Thursday, Sept. 8
Following the release of his debut single, Georgia rapper B.o.B’s ascent up the charts was meteoric; “Nothin’ on You,” featuring Bruno Mars, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2009 and received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. But success hasn’t come without provocations. His controversial beliefs about people being cloned and the Earth being flat remains as much a part of his brand as his hook-laden hip-hop. B.o.B brings “Better Than Drugs,” his latest joint, to 191 Toole…
In the first of a Thursday night series presenting some of his favorite artists, esteemed drummer and producer Pete Swan presents New York City vocalist Sarah Tolar. She performs two sets of jazz at The Century Room…
Songwriter, poet and raconteur Billy Sedlmayr — accompanied by Gabriel Sullivan — spins yarns at Tap & Bottle Downtown… Influenced by the DIY ethos of The Pixies and PJ Harvey, Cedars is an electronic rock band from Texas who believes that beauty will change the world. They please the aesthetic senses at House of Bards…
Pianist Marco Rosano tickles the ivories Late Night at The Century Room…
In ways not unlike the functioning of the elusive Higgs-Boson particle that the band is named after, The Higgs blur boundaries by unifying different genres at The Rock…
Friday, Sept. 9
In 1986, Dwight Yoakam’s watershed debut album, “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.,” paying dividends to rockabilly and punk, pioneered a style. Three decades later — after dipping his tin cup into the wellspring of bluegrass on 2016’s “Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars” — his most recent single “Then Here Came Monday” marks a return to the gritty “Streets of Bakersfield” sound. Yoakam brings his stripped-down honky-tonk to the Rialto Theatre… Originally specializing exclusively in traditional forms of Mexican folk, such as mariachi, ranchera and charro, Alejandro Fernández found success with pop music. In concert, he has been known to commence, besuited in traditional charro haberdashery, by presenting his ranchera repertoire then after removing his charro outfit to sing pop songs. The Amor y Patria Tour brings Fernández — one of the most successful Latin music artists — to the AVA Amphitheater…
Hope For A Better Tomorrow: A fundraiser for Owl + Panther features performances by Santa Pachita, Miss Olivia & the Interlopers, The Appetite, Freddy Jay and more at 191 Toole. The nonprofit offers a safe haven for refugees who experienced traumatic dislocation…
Mason’s sound is big, brash and powerful, tipping a reverent hat to the blues traditions it is rooted in. Capturing a workingman’s, hard-drinkin’ vibe with his gritty voice, it’s Jacob Acosta’s stinging guitar and cranked amp that set the tone, channeling guitar heroes from the 1960s and ’70s. Following up 2017’s “Midnight Road” — an homage to the mystique of Robert Johnson and the deal he struck with the Angel of Darkness — Mason fêtes the release of “My Kind Of Trouble” on the plaza at Hotel Congress. Blues harpist extraordinaire Tom Walbank adds to the celebration…
A fixture in the Oregon country music scene for the past decade, Eli Howard & The Greater Good offer a taste of its incendiary country-fried Americana for all takers to sample when they present “End of the Line,” its debut album, at Club Congress…
Saxophonist Jed Paradies and vocalist John Ronstadt’s musical collaborations span years. For this concert — accompanied by pianist Doug Martin and double bassist Scott Black — they perform a mix of blues, ballads and bop at The Century Room…
Saturday, Sept. 10
His hyper-traditional music — filled with accordions, strings, horns and acoustic guitars — has propelled singer-songwriter Carin Leon to the top of the Latin charts to become one of the most listened to regional Mexican artists internationally. He brings the Todo El Ano Tour to Tucson Arena…
Local Love presents Sex Money Power Fest — featuring Lethal Injektion, Theocide, Pyrotechnica, Guardians, Like a Villain and Headrust — at the Rialto Theatre… The Fox Tucson Theatre’s monthly Music and Movies series pairs one-of-a-kind performances by local musicians with a music-themed film. This installment couples live sets by The George Howard Band and a screening of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s powerful 2021 film debut “Summer of Soul” — centered around The Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969…
Led and conceived by Jay Vance, San Francisco-based one-man and two-robot grindcore outfit Captured! by Robots has been touring the world since 1997, playing thousands of dive bars to hordes of drunken humans. Vance described their mission. “After a horrible accident involving many drugs and a chemical spill, the Bots became self-aware and captured the human, now renamed JBOT. It was decided that they would travel the country, rocking out while bent on world domination and humiliating the chained idiotic human in front of his human peers.” Captured! by Robots dominate the stage at Club Congress. Kryge opens the show…
From 2016’s “Reverie” — her first solo recording while attending the Fred Fox School of Music — to 2021’s “Too Close To The Riptide,” singer/songwriter Sophia Rankin continues to reach far beyond her folk roots. Sophia Rankin & The Sound return to MotoSonora Brewing Company…
One of the greatest Brazilian samba dancers of all time, Egili Oliveira in company with Samba Southwest and DJ Herm kiss summer goodbye with a dance spectacle on the plaza at Hotel Congress…
Performing a blend of tiki and exotica mixed with a couple brimming jiggers of jazz lounge, Naïm Amor & the Cocktail Hours reel into The Century Room…
Sunday, Sept. 11
Since arriving in Tucson, native Michigander Carra “Mamma Coal” Stasney — evincing a warm spirit and passion for performance — soon found a spot in The Old Pueblo music scene. Country singer Mamma Coal and her full-band tell stories of love, life and hard-lessons-learned at The Maverick King of Clubs…
