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brumby photograph by lori tingey; troy heard by steve marcus; off the hook by mikayla whitmore
Contents 7 mail Odes to Johnathan and
44 screen Spike Lee’s Da Sweet
fights about American Sniper.
Blood of Jesus. The faces of Depp.
8 as we see it An artist takes
46 noise Four new albums, from
on the Vegas facade. How to know if you’re dating an assassin.
Sleater-Kinney to Ryan Bingham.
11 weekly Q&A Paul Oh knows robots (and loves Blade Runner).
12 Feature | stage left of
48 fine art Seeing the light at Brett Wesley Gallery.
49 stage Ira Glass on love.
center Troy Heard doesn’t want us to just watch plays. He wants us to experience them.
51 print Mizumura on the hostile
16 Feature | sonic buffet
and Off the Hook’s fried goodness.
From hip-hop to punk to country, here are 10 emerging local acts you need to hear right now.
takeover of the English language.
52 food The King of dumplings, 56 calendar SquidHat turns 3.
with the purchase of any other entrée and two beverages of equal or lesser value*
26 nights Nibbling chicken wings with DJ Carnage.
Cover
42 A&E Guster drummer Brian
photograph By adam shane
Rosenworcel on lo-fi appeal.
43 pop culture Gay visibility, through good (and vapid) TV.
makeup & custom styling by tai shane
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LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM
OTHER NUMBERS A fun list of Vegas stats has been going around, a by-the-numbers look at what tourists mowed through in 2014, from crab legs at Aria to water shows at Bellagio. That’s sweet, but what about the number of people who pooped their pants when the flaming mantis did its thing Downtown? What about the number of lives touched by street performers who are just pot-bellied men in thongs? “Stats” await at lasvegasweekly.com. FRESH AND FRENCH Michael Mina’s Bardot Brasserie is the hottest new dining destination on the Strip. Visit lasvegasweekly.com to get a mouth-watering glimpse of what Bardot is serving, plus a bonus interview with the celebrity chef explaining why he decided to go French with his latest Vegas restaurant.
MOST READ STORIES lasvegasweekly.com 1. Body failing and mind on fire, The Amazing Johnathan reflects on his gloriously unhinged legacy 2. Seven reasons why Light’s resident lineup is the one to beat in 2015 3. American Sniper offers a superficial look at the life of Chris Kyle 4. Bye, Blue Angel: Motel comes down, but the iconic figurehead will remain 5. Will artist Michael Heizer’s ‘City’ become a national monument?
CONTAINER PARK SUN FILE; COSMOPOLITAN BY ERIK KABIK
A DOLL HOUSE Why is it that every hour the eerie dolls of New York artist Laurie Simmons hit the Cosmo marquee (and other LED screens on the property) in the videos “Ringtone” and “Geisha Song”? Find out at lasvegasweekly.com.
TRIBUTE ALBUM Fourteen cans of shaving cream, one can of whipped cream, rubber gloves and roses. It’s not your average grocery list. Food-inspired dresses are nothing new. The original album Whipped Cream & Other Delights was released by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in 1965. Jill & Julia may play country music, but this album cover inspiration came from their dad’s record collection. Just remember, don’t eat the shaving cream. –Corlene Byrd
AMAZING STORY Last week’s cover story on the wild life—and failing body—of The Amazing Johnathan struck a sentimental nerve.
Johnathan, you’ve led quite a life. I’m sad that you’re now in poor health, but I thank you for the hours of hysterical laughter you have given me over the years, and feel privileged to have seen your act in person. Sending prayers and good thoughts your way. –Vpmad1 Probably the only comedian/magician I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Be in peace, Johnathan. And then kick somebody’s ass. –SheckyVegas I am so mad. Mr. Johnathan, I am so mad to see you just giving up. Last I checked there is no date of death following your birthdate. I cried on the bus reading this thinking such an awesome person is being so blah about death. Please, if you want to die on your “own defiant terms,” do it as only you would. Maybe I sound a little insane but I say go out with a bang and do it as only you would. –Jonelle Cusato
ANGEL ABOVE
jill & julia by adam shane
The motel has been destroyed, but the Blue Angel herself remains, standing tall above Fremont Street—as she should be.
My dad used to tell me that was my angel every time we drove past her (some 50 years ago) because my nickname was Angel. So glad
she’ll be sticking around a while. –Eva Weichmann
FLAMMABLE FILM Josh Bell’s two-star review of American Sniper touched off pages of online argument.
While the author acknowledges the sacrifices made by our servicemen, he also simultaneously turns up his nose to those who would blindly give themselves over to the stories of these “so-called heroes” and their military. Patriotism requires a core belief in something greater than yourself. It requires courage. Some of these elements may be missing in those watching the screen, not what is on it. –JakeDBull I guess the critics who nominated it for a few Oscars don’t know what they’re talking about. –Amber May I am a veteran and I have complete confidence that this movie was made well for Chief Kyle. Many of my brothers and sisters have already seen it and spoke highly of it. This is clearly coming from a person who has no idea what it’s like to do something bigger than himself. –Monica R. Gargano
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AsWeSeeIt OPINION + POLITICS + HUMOR + STYLE
> ANOTHER DIMENSION A taped-together panorama from the Mancuso collection at UNLV.
VEGAS FOR REAL ∑ When Martin Scorsese set out to film Casino in
Las Vegas, location manager Maggie Mancuso was charged with scouting viable interior and exterior sites—a task that resulted in a photo archive of daily life here through images of homes, streets, businesses, parking lots and daytime shots of the Strip. It’s a rich collection, capturing a behind-thescenes survey of a city famous (and infamous) for its spectacle. Mancuso eventually donated the images to UNLV’s Special Collections—handing over box-loads of mostly 4-by-6-inch photographs taped together to create panoramic shots, including beautifully preserved ’70s-style interiors. Though photographed two decades ago and intended for a fictional backdrop, the images
SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN How to tell if your girlfriend is really a trained assassin
∑ In light of Las Vegas-bred NASCAR driver Kurt Busch’s recent testimony that his ex is really a hired killer, we put together this tip-list to help keep you safe at home. You might be in danger if … • You found night-vision
8 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM JANUARY 22–28, 2015
present an intimacy through ordinary and banal scenes, artist Catherine Borg says, as opposed to the usual media depictions that create a “limited sense of place.” Using the collection as source material for her project, Scouted: An Inadvertent Archive from the Search for a Cinematic Vegas, Borg aims to make the picture of Las Vegas more dimensional. “Many people around the world feel like they know Las Vegas, but most often their knowledge is limited to a two-day blur of a visit or 30-second advertisements,” she told an audience last week at UNLV, where she finished a residency as an Eadington Gaming Fellow. The notion of a limited perspective of Vegas escapes few who live here. (We’ve all been victim to a bizarre array of questions.) “Knowing” a place based on mediated communication can apply to anywhere, Borg says, pointing out that her new
goggles at the bottom of her laundry hamper. • She lettered in archery back in high school— and still wears the uglyass jacket. • Her hobbies include working out alone and crafting custom weaponry.
• She crushed your Call of Duty high score the first time she played. • Her laptop wallpaper is the Predator ripping out that guy’s entire spine. • She stabbed someone in the neck at her college reunion.
home-city of Baltimore is marketed through nighttime images of the harbor and presented as the setting for The Wire. Borg spent seven years in Las Vegas, creating work in which the city played a strong role, conceptually and physically. In Scouted, she broadens and narrows the context to tackle existential dilemmas. Mancuso’s “fractured images,” representing a pre-digital era not long gone, function as indicators of fundamental shifts in the daily lives of Americans. They also reflect the uniqueness of life here and the “remorselessly shifting landscape of Las Vegas,” as many of the sites have since been demolished or altered. Scouted, which will play out in time while the artist deals with copyright issues (a process documented as part of the project) may end up as a book. Either way, it will reveal the storied and real Las Vegas known to those who live here. –Kristen Peterson
AS WE SEE IT…
HOW TO DO AVN RIGHT
> SHAKERS AND MOVERS The hot names have a hard time staying put in Vegas’ nightlife scene.
Bring a mobile charger. Sure, porn stars will be everywhere, but in addition to all the spandex-clad skin roaming the Hard Rock Hotel halls, the trade show also features male and female revue performances, a BDSM playground to explore and blush-inducing adult novelties—all screaming for an Instagram photo shoot. So be chargedup and ready! Don’t forget that hand sanitizer. Get your head out of the gutter—thousands of people will be fondling those blushworthy adult novelties! Prioritize. You don’t want to blow your wad (um, figuratively) on pornstar photo-ops all day, right? This is the planet’s biggest porn convention, so don’t forget to squeeze in a star-studded seminar (some fun picks: “How to Negotiate a Threesome” and “Whip Me, Beat Me, Call Me Bad Names”) and some time to explore the trade-show floor for some (fetishistic) fun—and freebies! You know you’ve been dying for some homemade, organic sex butter, don’t be shy …
MUSICAL CHAIRS
The grab for headlining DJs is in high gear on the Strip BY MIKE PREVATT
MARIAH CAREY ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS
Only clubbers should care about the whereabouts of DJs on the Strip, right? Maybe during the nascent EDM years. Now, the expansive (and largely VIPfunded) Las Vegas nightlife scene has become a billiondollar industry. This makes the acts drawing the people paying $50 covers and $4,000 dancefloor-table minimums pretty important. January is when most of the clubs featuring headliner DJs reveal their residents for the year. It’s a monthlong game of musical chairs, as many DJs spend the previous fall chasing the higher paydays, changing loyalties and signing exclusives with a former competitor. This week, the forthcoming Omnia released its talent lineup, which pilfered trance icon Armin van Buuren from Marquee and EDM powerhouses Krewella and Nicky Romero from Light. But don’t feel bad for Light:
HIT PARADE How new Caesars Palace resident Mariah Carey stacks up to other famous Vegas headliners, in terms of No. 1 singles Source: Billboard Hot 100
What to check at the door: Any sense of shame. It’s a PORN CONVENTION! Did we need to remind you? If you think you’re above posing for pics with adult-film stars or should your horse be too high to toy with the, um, toys, well … stay home! –Mark Adams
Last week’s reveal featured three acts—Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Will.i.am and Morgan Page—formerly of the XS/Surrender/Encore Beach Club roster. That triumvirate has yet to reveal its new beat brigade—it declared last year’s on January 31—with the exception of Kaskade, no longer shared with Marquee, and former Light resident Laidback Luke. Some clubs aren’t even demanding loyalty anymore; upstarts 3LAU and MakJ are currently shared by Life and Drai’s, the former venue unafraid to feature others’ acts and the latter largely opting for new blood. Questions abound as nightlife’s trade season continues. Will Hakkasan Group give chart-topper Calvin Harris’ widely rumored Omnia residency the same sort of isolated announcement that it did for Tiësto’s Hakkasan Nightclub extension—or will another club dare top what’s considered the highest per-gig rate in clubland? Will Marquee’s once-mighty talent pool—typically the last in Vegas to emerge—rebuild after being picked over by every other nightlife entity in town? Will Life keep periodically luring competitors’ DJs over, as it has since its August opening? And can Wynn’s forthcoming nightlife lineup trump Light’s impressively well-rounded 2015 offering? It’s only three weeks into January—this musical chairs game isn’t over yet. –Mike Prevatt
Stay tuned to lasvegasweekly.com throughout AVN weekend for tips and tales from the Adult Entertainment Expo convention floor.
18 14 8 5 4 Mariah Carey
Elvis Presley
Elton John
Prince
Celine Dion
4 Britney Spears
JANUARY 22–28, 2015 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM
9
as we see it…
In Brief
vegas on my mind
The Super Bowl of hypocrisy ESPN’s Sal Iacono has become a football-gambling star, right under the NFL’s nose By Steve Frie ss Each year as the calendar lurches toward that all-American holiday known as Super Bowl Sunday, pop-culture figures emerge. Zero-to-hero quarterback stories, like the Rams’ Kurt Warner in 2000 and the Panthers’ Jake Delhomme in 2004, are popular. Last year, trash-talking, Stanford-educated Seahawks star Richard Sherman grabbed the headlines. In 1986, it was a 330-pound defensive tackle for Da Bears we all called the Refrigerator. This time out, the head-turner is a peculiar one, particularly knowing how much the NFL hates all things Vegas: a self-confessed degenerate gambler named Sal Iacono, otherwise known to legions of Jimmy Kimmel fans as the Vegas native’s goofball sketch sidekick Cousin Sal. Sal (actually Kimmel’s cousin) had been making picks for grantland.com and on Grantland editor Bill Simmons’ podcast for a while before graduating this season to ESPN’s SportsCenter. He captured imaginations by going on an epic 15-0-3 streak from October until his pick, the Arizona Cardinals, got creamed by the Carolina Panthers on January 3. Iacono’s rise is a fascinating conundrum for the NFL. The NFL and ESPN have this critically symbiotic relationship, and the NFL as an institution has this long, long history of punishing its media partners when they even breathe about pro football and sports betting at the same time. “I go really, really deep into [odds and betting on football], way more than they ever did before on ESPN, and I was actually surprised they allowed us to repeat intense gambling talk that I’ve been providing,” Iacono told me in an interview last week. “I guess, because I was winning, they let a lot of it slide, and there haven’t been complaints so far, as far as I know.” So it’s not my imagination that this is kind of a sea change. More than a decade ago, the NFL made big headlines by refusing to allow “What Happens Here Stays Here” ads to run during the Super Bowl. In subsequent years, there were sanctions against local network affiliates who aired Vegas ads during the time the local stations are given to sell. When NBC landed Sunday Night Football in 2006, the NFL forced the network not to advertise its Monday night soap Las Vegas during games. And in 2010, even after loosening up the rules a bit, the NFL still threw a fit about CBS airing a Kia ad nationally during the Super Bowl that showed Yo Gabba Gabba! sock puppets cruising the Strip in a convertible. Yet now one of the most interesting sideshows to the Super Bowl matchup between Seattle and the Patriots is going to be how close Iacono comes in his predictions for the “Big Game,” as Vegas casinos must legally refer to it in advertisements for their viewing parties. Iacono himself anticipated blowback that has yet to materialize, perhaps more proof that the NFL knows just how good betting is for the public’s interest in the outcome of games involving teams they otherwise don’t care about. “It’s like a hypocritical thing where gambling is cool and Fantasy Football is cool, and the League and ESPN … want
10 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
> the gambler Cousin Sal is talking about football odds on ESPN, and that’s odd.
to acknowledge that the games wouldn’t be as big, and their ratings wouldn’t be as big if these things didn’t exist,” he said. “I do think they see it as a little bit seedy, and they don’t want to publicize it as much as maybe they should.” Iacono, 43, spoke from personal experience, too. Since he was a kid growing up on Long Island, he’s had friends placing bets for him in Vegas. Everything is more interesting—even his kids’ Little League games—when he has money on it. Indeed, what’s so great about Iacono’s moment is how open he is about his love of action and how fundamental it is to his enjoyment: “I never am as interested in the National Anthem as I am when it’s sung before the Super Bowl and I have $300 that it will come in under two-and-a-half minutes. I am not even kidding! I will typically lose two or three parlays on a typical Sunday before the kickoff. I bet on everything. I bet that the Best Supporting Actress will cry after she receives her award during the Oscars.” Still, ESPN did draw a line that can only be a bow of deference to the NFL, barring Iacono from creating a bankroll of fake money with which to “bet” on his picks and keep a running tally during his twice-weekly SportsCenter segments. “At the last minute, they thought better of it,” Iacono said. “That would be flying too close to the sun for them, I think.” This confused me because Cousin Sal does, in fact, have a fake-money scorekeeping gimmick that he uses, a currency he calls jermajesties (after Jermaine Jackson’s oddly named son) that he uses in his columns for grantland.com, which is also owned by ESPN. “For some reasons, the print version of ESPN is more lenient when it comes to that,” he said. “Crazy, right?”
Mob on wheels The 1972 Jaguar XKE Convertible on display at Downtown’s Plaza hotel-casino is more than just a car. It was a gift from mobster Greg DePalma to mob boss John Gotti, but more importantly, it’s the first time the Mob Museum has created something for exhibition outside its own walls. Is this the first step to the museum potentially creating traveling exhibitions to expand its reach beyond Las Vegas? “We are actively exploring opportunities,” says director of content Geoff Schumacher. “While Las Vegas is the perfect place for the Mob Museum to be located, the story we tell is national in scope, and there is tremendous interest in the subject in all corners of the country.” –Brock Radke Sexy tech Tech and T&A used to be buddies here, with AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo and the International Consumer Electronics Show occurring simultaneously down the street from one another for many years. The two events split schedules in 2012, but it sounds like computer geeks are still getting their fix of sin and skin, with Pahrump brothel Sheri’s Ranch reporting a 70 percent increase in sales during the annual trade show. Now, if only Sheri would release those bookkeeping numbers … –Mark Adams Green ambitions Hoping to create an artist-designed community garden in Downtown’s Boulder Plaza, the city applied for the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, contending for a $1 million grant. The program is geared toward temporary art projects designed to engage communities, enhance creativity and enrich city vibrancy, and finalists will be notified in February. Nancy Deaner, manager of Las Vegas’ Office of Cultural Affairs, says that even without the grant, the city will likely pursue the garden, which will include sculpture and artist-designed planter beds, with artists and 18b business owners as stakeholders growing food in the gardens: “It’s a way to activate the space,” she says, “and to also make it a green space.” –Kristen Peterson
Weekly Q&A
> mind and matter Hubo, Paul Oh and his UNLV-based team will represent Southern Nevada in June’s international DARPA Robotics Challenge.
the year 2030. As heroic a first responder as you are, I don’t think you want to spend the next 10 years doing cleanup, but it has to be done, and it is also toxic. You see robots doing other high-volume jobs that have to be done, from monitoring food safety to salvaging heavy recyclables. Given the money that could be saved—and made—in the U.S., is our government investing in robotics? President
Obama, I believe it was around summer of 2012, launched the National Robotics Initiative along the theme of collaborative robotics, so that was definitely a milestone. … At the same time, both Asia and Europe have been doing this for over a decade, maybe two decades, usually at one to two orders of magnitude more money. For others, it’s their Apollo space program. Can America catch up? I think it depends
how hungry America is, how passionate. We’ve always prided ourselves on being a can-do nation, but let’s face it; people are saying that we are falling behind because of global competition. Not just because of what they can produce, but our students aren’t ready for tomorrow’s engineering jobs, and that’s not something you simply outsource.
Signs and wonders
photograph by mikayla whitmore
UNLV robotics expert Paul Oh on the mounting tech race—and existentialist Frankenstein “Imagine if we didn’t have skin. How dexterous would we be without it?” We’re looking at the heavy-duty digits of a Hubo humanoid robot, and Paul Oh is trying to help me understand why they’re not as elegant as mine. Yet. For more than 20 years Oh has studied and advanced robotics, leaving his mark on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Boeing, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation, where he supported university research on non-military robotics. He joined UNLV’s College of Engineering in August to spearhead development of unmanned aerial systems (aka drones) and other “use-inspired” inventions, like robots that could help us with daily tasks as well as disasters. In a lab that looks more like an obstacle course, he and his students are working on a humanoid that will compete for a $2 million prize in June’s DARPA Robotics Challenge, an international affair that could put Southern Nevada on the map for the kind of emerging tech that still seems like science fiction.
Who’s leading the pack in the marketplace? People often say, ‘Oh, it’s the Japanese.’ I would say that they have the market on industrial robots. … But in terms of pure volume, it’s the American company iRobot, with the Roomba.
Robots were big at CES. What was the message to consumers?
Augmenting human shortages is what the DARPA challenge is about. You’re building a robot to function as a first responder, from driving a car to breaking through walls with a sledgehammer. Why is the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding this?
Robots are here for their quality of life, and it’s not this kind of esoteric thing that might be used in a factory or a medical operating room. They’re going to be helping us with companionship, be it elder care, be it for education … or they might be tabletop robot devices.
The Roomba doesn’t blow very many minds at this point, but the notion of a robot caring for a human might. That sounds so sci-fi. Ten years ago, I think you would also argue that
people wouldn’t be talking to their iPhone 6. ... The acceleration of technology is not a steady thing—it’s actually ramping even faster. Does that mean we’re close to a Johnny Five-like autonomous robot buddy? There will be signs and wonders telling us we’ve
reached this stage of robotic evolution. We’re not there yet. The near-term that I’m seeing, by 2020, is being able to augment human shortages. ... But yes indeed, there will come a point where you could have robots that could be starting to be creative. There is definitely work in artificial intelligence where we’ve tried to understand what creativity means.
We are still cleaning up New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. It is projected that Fukushima cleanup will take until
Getting kids into science is key, and I think sci-fi can be a good entry point.
