I have a weird fascination with tribute bands...I used to see the Atomic Punks semi-regularly when I lived in LA, I make an effort to see Purple Reign when I'm in Las Vegas, and I've spent actual time plotting how to start a Totally Sincere Tribute to 90's Adult Alternative Radio. It's probably not a healthy thing.

However, if you're like me and believe that "close enough" is sometimes better than the real thing, the next two nights in concerts were nearly custom made for your interests.

Tonight, the Iron Maidens (above), who are advertised as the only all female Iron Maiden tribute band, are playing Casino Del Sol. They're playing in the Paradiso Lounge, which isn't so much a lounge, but a stage adjacent to a bunch of slot machines, but the show's free, so there you go.

Tomorrow night, the Rialto is going all-in on tribute bands with five acts playing for $8 starting at 7. My personal preferences mean that the idea of Grateful Dead (Top Dead Center) and Doors (Strange Days) tribute bands are not terribly appealing, but hey, maybe you're not into Journey (Evolution) or The Ramones (The Ramonz, which feels a little lazy name-wise). I'm most interested in Heart to Heart, which is not a celebration of the theme to Hart to Hart as you might believe, but a tribute to the Wilson sisters and Heart. Hear their take on "Barracuda," although I really would like to hear them do "Alone," but what do I know?

I feel like I've listened to a lot of music this year, but there are a few albums that I've listened to over and over: Random Access Memories, Bankrupt! by Phoenix (partially because my kids are fans), Disclosure's Settle and Foals' Holy Fire. Phoenix were already in town pre-Coachella, Disclosure and Daft Punk aren't likely coming anytime soon, so I'm incredibly excited that the other band making up my obsessive playlist is coming to town on August 7.

Clearly, based on my personal preferences, I believe you should have purchased tickets to see Foals immediately when they went on sale in May, but perhaps you haven't quite been convinced.

You could be in luck, because thanks to the Rialto and Warner Music, we have two Foals prize packs to give away.

The prize pack includes tickets to the Foals show at the Rialto, a signed poster, a copy of the album and a few other band-related trinkets. You can enter to win at our Free Stuff page. One entry per person, etc. etc.

We'll draw two winners after the contest closes Sunday, August 4 at midnight and inform them via email on Monday, August 5. Good luck and I'll see you at the show!

In an effort to catch up a backlog of concert photos take by the delightful C. Elliott, here are images from several recent shows. If you managed to attend all of these, you are dedicated to music and have weird taste.

As you probably saw in our print edition, Steve Seigel mentioned the forthcoming Night of the Living Fest in Soundbites this week:

As I said above, just as this is the final Bröötal Sun Fest, another festival's inaugural outing is being planned. Dubbed Night of the Living Festival, the one-day event is set to take place on Saturday, Nov. 2, which just happens to be the night before the All Souls Procession.

Why am I telling you about a festival that's happening two months from now? Because the organizers will be holding an Announcement Party at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 26, in the courtyard at Mercado San Agustin, 100 S. Avenida del Convento. The organizers will be showing their Kickstarter video (which is pretty damn funny), taking donations, selling tickets, and unveiling their website. Oh, and perhaps the most important part: 12 of the roughly 24 national and local acts performing will be announced. I've seen the list and it's pretty freakin' killer. Not to mention that there are still a dozen acts that I haven't heard about yet.

Well, the announcement party happened, and in case you weren't there or didn't watch the surreal/humorous ad for the Fest above, here's the lineup so far:

Acorn Bcorn, Bebe McPherson, Bob Log III, Deerhoof, Lenguas Largas, Lonesome Shack, Meat Puppets, Nobunny, Pork Torta, Ranch Ghost, Tweak Bird, Vox Humana.

A solid lineup and there are apparently another dozen bands or so to be announced. Tickets are on sale now, surprisingly starting at $25 at first, then eventually rising to $34. They're also doing some fundraising to help make the whole thing happen, check the website for more details.

Nice to have something new to look forward to. Should be a good night out.

Fitz and the Tantrums, the indie pop/hipster R&B hybrid act from LA, released their second album, More Than Just a Dream, in May and are stopping by the delightful Crescent Ballroom on August 4, with Hunter Hunted and the Colourist. However, if you were planning on going and don't have a ticket yet, tough luck. The show is sold out.

However, because we're kind and generous people here at the Weekly (well, the band's label is actually the generous party in this transaction, we're just the medium), we have a pair of tickets to give away.

Enter to win on our Free Stuff page. We'll draw a winner on August 1 and notify them via email.

Good luck.

Get your bags of tea ready, folks: you only have little more than a month to see "Wildman" Ted Nugent at the Fox Theatre.

I mean, if you're into people who have staved off declining relevance as musicians by revealing themselves to be wildly, insanely, vehemently right-wing.

Let's be honest: At this point, the Nuge is famous as much for his insistence on making then-candidate Obama fellate his gun-dick as he is Cat Scratch Fever — and I'm not sure that's something you want to hang the hat of your career on.

