Jams >>

• Best Club for Rock Music
  Nita's Hideaway
  1816 East Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe
  480-966-7715
  In a business known for short-lived triumphs, few would've thought local impresario Charles Levy could've captured lightning twice. After the original Nita's was sold, restyled as a hard-core club called the Heat, then reverted back to its old name without success, it seemed unlikely that even... More >>
• Best Club for Modern Rock
  Modified
  407 East Roosevelt
  602-252-7664
  Without the clink of glasses, the click of pool balls or the clatter of conversation, the alcohol- and game-free Modified has proved itself as the most unique and hospitable place for watching live entertainment. Whether it's obscure indie bands, performance artists or even the occasional... More >>
• Best Musician You've Never Heard Of
  Chris Doyle, Big Blue Couch
  Grunge, neo-punk reggae and rock-rap have done nothing to propagate the species once known as "guitar hero." In an age where you can flip an audience the bird to tumultuous applause, it's no wonder new musicians don't get better acquainted with their instruments. That's why Big Blue Couch's... More >>
• Best Guitar Player
  Greg Simmons
  Think of a "guitar hero" and the image usually involves the over-the-top wankings of some limey with six-string phallus in hand, offering up trite "ROCK 'N' ROLL FOREVER!" proclamations. But the Valley's premier axman, Greg Simmons, has taken the road less extroverted to the top. A shy,... More >>
• Best Local Act to Stave Off the Aging Process
  Carvin Jones
  It must be 10 years and holding for Carvin Jones and his familiar visage, ever grinning back at us from the local club ads. Ten years of wearing that black gaucho hat. Ten years with that heavy, solid-body Stratocaster slung over his back. Whew, just think of the pattern baldness and irreparable... More >>
• Best Rock Club Sound Man
  Jamal Ruhe/Nita's Hideaway
  1816 East Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe
  480-966-7715
  Some sound guys have been doing it so long that they've completely fried their main asset -- those things hanging from both sides of their head that used to be for listening. You tell them what you want and think they understand, but they just nod up and down like that for everyone.... More >>
• Best Chain Store for New CDs
  Virgin Megastore
  Arizona Mills mall
  Priest and Baseline, Tempe
  480-413-1700
  The corporate side of the music world biz ain't all bad. If you doubt it, check out Virgin Megastore, located in the Arizona Mills mall. With its sweeping space, angular racks, neon accents, in-store coffee house and multiple listening stations, you can spend hours browsing nearly anything ever... More >>
• Best CD Store (Overall)
  CDGB's
  3321 East Bell
  602-788-0944
  What do country singer Lefty Frizzell, jazzman Bill Evans and octogenarian crooner Perry Como all have in common? They have obscenely oversize multi-CD boxed sets dedicated to their work! Furthermore, all of them -- along with those of hundreds of others -- can be found for a reasonable price at... More >>
• Best Excuse to Look at a Drum Riser
  Bob Hoag, Pollen
  Only once in rock history did a drummer have the gall to insist on having his riser 10 feet in front of the rest of the band, and that was Gary Lewis, a guy who didn't sneeze in a recording studio without a session drummer wiping his nose. If ever a trapsman truly merited an unobstructed view... More >>
• Best Used Record Store -- Rock
  Tracks in Wax
  4741 North Central
  602-274-2660
  Don't believe those who tell you that used record stores are a thing of the past because of online auctions. Your computer might offer the most convenient shopping hours (24/7), but nothing replicates the fun of searching through bins, trying out a rare album and buying it -- all on the same... More >>
• Best New Jazz CD Selection
  Best Buy
  1949 East Camelback
  602-266-3400
  (and other Valley locations)
  The masters are here -- Monk. Armstrong. Holiday. Young. Ellington. Davis. Mingus. Rollins. Basie. Fitzgerald. So are all the "new" kids on the block -- Osby. Redman. Moran. Wilson. Hunter. Medeski. Lovano. Scofield. Marsalis. Watts. You'll find a ton of stuff by these giants of jazz at... More >>
• Best Used Jazz CD Selection
  Zia Record Exchange
  105 West University, Tempe
  480-829-1967
  (and other Valley locations)
  Thanks to the evils of the "smooth jazz" radio format that's caught on around here like a dreaded disease, too many folks equate the slicked-up stuff done by the likes of the Antichrist -- a.k.a. Kenny G -- as "jazz." All the while, wonderfully inventive and prolific musicians such as James... More >>
• Best Place to See a National Act
  Celebrity Theatre
  440 North 32nd Street
  602-267-9373
  Despite the outdated façade and the less than, um, stellar location -- right off a bleak stretch of Van Buren, abutting a women's correctional facility -- the Celebrity Theatre continues to be the best spot to view the entire musical spectrum up close and personal. After all, where else... More >>
• Best Record Store Staffed by Overeducated Underachievers
  Eastside Records
  217 West University, Tempe
  480-968-2011