For some of my robotics colleagues, it was Star Wars. Two things that inspired me: The Six Million Dollar Man and Blade Runner. … I even say that Frankenstein is a robot, in some sense. I think Pinocchio is, the Tin Man. These are all robots that question existentialist identity—what does it mean to be human? What about what it means to be a robot? Your DARPA humanoid has wheels on its knees! I do not believe a robot has to
look and function the way people do. I would personally love to have an extra pair of hands and arms. Sometimes I wish I had a tail (laughs). … I think people are attracted to robotics because there’s an element of fantasy, regardless of age and culture, that has yet to be realized. Like flying used to be this fantasy. We’ve realized it. Going to the moon. Going underwater in the deep. But people have yet to get the robot of their dreams, whether it’s to be somebody that does your chores or is kind of like the buddy, the brother that you never had that will play baseball with you. I think that’s why robots still have this kind of allure. –Erin Ryan For more of our interview with Oh, visit lasvegasweekly.com.
“I think people are attracted to robotics because there’s an element of fantasy, regardless of age and culture, that has yet to be realized.”
January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
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Searching for an audience Troy Heard wants to bring the next wave of theater to Las Vegas, one experiment at a time By Jacob Coakley
After an early morning spent sketching outlines for an original production that will have audiences following military personnel, prostitutes and preachers through different rooms at a Downtown motel, Troy Heard has just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before heading to the dark theater to paint sets for his holiday show, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant. But right now, he’s not thinking about edgy, new-form theatricalism. He’s talking about the old chestnut Harvey, with its invisible 6-foot-tall rabbit. “It’s beautiful. It’s so good,” Heard gushes. “First of all, it’s funny as hell. It’s totally screwball and has these great characters that are completely over the top. But the message—it’s a salute to the happiness in insanity and the blissful ignorance of a cynical, grasping world.” We pick up our coffees and head outside so he can enjoy the crystal-blue sky for a minute. Heard squints into the sun, and it’s as if his glare turns to the play. “But it’s dark, too. I mean, Christ, there’s Jimmy Stewart, about to receive shock treatments! If you’re starting out and trying to be all artistic in
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theater, the idea of Harvey leaves a bad taste in your mouth—it’s not edgy enough. But if you read it!” He shakes his head and dismisses the idea of producing it any time soon. “It’s a well-made play, but it’s not what audiences want right now. Audiences—especially younger, millennial audiences—want experiences. They don’t want to just plop their money down to be entertained. They want to be involved, they want to be a part of the story and feel it that way, not just by watching it. How do you take them to that point? Not everything can do that. Not everything
“There needs to be an element of mo seats and going to different pl lends itself to that. But whatever can is worth trying.” If Heard is about anything, he’s about trying. His company, Table 8 Productions, is one of the most prolific in town. Through it he produced four shows last year, in addition to his freelance directing for Off-Strip Productions and Super Summer Theatre, not to mention directing Pawn Shop Live! at the Golden Nugget and later at the Riviera. The man generates material at a ferocious rate, and seems fearless when it comes to experimenting with old and new. Right now, that means trying fresh
ways of engaging audiences. “There needs to be an element of movement. How do you get the audience up out of their seats and going to different places? ... I don’t know, but I want to figure it out.”
***** Heard’s last attempt to figure it out came around Halloween, with Jonestown, an eerie, original work based on historical documents collected from Jonestown members, along with some reporting on the cult. It introduced audiences to cult members, moved them through a Jim photograph by steve marcus
> START THE SHOW Troy Heard is pushing hard for local theater, including his recent adoption of the Onyx.
exactly what is so captivating about Harvey—but in a form as unlike it as you can get.
*****
ovement. How do you get the audience up out of their laces? I don’t know, but I want to figure it out.” Jones sermon and finally enacted the last afternoon of the camp in Guyana. Set around the grounds of a local ranch, the play was more like a haunted house tour. Even for someone with a penchant for the horror genre— projects he’s directed include Blood Orgy of the Chainsaw Chorus Line and Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard of the Living Dead—asking audiences to take part in ritual mass-suicide seems like a lot to ask. But Heard dug in. He had faith that re-creating the morbidity of his childhood obsession with Jim Jones would resonate today, especially if he could capture
the snakelike indifference of the man pushing his followers to take one final plunge. So rehearsals were spent orienting cast members with the cultural tenor of the ’70s, discussing the gas crisis, the post-Vietnam malaise and the after-effects of the civil rights movement—and finding all these threads in primary historical documents collected by the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University. Finding the threads and weaving them into a larger tapestry took Heard in a new direction, forcing him to ask how he could create something
based on this multitude of stories, how he could stay true to these voices while building the conflict and structure of a traditional theatrical narrative. In the end, he sided more with the voices. “They were promised the world by Jim Jones—all they had to do was sign their life over,” he says, shaking his head. “And that’s something, the immensity of it was something we wanted you to experience. So no, you didn’t necessarily get a strong narrative throughline. It was more of an emotional throughline.” A powerful emotional throughline,
Jim Jones isn’t the only megalomaniac Heard has presented lately. His holiday show, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant, chronicled the life of L. Ron Hubbard in the form of an elementary-school pageant, complete with a cast consisting solely of kids. After one Friday night performance they swarmed around the stage and the seats in Art Square Theatre, teaching their younger siblings the songs and choreography, burning off the energy of the show. Heard stood at the door, a Santa Claus hat perched on his head, soliciting donations with a large Christmas stocking and smiling at the chaos. A delightful skewering of Scientology, the musical was written by Kyle Jarrow, but it was originally directed by New Yorker Alex Timbers, an artist for whom Heard has tremendous respect. “I think the guy’s a genius,” Heard says, and it’s not hard to see the influence. One of Timbers’ breakthrough moments came in 2006, when he staged an unironic Hell House in a Brooklyn theater, letting audiences walk through all the punishments that come from the wages of sin. Timbers also developed and directed the musical Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson (which Heard directed here in 2013) and is blazing a trail of shows adapted from historical figures and staged in unconventional ways that Heard is trying to replicate. He mentions his spring project, Motel, a reworking of a classic play called La Ronde, which presents 10 sexual encounters across all strata of 19th-century Viennese society, whores to counts. He’ll be working with actors to update the characters and situations, and presenting the scenes in different rooms of a motel Downtown. “It’s smart; it’s savvy; it’s theater for a new audience,” Heard says. If they’re willing to buy tickets to a play produced at an unknown location, if they’re invested enough to take that leap into interaction, why not more? He’s toying with the idea of bringing audiences into developing works earlier, letting them watch rehearsals and talk to the actors afterwards, and using viewers’ experiences and comments to build his shows. Jonestown sold well, but its audiences were, by necessity, small. And Scientology, despite glowing reviews, never turned into the hit Heard felt it should have been. So while he’s excited to create the next wave of theater January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
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> CULT FAVORITE A scene from Jonestown, one of Heard’s eerie, original works.
here, he’s nearing the limits of being fiscally able to do it, a point he underlines by holding up the Christmas stocking to show the donations he received. “There’s a reason I direct seven to 10 shows a year. You have to have the quantity, because you make a few dollars off of each show,” Heard says, before turning to say goodbye to the last few parents and their kids. When he comes back the Santa hat is off. “It’s also another reason I’m trying to get Table 8 some really strong legs and build some partnerships for some long-standing work. It’s stressful as hell. But the cost of living here is low enough that it’s worth the try. And like every stupid optimist, the next show is going to be the good one, the one we’re going to take out of here. The next one will make the rent. The next one will float you for a while. It’s extremely stressful, but right now it’s all I know.”
***** The next time we talk, it’s a cold, gray day in December a couple weeks later. Rumors have been circling that the Onyx Theatre will be closing. And then there are the rumors that it won’t close, that Heard will be buying it, or running it. He denied and denied via text—until I suddenly got a call from him saying he’d just picked up the Onyx’s keys and was stepping in to run it as producing director. “I love a challenge,” he laughs, his voice echoing in the empty theater. “It’s
The Valley’s theater scene, at a glance Asylum Theatre This company focuses on new work from up-andcoming playwrights, including a series of staged readings of worksin-progress from across the country asylumtheatre.org Cockroach Theatre The home company at Art Square Theatre produces a mix of classics and newer works, all with a feisty, combative edge. cockroachtheatre.com Las Vegas Little Theatre This pillar of Vegas theater produces mainstream theatrical fare with excellent production values on its larger main stage, while its Fischer Studio Black Box offers smaller productions with
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been home to a lot of companies, and I think it has a great amount of untapped potential.” He should know about both. Since Table 8 produced Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium there in 2011, Heard has been one of the Onyx’s most frequent tenants, whether producing his own work or directing for others. He starts laying out his vision for the space—cheap beer, good laughs—and
more teeth. lvlt.org Off-Strip Productions The in-house producing arm of the Onyx has taken a turn from musicals towards a more irreverent, comedic slate. onyxtheatre.com Poor Richard’s Players A serious theater company with a strong comedic backbone, Poor Richard’s will host a very literary 2015, with productions including Of Mice and Men, Frankenstein and Moby Dick— Rehearsed. poorrichardsplayers.com A Public Fit This company—created with the mission of paying its artists professional wages—began with a group of readings in houses, before producing its first full production last fall at Art Square. apublicfit.org Signature Productions This longtime Summerlin organization
how he’s going to reconcile that with core Onyx patrons who’ve come to expect musical theater and a significant gay presence. “While the Rack [BDSM boutique next to the theater] may be going away, it is definitely my mission to keep gay-friendly material, with Jamie Morris returning to the stage this summer,” he says. “And why would I not keep musicals? I have a soft spot in my heart for them. You
produces family-friendly musicals with large casts, loads of dancing and lavish production values. signatureproductions.net Sin City Opera “Yesterday’s opera today” is the slogan, and it’s delivered by a talented team and a slate that mixes the serious with the frothy. sincityopera.com Super Summer Theatre This 40-year-old institution offers quality, family-friendly musicals and comedies outdoors at Spring Mountain Ranch each summer and has even opened a studio closer to town that offers public classes. supersummmertheatre.org Table 8 Productions Focused on the funky and experiential, Table 8 seeks to expand what an audience can expect from a theatrical night out. table8lv.com –Jacob Coakley
may not see Songs for a New World, but you will see Bat Boy the Musical. You may not see Merrily We Roll Along, but you will see Heathers: The Musical.” You get the sense that it’s not so much a departure from his mission as another experiment in finding an audience—in a more traditional venue, if not form. Maybe this will be the perfect place to unveil his modern take on light-opera classic The Pirates of Penzance. “Gilbert and Sullivan are the Shakespeare of musical theater,” he says. “Shakespeare did the same thing. He took the popular stories of his time, ripped them apart and restructured them to find how they spoke to his audience. I want to do the same thing—bring it back, explore what it means and what it’s got to say to us. I want to do edgier stuff like Jonestown, like Motel—projects that aren’t The Odd Couple or Harvey. But you have to, you have to approach it with the same amount of entertainment value that those have,” he says, his voice rising. “That’s what makes it worthwhile—doing new things and trying to engage the audience on a brand new level. What’s going to become the next part of the canon? What’s going to become the next Odd Couple, or Harvey, or fill-in-the-blank?” That’s Heard’s self-appointed task right now. To fill in the blanks at the theater, and find new ways of engaging audiences with stories that demand to be seen, wherever they happen.
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“You know when you’re at a concert and all the lights go off, everybody’s cheering and you see the silhouettes coming out from the side of the stage? That was real life,” 23-yearold Brumby frontman Oliver Tingey says, reflecting on the folky rock band’s set opening for Imagine Dragons, December 11 at the Joint. “It was basically just a big audition, [and] I think we passed.” The singer, along with cousins Tyler and Spencer Tingey and longtime friend Dylan Self, grew up playing music together in Vegas but spent the past few years in Utah while the Tingeys attended BYU. Touring around a hectic class schedule and playing songs influenced by arena-rock bands like Coldplay and The Killers, Brumby caught on in Provo, then quickly began to amass a regional following. Tingey says the move to Vegas happened just as fast. “We were all signed up for classes for this coming semester. A couple days before the [Imagine Dragons] show, we were like, ‘You know what, let’s go.’ We sold our apartments, dropped our classes and moved down a couple days later.” Brumby released debut EP The Westwind Kid in March, and Oliver says writing remains the top priority. “The job right now is to write the best song the world has ever heard.” The industry-savvy quartet, which played its first Downtown show January 16 at Beauty Bar, also hopes to grow its Vegas fanbase—with a lofty end goal. “We really want to become the Las Vegas band, which I don’t think anybody’s done for a while.” brumby music.com –Leslie Ventura
photograph by adam shane; grooming by tai shane
January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
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“I just needed an outlet for all the energy I had,” says 22-year-old singer/guitarist Lance Bell. Having spent his childhood summers in Georgia, the Las Vegan packed his bags for Augusta State University, where he landed headfirst in Georgia’s grindcore music scene. But as the singer studied music composition and theory, he started searching for other forms of expression. “Growing up I really liked Black Sabbath,” especially the “fuzzy guitars,” Bell says. “I like songs with a lot of melody, but at the same time I like chaotic stuff, [so] I just started experimenting more with that.” Bell moved back to Vegas and recruited friends Guy Corleone (bass) and Alex Medina (keys), then added Ruben Marin (drums) to complete the band’s lineup. Luna Flore released its first EP, the six-song Bloom, recorded at Naked City Audio with John Kiehlbauch, in October 2014. It’s a sprawling journey through ’90s emo, shoegaze and post-hardcore (think: Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral). Experimenting with blank space and natural soundscapes, the four-piece cuts through each song with a sharp, discordant edge. “It’s not enough to be loved, it’s not enough to be careful,” Bell sings, his vocals carried away on a stormy sea of sweeping guitars and crashing cymbals. “Right now we’re putting together songs for another release,” Bell says, unsure whether it will be a second EP or a full-length. “Our biggest goal is to start playing out of state.” lunaflore. bandcamp.com –Leslie Ventura
Caesars Palace headliners and NFR week aside, Las Vegas has never been famous as a country-music stronghold, so sister duo Jill & Julia’s decision to move here instead of Nashville when relocating from Indiana seems … odd. “People are always asking us why,” 23-year-old Julia says, “but the truth is, Las Vegas is very kind to country music, and there’s a big market here.” The pair draws frequent comparisons to such favorite female artists as Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves. And like Musgraves, the sisters write and perform their own songs, most of them acoustically driven ballads with strong lyrics and catchy melodies. Location doesn’t seem to have impeded Jill & Julia’s rapid ascent over the past year and a half, which has seen them sign with Lamon Records, release a selftitled EP, perform at Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest Festival and complete a successful radio tour promoting single “Wildfire.” The duo is poised to release first fulllength album Cursed in February, describing the project as darker than previous work, lyrically and melodically. “I don’t think we used any major chords on it,” 18-year-old Jill says. The sisters insist that for them, success simply means the chance to play music full-time. Judging by their sound and momentum, a more exciting future isn’t a stretch. jillandjulia.com –Chris Bitonti
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luna flore by bill hughes; jill & Julia by adam shane; makeup & custom styling by tai shane
PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKAYLA WHITMORE
In the summer of 2014, Las Vegas local Shamir Bailey already seemed fast-tracked to stardom. But getting signed to XL Recordings—home to Jack White, FKA Twigs and Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace—just two months after the release of his debut EP? Surely no one saw that coming. Following the success of that EP, Northtown, and frequent mentions by the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Spin, the then-teenager packed his bags for New York City to record full-length Ratchet and embark on his only tour to date—in Europe. Now back in Vegas, Shamir continues to live a dual life: recognized on the streets of New York and virtually unnoticed in his hometown. “That’s what I love about Vegas,” Shamir, now 20, says. “It sometimes sucks that we’re a little behind on certain things, but it’s also good for me, because this is my escape, my getaway, where I’m just Shamir, before all this happened. My friends treat me the same.” You might not guess it from his disco-house-inspired R&B, but the singer grew up on punk rock, which continues to influence everything from his identity to his business choices. “I refuse to perform on the Strip,” Shamir says, pegging Las Vegas’ most famous street as the reason there aren’t any well-known all-ages venues here like the ones he frequented in New York. “Most of anything that matters to Vegas is just for tourists, not for the locals. I want to do something for the locals.” And just because he hasn’t played Vegas yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen. The plan, Shamir says, is to have his album-release party here in the spring. We can only hope someone makes that happen. soundcloud.com/ shamir326 –Leslie Ventura JANUARY 22–28, 2015 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM
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“If you’ve been waiting to get in the pit, now’s the time,” bassist Robert Jarman says, just before Opticleft launches into final number “Acresion” at the House of Blues. As bodies begin circling before them, Jarman, guitarist Alex Fields and drummer Ryan Miller nimbly steer through some impossibly fast stretches, their three instruments coalescing into a single, spacedevouring force. The Vegas trio began gigging as Opticleft just 14 months ago, but Jarman and Miller have played together in bands since their mid-2000s high-school days, and began jamming with Fields seven years ago. Since forming Opticleft—a made-up word that’s
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easy to chant and looks cool in jagged font—the three have shared one house, practicing often in its converted master bedroom. “I think a lot of people would assume they’re a touring band, because of how tight they are,” local promoter Patrick “Pulsar” Trout says. Opticleft’s lone out-of-town show thus far was a big one: October’s Slipknot-headlined Knotfest in San Bernardino, California, landed by winning a Vegas battle of the bands. The trio continues to gain momentum on the local front—playing Las Vegas Death Fest, opening for Cattle Decapitation and scoring prime time-slots for other gigs—and plans to record a debut album this spring. “It feels like
things are snowballing, getting bigger and faster,” says Fields, who also serves as the band’s lead vocalist and lyricist. At House of Blues, toward the end of a six-band, all-Vegas metal bill, Opticleft’s inclusive musical blend keeps a sizeable crowd present and focused. “We all come from different metal backgrounds,” Miller explains, listing Meshuggah, Death and Necrophagist among the group’s diverse influences. “Our bass player is into thrashier metal, I’m the death-metal guy and our guitar player is more into black metal. We take inspiration from all different styles and incorporate it into one.” opticleftofficial. bandcamp.com –Spencer Patterson photograph by bill hughes
The amount of hip-hop talent coming out of quiet Clark County neighborhoods is the strongest omen for 2015 being local rap’s year, and spearheading that effort is 26-year-old west-side native Euroz. Sliding himself somewhere between the hard-edged f*ck-you-ups of the A$AP Mob and the interior exposure of Drake, his first blog notice came with the mixtape The Foundation in 2012, leading to his first fulllength, Memories of the Future, leading to tours with local favorite Dizzy Wright and the attention of DJ Drama. With 2015 comes the anticipated release of two records: the soul-leaning True Liiies and The Foundation 3, in so many words his magnum opus, which involves flights to record in Atlanta for some guidance by Coach K (the former manager of Jeezy and Gucci Mane), and some host work by DJ Drama himself. Euroz already has the package— the production, the raps congruent with radio music, the beefy, tattooed profile—and he has the work ethic of a man who’s been told “no” but isn’t listening. soundcloud.com/iameuroz –Max Plenke
Clint Holmes hit Sand Dollar Lounge one night last fall, a little past midnight. He sat in that tavern’s VIP area, two sofas set side by side at one end of the club, as the act he’d heard so much about, The Rockie Brown Band, thundered through its two-hour set. Brown and her seven-piece backing band—powered by a four-man horn section—ripped through a set dedicated almost exclusively to originals from upcoming album Brand New Day. Past 1 a.m., the crowd was up and dancing to “Meet Me on the Dance Floor,” one of many Brown originals that’s catchy as anything played on today’s FM radio. “You’re a great performer,” Holmes said afterward, “and you’re a great songwriter.” That opinion is widespread, as Rockie has evolved from a small rhythm section into a full-force band loaded with some of the city’s top musicians. After several months at Sand Dollar (known for a time as Bar 702), Brown and her band have since moved to midnights on Monday at Tuscany’s T Spot Lounge. The Rockie Brown Band is a classic case of a band developing a sound that’s uniformly appealing, but maddening to define. Pop, soul, jazz and funk are in play. You can move to the Brown sound, or just sit and wait for the tide to roll in. As Brown, a Vegas native, says, “I think it’s cool that you kind of can’t define our sound.” Not even she knows just where this will all lead. But for now she’s growing something special in the small music haunts of Las Vegas. facebook.com/therockiebrownband –John Katsilometes EUROZ BY CHRISTOPHER DEVARGAS; THE ROCKIE BROWN BAND BY SPENCER BURTON
JANUARY 22–28, 2015 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM
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Who’s Barnabus Wu? The identity of Bombay Heavy’s frontman was a mystery to most when the band debuted online last summer with a handful of songs and a photo of a distinguished older gentleman in a striped suit. Could he be Wu? And what of the affiliation with The Killers’ Mark Stoermer and Dave Keuning, both listed in the project’s musical credits? The search for answers eventually led to David Hopkins, a Dublin native living in Las Vegas. In his previous musical phase, he played in Irish outfit LiR and released several solo albums, one featuring a duet with countryman Damien Rice. But Bombay Heavy, Hopkins says, marks the start of a new phase. “I hate my old singer-songwriter stuff. Now I’m back into what I really love—Zeppelin, Floyd, The Who.” Bombay Heavy’s first tracks indeed recall those classic influences, along a spectrum from barroom blues-rock to sunny psychedelia. Drummer Rob Whited (Most Thieves) and guitarist Zamo Riffman (aka Irishman Eamonn Griffin) are the other constants; the two Killers pop in to help; and the man in that original photo, well, he contributes, too. “That’s Tony Curtis, an English dude who lives here in Vegas,” Hopkins says. “I had the idea he could narrate, so he’s on some of the songs. Great dude.” Plans call for an April 24 live debut at the Bunkhouse, the release of a full album in the spring and some touring after that, for which the man calling himself Barnabus Wu is working up some special visual aids. “There’s an old English cartoon [with a character] called Noseybonk; he had this mad f*cking head with a giant nose, so that’s gonna be part of the show. It’s freaky. It’ll scare the sh*t out of everyone.” bombayheavy.bandcamp.com –Spencer Patterson
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bombay heavy photos by christopher devargas & gerry balfe. illustration by corlene byrd; sounds of threat by Levi Velasquez
Though they’ve been a band since 2009, Sounds of Threat didn’t release a full-length until last November, following a May signing with local punk-crusader label SquidHat Records. Musically, Threat is frenetic and rough around the edges, along the lines of Bad Brains and Minor Threat, and devoid of polish—think matte-black punk rock. Still juiced up from the first album release, rhythm guitarist Amy Pate (you’ll recognize her as Candy Warpop’s leading lady) says there are plans to get another LP out toward the middle of the year, hopefully in time for Punk Rock Bowling, where Sounds of Threat will open the main stage on Saturday. But the serious move comes toward the middle of the year: The band has plans for a western U.S. tour with labelmates The Gashers, making it the first time the band has gone on the road for any extended period. Touring has increasingly become the mark of serious Las Vegas bands, as they look to break into more saturated markets. And considering Sounds of Threat has done more in the past few months than in the rest of its five-odd years of existence, a 2015 tour seems like the perfect way to earn some additional stripes. facebook.com/ soundsofthreat –Max Plenke
photograph by christopher devargas
When local producer/DJ J Diesel queried Life Nightclub about opening for Hot Since 82, Loco Dice and Richie Hawtin last fall, he says the club ignored him every time— despite the fact that those three titans of house/techno actually play his music. With 2013’s “Outside in a Box” and last year’s “Moonlight” and “The Library,” the Sacramento native and 18-year DJ has garnered the support of several high-profile DJs. Not bad for a guy who started spinning hip-hop in 1997 and only switched to dance music after a revelatory trip to 2008’s Electric Daisy Carnival in LA. A year later, he suddenly quit his corporate job and moved to Las Vegas. “I’m usually pretty calculated with my decisions, [but] I just said, screw it.” While Diesel took steady gigs at venues like Artisan and Share—the latter two requiring him to play commercial music—he focused on crafting house music at home, evolving toward darker tones, textural synth melodies and found sounds. His tracks found dance-label homes; Definitive Recordings released “Outside,” his most impactful track to date. He even has video of deep-house figurehead Maceo Plex playing it in Ibiza. “That was insane for me, because he’s not only one of the most influential producers, but he’s my favorite.” Which means very little to the status quo of Strip nightlife, but Diesel keeps things in perspective. “I don’t think anything will happen for me in Vegas— unless the style in Vegas really turns around,” he says. “Whether it does or doesn’t, I don’t care. Vegas has afforded me the ability to make the music I wanna make and live a decent life and work. I enjoy my job.” soundcloud.com/ jdieselmusic –Mike Prevatt January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
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> ON THE FLY Antonio Cuna, aka Sweater Beats, drops in at Beauty Bar.
