Japhys Descent

http://www.japhysdescent.com

https://www.facebook.com/JaphysDescent

Japhy’s Descent is about planting seeds to watch our community grow. Music has brought us & those around us so much joy, that we wish to share that love with the world around us. Brian, Martin, James & Travis wish to invite you to take the plunge into the wonderful world around you. Listen to music, laugh, play, love, share, & experience the awe around you by simply being apart of it. Remember… “You can’t fall off a mountain”.

Los Guys

http://www.myspace.com/losguysaz

For more than a decade Phoenix-based Los Guys have been making their own signature brand of rock and roll, wowing audiences with vibrant lives shows and serving up a sweet soundtrack to many a memorable night out. Led by singer/guitarist Mark Zubia, the five-piece – which also features Gary Smith (drums), Paul Cardone (bass), Jim Beach (guitar) and Tim Rovnak (piano and organ) – has become one of the most beloved roots music outfits in Arizona. The group originated in the mid-90s as a kind of loose knit covers project playing fabled local Tempe watering holes like Long Wong’s. Los Guys captured attention putting their own spin on blues, country and pop favorites. Early on, the band provided an escape for Zubia from his main outfit, the critically-acclaimed, major-label signed Pistoleros. Yet, over the years, Los Guys has grown into a serious project in it’s own right. In addition to playing literally thousands of gigs, the band has released four albums — three studio discs of originals and a live concert collection — all of which capture their unique blend of musical brawn, windswept melody and good-time boozy charm. Whatever the event or occasion, Los Guys and their grab bag of great tunes, virtuoso musicianship and electrifying showmanship are the stuff that will have audiences dancing the night away.

Banana Gun

https://www.facebook.com/BananaGun

Just as fortunetellers have their little fishing expeditions to crack a sucker’s psyche, so, too, rock writers have their shortcuts on deconstructing a band’s sound without using the dreaded catch-all phrase “eclectic” (which, in truth, we’ve already exhausted in this article’s headline). Here’s the laziest methodology: Just ask the band members how they describe their sound to their prospective employers, club owners, and go from there. A fair question for Banana Gun, a quintet who’s stopped for an afternoon drink at the Swizzle Inn before trucking to play an untried venue in Sedona, land of crystals, clairvoyants, clairsentients, and clairaudients. How did they sell Banana Gun to that club owner?
“I told them we’re a zydeco/funk/ambient psychedelic jam band,” laughs singer/guitarist Kevin Loyd. “Naw, I just tell them we’re rock ‘n’ roll band — that’s probably the easiest explanation. That covers a lot of ground.”

Yes, rock ‘n’ roll, that vague catch-all phrase bands shied away from for years, a phrase meaning anything from Slayer to Leo Sayer. Perhaps the much-abused term has fallen far enough into disuse to be operable again. If so, Banana Gun fits the bill. They cover enough musical terrain on their first full-length, The Elephant in the Room, to give a typical A&R man pause for concern. “Attic,” the song that the band agrees upon as the signpost of where Banana Gun’s sound is heading next, incorporates good-timey folk, Cookie Monster metal, and punk jumbled together in one headspace. At the same time, they are capable of “Blue Sky,” an effortlessly laid-back R&B folk groove, the kind that John Mellencamp has been chasing since people stopped calling him “The Coog” and that could make Kid Rock untold millions if he sampled it and called it something else.

Chocolate Fountain

21+ // free show // 9pm