  Remember High Fidelity, the Nick Hornby novel turned hit movie in which the plot revolves around the owner of an indie record store and his small staff of pop-culture professors? Well, if you didn't know better, you'd think the story was written about the malcontents working the counter at... More >>
• Best Hard Rock Station
  KUPD-FM 97.9
  A few months ago, KUPD inaugurated a new TV advertising campaign. In the ad, a crowd of rambunctious kids at a hard rock concert shouts out their devotion to KUPD, while the mother of morning DJ Dave Pratt holds a picket sign complaining that the station is too damn loud. More than any... More >>
• Best Alternative Radio Station
  KEDJ-FM 106.3/100.3
  In 1993, when KEDJ debuted on the local airwaves, starting an alternative-rock radio station was a safe bet. Nirvana and Pearl Jam had shattered the old programming order, and Lollapalooza Nation was congregating every summer to celebrate the shared triumph of a new music revolution. In 2000,... More >>
• Best Jazz/Blues Radio Station
  KJZZ-FM 91.5
  By day, KJZZ is a National Public Radio affiliate, replete with talk shows and news reports. But when the sun goes down, KJZZ mutates into the Valley's premier (okay, only) source of authentic acoustic jazz, covering the gamut from legendary artists like John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie to... More >>
• Best Classical Radio Station
  KBAQ-FM 89.5
  Seven years ago, when KBAQ began broadcasting out of a cramped office space at Mesa Community College, local radio was caught in a classical drought. The Valley's lone classical station, KONC-106.3, had recently fallen off the commercial end of the dial to be replaced by the alt-rock ravings of... More >>
• Best Country Music Station
  KXKQ-FM 94.1, Safford
  These days country ain't cool, and most of the blame can be placed on navel-exposing poseurs like Shania and She-Daisy, whose manufactured pop inundates the airwaves on the Valley's two country radio powerhouses. Meanwhile, true country music has remained buried, hidden way up on the AM side,... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Station
  KKFR-FM 92.3
  Phoenix's unlikely reputation as a hotbed for the dance and DJ genres has always tended to obscure the other side of the urban music coin, hip-hop. Part of this can be blamed on the historical lack of a progressive broadcast powerhouse to bring the music to local ears. In more recent years,... More >>
• Best Place to Catch a Band on the Way Down
  Mason Jar Live!
  2303 East Indian School
  602-956-9175
  When Ian Hunter sang "It's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll" in 1973, he couldn't possibly have appreciated the profound insight contained in that lyric. The horrendous and brutal slides many have since taken from rock's dizzying heights to the primordial ooze of oblivion lend that line a... More >>
• Best Free Concert Venue
  Charlie's Espresso on Mill
  310 South Mill, Suite 1, Tempe
  480-968-2737
  Imagine an autumn evening at an outdoor cafe. As you sip a perfectly executed cappuccino, wisps of exotic languages drift through the evening mist of the nearby lake. Seated at the concert grand piano just inside the open glass doors is world-class pianist Jian Liu, playing as if his life, and... More >>
• Best Club for Blues and Jazz
  Rhythm Room
  1019 East Indian School
  602-265-4842
  Most local music aficionados have heard that the Rhythm Room is being forced to move from its central Phoenix digs by early next year. It's been nearly a decade since the onetime go-go joint turned into a house of blues, a period in which booker/co-owner Bob Corritore has continued his one-man... More >>
• Best Dance Club
  Club Freedom at Pompeii
  919 East Apache, Tempe
  480-966-8004
  Though some Valley danceaterias may be larger, newer or more glamorous, none has managed to merge aesthetics and content as well as Club Freedom at Pompeii (recently renamed, after an ownership change). From steady appearances by internationally known DJs (BT, Donald Glaude, Sasha) to regular... More >>
• Best Swing Club
  The Bash on Ash
  230 West Fifth Street, Tempe
  480-966-5600
  Like Davy Crockett and the besieged band of rebels holed up at the Alamo, the local swing contingent refuses to wave the proverbial white flag and ditch the retro craze that's been replaced by Latin dance fever. Just as neo-swing bands have seen their sales and popularity dwindle, so too has the... More >>
• Best Joint for BPM Junkies and Fashion-Conscious Candy Ravers
  Swell Records
  1444 North Scottsdale Road, Tempe
  480-945-3898
  Through police-instigated turmoil and the rave scene's unfortunate media-hyped drug hysteria associations, Swell has soldiered on for the past seven years selling the records that are spun at parties and the gear that the kids sport, throwing raves (including Musik, an annual event that's... More >>
• Best Live Band to See in the Middle of a Three-Day Bender
  Grave Danger
  For those arguing that rock 'n' roll is truly the devil's music, they might just have the evidence they need in the form of local combo Grave Danger. It's not the band's sound -- which isn't really satanic rock, but actually a kind of surf-tinged rockabilly. Nor is it the songs -- usually sprite... More >>