HOT SPOTS SWEATER BEATS AT BEAUTY BAR Antonio Cuna blurs the lines between DJ set and live set, his Ableton Live prowess enabling him to essentially remix tracks—by other producers and himself— while he’s playing them for audiences. And speaking of blurred lines: Cuna’s sound is a blissed-out, electro-infused take on modern R&B, chock full of melodic vocals and bedroom breakbeats. Locals Byra Tanks, King and Beast Fremont open. January 22, doors at 9 p.m., $12. HAVANA BROWN AT DRAI’S The Australian beat beauty, best known for her 2011 Pitbull collabo “We Run the Night,” released two new tunes in 2014— including “Whatever We Want,” a collabo with dance-music vet Richard Vission—so stream ’em online before she serves as headliner at the rooftop Cromwell club Thursday night. January 22, doors at 10:30 p.m., $30+ men, $20+ women. TOMMY LEE AND DJ AERO AT VANITY The hordes of millennials
8
queuing up for porn-star pics at AVN Awards won by AVN Week this weekend probably Jesse Jane, most recently won’t understand the significance two in 2012, including of a Tommy Lee appearance at the MICHAEL WOODS AT LIFE You Best Supporting adult-film trade show (hint: Google know the story: International DJ Actress. “Tommy and Pam”). Regardless, here’s moves to Las Vegas, starts major hoping the Mötley Crüe drummer keeps club residency. Oh, that’s right, that’s his pants on when he joins his rap-metal only happened twice. Here’s a much group Methods of Mayhem’s beat-slinger DJ Aero more familiar story: International DJ moves at Vanity, open for this special event. January 23, residency from one club to another. The Englanddoors at 10 p.m. for AVN passholders, 11:30 p.m. for born, Henderson-dwelling Michael Woods offigeneral public, $50 men, $30 women, free for AVN cially moves up the Strip from Hakkasan to Life this passholders. Friday to kickstart his new Tequila Nites promo. Expect lots of trance- and electro-flavored EDM and, ultimately, lot of tequila. January 23, doors at JESSE JANE AT 1 OAK As an AVN Hall of Famer 10:30 p.m., $30+ men, $20+ women. with multiple award wins and two years hosting the annual “Oscars of Porn” under her belt—not to mention Playboy TV hosting gigs and crossWINTERFEST AT BIG DOG’S DRAFT HOUSE The over work that includes a one-off role on HBO’s local brewery’s annual winter seasonal sipping Entourage—the adult-film starlet probably has one returns on Saturday, with cold-weather brews from of the most polished résumés in the adult entertainthe host brewery along with fellow locals like ment industry. She joins fellow starlets Samantha Crafthaus, Hop Nuts and Triple 7 on tap, not to Saint and Kaylani Lei for an AVN weekend bash mention varieties from regional titans Deschutes, at the Mirage club Friday night. Cold shower not Brooklyn Brewery and Ninkasi. Live music, Big included. January 23, doors at 10:30 p.m., $40+ men, Dog’s Wisconsin-inspired menu and raffles round $30+ women. out the brew-soaked bash (which is also sponsored
CLUB HOPPING Nightlife news & notes Omnia Nightclub isn’t even open yet, and it’s proving to be every bit the EDM bruiser that its sister venue Hakkasan became upon its April 2013 birth. Omnia’s January 20 DJ lineupreveal includes some major names, including ones the 75,000-square-foot Caesars Palace venue had to pilfer from competitors, such as Armin van Buuren (from Marquee) and Krewella and Nicky Romero (from Light). Meanwhile, Afrojack, Martin Garrix and Nervo move over from Hakkasan. Chuckie (also picked off from Marquee) and
26 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM JANUARY 22–28, 2015
by the Weekly). January 24, 3-9 p.m., free entry. DJ Z-TRIP AT BROOKLYN BOWL The Phoenix-born multigenre producer/turntablist played mashups before they were cool, and well enough to be voted America’s Best DJ by DJ Times readers. He also had a Vegas DJ residency—at the currently mothballed Rain inside the Palms—before it was cool, with his Revolution night in 2009 filling the programming hole left by DJ AM’s death. Which means the dude is honorary nightlife family, so welcome him back. Rhyme N Rhythm open. January 24, doors at 8 p.m., $15. MISS NINE AT XS Her roots are in modeling, but the woman born Kristin Schrot became so smitten with the club scene once she moved from Germany to Amsterdam that she became a DJ. Though she came up through the progressive house scene, her style skews toward commercial house and trance— though if her latest Nine Sessions radio show is any indication, she’s not another Beatport Top 20 regurgitator. January 24, doors at 10 p.m., $30+ men, $20+ women.
Showtek (a 2014 Drai’s resident) are also on the roster, as is Oliver Heldens, landing his first Vegas residency. Notably absent from the lineup: Calvin Harris, long rumored to be moving from Hakkasan (whose 2015 roster was released two weeks ago sans the superstar’s name) to Omnia. Perhaps he’ll stay put—or get his own announcement, as Tiësto did for Hakkasan. Omnia’s social-media channels have been touting another reveal on January 26—which could also give Hakkasan Group an opportunity to confirm rumors that it’s renovating and taking over Caesars’ Shadow Lounge. Also: Life has signed another resident act to its own enviable stable:
The Stafford Brothers, formerly a Light act. –Mike Prevatt Happy anniversary, After! The crew celebrates a year of bringing sounds to the underground—and its debut at Body English—with a post-peak-hour bash on February 7, headlined by Max Graham and supported by locals Spacebyrdz and Justin Baulé. “Max is the first headliner that After had,” says managing partner Thom Svast. “With this being close to After’s oneyear anniversary, we found it fitting to bring him back.” While Graham can go from deeper, tech-ier house styles and techno to trance, he still veers away from the usual commercial soundtrack of the Strip. –Deanna Rilling
TM
now open
Big Flavors. Epic Drinks. World Food.
NIGHTS
> No Wing left behind Carnage takes on Wicked Spoon between Chipotle visits.
Off the beaten path Epyk Entertainment provides an alternative to the megaclub scene
Life is a feast
From food to music genres, variety suits the insatiable Carnage By Sarah Feldberg
28 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
CARNAGE BY BILL HUGHES; epyk Entertainment by fred morledge
supply from the company via a magical “Carnage card” From behind dark sunglasses, Diamante Blackmon that rings up every order as $0.00) and for bouncing surveys the feast. There’s sushi and brownies, a pile between genres, from trap to house to dubstep and bass, of crab legs, a couple mocha Rice Krispies Treats and almost mocking the labels some use to distinguish this something that looks vaguely Mexican. It’s a lavish beat from that one. He hints that his upcoming debut sampling from Cosmopolitan’s Wicked Spoon buffet, album might include collaborations with Tiësto, Garth but Blackmon, known to his fans as Carnage, is eyeing a Brooks and Rick Ross. humble chicken wing. Before becoming a DJ, Carnage was just a kid who “Can I take a bite of that?” he asks, gingerly lifting liked music. He worked as a greeter at PacSun and as one off the plate. “This is the best chicken wing I’ve a bagger at a local grocery store, quitting both ever had,” he says mid-chew, not even cracking after two months. Now, he’s living out the dream a smile. CARNAGE of every bedroom Tiësto, playing to crowds who Once upon a time, the DJ/producer wanted January 24, jump up and down on his command, traveling to be a chef. “I went through a phase when 10 p.m., $40+ the world and hearing the titans of his industry Emeril [Lagasse] was a god to me,” he says, but men, $20+ spin his songs. He’s even made enough money that was a long time ago. Last year saw Carnage women. to give back, which he did in December, sponplaying festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, Marquee, 702soring the creation of the Children’s Learning embarking on a headlining tour and holding 333-9000. Center in Villa Japón, Nicaragua. down a Monday-night Carnage in Black & White But the fame has its downsides: the brutal residency at Marquee, where he’ll take the travel schedule, trash talk on Twitter, a rumor that cirbooth this Saturday. culated online that he killed four people when he stage“I kinda do my own thing,” he says of playing the big dove at a show in Ibiza. Carnage says he’s even received room at the Cosmopolitan club. “I do what I want and I death threats. “‘Dance is so PLUR [Peace Love Unity play what I like.” Respect].’ It’s exactly the opposite.” That attitude defines Carnage, a soft-spoken guy who He says he’s trying to stay positive, keep it all in perlived in Guatemala when he was young and is simultaspective. “It’s more than worth it. If I can do this the rest neously sweet and confrontational. He’s known for his of my life, I’d gladly do it.” love of Chipotle Mexican Grill (he received a lifetime
Leave the uncomfortable dressshoes at home, because the underground is where it’s at in 2015. Much like the 1990s rave parties, which provided an alternative to the strict door policies and commercial pop music at nightclubs, the local scene has turned to unconventional locations and events to counter the confetti showers and lasergasms of clubs on the Strip. Epyk Entertainment is one of the crews hosting such events, and following its successful New Year’s Eve party at a southwest warehouse is a discothemed one at the Artistic Armory called Funk Winter. “[Epyk] started as a crew of FUNK WINTER friends back in the January 24, doors Rain days,” says at midnight, $10. co-founder Stevie Artistic Armory, Mac, who also 5087 Arville St., makes nightclub Suite E, epykenter appearances tainment.com. dressed in a mirrored suit. “The Rain days” refer to the Palms’ now-closed nightclub, where Mac and his friends met and hung out. “We just started growing as a crew and late 2011; everyone was like, you guys should start doing events. My passion was always events.” To mix things up, Saturday’s gathering encourages attendees to rock their funkiest ’70s gear. “I feel like people are willing to be a bit crazier or more in tune when they’re dressed up,” Mac says. Pioneering local Robert Oleysyck will be performing a rare set, along with Zaiku, Jon Bo, Michael Blain, Travis Harrington vs. Easy and other DJs whose non-mainstream musical preferences reflect the party’s anti-megaclub spirit— as does the laidback atmosphere Mac seeks to create. “If you’re tired of the Las Vegas cliché of money and bling and lights and stuff, and you really enjoy music and good people and being yourself and not being judged, [you’ll] be comfortable at one of our events for sure.” –Deanna Rilling
THURSDAY, JANUARY 29
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13
adelitas way/ otherwise
w/ leroy sanchez
w/ moksha
w/ dillon cooper, blackbear & more
kate voegele
radio contraband presents
6pm • All Ages
w/ one, like a storm
the new mastersounds mod sun 7pm • Ages 21+
5pm • All Ages
7:30pm • Ages 21+
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14
reel big fish & less than jake
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20
10pm • Ages 18+
the pitcher
the tuesday blend
w/ authority zero
ravealation presents
FRIDAY, MARCH 13
w/ lady faith, darksiderz
w/ senses fail, man overboard, & seaway
8pm • Ages 18+
5:30pm • All Ages
bayside
7pm • Ages 18+
coming soon 1/22 natty vibes/ junior reid 2/1
the big game on the strip
2/15 dunkxchange 3/3
the tuesday blend
3/5
digitour 2015
3/24 the devil wears prada 3/27 iamsu!
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT TICKETWEB.COM OR +1-866-468-3399. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL THE HARD ROCK LIVE BOX OFFICE AT +1-702-733-7625 ARTISTS, SHOWTIMES & PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE. SHOWS MARKED ALL AGES - UNDER 16 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A GUARDIAN 18+
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KENNY DAVIDSEN LAURA SHAFFER PIANO BAR
Winner of Open Table’s
BEST ITALIAN AWARD
DINER’S CHOICE: 2 YEARS IN A ROW
Wine’s Spectator’s Best of 2014
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
with Celebrity Guests
FRIDAYS | 10p = 2a| T-SPOT LOUNGE
THURSDAYS & MONDAYS
7:30p - 11:30p | PIAZZA LOUNGE
CORRO VAN SUCH MOONSHINERS Tuesdays B.M.A. and Academy of America’s Best Jazz Band
SATURDAYS | 8:30p | T-SPOT LOUNGE
8:30p - 12:30p | PIAZZA LOUNGE
255 E. F L A M I N G O R D. J U S T E A S T O F T H E S T R I P | 702.893.8933 | T U S C A N Y LV.CO M
LAS VEGAS WEEKLY CLUB GRID
VENUE
THURSDAY
1 OAK
Closed
ALIBI
DJs, 10 pm; lounge open 24 hours
ARTIFICE
FRIDAY Jesse Jane, Samantha Saint, Kaylani Lei
host; doors at 10:30 pm; $40+ men, $30+ women
Thursday Request Live Roc2; 10 pm; free; doors at 5 pm
DJs, 10 pm; lounge open 24 hours
Sound + Vision
Daniel Isle Sky, A Capo For Kevin, Megan Barker; 10 pm; free; doors at 5 pm
Sound
ARTISAN
Lounge open 24 hours
THE BANK
Glitz & Glamour Champagne Thursday: champagne for women until 1 am; doors 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Sweater Beats
BEAUTY BAR
DJs Byra Tanks, Beast Fremont, King; doors at 9 pm; $12
Latin Ladies Night
BLUE MARTINI
#FollowMe Fridays DJs Eman, Que; doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Payola Presley
Willa, Dig the Kid; doors at 9 pm; free
Friday Night Live
DJ E-Rock
Doors at 10:30 pm; $40+ men, $30+ women
DJs, 10 pm; lounge open 24 hours
DJ M!KEATTACK
Burning Angel Awards After Party JoAnna Angel, others host; live acts and DJs; $10 men, women free; doors 9 pm
EDM Saturdays
Dylan Ryder
Adam & Eve Awards Afterparty
Happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
Friday Night Social
DJ Carlos Sanchez, 9 pm; happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
Closed
Doors at 10:30 pm; $40+ men, $30+ women, locals free
WEDNESDAY Closed
Lounge open 24 hours
Lounge open 24 hours
Lounge open 24 hours
Lounge open 24 hours
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
Double D Karaoke
Lounge open 24 hours
Lounge open 24 hours
DJ Mayket, 10 pm, free; live jazz, 6-10 pm, free; lounge open 24 hours
Closed
Closed
Closed
Industry Night: Metal Mondays
Nickel Beer Night: Skyfall Records Launch
One of a Kind
Social Sundays
Karma Sundays
AVN Awards Disco Party (Vanity)
CHATEAU
Closed
DJ Five
Doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Tommy Lee and DJ Aero (Vanity)
hosts; doors at 10:30 pm, $30+ men, $20+ women; local women free
TUESDAY
DJ JustIN Key, Double J, midnight, free; drink specials, 11 pm-1 am; lounge open 24 hours
Booty Nights
Closed
MONDAY
DJ Joey Mazzola; 10 pm; $10, women and locals free; lounge open 24 hours
DJs, 10 pm; live music, 9 pm; happy hour, 4-8 pm; $10 men, $5 women after 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
Doors at 10 pm (passholders), 11:30 pm (public); $30-$50
SUNDAY
Nerdlesque
Raspberry Blond Cabaret; 10 pm; $10 for performance room, free for bar access; doors 5 pm
Live music, 9 pm; DJ Jace 1; happy hour, 4-8 pm; $10 men, $5 women after 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
BODY ENGLISH
Downtown Cocktail Room
DJs Justin Hoffman, Eddie McDonald, Frank Richards, others; 10 pm; $10; women, locals free; open 24 hours
SATURDAY
Live music, 9 pm; halfprice happy hour, 4-8 pm; $10 men, women free after 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
DJ Loczi; doors at 10 pm (AVN passholders), 11:30 pm (public); $30-$50
SPONSORED BY: draiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nightclub
Listings are accurate as of press time. For more info, contact venues directly.
Doors at 10 pm (passholders), 11:30 pm (public); $30-$50
Teagan Presley, others host; DJs; doors 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Saturday Night Vibe
DJ Douglas Gibbs, 9 pm; happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
DJs Whoo Kid, Karma, Shift; doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Jeff Mix
Biltmore Boys, Royal Hounds; free; doors at 9 pm
Sunday Sessions
10 pm, free; doors at 5 pm
Latin Revolution
Doors at 9 pm; free
Lit
Splitbreed; doors at 9 pm; $5
Karate Karaoke Doors at 9 pm; free
Ladies Night Out
DJ ROB & The Star One All Stars Band live, 6 pm; happy hour 4-8 pm, doors at 4 pm
DJs Exile, Tommy Lin; half-off drinks for industry; happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm
$4 Blue Moons; happy hour w/half-price drinks, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm
Half-off drinks for women; live music, 9 pm; happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
DJ ShadowRed; doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women, locals free
Closed
Happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
10 pm; happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
DJ Koko
Cymatic Sessions
Happy hour, 4-8 pm; doors at 4 pm; free
NIGHTS | club grid
Listings are accurate as of press time. For more info, contact venues directly.