But hey, when you get the chance to bring aboard a musician who's willing to blast fellow music legend Stevie Wonder over his political beliefs (Wonder has decided to boycott Florida venues in the wake of the George Zimmerman self-defense trial), well, I can't see how you can pass that up:

"You've got to be kidding me," he said. "So 700 black people, mostly young children and young people were slaughtered in Chicago last year by black people, and not a peep out of Stevie Wonder. Are you kidding me? What is this, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'? How brain-dead do you have to be? How strangled by denial, how dishonest, how cheap do you have to be to focus on a clear-cut case where all the evidence, from the DOJ, from the FBI, from the army of investigative specialists in Florida determined that George Zimmerman acted in self-defense against a life-threatening attack by hoodlum, dope-smoking Trayvon Martin?"

Nugent also said that he would pray for "Stevie Wonder and all these other numnuts who think that Trayvon Martin's life is more important than the tens of thousands of slaughtered blacks at the hands of blacks."

Well, now isn't that a reframing of the argument — if we're going to go that way Ted, why are you defending the self-defense rights of George Zimmerman, who admitted to killing a guy in self-defense, while ignoring the fact that a Florida woman had her Stand Your Ground defense denied and was sentenced to 20 years?

Mexican acoustic rock guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela performed for an enthusiastic crowd at the Historic Rialto Theatre on Thursday, July 17.

According to the Rialto's website, the pair has ...

... brought an unique instrumental blend of metal, jazz and world music to audiences all over the US. Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have been playing together for more than fifteen years. First as young thrash metal fans in their native Mexico City, then as innocents abroad and street musicians in Dublin, Ireland at the turn of the millennium, and finally as the globe-straddling, film-scoring, record-breaking artists they are today.

In an instance of something taking the crown of being among the coolest videos I've watched since I started working at Tucson Weekly, it's time to take a look at this video of Marvin Gaye performing "Heard It Through the Grapevine" in an empty room, with no backing — and sounding amazing.

Seriously. Check the video out. It's not new by any means, having been uploaded in 2007, but it seems to have fallen into a cycle of being discovered and rediscovered every few years, and sounding spectacular every time.

It turns out Billy Sedlmayr's solo shows over the last couple of years offered mere sketches, albeit intense and sometimes wrenching ones, of his poetry and orchestration aesthetic. Set in full arrangements, his songs, sometimes overwhelming in their anger and regret, found a context in the kind of awe and hope that sustains us mortals in this scary/gorgeous desert village. "Tucson Kills" in particular, reflecting the harrowing personal circumstances that inspired it, benefits from this tempering treatment; the music sets a mood in which you hear the words more as astute commentary than an assault.

• Billly Sedlmayer at Club Congress, July 17

Sedlmayr and collaborator Gabriel Sullivan, of Taraf de Tucson and Chicha Dust, led an all-star line-up they called "Kid Bad": guitarist Connor Gallagher; multi-instrumentalist Jason Urman, whom Selmayr calls his "linch pin"; bassist Thøger Lund of Giant Sand; and Winston Watson, of too many national and local bands to mention.

For a nearly last-minute show on a weeknight, the Club Congress crowd was sizable, rapt and noisily appreciative. Post-show sales were brisk for an EP that leaks a preview of a forthcoming CD. It contains the full band performance of "Black Grenadine" and three different versions of "Tucson Kills."

Full release of the CD, which was funded by a Kickstarter campaign, awaits affiliation with a label to print and distribute it. But music fans who carry Tucson in their DNA should take advantage of any opportunity to see and hear these song performed live.

There's a lot to take in when one starts paying attention to their city: sights, smells, tastes...but when you're walking through downtown, through Reid Park, or through the University, do you ever just...listen?

The Sonorous Desert City Project, funded by a grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council, wants you to do just that, creating a series of ambient recordings from across the city for Tucsonans to take a break and just listen to their city.

The Sonorous Desert City Project: Suite I-III seeks to reacquaint Tucson (and newly acquaint the rest of the world) with our shared aural landscape through a series of listening performances and a limited edition recording.
In this age of rapid information distribution, virtual everything and earbuds, The Sonorous Desert City Project will promote taking time to simply unplug and listen to the world around us, to reconnect and explore our roles in this radiant soundscape, hearing the sacred in the mundane and the profound in the prosaic, all of which is not only healthy for our minds and spirits but also fosters a sense of place and connection.

The project, which is set to record from July 1 to December 31, plans to create a limited-edition audio-work, turning ambient sounds into a "three part suite sonic narrative."

After the recordings have been completed and produced, the plan is to create "soundwalks," relating to "sonically interesting" locations in the city:

A little more listening can never hurt, and perhaps when The Sonorous Desert City Project is completed people will find a bit more beauty in Tucson than they knew was there before and perhaps they will discover how important their part is in this orchestra of sound.

For more, including recent recordings and where recordings are taking place in the city, head to the Sonorous Desert Project.