In a collaboration with Ozomatli and Locos Por Juana, “The Wall” questions the definition of the word immigrant and what makes one illegal. According to the band, “The track speaks volumes about what has been going on in terms of immigration, borders, homeland security and identity politics during the current divisive administration.”

From Austin, this Grammy Award-winning nine-piece Latin funk and cumbia powerhouse, Grupo Fantasma, blasts into 191 Toole. Vox Urbana get the party started…

“Fans have been asking for an album centered just around me. So, I give them N9NA.” On his freshly released video, “Like I Ain’t,” this indie rapper is on mission to convert non-believers. “This is me, wholeheartedly. It’s for die-hard fans and newcomers. I’m rapping like I’ve never sold a gold or platinum record.” Tech N9ne rolls the It Goes Up Tour into the Rialto Theatre.

Utah dream poppers Choir Boy and a solid cast of others—Hikikomori, Lychee, Kell, Carnival and This or This—perform in an all-ages show at Ward6 - AZ.

Playing the role of modern-day outlaw, country singer Gary Allan is placing his “Used Heart For Sale” on the auction pedestal at the Desert Diamond Center.

Akin to a piping hot bowl of menudo that comforts and helps to remedy the malaise, The Carnivaleros offer up an “unnatural ball” at Monterey Court.

“Musician, renegade, friend,” Mike Hoy & The Boys wheel the Limited Mileage Tour into Sky Bar. With the rock ’n’ roll of Rye Heat.

On Thresholds, this Canadian guitarist/songwriter faces existential uncertainties packaged beguilingly amid indie pop melodies. Mike Edel is at Club Congress. Night Weather and Viané provide support.

The EDM community shall gather. Sirenz, Jamaste, DJ Ramrod, Lephan and RVRE assemble for a Memorial Show in Honor of Josh Torres. Proceeds to help family with final expenses. At Passé…

This DJ/producer duo’s genre-defying sets seamlessly segue trap and hip-hop into booming electro house, then just as quickly can detour through unanticipated terrains. GTA drop massive bass beats at Gentle Ben’s. With electronic dance groovemeisters Nadastrom.

Black Renaissance: A celebration of black artists in Arizona happens at Hotel McCoy every Saturday in May. This week features the music of hip hop artists Jaca Zulu, Cash Lansky, Chakara Blu and Kazier.

Château Château, Moontrax, Oracle & Hardy and The Sometimes perform at The Girl Crush Benefit Concert. Proceeds will go to the United Nations Foundation’s adolescent girl campaign Give Her a Future initiative. At Club Congress.

And on the plaza at Hotel Congress, it’s the Agave Heritage Festival. While exploring the significance of agave on the border region the intoxicating rhythms of Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra and Jerusafunk will wafts through the night air.

In the mood for a Rock ’n’ Roll Donut Party? The Gunrunners, The Distortionists and The Ohmlauts will make the chocolate sprinkles melt at Irene’s Holy Donuts.

Celebrating the release of their first demo tape, Love That You’ve Lost, The Great Citizens are holding an all-ages bash at Ward6–AZ. Stripes520, All Harmless, Hang The Bassist and Banana Pancakes add to the festivities.

The transworld musical stylings of Kyklo cross borders at Exo Roast Co.

The Eugene Boronow Trio entertains at The Dusty Monk Pub.

The Mariachi Women’s Festival features two-time Grammy winners Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea, Phoenix’s Mariachi Rubor and Tucson’s own mariachi singer Monica Trevino. At the Leo Rich Theater.

Hotel McCoy throws a Cinco de Mayo party with Devotchka, Orkestra Mendoza and Joey Burns of Calexico. The bash with food trucks and other fun kicks off at 2 p.m.

The Latin fusion-inspired salsa, cumbia and ska of Santa Pachita figure prominently in The Annual Cinco de Mayo Celebration at Hotel Congress. Oh, and, the agave too.

“Being famous was never the goal,” says lead vocalist/guitarist Andrew VanWynGarden, who from the outset had a knack for writing songs that sounded like they were “filtered through a kaleidoscope.” Well, if you waited on getting tickets, bad news. Rumor has it the MGMT show at the Rialto Theatre has sold-out.

Mik & The Funky Brunch offer up just that at La Cocina. 

A chiming 12-string acoustic guitar sets the mood on “Under The Milky Way” for the shadowy lyrics to whisper at the mysteries of the cosmos. It remains at the pinnacle of this Australian bands catalogue, now 26 albums deep. Dream poppers The Church drift the Starfish 30th Anniversary Tour into 191 Toole. Details here.

Celebrate the opening of 'Learning to See: Josef Albers' an evening inspired by geometric abstraction. Apropos, Chris Black provides music. Halsero spins. At Tucson Museum of Art. Details here.