VENUE
THURSDAY
DRAI’S AFTERHOURS
Doors at midnight; $30 men, $20 women
DRAI’S NIGHTCLUB
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; live music, 7-10 pm; doors at 5 pm
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; live music, 7-10 pm; doors at 5 pm
Karma
Bubbles For Beauties
FIZZ
FOUNDATION ROOM
Afterhours
Havana Brown
10 pm; $30
DJ Benny Black
GHOSTBAR
Doors at 8 pm; $20 men, $10 women, locals free before midnight
Ladies Night
GILLEY’S
Chad Freeman Band, 9 pm; $1 drafts/wells for women, 7-10 pm; doors at 11 am
Rev. Run & Ruckus
HAKKASAN
DJ OB-One; doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
HYDE
Patrick Sieben live, 9 pm; doors at 5 pm
INSERT COIN(S)
DJ Silent John
LAS VEGAS BULL
$1 drinks for women; $30 all-you-can Jack Daniels boots, $20 all-you-can PBR boots; doors at 7 pm; $10
Live Thursdays
Doors at 8 pm; free
Ladies’ Night
FRIDAY Afterhours
Doors at midnight; $30 men, $20 women
3LAU
DJs Eric Forbes, Marc Mac; free champagne/vodka for women; 9:30 pm; $30
SATURDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
Closed
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Closed
Nick Cannon (DJ set); doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Closed
Closed
Closed
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; live music, 7-10 pm; doors at 5 pm
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; doors at 5 pm
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; doors at 5 pm
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; doors at 5 pm
Two-hour Bottomless Bubbles, 5-7 pm and 7-9 pm, $36; doors at 5 pm
DJ Eric Forbes
DJ Marc Mac
DJ Casanova
DJ Kay TheRiot
Doors at 10 pm; $30
Afterhours
Doors at midnight; $30 men, $20 women
Borgeous
DJ Marc Mac; 10 pm; $30
GBDC: Toga Party
DJ Exodus
DJ Benny Black; doors at 8 pm; $25 men, $20 women
Doors at 1 pm, $10, local women, AVN passholders free. Night: Doors at 8 pm; $20-$25
Chad Freeman Band
Chad Freeman Band
live, 10 pm; drink specials, 7-10 pm; doors at 11 am; $10-$20 after 10 pm
live, 10 pm; drink specials, 7-10 pm; doors at 11 am; $10-$20 after 10 pm
Steve Aoki
Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano
DJs Mark Eteson, OB-One, Phoreyz; doors at 10:30 pm; $50+ men, $30+ women
DJ Konflikt
DJs Mark Eteson, Brisk, OB-One; doors 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Afterhours
Doors at midnight; $30 men, $20 women
10 pm, $30+ men, $20+ women; doors at 5 pm, free
Game Over Fridays
Saturday Night Live
DJs Seany Mac, Mikey Francis; doors at 8 pm; $10, $5 locals
Doors at 8 pm; $10, $5 locals
18 and Over
Locals Stampede
Dance lessons; $30 all-you-can Jack Daniels boots; doors 7 pm; $10, $5 for locals w/ID
Country Club
WEDNESDAY
Sundrai’s
10 pm; $30
DJ bRadical
Doors at 8 pm; $20 men, $10 women
Bikini Bull Riding
$200 prize; LoCash Cowboys live, 9:30 pm; 2-for-1 drink specials, 7-10 pm; doors at 11 am
10 pm, $30
DJ Seany Mac
Doors at 8 pm; $20 men, $10 women
Locals Night
10 pm; $30
DJ Seany Mac
Doors at 8 pm; $20 men, $10 women
DanSing Karaoke
DJ SINcere
DJ Exodus
Doors at 8 pm; $20 men, $10 women
DanSing Karaoke
Line dance lessons, 7 pm; LoCash Cowboys live, 9:30 pm; drink specials; doors at 11 am
8 pm; line dance lessons, 7 pm; drink specials; doors at 11 am
8 pm; line dance lessons, 7 pm; 2-for-1 drink specials, 7-10 pm; beer pong; doors at 11 am
DJ set; DJ Mark Eteson; doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Closed
Closed
Closed
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
DJ Crooked; 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women; doors at 5 pm, free
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 8 pm; free
Closed
Closed
Doors at 8 pm; free
Closed
Closed
Closed
Doors at 5 pm
Fergie
DJ Loczi
10 pm, $30+ men, $20+ women; doors at 5 pm, free
Drink specials for 21+; dance lessons; doors at 7 pm; $10, $15 for 18-20
SUNDAY
Lost Angels
$75 GETS YOU ALL THE ACTION
FOR THE BIG GAME
Includes: Buffet, beer, wine, well drinks and big game viewing. Doors open at 2:30 PM and goes until the last second of the game. You must be 21 year of age or older to attend the Big Game party.
115 E. TROPICANA • WWW.HOOTERSCASINOHOTEL.COM
LAS VEGAS WEEKLY CLUB GRID
VENUE
THURSDAY
LAX
DJ Mike Bless; doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women
LEVEL 107
DJ Dezie
11 pm; doors at 4 pm
LIAISON
Lambda Lambda Nu
Fantasy Fridays
Closed
Doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Doors at 10:30 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Tony Arzadon
Sultan & Ned Shepard
DJ Wellman
DJ Ayler; doors at 10 pm; $20+
LIFE
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
LIGHT
live; doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
MANDARIN BAR
FRIDAY DJ Wellman
DJ Mike Bless; doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women
DJs, 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
DJ Laszlo; doors at 10 pm; $20+
Michael Woods
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Live music
PBR ROCK BAR
REVOLUTION LOUNGE
Panorama Saturdays
DJ Dezie; $5 Absolut drinks, 1-4 am; 11 pm; 15% off bottles; doors at 4 pm
Brandon Wilde, Dylan Knight host; DJs Mash-Up King, Ayler; doors at 10 pm; $20+
Erick Morillo
DJ Tony Arzadon; doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Live music
Closed
Doors at 10 pm, $40+ men, $20+ women
Ladies Night
2-for-1 beer pong, $22, 11 am-9 pm; 100 oz. beer tower, $35; doors at 8 am
2-for-1 beer pong, $22, 11 am-9 pm; 100 oz. beer tower, $35; doors at 8 am
Des’Ree St. James hosts, $8 drinks w/text (“GAY” to 83361), 10 pm, free; open 24 hours
Get Back Thursdays
DJ G-Minor; doors at 10 pm; $20 men, women free
F*ck it Fridays
India Ferrah, De’Ree St. James hosts, DJs Vago, Virus, 10 pm, free; open 24 hours
DJ Sincere
Doors at 10 pm; $20 men, women free
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
DJ Dezie
Woman Crush Wednesday
Scenic Sundays
Sky High Mondays
DJ Kittie; 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
DJ Girl 6; 2-4-1 drinks for locals, $5 Skyy drinks, 1-4 am; 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
11 pm; doors at 4 pm
DJ Dezie; 2-4-1 drinks for women; 11 pm; doors at 4 pm
Doors at 10 pm; $20+; locals free
Closed
Closed
Closed
Danny Avila
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Live jazz
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
Closed
Closed
Liaison Undressed
DJ Gil Glaze; doors at 10 pm; $40+ men, $20+ women
$1 vodka for women, 9 pm, $5; 2-for-1 beer pong, $22, 11 am-9 pm; doors at 8 am
SUNDAY
DJ Wellman
DJ Mike Bless; doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women
9 pm; free; doors at 4:30 pm
Bare
PIRANHA
SATURDAY
Doors at 5 pm
Tritonal
MARQUEE
SPONSORED BY: crown & anchor
Listings are accurate as of press time. For more info, contact venues directly.
9 pm; free; doors at 4:30 pm
Carnage
Selfie Saturday
Xtravaganza show w/ Kenneth Blake, 10 pm, free; 2-for-1 drinks, noon-8 pm; open 24 hours
DJ G Minor
Doors at 10 pm; $20 men, women free
1350 east troPicana (troP & maryland)
Doors at 10:30 pm; $25+
6 pm; free; doors at 5 pm
Crizzly and Kennedy Jones
Closed
DJ Lema; doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women, locals free
#Social Sundays
Beer Pong Tournament
$20 open bar 9 pm-1 am w/social media follow; $50 open bar; doors at 8 am
El Deseo
DJs Virus, Vago; $5 mystery drinks; 10 pm; free; drink specials, 5-9 pm; open 24 hours
9 p.m.; $25 open bar until 2 a.m.; doors at 8 am
Hot Mess
Karaoke Night
10 pm; 2-for-1 beer pong, $22, 11 am-9 pm; doors at 8 am
La Noche
Stellar
2-for-1 beer pong, $22, 11 am-9 pm; 100 oz. beer tower, $35; doors at 8 am
Boylesque
Hosted by Des’Ree St. James, 10 pm, free; half-off drinks w/industry ID, 4-9 pm; open 24 hours
DJ Majesty, Vago, 10 pm; karaoke w/Sheila, 7-11 pm; 2-for-1 drinks, noon-8 pm; free; open 24 hours
with India Ferrah, 10 pm, free; 2-for-1 drinks, noon-8 pm; open 24 hours
Closed
Closed
Closed
Revo Sundays
DJ Tracy Young; doors at 10 pm; $20, locals free before midnight
702.739.8676 | Pets Welcome on Patio
LAS VEGAS WEEKLY CLUB GRID
VENUE
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
REVOLVER
Closed
Drink specials; Line Dancing 101, 8-9:15 pm; doors at 8 pm; $5 after 10 pm
ROCKHOUSE
Happy hour, 2-6 pm, 11 pm-2 am; $50 open bar; Kill the Keg unlimited drafts, $20, 2-9 pm; doors at 11 am
Happy hour, 2-6 pm, 11 pm-2 am; $50 open bar; Kill the Keg unlimited drafts, $20, 2-9 pm; doors at 11 am
$50 open bar; 100 oz. beer tower, $35; doors at 8:30 am
Sessions
Sessions with Tess Henley
Fireball Fridays
SAYERS CLUB
Dan Fester
live; doors at 7 pm, free
All You Can Drink
SHARE
DJ Diesel; $10 liquor bust; doors at 10 pm; free
SURRENDER
Closed
TAO
Doors at 10 pm; $20+ men, $10+ women
DJ Five
The Affair
TRYST
TUSCANY
DJ Alie Layus; doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women, local ladies, industry free
Laura Shafer Vintage Vegas Cocktail Party
Piazza Lounge; 8:30 pm, free
Anahata Circus
SPONSORED BY: ghostbar
Listings are accurate as of press time. For more info, contact venues directly.
Live music, 10:30 pm, free; doors at 7 pm
Stripper Circus Doors at 10 pm; free
Grandtheft
Doors at 10:30 pm; $35+ men, $25+ women
DJ Politik
Doors at 10 pm; $20+ men, $20+ women
DJ Turbulence
SATURDAY Silver Saturdays
Drink specials; line dancing 101, 8-9:15 pm; doors at 8 pm; $5 after 10 pm
Live music, 9 pm, free; doors at 7 pm
DJs Love Affair; Topher DiMaggio hosts; half-off drinks, 10 pm-midnight; doors at 10 pm; free
Dillon Francis
Doors at 10:30 pm; $35+ men, $25+ women
DJ Justin Credible
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
DJ Dave Fogg
Doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women
Kenny Davidsen
Corro Van Such Band
Enter the Void
Velveteen Rabbit
Biltmore Boys; 10 pm; free; doors at 5 pm
DJs Fish, Athenas; 10 pm; free; doors at 5 pm
XS
Closed
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
DJ Kris Nilsson
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Closed
Closed
Drink specials; Line Dancing 101, 8-9:15 pm; doors 8 pm; $5 after 10 pm
Ladies Night
Taco Tuesdays
9 pm; happy hour, 2-6 pm, 11 pm-2 am; doors at 11 am
$1.50+, $5 tequila shots, $7 margaritas; happy hour, 2-6 pm, 11 pm-2 am; doors at 11 am
Happy hour, 2-6 pm, 11 pm-2 am; $50 open bar; Kill the Keg unlimited drafts, $20, 2-9 pm; doors at 11 am
Doors at 7 pm, free
Doors at 7 pm, free
Doors at 7 pm, free
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Doors at 9 pm; $45+ men, $35+ women, locals free
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Closed
Nik at Nite
Laura Shafer Vintage Vegas Cocktail Party
Ladies Night
SIN Sunday
Drink specials; doors at 8 pm; $5, free for industry and before 10 pm
Confession Sundays
$50 open bar; NFL open bar, $100; doors at 8:30 am
Doors at 7 pm, free
Pornstars in Vegas
Doors at 10 pm; $30 men, $20 women
T-Spot Lounge; 10 pm, free
SUNDAY
T-Spot Lounge; 8:30 pm, free
Soul Shakedown
DJ Selecta Scream; 10 pm; doors at 5 pm
DJ Miss Nine
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women
Closed
Piazza Lounge; 7:30 pm, free
Doors at 5 pm
Dave Fogg
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women, local women & industry free
Piazza Lounge; 7:30 pm, free
Doors at 5 pm
Moonshiners
TJR
Nieve
Piazza Lounge, 8:30 pm; free
Piazza Lounge; 9 pm, free
Doors at 5 pm
Doors at 5 pm
Closed
Closed
Crooked
Doors at 10 pm; $30+ men, $20+ women, local women & industry free
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GBDC BRING YOUR OWN THEME 01/17/15 Photog: Tek Le
Arts&Entertainment MOVIES + MUSIC + ART + FOOD
> WHO’S THE MANNY? Pacquiao (right) with Freddie Roach.
KEYS TO THE CITY Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel on the band’s holiday and new tunes January 15 was Guster Day in your hometown of Boston. What did that involve? We were on the cover of the Boston Globe [with] the mayor. He’s wearing a Guster sweatshirt. And we played an event with the mayor, where we promoted Greenovate, his plan to help with the climate-change situation and to reduce emissions in Boston in the upcoming years. It’s a pretty aggressive agenda, and it connects with our own activist side.
TRUST US
sculptures made from found objects are clever assemblages documenting her finds on strolls through the city. Through March 13; opening reception January 23, 5:30-7:30 p.m., Winchester Cultural Center.
SEE
HEAR
MANNY Boxer Manny Pacquiao has quite the fan fol-
ELVIS VS. ELVIS TRIBUTE NIGHT “Suspicious Minds” or “Less Than Zero”? “Jailhouse Rock” or “Pump It Up”? Friday night at the Bunkhouse, you don’t have to choose between Elvi, when local acts like The Astaires, The Clydesdale’s Paige Overton and—get this—a reunited Tippy Elvis pay tribute to both rock icons. January 23, 8 p.m., $5.
Stuff you’ll want to know about
lowing in Las Vegas, which means this is one of the few cities to get the theatrical release of this Pacquiao documentary, narrated by Liam Neeson. Fans can head to AMC Town Square, or stream the movie at home via video on demand. Opens January 23. A PATH APPEARS From Colombia and Haiti to Kenya and the U.S., Pulitzer-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn uncover the harshest impacts of gender inequality and poverty, including sex-trafficking and child slavery. This film is also about making change, so watch in honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Month. January 22, 6 p.m., free, Inspire Theater. THE AMERICANS Weekly TV critic Josh Bell picked this intense drama about undercover Soviet spies in the U.S. as the best TV show of 2014, and it returns this week for its third season. Wednesdays, 10 p.m., FX; season premiere January 28.
GO OR, SOME TIME AGO Australian-born
Las Vegas artist DK Sole’s small hanging
42 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM JANUARY 22–28, 2015
CLICK DESERT FROTH If you’re looking for some Pinter-
est-y inspiration to get your latest DIY project off the ground, this local lifestyle blog gets creative juices flowing. Headed by writer Hannah Ching and art director Nina Thomasian, Desert Froth features everything from healthy recipes and kitschy gifts to interviews with budding entrepreneurs. Desertfroth.com. HONEST MUSIC FESTIVAL With music festival announcements in high season, it’s time to revisit College Humor’s hilarious riff on festival drawbacks. Its commercial for the fictional Opapotamus will inspire anyone longing to get back to the long lines, conflicting band bookings, portable toilets and overpriced food. Collegehumor.com.
You guys finished new album Evermotion last April, and it just came out this month. Why the long delay? It’s hard to sit on your record when you’re so eager to share it, but we had to find a home for it. We had to see if we wanted to be on a label or release it ourselves. In the summer we signed with Nettwerk Records, but they couldn’t GUSTER with get it out by Kishi Bashi. October—and January 22, if you don’t get 7 p.m., $27. your record out House of by October, you Blues, 702wait until after 632-7600. Christmas. The Shins’ Richard Swift produced it. How did he influence the music? He’s like a walking record collection— the man knows everything about pop music, soul music, everything. And he just understands what needs to be done on a song to make it connect. The sound of the record’s definitely more lo-fi—it doesn’t stand up next to Taylor Swift on the radio— but it feels more classic to me. It feels like we did the songs justice. –Annie Zaleski For more of our interview with Rosenworcel, visit lasvegasweekly.com.
A&E | pop culture
> real gay HBO’s Looking offers a
C U LT U RA L ATTAC H M E N T
c at e g o ry glimpse into a credible and appealing gay
Blurred lines
Headline Goes here world. Certain other shows, not so much ...
Deck goes here and here deck goes here adn here deck By name here
One vapid TLC show won’t slow the advancement of gay visibility on TV By Smith Galtney On January 11, TLC premiered a new special called My Husband’s Not Gay, about a group of Mormon men who admit to having homosexual desires yet choose to live a heterosexual life. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) naturally bashed the show, calling it “downright irresponsible,” insisting that it was “putting countless young LBGT people in harm’s way.” A petition posted to change.org, which gathered 70,000 signatures, called for the show’s cancellation, likening its message to “conversion therapies,” old-fashioned methods of “fixing” gay men that have long since been discredited as anything but harmful and ineffective. One doubts if GLAAD even watched the show before releasing its statement, because secrecy and shame—the stuff that leads to tragedy for too many repressed individuals—is not what My Husband’s Not Gay is about. The men are extremely open with their wives and the world about their same-sex attraction (“SSA,” as they call it). There’s no talk of being “cured.” They know they can’t choose to not be homosexual. Their only “choice” is to not live as traditional gay males. “I like to say I’ve chosen an alternative to an alternative lifestyle,” one of them insists, before adding, “I’m interested in men, I’m just not interested in men.” Flimsy as that sounds, it hardly qualifies as dangerous, not when TV continues its boom in gay visibility, offering a litany of role models and bad seeds and everything in between. Until recently, being gay on television was a lot like being on the Titanic: Either you were ushered into first class, where everyone was button-up and straight-laced, or you whisked down to steerage, where there was dancing and appletinis and girl talk. Now a bit of fluidity seems to be rising to the surface, a less orthodox element, where the lines that mark something as “gay”
aren’t so clearly—and broadly—drawn. This month alone, there’s a new season of HBO’s Looking, which shows a gay world far more credible and appealing than anything in My Husband’s Not Gay. I’ve only seen two episodes of the new Fox drama Empire, but so far I’m impressed with Jamal, the gay son of a hip-hop mogul who writes Drakeesque R&B and looks poised to shake up family business by coming out. Then there’s Frank Underwood, who returns next month in the third season of House of Cards. The protagonist of a major show, who boinks dudes so occasionally and so casually that his sexuality is a total non-issue, he’s more groundbreaking than all the Mitchs and Cams currently gasping and gesticulating through prime time.
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After all, there are plenty of people in this world who don’t fit neatly into categories like “gay” or “straight,” and neither GLAAD nor anyone else has the right to tell them how to love or live. Unfortunately, My Husband’s Not Gay doesn’t add much to that conversation. In addition to being plain bad (it’s all so staged you begin to question if these people are even Mormon), the show manages to uphold every imaginable cliché. The boys go shopping together. One confesses his love of Les Mis. There’s even a joke involving a “wiener dog.” By the time the husbands tell their wives how cute they think a waiter is, it’s a wonder they didn’t call the show My Husband’s Completely Gay and He Won’t Shut Up About It.
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A&E | screen tv
> pity pool Aniston ponders life’s unfairness while swimming.