“My first step in being a professional musician was learning how to accept failure,” Eddie 9V said. “As a nobody, the music business is a dartboard. You just hope something sticks.” After working the blues clubs in Atlanta since his early teens, one day 9V powered up the guitar amps in his mobile trailer, with his brother, Lane, recording and turning knobs, to cut what would become one of 2019’s breakout releases, “Left My Soul In Memphis,” his debut album. Finally, something stuck. “Memphis was a total side project that ended up taking off,” Eddie recalled. Now, the 25-year-old guitarist is out on the road promoting “Little Black Flies,” his 2021 effort. Eddie 9V provides the juice for the latest installment of the Congress Cookout on the plaza at Hotel Congress…
“If you haven’t gone two-steppin’ in a while,” Patrick Rayl & the .357 Band — a trio of military veterans performing country music — are “gonna set the floor on fire” at Whiskey Roads…
Monday, Sept. 12
First gen L.A. punk legend Alice Bag says of Fea’s name, “The band has also made it into an acronym for “Fuck ‘Em All,” reinforcing their message. A message that echoes the words of Gloria Steinem, “The Women’s Movement is still necessary and more alive than ever.” Bag produced their sophomore album “No Novelties.” Ferocity and resistance have never sounded so infectious. From San Antonio, Fea inhabits the space where Chicana punk and social consciousness intersect. They are flanked by Bleach Party USA and Blotter Vision at Club Congress…
Tuesday, Sept. 13
While on a mission to fulfill a request by Justin Kreutzmann, son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, to record intermission music for Fare Thee Well — a victory lap celebrating the Dead’s final shows in 2015 — unbeknownst to guitarist Neal Casal at the time the seeds for his next band, Circles Around the Sun, were sown. For the one-off recording project Casal assembled keyboardist Adam MacDougall, bassist Dan Horne and drummer Mark Levy to join him in the studio. They recorded five hours of spacey jams. Unexpectedly, the audience response — to their music being blasted between sets at the Dead farewell shows — was resounding. A newly formed Circles Around the Sun released those recordings as their debut album, “Interludes for the Dead,” to appease the demand for more. Fast forward to 2019. After wrapping up sessions for their third album, “Circles Around the Sun Meets Joe Russo” — a sleeker, shinier, dancier version of themselves — guitarist Neal Casal died by suicide. He left a note urging his bandmates to carry on. Recently, they announced guitarist John Lee Shannon as a permanent replacement. Instrumental space, disco, jam rockers Circles Around the Sun ascend to the stars at 191 Toole…
Named after a vintage Gibson tube amplifier, guitarists Pat Faherty and Matt Stubbs formed GA-20 — born out of their mutual love of heavy traditional blues, R&B, and early rock ‘n’ roll — in Boston circa 2018. “We make records that we would want to listen to,” Stubbs said. “It’s our take on the song-based traditional electric blues we love.” For its latest album, 2021’s “Try It…You Might Like It!,” the band resurrects and reinvigorates the raw and downright dirty blues of six-fingered slide guitar legend, Hound Dog Taylor. Critics have heralded the album as “a new wave of blues for the next generation of blues fans.” GA-20 holds a new traditional blues revival on the plaza at Hotel Congress…
Wednesday, Sept. 14
The product of two Christian ministers, raised in a household where God and Jesus and religion reigned unquestioningly supreme, not long ago contemporary worship/alternative rock artist John Mark McMillan went through a midlife crisis. He feared that his career — one built largely on the Christian belief system — would collapse like the biblical Tower of Siloam. “It made me afraid to say, ‘I’m not sure if I believe in God.’ I felt like I wasn’t allowed to ask those questions.” Finding his way out of the existential jungle — back to a reimagined form of Christianity, one that doesn’t hinge on fear of the eternal — he released his ninth studio record, “Peopled with Dreams,” in 2020. “Stepping away now from the white noise,” John Mark McMillan enters a “Re-Enchanted World” at 191 Toole, with special guest Gable Price & Friends…
Until next week, XOXO…
In Memoriam:
Dennis Francis, aka Papa Ranger
(March 9, 1956 – Aug. 22, 2022)
A beloved figure on the Tucson music scene, Dennis Francis, aka Papa Ranger, died Aug. 22.
Francis was a noted DJ, concert promoter and avid exponent of reggae culture. After the cancer he previously battled returned aggressively, Francis made a compelling end-of-life decision. He told his sons, Jahron and Jahmar, that he did not want to spend his last days in a hospital room. Nor did he wish to die at home. Francis made arrangements to receive hospice care at the place he held dear: his Twelve Tribes Reggae Shop in central Tucson, surrounded by mementos — a vast collection of reggae concert posters and photographs with legendary artists — of a lifetime spent championing reggae music.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Francis immigrated to the United States when he was in his 20s. He lived and worked in Detroit before settling in Tucson.
Inspired to promote reggae culture in Arizona, Francis established Twelve Tribes Reggae Shop in late 1989.
“At the time, Detroit had a lot of reggae shops, but it didn’t exist out here,” Jahmar said. “You had bands like Neon Prophet that were playing reggae, but you didn’t have any shops selling reggae music and reggae T-shirts.”
Over the years, Dennis promoted thousands of reggae concerts, often bringing in artists from Jamaica, under the 12 Tribes Entertainment umbrella.
Family aside, a large part of Dennis’ life was devoted to reggae.
“I saw my dad on Saturday,” Jahmar reflected. “And he was like, ‘Don’t cry for me; be happy for me. I’m going somewhere else.’”
Dennis — Papa Ranger as he was known to many — was 66 years old.