Birds + Arrows, SIRSY and Strange Vacation experience the Mandela Effect at Sky Bar. Details here.

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Courtesy Thunder Canyon Brewery

Adara Rae

With venomous snakes for fingers akin to the strands of Medusa’s hair, Time recognized this Swedish neo-classical metallist in 2009 as one of the 10 Greatest Electric Guitar Players of All Time. Yngwie Malmsteen sets the World on Fire. At the Rialto Theatre. Sunlord and Paralandra provide buttressing. Details here. 

Songstress Adara Rae breaks hearts and wrecks homes at Thunder Canyon Brewery. Details here.

Downtempo hardcore metal power trio Reign top the bill at House of Bards. Flanked by Holehearted and I Am Heir and others. Details here.

With early influences that include Tupac, LL Cool J and Eminem, this Indiana rapper describes his own style as not only “modernized” hip hop, but also “the essence of real hip hop.” Mark Battles brings the Still Fortunate Tour to Club Congress. With local heavyweight Tommy Will. Details here.

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Courtest Club Congress

They have been known to cause involuntary muscle spasms. Funky Bonz just might compel you to shake a tail feather. At Saint Charles Tavern. Details here.

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Courtesy Casino Del Sol

Nicky Jam

After shining brightly during reggaeton’s explosion in the 1990s, addicted, broke, depressed and overweight this rapper-singer sought self-exile in Puerto Rico to sing “cheesy pop covers” in a hotel lobby. In a near miraculous comeback, “El Amante” bounced back in 2015 to top the Billboard Latin charts 5 times. Nicky Jam plays the AVA Amphitheater. Details here.

He’s drawn comparisons to provocateurs like Hendrix and Davis. From funk to bluegrass, classical to jazz, ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro has taken the instrument to places that Don Ho (the icon of breezy Hawaiian pop) could never have imagined. At The Rialto Theater. Details here.

Evolving away from self-indulgent metallic riffing—finding inspiration in hip hop and R&B grooves—interweaving guitar lines towards a more focused melodic sound, Polyphia bring the Look But Don’t Touch Tour to 191 Toole. Details here.

On “Beat Up Broke Down Town,” off Hangovers and Heartaches, this Tucson country singer mourns a loss—just maybe with an ice-cold beer in hand. “Those city light can’t hold you the way I can.” Drew Cooper is on the plaza at Hotel Congress. With Safford, AZ’s The Cole Trains, who celebrate the release of the Lucky Stars. An album full of Americana, country and a lil’ bit of rock ‘n’ roll. Details here.

Yes, It’s Real. Mary Timony’s D.C. power pop quartet Ex Hex ripped through Club Congress, this Sunday past, effortlessly proving that they are “Tough Enough.” L.A.’s psych/punk/grunge/post-future rockers Feels and local mystics Lenguas Largas opened the show. Chaos ensued.

Bound by deep roots, these Central Texas country boys share brotherhood and an even deeper passion about rock ’n’ roll.

Out on the road, Copper Chief bring their “Body Aches” with them to 191 Toole. Details here.

This month, in a benefit for Tucson Roller Derby, the feminist talk/variety show Ladytowne transforms into Skateytowne.

Steena Salido opens with a comedy set followed by songs for hopeless romantics with teeth via Sharkk Heartt. At Club Congress. Details here.

With an impressive arsenal of chart topping hits to draw from, three of country music’s biggest artists—Terri Clark, Pam Tillis and Suzy Bogguss—perform an intimate evening of acoustic music.

“I’d been thinking about putting this together for years,” says Clark. “There is a short list of women that have the hits to back it up. Pam and Suzy are a great fit.”

Chicks With Hits promises to be packed with A-list musicianship, stories, girl power, harmonies and more. At the Fox Theatre. Details here.

On their latest Cheers—an album that winks at mid-century folk and ‘70s glam with tinges of R&B and hip-hop—the three frontwomen of the band leaned into their differences and gave each other unprecedented freedom in the studio. “It was a scary thing for us,” said Mackenzie Howe, “because when you have three writers, you often have to tame your differences and come to some sort of agreement. It was the first time we said, ‘Screw that, why don’t we just record the songs the way they should be done?’” With harmonies that feel like bright light suffusing a dim room, The Wild Reeds perform at 191 Toole. With support from Valley Queen. Details here.

In the mood for a three-way? Gotcha. Rock 102.1 KFMA presents P.O.D., Buckcherry and Adelitas Way. “It’s heaven and hell” at the Pima County Fair. Details here.

Indie/alt rockers Demonyms are at Tap + Bottle Downtown. Details here.

Saxophonist Neamen Lyles fills the evening air with jazz as part of the Friday Night Live Free Concert Series. At Main Gate Square. Details here.
Rock, pop: Latino singer/guitarist Oscar Fuentes entertains at Monterey Court. Later, Santa Pachita will bring the dancefloor to life. Details here.

