Butcher Babies provide an awesome display of brutal power from start to finish in their perfor...
Phoenix New Times •

Cake or Death? California Funkers Cake Hit Number One

Most people remember Cake for the band's quirky, funky novelty hits: "Never There," "Short Skirt/Long Jacket," "The Distance," the profane take on Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" (Gaynor hated it).

Achieving radio success with such a singular blend of mariachi, funk, rock, and hip-hop is weird, but Cake is even stranger than the offbeat sound suggests, set apart from the world of mainstream pop by ironic, deadpan vocals. You just have to listen a little closer to hear what singer John...
Phoenix New Times •

Cannibal Corpse's Death Metal Still Provoking Controversies

The United States can't tell Cannibal Corpse what to do. (I mean, if you ever came across anything with that name, would you want to mess with it anyways?). Other countries can - in fact, Germany has tried to regulate the hell out of them over the years, and an array of countries have banned the sale of the band's albums--but in the good ol' U.S. of A., freedom of speech comes in pretty hand with heavy metal.
See also: Upon a Burning Body: Looks Like Disappearance Was a Hoax
See also: C...
Phoenix New Times •

Chino Moreno on ††† (Crosses), Cult Movies, the Supernatural and Creating New Deftones Songs

As a frontman and songwriter, Chino Moreno tends to go all out -- be it physically, emotionally, and especially vocally, whether it's his tempestuous banshee-like screams and wails or his sultrier crooning.
Deftones, the alt-metal band he's most famous for fronting, has successfully created a brand of smoldering sound that blends heavy metal, post-punk, art rock and a touch of hip-hop.
The result touches a wide audience, offering up a style that appeals to the pop rock fans with its psychede...
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