The Death of Local Music Series

THE DEATH
OF LOCAL MUSIC

THE ARIZONA MUSIC HISTORY ARCHIVE
Preserving the bands, musicians, venues, recordings, flyers, photographs and firsthand stories that built Arizona music history across every generation, every scene and every volume of The Death of Local Music.
Richard N. Ornelas
aka Reverend Black Jack McBride
Author · Arizona Music History Archive
Try: RUKKUS · Mason Jar · Small Paul · Surgical Steel
SMOKE WAGON PRODUCTIONS · PHOENIX, ARIZONA · KEEP LOCAL MUSIC ALIVE
Support The Arizona Music History Archive donations

Band Profiles — Arizona Music History

The Arizona Music History Archive

Band Profiles

The People, Bands and Stories Behind the Arizona Scene
These profiles are the public entry points into the bands and musicians being preserved in The Death of Local Music. Some are built from firsthand interviews, some from surviving archive material, and some from both. Each one preserves enough history to show why the story matters while leaving the deeper chronology and complete conversations for the books.
Published Profiles · Musician Spotlights · Archive-Based Histories
Published Archive Profiles

Stories Already Live on the Site

Phoenix Heavy Metal · Volume II

Surgical Steel

One of Phoenix's important early heavy-metal bands, reconstructed through surviving releases, archive documentation and firsthand material connected to guitarist Jimmy Keeler.

Read the Profile →
Arizona Hard Rock · Volume II

Fast Freddy Robinson / Rip N Tear

Freddy's Arizona history reaches from his early Phoenix bands into Rip N Tear and the club, rehearsal and hard-rock culture that surrounded the scene.

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Hard Rock · Funk · Thrash · Volume II

Lightning Fury

Lance Grant's firsthand history of Lightning Fury preserves a decade of Arizona hard rock, funk, thrash, battles of the bands and club history.

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Early Phoenix Hard Rock · Volume II

Faded Black

A late-1970s Phoenix story from Hector Camacho's early years, when a neighborhood connection, a backyard shed and a group of young musicians became part of the roots of the scene that followed.

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Phoenix Heavy Metal · Volume II

Him's Rage

An early-1980s Phoenix band remembered through house parties, all-ages shows, heavy-metal covers and Hector Camacho's firsthand recollections.

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Musician Spotlight · Volume II / III

Hector Camacho

From Faded Black and Him's Rage through Arizona Underground, Black House Twins, Godless, Latency, ADDICT3D and 24 Thorns, Hector's history crosses several eras of Arizona music.

Read the Spotlight →
Musician Spotlight · Volume II

Anthony McLain / RUKKUS

From Spoiled Rotten in Prescott to RUKKUS in the Valley and the many projects that followed, Anthony's story shows how one musician's path can connect several generations of the scene.

Read the Spotlight →
Musician Spotlight · Volume II

Tony Noyes

Wicked Season, Outrage, Deadwood, Sin Wicked, KraiseD and the larger family tree around Tony's decades in Arizona music.

Read the Spotlight →
The Scene Was Always Connected

Related Bands and Projects in the Archive

Arizona music history rarely moves in straight lines. Musicians changed bands, filled in for one another, formed new projects, renamed old ones and crossed genre lines. The archive preserves those connections instead of treating every band like it existed in isolation.

How the Profiles Are Built

Firsthand Memory Meets Surviving Evidence

Some profiles begin with an interview. Others begin with an old cassette, flyer or photograph. The strongest histories use both. Firsthand recollection supplies the human story, while surviving artifacts help settle dates, lineups, song titles, venues and other details that memory may have blurred.

When documentation conflicts with memory, the archive does not quietly rewrite the past. The difference is preserved until stronger evidence appears. Corrections are part of the process, not something to hide.

The Website and the Books

The Website Is the Doorway. The Book Is the Complete Story.

The public profile pages are intentionally selective. They establish the history, introduce the people and preserve key facts without publishing every interview, every anecdote or every surviving piece of documentation online.

What Stays for the Books

Full chronology, complete interviews, deeper personal stories, complete family trees, archival discoveries, disputed memories, wild anecdotes, additional photographs and the larger connections between bands and generations.

Add Your Band to the History

Were You Part of the Arizona Scene?

If your band, project, venue or music history belongs in this archive, send what you know. Exact dates are helpful, but they are not required to begin. Names, approximate years, band members, recordings, venues, photographs and surviving flyers can all help rebuild the story.