So what the hell is AZPunk.com anyway?

A brief history about Arizona's punk rock DIY resource.

AZPunk.com is a free online resource for the Arizona punk rock community for information on local shows, bands, venues and happenings. The website launched February 1, 2002 with the goal of tackling the insatiable need to find out what the hell there was for a punker to do within the states borders. Chris Lawson, Micah Elliot and Bryan Sandell combined their skills, talents and decades of love for their local punk rock scene, to create a place for others to find out more on local shows, bands, music, and anything else punk rock in Arizona. Since then, AZPunk.com has continued to represent the desert as the 100% D.I.Y. resource website dedicated to all the bands and fans of the local Arizona punk rock community.

AZPunk.comp Volumes 1-6

In a further commitment to helping promote local music, from 2002-2008, AZPunk.com released 6 compilation albums featuring a combined total of a whopping 216 tracks by local punk rock artists from all over the Copper State. Punk bands stretching from Yuma and Tuba City to Lake Havasu and Tucson (not to mention our home-town Metro-Phoenix bands) would send in their song submissions for a chance to be selected for a track on one of the comps. Each year, AZPunk would manage to pack on more tracks than the previous album, yet never strayed from the $3 price tag. Form details on all of the AZPunk Compilation albums, visit our AZPunk.comps page.

AZPunk's advertising has mainly relied on word-of-mouth, but has spent years vigerously promoting outside of the website and our own events. One of the major events we had the honor of hosting were the local stages at the Vans Warped Tour that would roll through town annually. Thanks to Kevin Lymann, from 2002-2005 AZPunk was lucky enough to host a local stage at one of the most populated outdoor music events of the year. These two years of promoting local music at a major event like the Warped Tour created mountains of traffic to the website, and an immense amount of exposure to the hard working local punk rock bands of Arizona.

Warped Tour 2003 Ad

In early 2005, Bryan Sandell was hired to play rhythm guitar for Authority Zero, and stepped away from the website to follow his dream of touring and playing music. For almost 3 years, Bryan traveled around the world playing for thousands of people and enjoying an opportunity that only comes around once in a lifetime.

Along with being a hub of social information, AZPunk.com also organized shows, events and radio programs dedicated to the desert's punk rock fans. From 2002-2003, AZPunk hosted a local radio show on Tuesday nights at 11:00 on KFNX 1100 AM radio. The AZPunk.com radio show was an hour long show that featured new music both found by us and donated by listeners. Unfortunately, radio dues got expensive and we had to pull the plug on our awesome little radio show. But we weren't done thinking of new ways to get the word out about the awesome punk rock music local bands had to offer.

In May of 2004, AZPunk held a 3 day musical event called the AZPunk Featured Band Riot featuring 19 local punk rock bands that had been featured on the website over the past three years. This massive event solidified AZPunk's place as a staple in the local punk rock community.

Prior to the release of the Volume 6 compilation album, AZPunk organized an awesome challenge to local punk rock musicians: can you put together a kick ass punk band in 2 months, write a 30 minute set's worth of songs, all with other musicians you've never met before? The answer to this challenge would be played out in December of 2007 at AZPunk's Thrash of the Titans. The brilliant brainchild of Tom Reardon from Pinky Tuscadero While Knuckle Assfuck and the organization of AZPunk gave birth to a local "battle of the bands" style event like none had ever witnessed. 24 musicians from local punk bands all around the Metro-Phoenix area took two months to organize six separate punk bands to compete for the title of AZPunk Titan and a spot on the AZPunk.com Volume 6 album. The battle was bloody and long, but as the night drew to a close, there was no doubt in neither the crowd, nor the judges that the undisputed AZPunk Titan was the frat-boy brohamness of Bro-Loaf. To get the gritty details of how this event went down, read this AZPunk.com's Thrash of the Titans Review.

So long AZPunk 1.0

As 2008 approached, costs to keep the website running began to rise and standards for the web had been growing and changing rapidly. The website that was launched in 2002 was a great resource to the community, but was immensely outdated and lagging in potential. For months Chris and Micah tried to think of new ideas to help bring AZPunk.com up to speed with the latest standards of Web 2.0, but ultimately came to the conclusion to flat out remove AZPunk.com from the web for a year, in hopes to create something better. It was aharsh decision, but one that was discussed and contemplated about for many months.

On April 1, 2009, AZPunk.com re-launched with a brand new, Web 2.0 capable website that is clean, interactive, and able to function the way AZPunk was always meant to function. With the combined power of geeky stuff like CodeIgniter MVC Framework, complete CSS, Ajax, jQuery ,Smarty templating and a bunch of other awesome nerd stuff, the new AZPunk.com is a continuously growing social community based website dedicated toinforming the growing community of Arizona punk rockers. As it's launched in its Beta form, we will continuously be adding new functionality and cool little tools to make your visit fun.

Since 2002, AZPunk.com has remained the 100% D.I.Y. resource for punk rock in Arizona, and continues to support every single aspect of local music. We believe in honesty, hard work, respect and dedication. Our love and commitment to Arizona's hard working punk rock fans and bands stands as firm and strong as ever, and we will continue to promote positivity within all genres of punk rock, and encourage others to listen to the incredible music that this desert has to offer.