Detective Jerkwad Rainn Wilson solves crimes rudely in Backstrom
FILM
grief and sadness, which the movie calculatingly teases out over the course of its running time, without ever revealing anything meaningful about what happened to her. Claire inflicts her misery on everyone around her, most promiCake wallows in its own misery nently her saintly housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza) By Josh Bell and soulful hunk Roy (Sam Worthington), the widower of a woman from Claire’s support group. The movie’s most persistent and annoying device The fledgling distributor behind Cake put a ton of is Claire’s ongoing dialogue with Roy’s late wife Nina resources behind its awards campaign for star Jennifer (Kendrick), who shows up as an apparition/hallucinaAniston, which paid off with nominations from the tion to give Claire advice and hammer home Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild the themes of the movie. There are flashes of Awards (although nothing from the Oscars). dark humor in Claire’s outlook on the world, Aniston’s lead performance is indeed the best aabcc but they’re buried under layers of self-actualpart of this mediocre movie, a listless indie CAKE Jennifer ization nonsense. Aniston is so committed to drama that never goes much of anywhere, with Aniston, Adriana the seriousness of the role that she rarely gets moments that are framed as revelatory but con- Barraza, Sam to use her natural comic gifts, even in scenes tain little in the way of revelation. The support- Worthington. ing cast is packed with ringers, including Anna Directed by Daniel that should offer some relief from the grimness. The other characters (especially Mexican Kendrick, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy Barnz. Rated R. immigrant Silvana, a walking stereotype) come and Lucy Punch, but their brief appearances Opens Friday. and go as necessary to prop up Claire’s emosubstitute star power for insight and emotional tional development. Except that Claire doesn’t connection. really develop at all: About 15 minutes before the movie Even Aniston is notable mainly for her uncharacteristiends, Claire picks up a teenage runaway (Britt Robertson) cally glamour-free presence, not that she doesn’t do her in what could be the beginning to an entirely different best with the role of Claire Bennett, a bitter lawyer suffermovie, only for her to disappear two scenes later, another ing from chronic pain in the aftermath of a vaguely defined signpost on Claire’s journey to nowhere. accident. Claire’s unpleasant demeanor hides a core of
A sour treat
The title character of Fox’s new crime procedural Backstrom is yet another addition to the time-honored tradition of the douchebag detective, the guy (it’s almost always a guy) whose powers of detection are so keen that he has license to treat everyone around him terribly as long as he catches the criminals. Here, it’s Portland police Lt. Everett Backstrom (The Office’s Rainn Wilson), who heads up the Special aaccc Crimes Unit and BACKSTROM is introduced in Thursdays, 9 the first episode at p.m., Fox. his doctor’s office, being admonished for his unhealthy lifestyle (drinking, smoking, eating poorly). The “hilariously” racist and sexist Backstrom dismisses or indicts people based on personal prejudices, but because he’s almost always right, the show ends up endorsing those prejudices (in the first episode, he casually orders a black man to be interrogated based on his looks, and of course the man turns out to be guilty). Wilson has experience making an unlikable character entertaining, but the efforts in later episodes to give Backstrom depth are disingenuous. The overqualified supporting actors (including Dennis Haysbert and Kristoffer Polaha) do what they can to prop up the star, but they can never transcend their roles as subordinates to TV’s latest misanthropic jerk who solves mildly interesting crimes. –Josh Bell
F I L M | VO D
It’s a little disheartening that a filmmaker as important and influential as Spike Lee had to turn to Kickstarter to fund his latest project, but watching Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, it’s not hard to see why no studio would want to back it. A remake of the 1973 cult vampire movie Ganja & Hess, Sweet Blood takes an obtuse, ponderous approach to vampirism, embodied in wealthy playboy/anthropologist Hess Greene (Stephen Tyrone Williams), who becomes addicted to drinking blood after being exposed to an ancient artifact. He broods around his beautiful Martha’s Vineyard estate and falls inexplicably in love with Ganja (Zaraah Abrahams), the ex-wife of the man who infected him. The meandering plot makes little sense, and the acting ranges from stilted to embarrassingly bad. Lee’s musings on race, religion and gender politics are as confounding as the plot, and they’re mixed in with gratuitous nudity and unconvincing gore. Given free rein by his fans’ money, Lee has made a movie that’s both uncompromising and often inexplicable. –Josh Bell
Vampire blues
44 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
aaccc DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS Stephen Tyrone Williams, Zaraah Abrahams, Rami Malek. Directed by Spike Lee. Not rated. Available on demand via Vimeo.
A&E | SCREEN FILM
BOY OH BOY
The Boy Next Door is a bad-movie gold mine has never seen Fatal Attraction or Pity poor Hot Divorcée. Even one of its many imitators. Sadly, though she looks like Jennifer the makers of The Boy Next Door Lopez, she’s still lonely and awkhave apparently seen all of those ward and sexually frustrated, movies, and they put together a moping around her tastefully laughably ridiculous facsimile, appointed house in sensible but with painfully obvious form-fitting outfits. plot twists and moronic Thanks to the advice of characters. Boy is so terSassy Best Friend, she’s abccc rible that it’s actually tried dating, but it just THE BOY NEXT quite funny at times, isn’t working out. She’s DOOR Jennifer thanks especially to even considering giving Lopez, Ryan Ryan Guzman’s intensePhilandering Husband Guzman, John a second chance, since Corbett. Directed by ly wooden performance as the title character they haven’t gotten Rob Cohen. Rated (he acts primarily with around to signing those R. Opens Friday. his abs). The rest of divorce papers. But the actors don’t fare much betthen her neighbor, Creepy Old ter (Lopez seems incapable of Guy, introduces his great-nephew, convincingly delivering the line Barely Legal Beefcake, and before “Oh my God!”), not that the diashe knows it, she’s given in to one logue from writer Barbara Curry night of carnal passion, and Barely is worthy of decent acting. By the Legal Beefcake has turned into time the finale arrives, complete Crazy Stalker. What’s this poor with eye-gouging-by-EpiPen, Boy lady to do? seems destined to become a camp Make lots of ill-advised deciclassic of some kind. –Josh Bell sions, obviously, since she clearly
> SHIFTY EYES Guzman gives Lopez that look that says, “Run!”
FILM
THE MANY FACES OF JOHNNY DEPP With this week’s Mortdecai,, Johnny Depp adds another goofy look to his range of oddball characters
Charles Mortdecai
Edward Scissorhands
Tonto
(Mortdecai)
(Edward Scissorhands)
(The Lone Ranger)
Captain Jack Sparrow (The Pirates of the Caribbean)
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A&E | NOISE POP-ROCK
> Rocklandia (From left) Tucker, Weiss and Brownstein are Sleater-Kinney-ing again.
Beautifully Psychotic Fall Out Boy’s sixth album feels strangely cohesive
INDIE ROCK
Singular return
Unsurprisingly, Sleater-Kinney makes its comeback album count The members of Sleater-Kinney kept busy during their band’s hiatus. Janet Weiss played with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and in supergroup Wild Flag, which also featured Carrie Brownstein (of Portlandia fame), while Corin Tucker released two underrated solo albums. When the three women join forces in Sleater-Kinney, however, few bands can match the power they unleash. No Cities to Love—the feminist-punk trio’s first album in a decade—is no-nonsense, precise and inspiring, with a diverse set of musical influences. The scratchy postpunk guitars on “Surface Envy” are reminiscent of Gang of Four; the churning classic rock flourishes on “Fade” recall Heart’s ’70s output; “Fangless” boasts corrugated pogo-punk riffs; “Gimme Love” stutter-steps on a foun-
dation of clipped blues slams; and “A New Wave” oozes with grimy hard-rock distortion. No Cities to Love’s lyrical themes are just as galvanizing. Although the record touches on politics—“Price Tag” is a moving indictment of a broken economic system, where savings come at a aaaac steep cost—the album’s main focus Sleateris on correcting emotional and Kinney social imbalances: reclaiming a lost No Cities to Love sense of self (“Fade”), recalibrating out-of-whack power dynamics (“Fangless”) and regaining self-confidence (“Surface Envy”). Appropriately, the band’s vocal delivery underscores a secondary theme of strength in numbers; tunes such as “Bury Our Friends” and “Price Tag” feature the welcome presence of Brownstein’s and Tucker’s intertwining shrieks, which convey frustration, joy and longing with equal urgency. Like every Sleater-Kinney album, No Cities to Love sounds like nothing else that came before it in the band’s catalog. It’s singular even in its complexity and nuance. –Annie Zaleski
American Beauty/American Psycho, the unwieldy title to Fall Out Boy’s latest album, actually seems appropriate when you consider that in one moment the band borrows from Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” (in the vibrantly energetic “Centuries”) and in the next, it incorporates elements aaabc of Mötley Crüe’s FALL OUT BOY American Beauty/ “Too Fast for Love” (for the title track). American Psycho That may sound like a schizophrenic disaster, but vocalist Patrick Stump has said FOB was after a stylistically cohesive work this time, and the band has actually achieved that here. The album sounds massive from a recording standpoint, with layer upon layer of sounds and styles piled within each song in a way that would make Queen jealous, yet never feels like overkill. Moving from track to track, it’s clear that there was heavy thought invested into how it would all fit together, and it ultimately feels like an engaging experience that leaves you wanting more. By the time American Beauty/American Psycho wraps with the atmospherically dense closer “Twin Skeletons (Hotel in NYC),” the running time of nearly 40 minutes hardly feels like enough. –Matt Wardlaw
INDIE POP
C O U N T RY
Belle and Sebastian Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance aaabc The title of the Scottish act’s ninth studio album is something of a tip-off: Belle and Sebastian is down to boogie. Exhibit A: first single “The Party Line,” which fades in and stomps away like Madonna’s “Hung Up,” incorporating synthwork not unlike that found on the band’s last few albums—and hip-jerking funk unlike anything B&S has made. The mirrorball reverie continues with the Giorgio Moroder-like “Enter Sylvia Plath,” and “Play for Today,” a synth-pop fantasia reminiscent of Pet Shop Boys. Traditionalism still abounds (“The Everlasting Muse,” “Ever Had a Little Faith?”), but this is a more rhythmic, looser band. Also credit co-producer Ben Allen, who helped Animal Collective find its groove on Merriweather Post Pavilion. While Girls in Peacetime sounds considerably less progressive than that indie landmark, it similarly has B&S abandoning a bedroom aesthetic for something more celebratory, its escapades also engendered not just by tempo, but an inspired tunefulness. –Mike Prevatt
RYAN BINGHAM Fear and Saturday Night aaabc Although he’s still best known in the mainstream for cowriting the Oscar-winning “The Weary Kind” from 2009’s Crazy Heart, singer-songwriter Ryan Bingham has been releasing the kind of ragged, soul-baring Americana embodied by Crazy Heart protagonist Bad Blake since his 2007 debut. Fear and Saturday Night, Bingham’s fifth album, dials back a bit on the sprawling arrangements of 2012’s Tomorrowland, but it’s still casual and intimate, characterized by Bingham’s raspy voice and deeply personal lyrics. He’s best on the more low-key, understated songs, like opener “Nobody Knows My Trouble” and tender love song “Snow Falls in June,” but he also excels at evoking The Rolling Stones (the fuzzy bar-rock of “Top Shelf Drug”), The Black Crowes (soaring ballad “Island in the Sky”) and even John Mellencamp (accordion-drenched rave-up “Adventures of You and Me”). Like Bad Blake, Bingham is a world-weary journeyman, playing roots music that’s equally comforting and fragile. –Josh Bell
46 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
A&E | noise
> Head ON Moonboots has evolved from its Pixies-loving origins.
LO C A L S C E N E
Loud!
Local music news & notes By Leslie Ventura MOON LANDING “We’re chai-aiained!” John Coulter yelps maniacally, waking up the Bunkhouse Sunday-night crowd with a cover of the Pixies’ “Hey.” By the end of the set, a small squad of fans has formed around the stage, singing the lyrics to a Moonboots original. Combine the lo-fi grunge of the Pixies, the nerdy alt-rock of Weezer and the indie-punk fire of The Thermals and you end up with something like Moonboots. Coulter and drummer Ryan Brunty actually began playing together four years ago in Pixies cover band The Pixels (they’ve got 40-or-so covers in their catalog), then changed the name, started writing original material and added members Wade Schuster (guitar), Clyde Barnett (guitar) and Andrew Ferrall (bass) last year. The band now has a handful of songs on Soundcloud—one of which, “The Omen,” has been featured on X107.5 FM—but at this point Moonboots has no plans to release an album or tour. An eclectic group of art teachers, art directors and a sound man for a conservative talkradio show, all five members are tied up in their careers, so Moonboots will remain a passion-project for now. “It’s like that Grateful Dead song [“Keep Your Day Job”],” Schuster says. “We’re gonna keep the day job till the night job pays.” soundcloud. com/moonboots-las-vegas
Moonboots by bill hughes; jason cruz and howl by nick coletsos
***** LOVE IS IN THE AIR Indie-pop quartet Love Hate Away released an eponymous five-song EP at the end of 2014, recalling the candied, du-wop sparkle of ’60s girl groups on top of New Wavey hooks and sun-drenched textures. Singer Christiana Chavez’s crystalline vocals sound heartfelt as she sings about relationships and finding oneself. “I won’t let go of what we’ve got/It’s not a hell of a
lot/… Oh, we just gotta wait for the right door/To open wide, so we’re let in,” she sings on “Just the Two of Us.” The group’s new lineup will perform a free show at the Griffin on February 4. facebook.com/lovehateaway
***** BROTHERS IN ARMS A heads-up for fans of ’90s alt-rock: Bounty Hunter Brothers will celebrate new LP They Are Always With Us January
24 at Backstage Bar & Billiards. Multi-instrumentalists Shannon Haffa and William Davenport and guitarist Bobby Pesti take turns on vocals as they stir up some brooding, PJ Harvey-ish moments backed by fuzzed-out, melodic distortion and some hellishly heavy shred-sessions. soundcloud.com/bountyhunterbrothers
*****
SAXY THING Brain Jelly Music mastermind Kevin Kilfeather and his band Jack and the B-Fish will release second album Premarital Sax—engineered by Black Camaro’s Brian Garth and featuring artwork by BC singer Tom Miller—at Vamp’d on January 24. Later that night, the group will perform with Brain Jelly groups The Solid Suns and Lawn Mower Death Riders. jackandthe b-fish.bandcamp.com
C O N C E RT
Friday night turned out to be an unfortunately empty one for Jason Cruz and Howl, with only about 30 of us spread throughout Backstage Bar & Billiards. Despite the low turnout, one guy desperately tries to get a circle pit going, frantically running in circles in front of the stage—alone. Feels like some kind of (January 15, Backstage Bar & Billiards) metaphor. Cruz is best known as the lead singer of SoCal punk outfit Strung Out. Where that band dabbled in countrified punk, this project is far more twang than oi. Think desert-country songs about mescaline trips, stateline and sad Jesus, with punk influences shining through when the traditional kick-snare pattern arises. Country seems to be a natural progression for the current wave of punk-oustic acts made up predominantly of aging West Coast skate punk bands from the ’90s and early 2000s, though few do it as well as Cruz and company. It’s a shame no one’s here, because the band sounds fantastic. Driving basslines and solid lead riffs support Cruz’s raspy-voiced storytelling, which has matured to suit his newfound style. If you missed the show (and who didn’t, really), don’t worry. Cruz and Howl will be back in town February 8 at the Artistic Armory, which might have contributed to the low turnout tonight. –Chris Bitonti
Five thoughts: Jason Cruz and Howl
January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
47
A&E | fine art
> slow art Rafat’s Light Works modulates light and space before the eyes.
In a new light
With neon tubes, mirrors and geometry, Pasha Rafat makes you see and feel space differently By Dawn-Michelle Baude In the super-saturated, stimulisodden extravaganza of Las Vegas, minimalist art has particular, understated appeal. Pasha Rafat’s Light Works, at Brett Wesley Gallery, deploys the neon tubes we know so well in geometric constructions that we discover we don’t know at all. Part sculpture, part architecture and wholly installation, Light Works is slow art—an immersive exhibition that modulates light and space before the eyes. Prolonging the viewing time and altering the viewing space begins with altering the architecture. Rafat’s four site-generated pieces are based on two windows, a corner and a ceiling; they modify found angles and
48 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
intersections, volumes and forms in various ways. Using framing, reflection, mirroring, transparency and light, Rafat tempers the space in the room, extending the art beyond the confines of the gallery walls. “Untitled W,” for example, is a redorange wooden structure that alludes to commemorative monuments with its large, monolithic base. Instead of dull historical inscription, Rafat presents a vibrant grid of white neon. The grid, in turn, corresponds to gallery windowpanes so that the work frames the outdoors view as if it were a mullioned extension of the windows. “Untitled S” also uses a tic-tac-toe pattern of neon in a square tabletop
red-orange light. From farther away work. Since “Untitled S” can be ogled the darkened rear walls seem to pull from both sides, as well as in the glass the color back, like a visual represenentrances of the gallery and the studio tation of gravity. across the hall, its doubling/tripling With their clean lines, neon and effect is accompanied by a substantial red-orange palette, the pieces in wow factor. “Untitled DS” adds a polLight Works are coherent ished stainless-steel mirror fellows. They reframe the to the materials, reflecting space by day and vibrate ceiling beams and rows of aaaac into unsuspected chromatneon in geometric patterns LIGHT WORKS ic dimensions in the evethat enhance a weirdly liq- Through January 31, Wednesdayning. In aiming for purity uid depth of field. of color and form, Rafat The final piece, Friday, noon-6 p.m.; removes all traces of the “Untitled C,” is a stand- Saturday, 1-4 p.m. out. A corner work built Brett Wesley Gallery, artist’s hand, biography out from the intersecting 1025 S. First St. #150, and personality. In its place are the objects themselves walls, “Untitled C” consists 702-433-4433. and the viewer’s relationof brackets suspending ship to them. This austerity aligns horizontal tubes of white and redRafat with East Coast minimalism orange neon. Depending on the viewand West Coast Light & Space moveer’s position, various optical illusions ments. But it would be a mistake to come into play. The white tubes turn stop there. Rafat’s Light Works is blue and pulse almost digitally; they fresh, resonant and impressive. frame or thread the stripes of diffuse
A&E | stage
CIGARETTES ©2015 SFNTC (1)
> the haunting The specter of her abusive ex is just one of Agnes’ problems in Bug.
Land of confusion
photograph by liz Kline
Cockroach Theatre’s superb Bug opens a window to a mad world By Jacob Coakley up with and the absolute best. The closed-loop intricacy Cofield is astounding as Agnes. of schizophrenic hallucinations By turns seductive, confused or is eerily captivating, its internal raging, her portrayal of a woman logic offering no escape or explaadrift in grief and loneliness is nation, save one born of delirium. heartbreaking. Her genuine need Tracy Letts’ Bug overlays this is the lodestone of the play, guidsystem with the claustrophobia ing the audience into ever-darkof grief and abusive relationer places. As Peter, Levi Fackrell ships. Under the co-direction of demonstrates a disarming timidity Aaron Oetting and Will Adamson, that barely (and not always) covCockroach Theatre’s production ers a swirling darkness along with at Art Square Theatre offers a a deadpan humor that relieves window into the comforts and the tension enough to take you confusion of hallucinations in a further into delusion. genuinely creepy, emoJohn Gallagher’s scenic tionally explosive show. design fully immersAgnes (played by aaaab es the audience in the Sabrina Cofield), lives BUG world of the play, espein a run-down motel Through February cially in one great reveal; room, haunted by the 1; ThursdayElizabeth Kline’s lights specter of her abusive Saturday, 8 p.m.; ex-husband Goss (the Sunday, 2 p.m.; $16- are tender and moody; and James Boldt’s and nonchalantly terrify- $20. Art Square ing Ryan Hess) and the Theatre, cockroach John McClain’s sound design is phenomenal, loss of her young son. theatre.com. continually heightening When her best friend the terror of the piece R.C. (Tressa Bern, full until it takes it over in spaces. of spiky bravado and equally spiky The show isn’t all horror. concern) introduces her to Peter There’s a sly sense of humor even (Levi Fackrell), she finds somein its darkest moments. One-liners one she can relate to. Even as he from Peter, the strange appearbecomes increasingly delusional ance of Dr. Sweet (Alex Pink) and she follows him down the rabbit the voice of a pizza delivery guy hole, until, in a paranoid baccha(Kyle Jones) keep things from getnal of blood and injury, she triumting too oppressive. But still, any phantly turns her grief into a sense play that can make a physically of conviction that fills her with an abusive felon its voice of reason, explosive purpose. It’s a catharas this does with Goss, takes you tic moment—simultaneously the to some extreme places. Bug is stupidest, worst conclusion that worth it. these people could ever have come
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A&E | stage
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> i hope you dance Ira Glass, you are such a tease. And we like it.