Sister Solace is a unique harmony-based vocal group. They will perform an evening of folk revival at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. Details here.

Native Voices features three award-winning Native American artists performing a scared evening of story and song in the round: Gabriel Ayala, Darryl Tonemah and Randy Kemp. At The Sea of Glass–Center For The Arts. Details here.
Featuring an ever revolving cast of esteemed pickers, Freddy Parish’s monthly residency, Dry ’n’ Dusty, takes the listener on a musical journey from Bakersfield to the Appalachian Mountains. At Exo Roast Co. Details here.

Conveying a modern sense of urgency through traditional music, perfect for troubled times. Just Najima and Brokedown Palace are at the Sky Bar. Details here.

DJ NoirTech presides over the Purple Rain ’80s Dance Party at the Surly Wench Pub. Details here.

Nitecall sees DJ Mijito and guest DJ Blvk Cat spinning witch house/electro/dance punk/wave. At R Bar. Details here.

Project 54: A Time Traveling Disco Experience transports revelers to when a disco ball was more than a light fixture. DJs spin at Solar Culture. Details here.

Utilizing irresistible cumbia rhythms as lingua franca, El Tambó Fest 2019: Cumbia Summit of the Borderlands features live performances by cumbia legends Vox Urbana, Native Creed, Frontera Buglalú, Sister Mantos and La Diabla. And, globetrotting DJs—Riobamba, El Dusty, Chaboi alongside Sonido Tambó residents DJQ, Dirtyverbs, Humblelianess and Quiahuitl—dropping bomb after mad bomb of sonido Latino. Details here.
Downtown Radio and Zia Records presents The fourth annual Psych-Out. This year’s event features Sugar Candy Mountain, The Desert Beats, Silver Cloud Express, Tropical Beach, and The Psychedelephants. At The Rock. Details here.

Inspired by the music pouring out from the gin mills across the Trinity River while still in junior high, he first took pen to paper. Later, it was the hard knocks and broken bones earned on the rodeo circuit that prodded this singer-songwriter to record Black and White Label (2006), his first self-release. Country star Cody Johnson is in a “Honky Tonk Mood.” At Desert Diamond Center. Details here.

Australian electronic musician/producer What So Not pushes the boundaries of bass. At Gentle Ben’s. Backed by beatmaker Tails. Details here. Details here.

NYC by way of Tucson, indie folk singer-songwriter Naomi Vernon is back in the desert to perform in the tasting room at Sand-Reckoner. Details here.

Performing original compositions and adaptations rooted in various pan-African styles: African Folk, Afro-pop, Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The Key Ingredients of African Soul mesmerize and make bodies involuntarily sway at Monterey Court. Details here.
Americana songstress Joyce Luna shares the stage with fiddle and cello duo Young MacDonald in honor of her birthday at Congregation Chaverim. Details here.

Tradiciones Entre Peruanos perform a blend of songs true to their Latin American roots. At Exo Roast Co. Details here.

Billed as “An evening of acoustic music, fiddles, freaks and fervor”: The Subnormal Trio hold fascination at The Dusty Monk Pub. Details here.

Master of a 23-string homebuilt banjo Paul Metzger and vocalist/guitarist/thereminist John Saint Pelvyn improvise at Subspace. Details here.
All-ages pandemonium is sure to ensue at Spark Project Collective when Whiskey Drunk, Robber’s Roost and Crow Cavalier crank up the amps. Details here.

After selling 40 million albums worldwide as frontman for Poison—and all the excesses that come with that—Bret Michaels has taken to the road solo to prove that he remains “Unbroken.” At Encore (formerly Club XS). Flanked by Drop D and Push. Details here.

His credo: You Only Live 2wice. Despite narrowly dodging a gunman’s bullets in 2014 and despite being arrested in Toulouse, France, then extradited to Austria in 2016 to face allegations of sexual assault, rapper Freddie Gibbs rebounds with his latest, Bandana (RCA Records, 2019). At 191 Toole. Details here.

“Born in a small town,” strewn with “Little pink houses for you and me…” John Mellencamp presents his populist brand of rock at the Tucson Music Hall. Details here.

This tempestuous chanteuse made her mark as co-lead vocalist with Pink Martini. Now, fronting a gutsy new band, Le Bonheur, Storm Large tears out pages from the American songbook and writes new anthems as soul-stirring rock goddess. At the Fox Theatre. Details here.

Love. Is it only a capricious exercise in futility? Cole Swindell pleads his case that it always results with a “Break Up In The End.” At the AVA Amphitheater. Details here.

FIRE Music Video Release and Storybook Concert is a multi-media event: Leigh Lesho & The Great Light will perform the 12 chapter storybook with Level 2 Flamenco Dance Group. At Mercado San Agustin Annex. Details here.

