Local girlpunk roundup featuring healthy helpings of keytar and yelling. Earplugs recommended.
Local metal fest celebrating seven years of Der Wurst Hotdogs, benefiting Project Roots. Possibly intolerable but the hot dogs look good.
The Phoenix Idiotarod celebrates the classical tradition of drunken shopping cart racing, shamefully excluded from the next as well as every previous Olympics. We're too late to design our own cart (unless...?) but we could get some beers, watch the idiots go by, and potentially crash the afterparty.
The preeminent psychobilly bandleader returns to the valley with blues-funk revivalist Black Joe Lewis, featuring mariachi-punk outfit Piñata Protest. A variety of goofy, punk-inflected roots music for the whole (Harper) family.
Classic Southern California punk outfit The Zeros re-re-unites, this time apparently without founding member Robert Lopez, a.k.a. "El Vez" the world's preeminent Mexican Elvis impersonator. Opening acts the Jerk Officers, as the aesthetics of their name suggest, espouse a back-to-basics hardcore punk philosophy; French Girls also tread familiar territory, though perhaps not as a principled stance.
Lead singer Richard Araiza's theatrical baritone and a healthy helping of bongos define the sound of Los Angeles indie surf-punk band The Buttertones, a staple of the Echo Park hipster scene. Israel's Arcade explores a similar sound, blending post-punk instrumentals with Strokes-like indie sleaze vocals.
I'm tweaking into a whole new era; G-funk, step to this, I dare ya. Funk on a whole new level—the rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble.
Alternative indie group Practically People headline this local band roundup at the Valley Bar. Bands? Four. Cost? $15! An ideal HarperQuest.
Genuinely one of the most innovative stylists in hip-hop history, Ultramagnetic MCs alumnus Kool Keith secured rap immortality with his seminal 1996 release Dr. Octagonecologyst, a concept album written from the perspective of his alter ego Dr. Octagon, an evil gynecologist from the planet Jupiter.
Sophia Allison, alias Soccer Mommy, emerged as one of a crop of indie-rock revivalist girls in the late teens, but quickly distinguished herself with her clever, ironic lyrics; her catchy pop harmonies; and her louche, modishly-depressive perspective. Also writes a hell of a bass riff. Hana Vu shares Allison's bedroom-indie aesthetic, mining the crunchy, distorted guitar sounds of 90s indie alternative bands and filtering them through a skein of teenage-girl journal pages.
It's a street fair! It's free! You can buy tchotchkes and go to the local bars! Depending on your tolerance for people in leather dog masks, it's kid friendly! It's for charity (probably?)!
Shaggy Miami alt-funk collective Magic City Hippies merge the sensibilities of funk and indie rock, with a soupcon of smooth R&B, acid jazz, hip-hop lyricism, and the sample-driven eclecticism of early Beck. Intentionally genre-bending, the band in many ways resembles the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but much less irritating; and, above all, is just trying to groove.