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Love and radio
Radio host Ira Glass’ Smith Center show dances into our hearts By Kristy Totten
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you thought. Sure, he plays one on the radio, but he revealed he’s not always great at expressing his feelings, or even knowing what they are. He takes comfort in an anecdote from his therapist, who says every married woman who learns of Asperger’s is convinced her husband has it. There was a Vegas tribute! Barnes and Bass swaggered to Dean Martin’s “I Love Vegas,” a comical lounge song about why he holds the city dear, among them “because my money’s here.” Serial got a nod. Glass mentioned that This American Life often talks about different kinds of love: this love, that love, love where a teenage boy may or may not have murdered his girlfriend. Cue a split-second clip of Serial’s theme song … and sheer audience delight. He reused material. To his credit, it’s good material, but Barnes and Bass danced to James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” as they had in This American Life Live!, a one-off variety show streamed to movie theaters in 2013. Did he dance? Maybe, maybe not. We won’t spoil the surprise (and not just because Glass emailed asking us not to). As he professed during the performance: “The thing about dance is you have to be there.”
photograph by bill hughes
R
I love Ira Glass. I always have, but my admiration intensified last summer when This American Life left PRI and he took the fate of the radio show into his own hands, a move The New York Times equated to “Radiohead’s releasing its own album In Rainbows, or Louis C.K.’s selling his own stand-up special—except all the time, for every show.” The same article said Glass had taken up dancing, and, to seal my adoration, had requested a pay cut after earning more than a quartermillion dollars from his home station in 2013. To cover his Chelsea mortgage, he’d go on tour. So it made sense when Glass turned his new hobby into a source of income with Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host, which hit the Smith Center on January 17. Glass’ storytelling paired with interpretive dance by Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass to create a lively, inventive show about performance, love and loved ones lost. The stories stepped into the mind of a dancer and into the business of marriage, and summoned the ghosts of writer David Rakoff, poet Donald Hall’s wife and even Glass’ mother. Glass claims that dance and radio aren’t meant to mix; the performance proved otherwise. Some highlights: Glass isn’t the sensitive guy
A&E | PRINT
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A Japanese novelist takes on the dominance of English BY CHUCK TWARDY audience, craftily aligning herself You don’t know how lucky you with writers whose language once are. That’s because you read in was universal. In it, she describes English, the “universal language.” Shishoosetsu, or “I-novel,” a ficFrom Minae Mizumura’s perspectionalized autobiography about a tive, you’re on the auspicious side girl who moved to New York at age of a linguistic “asymmetry,” spared 12 and chose to study French rathnot only the exclusion from ideas er than English: “French was the locked away in another language perfect language with which a girl but also ever having to contemlike me could gain an advantage plate your good fortune. over the monolingual Americans.” “English is becoming a univerThis enduring pre-teen petusal language such as humans have lance occasionally blinkers never known before,” Mizumura Mizumura. She argues that “the argues in The Fall of Language English language cannot dictate in the Age of English, the trans‘truths,’” which is true, then adds, lation and adaptation of a book “there are other ‘truths’ she wrote in her native in this world that cannot Japanese. As translabe perceived through the tors Mari Yoshihara and aaabc English language,” which Juliet Winters Carpenter THE FALL OF is at least debatable. And observe, Mizumura’s LANGUAGE at times her grievance is original book, whose title IN THE AGE with a world in which translated to “when the OF ENGLISH literature ineffectively Japanese language falls: By Minae competes with other in the age of English,” Mizumura; amusements, regardless implored her country translated by of language. But her synto rejuvenate the study Mari Yoshihara opsis of postwar Japan’s of both Japanese and & Juliet Winters Carpenter, $35. attack on its own lanEnglish there. guage is edifying, and That you are unlikely she has a point about English’s to have heard of Mizumura, or monopoly on international debate. of the furor her book aroused Researchers at MIT recently docin Japan, only partly vindicates umented the language’s centralher thesis that writers in mere ity by mapping “Global Language “national” languages are overNetworks” in books, on Twitter looked globally. She addressed and on Wikipedia. her 2008 book specifically to Near the end of The Fall of Japanese readers, and one of her Language, Mizumura suggests novels, Shishoosetsu from left to English speakers would do well to right, apparently defies translaacknowledge their linguistic privition—although Carpenter has lege and to refrain from abusing it. translated Mizumura’s A True Fair enough. Novel into English. In The Fall of Language, Mizumura reprints an address Find more by Chuck Twardy at she made in French to a Parisian chucktwardy.com.
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FOOD
Fresh catch Fish-and-chips shop Off the Hook arrives at Flamingo Village
> CHINESE COMFORT FOOD Dumpling King owner Mary Ma serves up crispy crystal grilled dumplings and (bottom right) juicy soup dumplings, among other favorites.
Food memories come to life
Chinatown’s Dumpling King offers hearty, creative cuisine By Jason Harris
on the well-known scallion pancake, which is also offered. There’s something special about the food you grew up This take is thicker, still crunchy on the outside and light with. No matter how many years pass, it remains forever in the middle, with a tasty leek and egg filling. Dip it in etched on your soul. That’s what you taste at Dumpling vinegar to give it some punch. King—food that owner Mary Ma clearly holds Then there are the eye-openers. Teppan tofu dear to her heart. ($9.99) is a striking presentation, sizzling ingrediMa, who spent 14 years as a casino dealer DUMPLING ents served on foil inside of a traditional iron plate. before recently opening this new Chinatown resKING 5740 Deep fried, battered tofu pieces pick up the flavors taurant, has hired a group of talented cooks to W. Spring of the accompanying minced beef, home-style re-create the food of her youth, Mandarin cuisine Mountain veggies and a sauce that could be loosely described specifically from Northern China. The large menu Road, 702as Chinese gravy. Put everything on white rice and (more than 100 items) features dishes you’ll rec- 220-5808. you have the perfect dish to warm up a cold day. ognize, dishes that seem familiar but deviate from Daily, 11 a.m.Dumpling King doesn’t really do dessert, but the standard and dishes you’ve never seen before. 11 p.m. toffee taro ($9.99) will satisfy your sweet tooth. With a name like Dumpling King, you know It’s as strange as it sounds, with the hearty root where to start. The best ones I’ve tried are the vegetable covered in a sweet, sticky caramel, as ribbons of crystal grilled dumplings ($9.99), potstickers filled with sugar dance on top. The taro clumps together, making it beef that magically maintain a crisp exterior despite difficult to pick up with chopsticks, but after you dip it in the ample juiciness waiting inside. Resting on top is a water, it’s more manageable. It’s probably not for everyone, latticed flour batter creating a unique visual as well as but it’s a nice adventure for those willing to seek one. added texture. I’ve only scratched the surface at Dumpling King, but Among tried and true dishes, go with dry-fried string with food this tasty, I look forward to exploring more of beans ($8.99). Doused with garlic and chili peppers, these Ma’s culinary memories—the stuff I know, the stuff I think legumes keep a perfect snap and hold up nicely to the I know and the stuff I have no idea about. delectably assertive spice. Leek pancake ($6.99) is a fun riff
52 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
Already home to second locations of homegrown favorites Babystacks Café and KoMex Fusion, the unassuming Flamingo Village Plaza now has the first generation of another Vegas-born restaurant: Off the Hook, a clean, barebones space delivering a variOff the ety of deep-fried Hook 4155 S. delicacies. Buffalo Drive Unsurpris#105, 702-222ingly, seafood 3474. Mondayis the main Saturday, 11 attraction, with a.m.-9 p.m. particular focus on fish and chips. Orders range from one to five rather sizeable pieces of cod ($8-$28) with an ample amount of chips. The seafood is clean and flaky and the batter is crisp—although a little more seasoning wouldn’t hurt— while the accompanying fries are straightforward, lightly fried and receptive to the readily available malt vinegar. If you’re in a shellfish mood, combos offer up shrimp and scallop options, and the scallops are the way to go. I didn’t know deep-fried scallops were a thing, but I’m glad they are. Not everything is battered and deep-fried. There are Cajun prawns ($9), deep-fried but without batter. Their sharp spice blend makes for a mesmerizing handful of bite-sized treats, a fantastic precursor to your heavier main course. If you’re still hungry, a variety of deep-fried sweets ($7) such as cheesecake, Oreos and Twinkies await. As long as your cardiologist doesn’t find out, you’re home free! –Jim Begley
photographs by mikayla whitmore
FOOD E AT T H E M E N U
All killer, no filler
Tom’s Urban hits the Strip, and Tom isn’t messing around BY BROCK RADKE I know, I know ... you’ve heard this before. There’s a new bar and restaurant on the Strip doing its take on comfort food. I wasn’t excited either. I scoped out a menu that incorporates everything—tacos, pizzas, small plates, steaks, sandwiches—and thought the same thing you did: Here we go again. Then TOM’S URBAN I took a bite. And another. I couldn’t stop. I tried as many different New York-New dishes as I could at Tom’s Urban, and each flavor-packed offering York, 702-740outdid the one before it. Make no mistake: This giant new Strip-side 6766. Sundayoutpost is definitely all about the party, packed with three bars and Thursday, 6 a.m.2 a.m.; Friday plenty of patio. But the food is serious. Well, seriously fun. Here are & Saturday, 6 the must-try dishes for your first visit to Tom’s; after these, choose a.m.- 4 a.m.. your own delicious adventure.
HANGOVER SLOPPER Is this a burger? Or is it a spicy, saucy, egg-topped hangover breakfast? Can’t it be both? Knife and fork your way through this masterpiece, taking note of the butter-toasted brioche bun, three cheeses and the righteously fiery, gleefully unavoidable green chili pork. ($21.50)
Tom on Tom’s Urban Mastermind Tom Ryan explains his food philosophy at lasvegasweekly.com.
STICKY BELLY STEAMED BUNS Everybody’s doing pork belly buns. Tom’s nails down the steamed bread and the crunchy Asian slaw, then changes up the piggy with smoky, savory notes. It’s more bacon-y than you thought, and it makes you happy. ($9)
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MONA SHIELD PAYNE
PRIME RIB PHILLY CHEESESTEAK DIP Mashing up a cheesesteak with a French dip is a natural. Tom’s elevates this satisfying sandwich by meating out. There’s 12 ounces of medium rare, shaved prime rib on this slightly sweet roll, plus a thick layer of havarti and beef demi-glace “jus” and horseradish cream for your dipping pleasure. ($23)
BUTTER POACHED LOBSTER AND SHRIMP TACOS There are five different street tacos on the menu, but the sweet, succulent seafood option is founder Tom Ryan’s favorite. This is what we imagine the food at a taco truck in Maine would taste like. ($22)
CRISPY DUCK WINGS This is the stuff of pure snack-food fantasy, a magical hybrid of traditional wings, duck confit and sticky-sweet barbecue. Ridiculously tender, perfectly crispy duck meat is slathered in a punchedup hoisin glaze with a little peanut slaw on the side. You’ll never stop eating these. ($13)
JANUARY 22–28, 2015 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM
53
A&E | Short Takes > woodland sprites The strange creatures of Strange Magic.
Special screenings Bolshoi Ballet 1/25, Swan Lake, 12:55 pm, $16-$18. Theaters: COL, SF, SP, ST, VS. Info: fathomevents.com. Cinemark Classic Series Sun, 2 pm; Wed, 2 & 7 pm, $7-$10. 1/25, 1/28, How the West Was Won. Theaters: ORL, ST, SF, SP, SC Erotic Movie Night Fri, 7 pm, free. Erotic Heritage Museum, 3275 Industrial Road, 702-794-4000. Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival Through 1/25, feature films and documentaries related to Jewish culture and history, discussions with filmmakers and experts, various days and times, $10 per screening. Adelson Educational Campus, 9700 Hillpointe Road, lvjff. org. Midnight Brewvies Mon, movie plus popcorn, midnight, free. Elixir, 2920 N. Green Valley Parkway, Henderson, 702-272-0000. Mob Month 1/27, documentary Gangland Wire and discussion with filmmaker Gary Jenkins, 7 pm, free. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 702507-3400. Sci Fi Center Sat, Doctor Who weekly, 5 pm, free. Mon, Cinemondays, 8 pm, free. 1/23, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 8 pm, $5. 1/24, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, 8 pm, $5. 5077 Arville St.,
702-792-4335, thescificenter.com. Tuesday Afternoon at the Bijou Tue, 1 pm, free. 1/27, Robin and the 7 Hoods. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 702-507-3400.
New this week The Boy Next Door abccc Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, John Corbett. Directed by Rob Cohen. 91 minutes. Rated R. See review Page 45. Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, DI, DTS, FH, GVL, GVR, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX Cake aabcc Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Sam Worthington. Directed by Daniel Barnz. 101 minutes. Rated R. See review Page 44. Theaters: DTS, GVR, ST, TS, VS Manny aabcc Directed by Leon Gast and Ryan Moore. 88 minutes. Rated PG-13. This glossy documentary about boxing champion Manny Pacquiao is informative but mostly superficial. The hero worship (complete with overblown narration by Liam Neeson) outweighs the occasional doubt or criticism, which is raised and then quickly forgotten. Still, Pacquiao is a compelling figure, and Manny offers a decent overview of his accomplishments. –JB Theaters: TS Mortdecai (Not reviewed) Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor. Directed by David Koepp. 106 minutes. Rated R. An eccentric art dealer helps the authorities search for
54 LasVegasWeekly.com January 22–28, 2015
a missing painting. Theaters: AL, CH, COL, DI, FH, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
new songs, crass product placement, dated pop-culture jokes and movie stars who can’t sing. –JB Theaters: CH, COL, RR, SC, SF, SP, TX
Strange Magic (Not reviewed) Voices of Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Kristin Chenoweth. Directed by Gary Rydstrom. 99 minutes. Rated PG. A mysterious potion sends a group of elves, goblins, imps and fairies on an adventure. Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, COL, DI, FH, GVL, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX
Big Eyes aaacc Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston. Directed by Tim Burton. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13. Burton and his Ed Wood screenwriters take on the true story of Margaret Keane (Adams), whose paintings of big-eyed children were hugely popular in the 1960s, when her husband Walter (Waltz) took credit for them. It’s a fascinatingly bizarre pop-culture story, but Burton rarely gets below the surface in telling it. –JB Theaters: COL, ST, VS
Now playing American Sniper aaccc Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes. Directed by Clint Eastwood. 132 minutes. Rated R. Cooper’s performance is the strongest element of this biopic about Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. It’s a simplistic, pandering tribute to the American military, aimed at an audience that prizes patriotism over drama and isn’t interested in complexity when telling the stories of so-called American heroes. –JB Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, DI, GVL, GVR, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX Annie aaccc Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, Cameron Diaz. Directed by Will Gluck. 118 minutes. Rated PG. This new film version of the 1977 Broadway musical about an adorable orphan (Wallis) who melts the heart of a high-powered industrialist (Foxx) uses fewer than half of the original songs. The insipid material isn’t improved by equally cloying
Big Hero 6 aabcc Voices of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller. Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams. 108 minutes. Rated PG. Based loosely on an obscure Marvel comic book, this Disney animated adventure features a bright, friendly world and some exciting action sequences, plus a very entertaining character in cuddly robot Baymax. But its superhero-team origin story is bland and familiar, with Scooby-Doo-level plotting and underdeveloped characters. –JB Theaters: CH, COL, DI, TS, TX Birdman aaabc Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. 119 minutes. Rated R. Keaton gets a much-needed comeback vehicle in Iñárritu’s entertaining chamber piece, playing a washed-up actor—famous for playing a Batman-like superhero called Birdman—who’s now directing and
starring in a chaotic Broadway play. Seemingly composed of a single continous shot, the film also boasts Norton, Watts and Andrea Riseborough as fellow actors. –MD Theaters: COL, ORL, SF, SP, ST, TS, VS Blackhat aabcc Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis. Directed by Michael Mann. 133 minutes. Rated R. Hemsworth plays a hacker furloughed from prison to help an FBI agent and a Chinese official track down the person responsible for a cyber attack on a Chinese nuclear power plant. Blackhat is a stylistic treat that is essentially incoherent when it comes to plotting, characterization and dialogue. –JB Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DI, DTS, GVL, ORL, PAL, RP, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS Exodus: Gods and Kings aaccc Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley. Directed by Ridley Scott. 150 minutes. Rated PG-13. Exodus lacks the boldness and personality of Darren Aronofsky’s recent biblical film Noah, instead plodding dutifully through the story of Moses’ liberation of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. Not that the movie doesn’t deviate from and embellish the biblical narrative, but it does so only in service of typical blockbuster bombast. –JB Theaters: ST, VS Foxcatcher aabcc Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo. Directed by Bennett Miller. 134 minutes. Rated R. Carell gives an uncharacteristically dramatic performance (wearing a big prosthetic nose) as John E. du Pont in this fictionalized version of a real-life tragedy. Tatum and
A&E | Short Takes Ruffalo are better still, but the movie huffs and puffs to freight a fairly banal case history with Meaning. –MD Theaters: COL, ORL, SC, TS
> military family Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller in American Sniper.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies aabcc Martin Freeman, Luke Evans, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen. Directed by Peter Jackson. 144 minutes. Rated PG-13. The conclusion of Jackson’s three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel is underwhelming, dispatching with the previous films’ main villain in the first 10 minutes and then turning to an interminable battle. The title character spends most of the time on the sidelines, and the attempted gradneur is mostly empty. –JB Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, GVR, ORL, PAL, RR, SC, SF, SP, SS, TS, TX
The Imitation Game aaacc Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode. Directed by Morten Tyldum. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13. Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the English mathematician who was instrumental in breaking the Nazis’ Enigma code. While that material is quite exciting, however, the film’s attempts at a character study, treating Turing as someone on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, are less successful. –MD Theaters: AL, CH, DTS, GVR, ORL, PAL, SF, SP, ST, TS, VS Interstellar aaacc Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain. Directed by Christopher Nolan. 169 minutes. Rated PG-13. Nolan’s three-hour, effects-heavy sci-fi epic (about the search for a new planet for humanity to inhabit) turns out to be a soft-hearted plea for the power of love, ultimately relying on sentimental platitudes. At the same time, Nolan creates overwhelming, often breathtaking suspense in a number of astonishing set pieces. –JB Theaters: SC, ST Into the Woods aaacc James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep. Directed by Rob Marshall. 124 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), the longawaited screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale musical boasts a strong cast, including many actors (like Kendrick) who can actually sing. Unfortunately, Act 2 of the stage production has been gutted, and the result is a movie that’s only half satisfying. –MD Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DI, ORL, PAL, RR, SF, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS Night at the Musem: Secret of the Tomb aaccc Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Dan Stevens. Directed by Shawn Levy. 98 minutes. Rated PG. Made from the “kids-won’t-care-how-badly-weslapped-this-thing-together” school
The Wedding Ringer AACCC Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley CuocoSweeting. Directed by Jeremy Garelick. 101 minutes. Rated R. This contrived bromance involves a lonely rich guy (Gad) hiring a professional best man (Hart) to stand in at his wedding. Hart is likable, but the story never builds on its ridiculous premise, stumbling through unfunny set pieces and vulgar humor, without any worthwhile payoff. –JB Theaters: AL, CAN, CH, COL, DI, GVL, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SF, SHO, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS Whiplash aaabc Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser. Directed by Damien Chazelle. 107 minutes. Rated R. Teller plays an aspiring jazz drummer who has either the good or bad fortune to fall under the tutelage of a sadistic teacher-conductor (Simmons). There’s not much to the film apart from their weird sort of S&M relationship, but with two lead actors this formidable, that’s enough. –MD Theaters: COL, ORL, ST, TS, VS
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 aaacc Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13. After enduring the titular tournament of death twice now, headstrong teenager Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) has moved on to fighting directly against her totalitarian government. Mockingjay may lack the action and excitement of the previous two movies, but it makes up for it in greater emotional and thematic resonance. –JB Theaters: AL, GVR, RR, ST, TX, VS I (Not reviewed) Vikram, Amy Jackson, Suresh Gopi. Directed by Shankar. 188 minutes. Not rated. In Tamil with English subtitles. A former model, disfigured by a deadly chemical, seeks revenge. Theaters: ST
SP, TS
of filmmaking, the third movie in the Night at the Museum series brings the usual cast to London to save their magic tablet. The movie brings up ideas and lets them drop, clumsy cutting ruins most of the jokes, and visual effects are plentiful and lifeless. –JMA Theaters: AL, BS, CH, COL, DI, ORL, RP, RR, SC, SP, SS, TX, TS Paddington aaabc Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Nicole Kidman, voice of Ben Whishaw. Directed by Paul King. 95 minutes. Rated PG. Somehow the new Paddington movie seems modern while at the same time holding firmly to its quaint, lovely ideals. The movie includes a few big slapstick moments, but they arise naturally out of the character’s unfamiliarity with the civilized world. Ben Whishaw voices the CGI bear. –JMA Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, COL, DI, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX Penguins of Madagascar aabcc Voices of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights. Directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith. 92 minutes. Rated PG. The no-nonsense penguins who stole scenes in the Madagascar animated movies get their own feature, proving again that characters who are funny in small doses aren’t necessarily suited to carrying entire movies. The penguins’ madcap adventures fighting an evil octopus are occasionally cute and occasionally clever, but mostly just end up exhausting. –JB Theaters: ST, VS Selma aaabc David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo. Directed by Ava DuVernay. 127 minutes. Rated PG-13. Selma is a sometimes powerful, sometimes stilted look at the 1965 march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Oyelowo) from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama to rally for voting rights for African-Americans. The filmmakers create a sense of real life being lived, rather than just facts and figures being dramatized. –JB Theaters: AL, CAN, GVR, ORL, PAL, RR, SF, SP, SS, ST, TS, TX, VS
working-class Hispanic high school students enters a prestigious robotics competition. Theaters: BS, CAN, ORL, PAL, TS, TX Taken 3 abccc Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker. Directed by Olivier Megaton. 109 minutes. Rated PG-13. Neeson returns as former secret agent Bryan Mills, who has to clear his name after being framed for murder. Lacking the strong hook of the original, this sequel blunders through action-movie clichés, with nonsensical twists, inconsistent characterization and one of the most incoherently shot and edited car chases in recent memory. –JB Theaters: AL, BS, CAN, CH, DI, GVL, GVR, ORL, PAL, RP, RR, SC, SF, SHO, SP, SS, TS, TX
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death AABCC Phoebe Fox, Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine. Directed by Tom Harper. 98 minutes. Rated PG-13. This horror sequel takes place at the same creepy, abandoned mansion as the original, only decades later. Harper relies heavily on the creepy atmosphere of the house and the surrounding town, but he relies even more heavily on sudden loud noises, which are the source of the movie’s meager scares. –JB Theaters: BS, TX
The Theory of Everything aaccc Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis. Directed by James Marsh. 123
Unbroken aabcc Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi. Directed by Angelina Jolie. 137 minutes. Rated PG-13. This glossy biopic depicts World War II hero (and Olympian) Louis Zamperini (O’Connell) as more of a superhuman ideal than a person. Director Jolie cranks up the oppressively rousing score and gets some sweeping camerawork from topnotch cinematographer Roger Deakins, but the movie often feels like a parody of a feel-good biopic. –JB Theaters: BS, CH, COL, DTS, SC, SF,
Theaters
Summerlin 2070 Park Center Drive, 702-221-2283
(SF) Century Santa Fe Station 4949 N. Rancho Drive, 702-655-8178
(AL) Regal Aliante 7300 Aliante Parkway, North Las Vegas, 702-221-2283
(FH) Regal Fiesta Henderson 777 W. Lake Mead Parkway, Henderson, 702-221-2283
(SHO) United Artists Showcase 3769 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-221-2283
(BS) Regal Boulder Station 4111 Boulder Highway, 702-221-2283
(GVR) Regal Green Valley Ranch 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, Henderson, 702-221-2283
(PAL) Brenden Theatres at the Palms 4321 W. Flamingo Road, 702-507-4849 (CAN) Galaxy Cannery 2121 E. Craig Road, North Las Vegas, 702-639-9779 (CH) Cinedome Henderson 851 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson, 702-566-1570 (COL) Regal Colonnade 8880 S. Eastern Ave., 702-221-2283 (DI) Las Vegas Drive-In 4150 W. Carey Ave., North Las Vegas, 702-646-3565 (DTS) Regal Downtown
Spare Parts (Not reviewed) George Lopez, Carlos PenaVega, Marisa Tomei. Directed by Sean McNamara. 113 minutes. Rated PG-13. A team of
minutes. Rated PG-13. Redmayne gives an impressive physical performance as famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, conveying a vivid sense of a lively mind trapped inside an unresponsive body. Alas, the movie, which gives science short shrift, is primarily about Hawking’s bland relationship with his first wife (Jones). –MD Theaters: CH, COL, ORL, SC, SF, ST, TS
Wild aaaac Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski. Directed by JeanMarc Vallée. 115 minutes. Rated R. Witherspoon and director Vallée clearly have great respect for author Cheryl Strayed and her attempt to leave behind a troubled past while hiking more than a thousand miles. They approach the story with grace and subtlety, downplaying big revelations and instead focusing on the small steps that Cheryl (Witherspoon) took. –JB Theaters: COL, SC
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; MD Mike D’Angelo
(SP) Century South Point 9777 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-260-4061 (SC) Century Suncoast 9090 Alta Drive, 702-869-1880
(GVL) Galaxy Green Valley Luxury+ 4500 E. Sunset Road, Henderson, 702442-0244
(SS) Regal Sunset Station 1301-A W. Sunset Road, Henderson, 702-221-2283
(ORL) Century Orleans 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., 702-889-1220
(TX) Regal Texas Station 2101 Texas Star Lane, North Las Vegas, 702-221-2283
(RP) AMC Rainbow Promenade 2321 N. Rainbow Blvd., 888-262-4386
(TS) AMC Town Square 6587 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-362-7283
(RR) Regal Red Rock 11011 W. Charleston Blvd., 702-221-2283
(TC) Regency Tropicana Cinemas 3330 E. Tropicana Ave., 702-438-3456
(ST) Century Sam’s Town 5111 Boulder Highway, 702-547-1732
(VS) Regal Village Square 9400 W. Sahara Ave., 702-221-2283
For complete movie times, visit lasvegasweekly.com/movies/listings.
