well, variety, probably you have a point

chicago is very good and, i'm sure, more varied than new orleans

but i can eat creole every day all day, so that's where i am coming from

n.o. has been an incredible food city for me, as i have never eaten anything but creole there anyway

Ahhh Tempe/Phoenix, i've been there a few time on tour. It seems like a fine place to live if you are used to making your own entertainment. If you are the kind of person who needs constant outside stimulation, it might not be the place for you. Additionally, I hope you really like it hot and dry, because you are in the middle of the desert.

There are some good bands down there, Hillbilly Devilspeak are pretty awesome.

HotFoughtCold were badass, but just recently broke up.

The Minibosses are awesome too, they are a nintendo cover band, and it is way better then you would possibly expect. Especially if you expect it to suck.

there are more too, but I cant' remember... ah wait.
I like Death of Marat a lot too.

Tempe has Nita's hideaway too, which is great.

Phoenix has some great venues like Modified Arts which is in my top 10 all ages venues for the US, a super neat little place.

Basically if you are going to live in Arizona Tempe seems to be the place to be, but yeah... it's hot, it's dry, and even though it's a college town it doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot goes on there. I dig it though.

hope that helps.
-C.

Thats funny you mention HotFoughtCold and Death of Marat. Definitely two of the coolest bands in Tempe. We played with HotFoughtCold a couple times - still have a copy of their demo around somewhere.....

The HFC demo is recorded horribly. I remember listening to it something around Washington DC and upon the first notes saying "Ok, lofi, but good", and then everything just totally pins out and hits the red, it's kind of funny. Their album is pretty awesome though, I like it lots, i'm kind of bummed they are gone, we got to play with them a few times, awesome guys. I hope that they continue on in their own way.

-C.

Oh, and there is a really good tube amp repair/mod guy named Tony in Tempe. He makes Krank amps ( http://www.krankamps.com/ ) and modded the hell out of my Rivera S120 head, which is now soooo ballsy. Anyway, he's a cool guy and encourages you to hang out while he plays around with switching components, etc. and listen to the changes he's making and keep what you think sounds good. Very cool.

Yeah, the demo does sound like crap. I thought they went back to the same dude for the album recording, which I couldn't understand. Maybe his skills have improved since then? I was trying to convince them to let me and my friend record them instead. I mean, I'd still do a crappy job, but at least I wasn't going to charge them that much for it.

let's see... says here it was recorded winter 2001 and fall 2002 by Ron Marshall at Gray Room Recording Studio, Glendale, Arizona
Mastered October 2002 by M. Murman at SAE Phoenix, Arizona.

Don't have the demo in front of me either, but this recording certainly does them justice, too bad I think it's out of print now...

-C.

For the record, I've heard SAE is a pretty good mastering house.

ben adrian
oakland, ca

benadrian wrote:For the record, I've heard SAE is a pretty good mastering house.

isn't SAE the acronym for the society of automotive engineers?

Yeah, I think SAE does stand for that too. But its also a mastering house - a friend of mine takes his stuff there and has good results.

Oh, and the Gray Room is the same place HotFoughtCold did the demo. Go figure.