Mary Timony’s D.C. power pop trio Ex Hex prove that they are “Tough Enough.” With L.A.’s psych/punk/grunge/post-future rockers Feels, featuring Shannon Lay on guitar, at Club Congress. Local mystics Lenguas Largas opens the show. Expect chaos. Details here.
This powerhouse all-male Argentinian company blends precision footwork, rhythmic stomping, drumming and song that originated in the 17th-century in the South American pampas. Che Malambo unleash their formidable energy on stage at Centennial Hall. Details here.

During the 1990s, despite numerous well publicized spats with the law, their management and with each other, this girl group scored four No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Creep,” “Waterfalls,” “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty.” TLC get CrazySexyCool at the Pima County Fair. Details here.

The Tucson International Mariachi Conference 2019 kicks off with a showcase on Thursday, April 25, followed by a Espectacular Concert on Friday, April 26, and culminating on Saturday, April 27, with Fiesta de Garibaldi. At AVA Amphitheater. Details here.


The Members Only Tour brings “Greatest Asian rapper alive” Kid Trunks plus Craig Xen and Rob Banks to 191 Toole. With Coolie Cut and Bass Santana. Details here.

For the moshers: Knocked Loose, The Acacia Strain, Harm’s Way, Sanction and Higher Power provide all-ages mayhem at The Rock. Details here.

Deeper: DJs Atom Energy and Lunarfox spin house at Passé. Details here.

The Titan Valley Warheads perform bluegrass and western at Monterey Court. Details here.


Featuring local poets Kristen Nelson and Aura Valdes, The 36th Annual Tucson Poetry Festival launches with readings at the Steinfeld Warehouse Community Arts Center. Details here.

The first moments of 2182 Recording Company’s vinyl career begin with a single metallic chime building a dark ambience. Soon other alien sounds drift in: off-kilter strings, distant throat singing, sourceless noises skittering on the periphery. This is the landscape of Beyond All Defects, the new collaborative album by Sir Richard Bishop and W. David Oliphant, released by Bisbee-based record label 2182.

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Beyond All Defects

Bishop, guitarist and vocalist of the wildly experimental (and wonderful) Phoenix group Sun City Girls, brings no lack of imagination to the table in this collaboration with "sound artist" Oliphant, who's made a career out of fusing homemade instruments, tape distortion and occult atmospheres.

Beyond All Defects is an experimental album entrenched in the hypnotic sounds of Tibetan Buddhism. The ominous atmosphere is filled with indecipherable chants, droning horns and nearly submarine drums. With only six tracks on the album, many songs reach far past standard run times. But then again, there’s nothing standard about this album.

There is an incredible sense of space to Beyond All Defects, but at the same time it manages to feel claustrophobic (not in the pejorative sense). The mind-bending instrumentation combined with Tibetan motifs should make this album feel otherworldly to Westerners and any grounded souls alike. It is almost akin to a Lustmord of the far-East.

While the first half of Beyond All Defects is brutal in its rapid chanting and haunting sound collages, the second half opens up for more meditative ambience. But this is not to say the suspense and dissonance truly ever subside. The occasional field recordings bring the listener back to the surface, before the infernal timbres submerge them once again.

This is not for casual listening, and could more than likely send a listener to another plane of existence if they’re not careful.

2182 Recording Company

A collaborative endeavor by Oliphant, Robert Anderson, and Ryan J. Bruce, 2182 Recording Company aims to release music that engages "beyond just listening" and is "rooted in a history of creation in Arizona that involves people that were inspired and supported by people who do things differently".

Looking ahead past this first release, 2182 plans to release a triptych (or three-piece art project) from Sun City Girls, Sunn Trio and The Alternative Particle Choir. 2182 Recording Company, named after the 2182 kHz used as the distress frequency on shortwave radio, should certainly remain on the radar of any Arizonans seeking to hear things beyond the veil.

For more information, visit 2182recordingcompany.com

“Extra, extra, read all about it.” Australian contemporary Christian artists the Newsboys spread the word about the “Greatness Of Our God” at the Pima County Fair. Details here.

Courtesy of Monterey Court Studio Galleries & Cafe

Award-winning western singer-songwriter Carolyn Markstrom is joined by much lauded Texas singer-songwriter Jim Jones at Monterey Court. Details here.
In a touring songwriter showcase, Jude Valentine, Jarod W. Spencer, Alice Caroline and Ranelle Mathews tell tales at Passé. Details here.

Mississippian garage punks Bass Drum of Death lead the sonic procession towards “Better Days.” At Club Congress. Details here.

In what may prove to be an evening of bedlam and unadulterated fun, Nashvillian surf rockers Los Straitjackets and Igor and The Red Elvises descend upon 191 Toole. Details here.