January 22–28, 2015 LasVegasWeekly.com
55
Calendar LISTINGS YOU CAN PLAN YOUR LIFE BY!
SQUIDHAT TURNS 3 The fast-growing, punk-championing local label celebrates its anniversary with a two-day weekend showcase at the Double Down. We caught up with label head Allan Carter for an update. What do you view as the state of SquidHat right now? Everything’s going great. It grew a lot faster than we hoped or even planned for. Sounds of Threat (see Page 22) was our 14th album. This year we’ll probably do eight to 10 new records. We’ve never had a shortage of things to release. What are you looking for in a new band for the label? Great songs. That’s what we started with and the direction we continue to go. Great energy, and not just a band we think we can sell. It’s not even as much about genre any more. Pet Tigers was way outside the punk borders. This year [for the anniversary party] we’re really excited, because we have a good mix with Eliza Battle and The CGs. What’s happening this year that you’re most excited about? We’re going to launch a sub-imprint in the late sum-
LIVE MUSIC T H E ST R I P & N E A R BY Brooklyn Bowl 1/22-1/24, 1/29-1/30, 2/1, 11 pm, free. March Fourth Marching Band 1/25, 9 pm, free. Keller Williams & The Motet 1/31, 9 pm, $11-$17. The Wailers 2/2-2/3, 9 pm, $22-$28. Jack White 2/4, 9 pm, $65. Naive Melodies 2/5, 8:30 pm, free. Hellyeah, Devour the Day, Like a Storm 2/6, 8 pm, $28$33. Tribal Seeds 2/7, 9 pm, $22+. Iration, Stick Figure, Hours Eastly 2/16, 8 pm, $26-$28. Flight Facilities 2/28, 9 pm, $22+. Railroad Earth 3/22, 8 pm, $22-$28. The String Cheese Incident 2/13-2/15, 8 pm, $55+. Lotus 2/14-2/15, midnight, $17. Chronixx, Protoje, Kelissa, Keznamdi 2/20, 9 pm, $17. Gov’t Mule, John Scofield 2/22, 8 p.m., $25-$28. Phantogram, Talk in Tongues 2/23, 8 pm, $28. Flight Facilities 2/28, 8 pm, $22. Linq, 702-862-2695. The Colosseum Elton John 1/231/24, 3/20-3/21, 3/23-3/24, 3/27-3/28, 3/30-3/31, 4/3-4/4, 4/6-4/7, 4/10-4/11,
mer called Squid Pro Quo, a subsidiary label for non-Las Vegas bands. SquidHat itself has always been and will always be for Las Vegas bands, but we wanted to expand a little bit, to get not just national bands but international bands like The Heiz from Japan. We’ve been planning this for a while, and
The Heiz is the first one we can talk about. I’m just scratching my head [that] it’s already been three years. Eighty percent of companies don’t survive the first year or two. We put that first record out three years ago and never looked back. –Max Plenke
SQUIDHAT SHOWCASE featuring Eliza Battle, New Waves, The CGs, Sounds of Threat, Guilty by Association (January 23); Franks & Deans, False Cause, War Called Home, Attack Ships on Fire, Surrounded by Thieves (January 24); 10 p.m., free. Double Down Saloon, 702-791-5775.
4/13-4/14, 6:30 pm, $55-$500. Rod Stewart 1/27, 1/30-1/31, 2/3, 2/6-2/7, 2/10, 2/14-2/15, 7:30 pm, $49-$250. Reba, Brooks & Dunn 6/24, 6/26-6/27, 7/1, 7/3, 7/4, 12/2, 12/4, 12/6, 12/9, $60$205. The Who 9/19, 10:30 pm, $96$501. Caesars Palace, 702-731-7333. The Cosmopolitan (Chelsea) Billy Idol, Broncho 2/21, 8 pm, $50+. Pentatonix 2/28, 8 pm, $20-$30. Hozier 4/9, 9 pm, $30+. (Boulevard Pool) Interpol 4/15, 9 pm, $25. Stromae 4/16, 9 pm, $25. 702-6987000. Dive Bar Luicidal, Rule of Thumb, Since We Were Kids, IDFI, False Cause 1/23, 9 pm, $6. JFA, Unfair Fight, Brutal Resistance 1/24, 9 pm, $6. The Toasters, Mustard Plug, The Scoundrels, Tiki Bandits, Frank & Deans 2/6, 9 pm, $10-$12. 4110 S. Maryland Pkwy., 702-586-3483. Double Down The New Waves, Guilty by Association, Sounds of Threat, The CGs, Eliza Battle 1/23. Attack Ships on Fire, False Cause, Surrounded by Thieves, War Called Home, Franks & Deans 1/24. Uberschall 1/25, midnight. Bargain
DJ Collective Mon. Unique Massive Tue, midnight. The Juju Man Wed, midnight. Punk Rock Bingo first Wed of the month. Blooze Brothers Third Sun of the month. Shows 10 pm, free unless noted. 640 Paradise Rd., 702791-5775. Flamingo Olivia Newton-John 3/103/14, 3/17-3/21, 5/26-5/30, 6/2-6/6, 6/9-6/13, 7/7-7/11, 7/14-7/18, 7/21-7/25, 8/4-8/8, 8/11-8/15, 8/18-8/22, 9/1-9/5, 9/8-9/12, 7:30 pm, $69-$139. 702-7333333. Gilley’s Chad Freeman Band 1/22, 3/19, 9 pm; 1/23-1/24, 3/20-3/21, 10 pm. Country Nation 1/30, 2/27-2/28, 10 pm. Austin Law 2/5, 3/5, 9 pm; 2/62/7, 3/6-3/7, 10 pm. Scotty Alexander Band 2/12, 3/26, 9 pm; 2/13-2/14, 3/273/28, 10 pm. Wolfcreek 2/20-2/21, 10 pm. Chancey Williams Band 3/12, 9 pm; 3/13-3/14, 10 pm. Shows $10-$20 after 10 pm.Treasure Island, 702-8947722. Hard Rock Live Natural Vibrations, Junior Reid, Karlos Paez 1/22, 7 pm, $18. Kate Voegele, Leroy Sanchez 2/7, 6 pm, $12. The New Mastersounds, Moksha 2/9, 7 pm,
$16. Mod Sun 2/13, 5 pm, $13. Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Authority Zero 2/14, 6:30 pm, $23-$25. Bayside, Senses Fail, Man Overboard, Seaway 3/13, 7 pm, $20. The Devil Wears Prada, Born of Osiris, The Word Alive, Secrets 3/24, 5 pm, $21. Hard Rock Cafe (Strip), 3771 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-733-7625. House of Blues Carlos Santana 1/21, 1/23-1/25, 1/28-1/31, 5/20, 5/22-5/24, 5/27, 5/29-5/31, $90-$350, 8 pm. Guster, Kishi Bashi 1/22, 7 pm, $27$29. Wale 1/27, 7:30 pm, $55-$111. Ru Paul’s Drag Race 2/1, 7 pm, $30-$50. Silverstein, Beartooth, Hands Like Houses, My Iron Lung 2/3, 5 pm, $18$22. Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Aeon, Tribulation 2/6, 5 pm, $28-$30. Badfish, Phil and the Blanx 2/7, 7 pm, $24-$26. The Spazmatics, Days After Hail 2/12, 6:30 pm, $20. Paper Tigers 2/13, 7:30 pm, $12. Steel Panther 2/13, 2/20, 9 pm, $22. Marilyn Manson 2/14, 7:30 pm, $60. Gilberto Santa Rosa 2/16, 7:30 pm, $43-$47. Kalin & Myles 2/19, 6 pm, $18-$20. Dr. Dog, Hanni El Khatib 2/21, 8 pm, $25$30. In Flames, All That Remains, Wovenwar 2/22, $25-$28, 5:30 pm. Taking Back Sunday, Letlive, The Menzingers 2/24, 5 pm, $28-$29. Cold War Kids 2/28, 6:30 pm, $20-$23. . Rhyme N Rhythm Mon, 9 pm, free. Live swing music Tue, 9 pm, free. Blues Wed, 8 pm, free. Phil Stendek Thu, 8 pm, free. Singles Sat, 9 pm, free. Gospel Brunch Sun, 10 am & 1 pm, $27-$50. PJ Barth Trio Sun, 8 pm, free. Mandalay Bay, 702-632-7600. The Joint Anisong 1/16, 7 p.m., $50+. Seether, Papa Roach, Kyng & Islander 2/7, 7 pm, $40+. Rascal Flatts 2/25, 2/27-2/28, 3/4, 3/6-3/7, 3/11, 3/13-3/14, 8 pm, $40+. WIdespread Panic w/ Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe 3/27 w/ Chris Robinson Brotherhood 3/28, 8 pm, $55+. Sixx: A.M., Apocalyptica 4/10, 8 pm, $35. Kenny Chesney 4/3-4/4. Alt-J, Jungle 4/13, 8 pm, $40.Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo 4/18, 8 pm, $40+. Journey 4/29, 5/15/2, 5/6, 5/8-5/9, 5/13, 5/15-5/16, 8 pm, $60-$250. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds 5/22, 9 pm, $35+. Hard Rock Hotel, 702-693-5222. Mandalay Bay (Events Center) Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull 1/31, 7:30 pm, $50-$200. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band 2/21, 8 pm, $75-$125. Chris Brown, Trey Songz, Tyga 3/7, 8 pm, $50-$126. Nickelback 7/3, 8 pm, $25-$105. 5 Seconds of Summer 7/17, 7:30 pm, $50-$100. 702-632-7777. MGM (Grand Garden Arena) Grasshopper 2/28, 8 pm, $58-$168. Fleetwood Mac 4/11, 8 pm, $50-$200. Iggy Azalea, Nick Jonas, Tinashe 4/25, $40-$70. Bette Midler 5/22, 8 pm, $95-$310. (Crown Royal Gold Buckle Zone) 702-891-7777. Orleans Rickey Smiley 1/17-1/18, 8 pm, $44-$66. Helen Reddy 1/241/25, 8 pm, $44-$66. Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band 2/7-2/8, 8 pm, $30-$61. NiteKings Wed, 4 pm. Rick Duarte Fri, 9 pm. Acoustic Den Sat, 9 pm. Shows free unless noted. 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., 702-365-7075. Palace Station (Jack’s) Peter Love Trio Fri, 9 pm. Willplay Sat, 9 pm. Shows free unless noted. 702-547-5300. Palazzo (Palazzo Theatre) Frank: The Man. The Music. ft. Bob Anderson Tue-Thu, Sat, 8 pm; Fri 9 pm, Beginning 1/24, $72. (Laguna Champagne Bar) Jimmy Hopper Thu-Sun, 9:30 pm, free. 3355 S. Las
CHECK OUT OUR COMPLETE CALENDAR LISTINGS AT LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM/EVENTS 56 LASVEGASWEEKLY.COM JANUARY 22–28, 2015
Vegas Blvd., 702-414-4300. Palms (The Lounge) Vinyl Vault 1/18, 10 pm, free. Sin City Sinners 1/31, 10 pm, free. Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns Mon, 10:30 pm, $10. 702-9443200. The Pearl Styx 1/18, 8 pm, $33-$83. Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band 3/15, 7:30 pm, $73-$153. Joe Bonamassa 5/1-5/2, 8 pm, $89-$130. The Moody Blues 5/3, 8 pm, $63-$133. Palms, 702-942-7777. Piero’s Pia Zadora Fri & Sat, 9 pm, two-drink minimum. 355 Convention Center Dr., 702-369-2305. Planet Hollywood Britney Spears 1/28, 1/30-1/31, 2/4, 2/6-2/7, 2/11, 2/132/14, 2/17-2/18, 2/20-2/21, 2/25, 2/272/28, $60-$195. Ricardo Arjona 3/15, 8 pm, $59-$181. Weird Al Yankovic 5/125/16, 8 pm, $59-$89. 702-234-7469. Rock in Rio Festival Ft. Taylor Swift, Metallica, Linkin Park, No Doubt, The Deftones, John Legend 5/8-5/9, 5/15-5/16, $298-$498. Rockinrio.com. Stratosphere David Perrico and Pop Evolution First & third Tue, 10:30 pm, $20. 800-998-6937. Silver Sevens All shows 9:30 pm, free. 4100 Paradise, 702-733-7000. Tuscany Danny Lozada Sun & Thu 10 pm, free. Kenny Davidsen Celebrity Piano Bar Fri, 10 pm, free. Live music Sat, 10 pm., free. 255 E. Flamingo Rd., 702-893-8933. Vinyl Indigenous 1/28, 9:30 pm, $35. Brett Scallions 2/6, 11:30 pm, $30. The Glorious Sons, Luminoth, Systemec 2/18, 8 pm, $22. Machine Head 2/19, 9 pm, $23+. Tiger Box 2/20, 9 pm, $25+. That 1 Guy 2/28, 9:30 pm, $13+. Ed Kowalczyk 4/2, 9:30 pm, $40. Nekromantix 4/4, 9 pm, $20+. Hard Rock Hotel, 702-693-5000. Wynn (Eastside Lounge) Michael Monge Wed-Thu, 9 pm, $10. 3131 S Las Vegas Blvd.
D OW N TOW N Artifice Pistol Shoebox 1/30, 10 pm, free. GorillaHead 1/31, 10 pm, free. 1025 S. 1st St., Ste. 100., 702-4896339. Backstage Bar & Billiards Bounty Hunter Brothers, Grim Reefer, Invisible State, Strange Mistress 1/24, 8 pm, $5. Duran Duran Tribute Night 1/24, 11:30 pm, free. Fever Red, The Conwaves, Twenty8 1/28, 8 pm, $5. Hunter Beard, Keddy Mac, Dub-Raw, JMZ Dean, Ekoh, Elmer Demond 1/31, 8 pm, $10-$15. The Blasters, The Yawpers 2/5, 8 pm, $12-$15. Pinback 2/12, 8 pm, $16-$20. Fishbone, The Untouchables 3/1, 8 pm, $21-$25. 601 E. Fremont St., 702382-2227. Bar & Bistro Out of the Desert Bluegrass Band Sun, noon, free. Arts Factory, 107 E. Charleston Blvd., 702202-6060. Beauty Bar Sweater Beats 1/22, 9 pm, $10-$12. Payola Presley, Willa 1/23, 9 pm, free. Hard Pipe Hitters, Poor Me, FireWater Folklore, 12 Good Summers 1/30, 9 pm. Jackson Taylor & The Sinners, The All-Togethers, Whiskey Breath 1/31, 9 pm, $5. A Place To Bury Strangers 3/12, 9 pm, $8-$10. 517 Fremont St., 702-5983757. The Bunkhouse Wax Pig Melting, Late For Dinner 1/22, 9 pm, $5. Mini Mansions, The Growl, 1776 1/24, 9 pm, $15-$20. Mobile Death Camp, Eagle Claw, Hated Silence Unleashed 1/25, 9 pm, $5. Helms
Calendar Alee, Marriages, The Fat Dukes of F*ck 1/27, 9 pm, $8-$10. King Tuff 1/30, 9 pm, $10-$12. Todd Snider, Reed Foehl 1/31, 9:30 pm, $25. Zola Jesus 2/7, 9 pm, $15-$20. The Growlers 2/13, $12-$15. Parlor Mob 2/22, 8 pm, $10-$15. Vegas on the Mic Second Tue of the month, 8 pm, free. 124 S. 11th St., bunkhousedowntown.com. Downtown Container Park Daniel Park 1/23, 1/30, 6 pm, free. Eagle Wolf Snake 1/23, 10 pm, free. Empire Records 1/24, 10 pm, free. 707 Fremont St, downtowncontainerpark. com. Fremont Country Club Sheppard 2/23, 9 pm, $26-$28. 601 Fremont St., 702-3826601. Fremont Street Experience Cheap Trick 3/7, 9 pm, free. Downtown Las Vegas, vegasexperience.com. Golden Nugget Don Williams 3/6, 8 pm, $61$109. 129 Fremont St., 702-385-7111. Griffin Live music Wed, 10 pm, free. 511 Fremont St., 702-382-0577. Mob Bar The Jeremy Cornwell Project Thu, 8 pm. Shaun DeGraff Band Fri, 8 pm. Dueling Pianos Sat, 8 pm. Yvonne Silva Sun, 6 pm. All shows free. 201 N. 3rd St., 702-259-9700. Scullery The Hot Club of Jazz 1/28. All shows at 7:30 pm, $15. 150 Las Vegas Blvd., 702-910-2396. The Smith Center Tony Desare 1/23, 7 pm, $39+. David Perrico - Pop Revolution 1/28, 10 pm, $15-$30. Burt Bacharach 1/30, 7:30 pm, $29+. A Night of Cosmic American Music 1/31, 5 & 8 pm, $29+. Jackie Evancho 1/31, 7:30 pm, $20-$125. Benjamin D. Hale 1/31, 5 pm, 8 pm, $29+. Tizer 2/13-2/14, 7 pm, $35+. Engelbert Humperdinck 2/15, 7:30 pm, $29+. Ana Gasteyer 2/20-2/21, 7 pm, $39+. Jimmy Mulidore 2/26, 7 pm, $35+. The Lon Bronson Band ft. Larry Braggs 2/28, 8 pm, $15. HAPA 3/6-3/7, 7 pm, $35+. Jake Shimabukuro 3/20-3/21, 7 pm, $39+. Clint Holmes First Fri & Sat, 8:30 pm; first Sun, 2 pm; $35-$45. 361 Symphony Park Ave., 702749-2000.
The ’Burbs Cannery DND Project, Fri-Sat, 7 pm, free, Tue-Thu, Sun, 8 pm. 2121 E Craig Rd., 702507-5700. Distill Summerlin Betsy Holm 1/24. Stefanrock 1/31. All shows free & begin at 8 p.m. 10820 W. Charleston Blvd., distillbar. com, 702-534-1400. Eagle Aerie Hall The Last Ten Seconds of Life, Words From Aztecs, Distinguisher, The Devil Who Decieved Them, Bridge Burner 1/26, 5:20 pm, $12-$15. Fish Leg, Aenimus, Apparitions, We Gave it Hell, Nocturnal Burial, 16 Hours Remain, Man Made God, Oscillation 2/7, 5 pm, $11-$14. I the Breather, I Before Giants, On Letting Go, IOF, Words From Aztecs 2/19, 5:20 pm, $13-$15. Stolas, Mad Arrow, Amarionette, A Friend, A Foe, Alaska 2/20, 6 pm, $10. Your Life Is Over, Leather Bound Crooks, Courvge, Minnow, Pool Party, New and Improved, Ambedo 2/27, 5 pm, $10-$13. Within the Ruins, We Gave It Hell, Man Made God, 16 Hours Remain, Mephitic Origins, Amongu, Full Fledged 3/27, 5:10 pm, $13-$15. 310 W. Pacific Ave., 702-6454139. Fiesta Henderson (Cerveza Lounge) Josh LaCount Wed, 8 pm. 702-558-7000. Fiesta Rancho (Club Tequila) Take the Stage Thu, 7 pm. (Cabo Lounge) Shows free unless noted. 702-631-7000. Green Valley Ranch (Drop Bar) Jared Berry Thu, 7 pm. Rick Duarte Fri, 6 pm. Tony Venniro Sat, 6 pm. Ryan Whyte Maloney, Cali Tucker Sun, 9 pm. (Hanks) Dave Ritz Tue, Thu, 6 pm; Sat, 7 pm. Nick Mattera Fri, 6 pm. Jeremy James Sat, 7 pm. Rick Duarte Wed, 6 pm. (Lobby Bar) Shai Peri, Christina L Thu, 8 pm. Christina L Fri, 8 pm. Cayce Andrew Sat, 8 pm. Shows free unless noted. 702-367-2470. M Resort (M Pavillion) Elvis, The Aloha Concert Tribute 3/14, 8/8, 7 pm, $30-$42. Shows free with drink purchase. M Resort, 800-745-3000. Rampart Casino (Grand Ballroom) (Addison’s Lounge) Wes Winters Tue, 6 pm. Mark O’Toole Wed, 6 pm. All shows free unless noted. (J.C.’s Irish Sports Pub) All shows free unless noted. (Round Bar) All
shows free unless noted. JW Marriott. 221 N. Rampart Blvd., 702-507-5900. Red Rock (Rocks Lounge) Michael Lington 1/24, 7 pm, $29-$39. Zowie Bowie Fri, 10 pm. The Dirty Sat, 11 pm, $10. David Perrico Pop Strings Orchestra Every Sat starting 1/10, 11 pm, free. (Onyx) Jared Berry 12/31, 9 pm. Willplay Fri, 8 pm. Tim Catching Sat, 9 pm. The Dirty Sat. 11 pm, $10. (T-Bones) Dave Ritz Wed, 6 pm; Fri, 7 pm. Rick Duarte Thu, 6 pm; Sat, 7 pm. Shows free unless noted. 11011 W. Charleston Blvd., 702-797-7777. Santa Fe Station (Chrome Showroom) Magic of Motown Sat, 10 pm. Jerry Tiffe 2/4, 3/4, 6:30 pm. Vegas Goodfellas 2/11, 3/11, 6:30 pm. Best of the Crooners 2/18, 3/18, 6:30 pm. Las Vegas Jazz Society 2/25, 3/25, 6:30 pm. (Revolver) Bro Country Thu, 8 pm. 4949 N Rancho Dr., 702-658-4900. Sienna Italian Authentic Trattoria Vegas Good Fellas Thu, 7:30 pm. Red Velvet Fri-Sat, 8:30 pm. 9500 Sahara Ave., 702-360-3358. South Point Tommy Roe 1/23-1/25, 7:30 pm, $20+. Beginnings 2/6-2/8, 7:30 pm, $25+. Tower of Power 2/13-2/15, 7:30 pm, $45+. The Diamonds 2/20-2/22, 7:30 pm, $25+. McCartney Years 2/27-3/1, 7:30 pm, $25+. Bill Medley, McKenna Medley 3/6-3/8, 7:30 pm, $45+. The Lettermen 3/20-3/22, 7:30 pm, $25+. Dennis Bono Show Thu, 2 pm, free. Wes Winters Fri-Sat, 6 pm, free. Spazmatics Sat, 10:30 pm, $5. 702-797-8005. Suncoast Piano Men: A Tribute to Sir Elton John & Billy Joel 1/31, 7:30 pm, $16+. Rita Coolidge 2/12-2/15, 7:30 pm, $16. 9090 Alta Dr., 702-636-7075. Sunset Station (Club Madrid) Danny Myrick 1/23, 8 pm, $10. Walt Aldridge 1/30, 8 pm. Voices ft. Ryan Whyte Maloney, Cali Tucker, Jake Worthington, Kristen Merlin, Michael Austin 1/17, 7 pm, $23. Barry Black Fri, 9:30 pm. Zowie Bowie Sat, 10 pm. (Gaudi Bar) Ryan Whyte Maloney, Cali Tucker 12/31, 10 pm; Sat, 7 pm. Willplay Sat, 7 pm. (Rosalita’s) Tony Venniro Fri, 7 pm. Peter Love Sat, 7 pm. (Chrome Showroom) Dennis Wise 1/24, 4 pm & 6 pm, $12.50. Shows free unless noted. 1301 W. Sunset Rd., 702-547-7777. Texas Station (A-Bar) Darrin Michaels FriSat, 7 pm. (South Padre) Crossfire Fri, 9 pm. Yellow Brick Road Sat, 9 pm. 702-631-1000.
CALL ABOUT OUR FREE FILM WORKSHOP ON JANUARY 28!
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E v e ry w h e r e E l s e Adrenaline Sports Bar and Grill Saving Able, Revolve, Hyperion’s Horizon, Obsidian Order, Meade Avenue, Within the Cochlea 1/24, 9 pm, $13-$15. Bow Wow Wow, Midnight Clover, The Unwieldies, Water Landing, Irie 2/7, 8 pm, $8-$10. Mechanical Manson, E.M.D.F., Meade Avenue 2/28, 8 pm, $8-$10. Open Mic Night Thu, 7 pm. 3103 N. Rancho Dr., 645-4139. Arizona Charlie’s (Naughty Ladies Saloon) Chris Heers 1/23-1/24, 9 pm. The Good Fellas 1/30-1/31, 9 pm. Jerry Tiffe Fri, 4 pm. (Palace Grand Lounge) Gregg Peterson 1/23-1/24, 9 pm. Jamestown 1/30-1/31, 9 pm. Boomers Live music Wed, 10 pm, $5-$10. Hip Hop Roots Fri, 10 pm, $5. 3200 Sirius Ave., 702-368-1863. Boulder Dam Brewing Mike Wojniak 1/23. American Voodoo 1/24. The All-Togethers 1/30. Phil Friendly Trio 1/31. All shows free unless noted, Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Wed-Thu, 7 pm. 453 Nevada Way, Boulder City, 702-2432739. Boulder Station (Railhead) Bee Gees Gold Fri, 10 pm, $5. El Moreno Carrillo Sun, 11 pm, $5-$10. (Kixx Bar) Joey Vitale Fri, 8 pm. Reflection Sat, 8 pm. 702-432-7777. Count’s Vamp’d Sin City Sinners, Derek Davis 1/22, 10 m, free. John Zito Electric Jam Wed, 9 pm, free. 9:30 pm, free. 6750 W. Sahara, 702-220-8849. The Dillinger Marty Feick Thu, 7 pm. Stefnrock First & third Sat, 8:30 pm, free. 1224 Arizona St., 702-293-4001. Dispensary Lounge Uli Geissendoerfer Trio Fri-Sat, 10 pm. 2451 E. Tropicana, 702-4586343. Eastside Cannery Kix & Vixen 8:30 pm, $15+. (Marilyn’s Lounge) Claudine Castro Band Mon, 10 pm. Phoenix Wed, 9 pm. Spazmatics Sun, 9 pm. Shows free unless noted. 702-507-5700. Italian American Club Tony Sacca, Denise Clemente 2/21, 8 pm, $25. 2333 E. Sahara Ave., 702-457-3866, iac.com.
ON INdustry NIght
Pets Welcome on Patio 702.739.8676
1350 e. troPicana troP & maryland
BOTOX STARTS AT $99 PER AREA
(B12 & Fillers also available)
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Dr. Richard Yen MD, PhD
(702) 367-3930 | Thurs-Sat 10-6 or by appointment Scandals Salon | 4235 S. Fort Apache Rd. #100 | Las Vegas N V 89147
Calendar Milo’s Cellar Live Music Thur, 8 pm, free. 538 Nevada Hwy., 702-293-9540. Ron DeCar’s Event Center. Merv Harding Talk of the Town 1/24, 1 pm, $15. Michael Ray Tyler Orchestra 1/31, 1 pm, $15. Jimmy Wilkins New Life Jazz Orchestra 2/7, 1 pm, $15. Bruce Harper Big Band, Elisa Fiorillo 2/21, 1 pm, $15 Charles McNeal Big Band 2/28, 1 pm, $15. Jazz Conversations Big Band Series Sat, 1 pm, $15. Swingin’ Sundays Sun, 5 pm, $10. 1201 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-384-0771. Sam’s Town Sonny Turner 1/24, 8 pm, $22. NiteKings Sun, 7 pm, free. Shows free unless noted. 5111 Boulder Hwy., 702-284-7777. Star of the Desert Arena Buffalo Bill’s Resort & Casino, 31900 S. Las Vegas Blvd., Primm, 800-386-7867.
Comedy
BOTOX STARTS AT $99
702-732-0079
2055 E. Tropicana Ave., Ste. 9 | 89119
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Louie Anderson Wed-Sat, 7 pm, $60-$102. Plaza, 702-386-2110. Roseanne Barr 2/28, 4/11, 9:30 pm; 6/6, 7:30 pm, $50-$118. Venetian, 866-641-7469. Big Al’s Comedy Club Wed-Sun, 8 pm, $20. Gold Coast, 702-251-3574. Bonkerz Comedy Club Downtown Grand Fri-Sat, 8:30 pm, free (with two-drink purchase). 206 N. 3rd St., 702-719-5100. Bonkerz Comedy Club JW Marriott Shows 7 pm, $15. 221 N. Rampart Blvd., 702-5075900. Bonkerz Comedy Club Primm Fri, 8 pm & 10:15 pm; Sat, 10:15 pm; $10. Primm Valley Resort , 31900 S. Las Vegas Blvd., 800-3867867. Bonkerz Comedy Club Silver Sevens FriSat, 10:30 pm; $10. Silver Sevens Hotel & Casino, 4100 Paradise, 702-733-7000. Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club Brad Garrett, Greg Morton, Collin Moulton Thru 1/25. Ian Bagg, Dave Landau, Matt Markman 1/26-2/1. All shows at 8 pm, $65-$87. MGM Grand, 891-7777. Wayne Brady 2/27, 4/17, 10 pm, $40+. Mirage, 702-792-7777. Bill Burr 6/26-6/27, 10 pm, $70+. Mirage, 702792-7777. Caroline Rhea, Elayne Boosler 3/28, 9:30 pm, $40-$96. Venetian, 866-641-7469. Carrot Top Wed-Mon, 8:30 pm, $50-$60. Luxor, 702-262-4900. Jeff Civilico Sat-Mon, Wed-Thu, 4 pm, $39$50. Quad, 888-777-7664. Andrew Dice Clay 2/6-2/8, 2/13-2/15, 3/12, 3/14-3/15, 3/20-3/22, 3/26-3/28, 4/9, 4/114/12, 4/16, 4/18-4/19, 4/23, 4/25-4/26. All shows at 9 p.m., $59+. Vinyl, hardrockhotel. com. Comedy After Dark Wed-Sun, 10 pm, $40$60. LVH, 702-732-5755. Whitney Cummings 3/13-3/14, 5/22-5/23, 9:30 pm, $74-$118. Venetian, 866-641-7469. Jeff Dunham Wed-Sun, 7 pm; Sat-Sun, 4 pm, $72. Planet Hollywood, 702-531-4320. Vinnie Favorito Nightly, 8 pm, $55-$100. Flamingo, 702-733-3333. Fortune Feimster, Cameron Esposito 4/25, 8 pm, $40-$96. Venetian, 866-641-7469. Craig Ferguson 3/13, 8 pm, $25+. Cosmopolitan, 702-698-7000. Garfunkel & Oates 3/21, 9:30 pm, $40-$96. Venetian, 866-641-7469. Eddie Griffin Mon-Wed, 7 pm, $90-$182. Rio, 702-777-7776. Kathy Griffin 4/18, 10 pm, $60+. Mirage, 702792-7777. Happy Hour and Friends featuring Narcissists Anonymous 1/24, 8 p.m., $10. Las Vegas Little Theatre Studio, 3890 Schiff Drive. Kevin Hart 5/24, 8 pm, $49-$129. Mandalay Bay Events Center, 702-632-7777. HydroComics Unleashed Wed, 9 pm, free. Lucie’s Lounge, 3955 Charleston Blvd., 702776-6417. The Improv Todd Glass, Bobby Miyamoto, Chris Mancini Thru 1/25. Allan Havey, Don McEnery, Alycia Wood 1/27-2/1. Owen Benjamin, Sean Kent 2/3-2/8. Dat Phan, Suli McCullough, Matt Merchant 2/10-2/15. Graham Elwood, Gary Brightwell, Matt Markman 2/17-2/22. Tue-Sun, 8:30 & 10 pm, $30-$45. Harrah’s, 702-369-5000. Gabriel Iglesias 4/3-4/4, 5/23-5/24, 10 pm, $60+. Mirage, 702-792-7777. The Joe Show Thu-Sat, 8 pm, $30. Tuscany,
255 E. Flamingo Rd., 702-629-0715. Jokes With Friends Thu, 10 pm, free. Nacho Daddy, 9925 S. Eastern Ave., 702-462-5000. L.A. Comedy Club Tue-Sun, 9:30 pm, $39$62. Ballys, 702-777-2782. Lisa Lampanelli 2/7, 9:30 pm; 4/4, 8 pm; 6/13, 9:30 pm, $50-$119. Venetian, 866-641-7469. The Laugh Factory Jamie Lissow, Francisco Ramos, Jay Reid Thru 1/25. Shows at 8:30 & 10:30 pm. $29-$45. Tropicana, 702-739-2222. Laughternoon Adam London Daily, 4 pm, $20-$25. The D, 702-388-2111. Jay Leno 2/28, 5/15, 6/13, 7/4, 10 pm, $60-$80. Mirage, 702-792-7777. Loni Love 2/14, 9:30 pm, $40-$97. Venetian, 866-641-7469. M Resort Comedy Night Fri, 9 pm, free with drink purchase. M Resort, 702-797-1000. The Mac King Comedy Magic Show TueSat, 1 & 3 pm, $33. Harrah’s, 702-369-5000. Kathleen Madigan 6/12, 10 pm, $30+. Mirage, 702-792-7777. Bill Maher 3/21-3/22, 8 pm, $43-$93. Pearl, 702-942-7777. John Mulaney 3/6, 10 pm, $54-$65. Mirage, 702-792-7777. Kevin Nealon 2/20-2/21, 7:30 pm, $16+. Suncoast, 702-636-7075. Party Improv Comedy Thu-Sun, 7 pm, $25, 2 drink minimum. Planet Hollywood, 702531-4320. Ray Romano & David Spade 2/20-2/21, 4/104/11, 10 pm, $80+. Mirage, 702-792-7777. Red Skelton Tribute Sat-Tue, 2 pm; $35-$40. Westin Las Vegas, 160 E. Flamingo Rd., 702245-2393. Don Rickles 2/21-2/22, 8 pm, $80.Orleans, 702-365-7075. Riviera Comedy Club 40 is Not the New 20 ft. Matt Kazam Mon-Sat, 10 pm, $40. Gerry Vednob, Kathleen Dunbar Thru 1/25, 8:30 pm, $30. Richie Minervini, Johnny Pizzi 1/26-2/1, 8:30 pm, $30. Riviera, 855468-6748. Joe Rogan 1/30, 10 pm, $40+. Mirage, 702792-7777. Rita Rudner 2/11, 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 7:30 pm, $60$100. Harrah’s, 702-369-5000. Sapphire Comedy Hour Fri-Sat, 8 pm, $20. Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club, 3025 Industrial Rd., 702-796-6000. Amy Schumer 4/24, 8 pm, $45. Cosmopolitan, 702-698-7000. S.E.T. Improv Comedy Mon, 8 pm, $10. Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave., 702-732-7225. Side Splitting Sundays Sun, 10 pm, free. Boomers, 3200 Sirius Ave., 702-368-1863. Sin City Comedy & Burlesque Show 8:30 pm, $38-$49. Planet Hollywood, 702-7777776. Sinbad 1/30-1/31, 8 pm, $50+. Orleans, orleanscasino.com. Aries Spears 1/23-1/24, 7:30 pm, $16+. Suncoast, 702-636-7075. Daniel Tosh 1/23, 10 pm; 1/24, 7:30 pm, 3/27, 10 pm; 3/28, 7:30 pm, $60+. Mirage, 702792-7777. Trailer Park Boys 2/22, 8 pm, $40-$125. The Joint, 702-693-5222. Ron White’s Comedy Salute to the Troops 3/4, 7:30 pm, $80-$119. Mirage, 702-792-7777.
Performing Arts 50 Shades! The Parody Shows beginning 2/3, Tue, 7:30 pm & 9:30 pm, Wed-Sun, 7:30 pm, $69+. Bally’s, 50shadesvegas.com, 702777-2782. The Addams Family 2/20-3/7, Fri-Sat, Mon, 7 pm; Sun, 1 pm, $15. Summerlin Library Theatre, 1771 Inner Circle Dr., broadwayboundlv.com, 702-838-5131. The Breasts of Tiresias 5/16, 5/22-5/23, 7 pm; 5/24, 2 pm, $10-$15. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Dr., 702-455-7030. Broadway in the Hood: Once on This Island 3/13-3/15, 6:30 pm; 3/14-2/15, 2:30 pm, $21. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Bug 1/22-1/24, 1/29-1/31, 8 pm; 1/25, 2/1, 2 pm, $16-$20. Art Square Theatre, 1025 S. First St. #110, cockroachtheatre.com. David Perrico: Pop Evolution 1/28, 10 pm, $15+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Dixie’s Tupperware Party Thur-Sun, 2/52/15, 7 pm; Sat-Sun, 2/7-2/15, 3 pm, $33-$39. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Girls Night: The Musical 3/26-3/28, 7 pm,
Calendar 3/28-3/29, 2 pm, $35. Smith Center, 702749-2000. I Know I Came In Here For Something: A Middle Age Musical Comedy Review 1/31, 2 pm, $10-$12. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Dr., 702-455-7340. Jeff McBride’s Wonderground Variety show. Third Thu of the month; 8, 9 & 10 pm; $10. Olive Mediterranean Restaurant Lounge, 3850 E. Sunset Rd., 702-451-8805 . John Tartaglia’s ImaginOcean: The Live Glow in the Dark Family Musical 3/12, 6 pm, $13+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Thru 1/25, 7:30 pm; 1/24-1/25, 2 pm, $28+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Kodo One Earth Tour 2/12, 7:30 pm, $29+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Las Vegas Philharmonic Pops III: A Gershwin Valentine 2/14, 7:30 pm, $26$94. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Las Vegas Philharmonic Pops IV: Symphonic Spectacular 3/28, 7:30 pm, $26-$94. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Las Vegas Philharmonic Pops V: A Tribute to the Music of Frank Sinatra 5/16, 7:30 pm, $26-$94. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Las Vegas Philharmonic Masterworks IV: Cabrera Conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann 3/7, 7:30 pm, $26-$94. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas 3/30, 7:30 pm, $29+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Momix Alchemia 3/10, 7:30 pm, $19+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Newsies 3/17-3/22, 7:30 pm, 3/21-3/22, 2 pm, $39+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Nevada Ballet Theatre: A Gala Performance 2/21, 7:30 pm, $29+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Nice Work If You Can Get It 2/24-3/1, 7:30 pm; 2/28 & 3/1, 2 pm, $39+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Reckoning A staged reading. 2/8, 7 pm, $10. Art Square Theatre, 1025 S. First St. #110, asylumtheatre.org. Shen Yun 3/2-3/4, 7:30 pm, $54+. Smith Center, 702-749-2000. Trouble in Tahiti 2/20-2/21, 2/27-2/28, 8 pm; 2/22, 4 pm, $15. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Dr., 702-455-7030.
Special Events A Path Appears Human Trafficking Awareness Month screening presented by Vegas PBS. 1/22, 6 pm, free, 21+. Inspire Theater, 107 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702-7991010. ArtLIVE 1/29, 6 pm, $25-$200. The Smith Center, artlivelv.com. AVN Awards Show 1/24, 8:30 pm, $175-$300. The Joint, 702-693-5222. Big Dog’s Winterfest 1/24, 3 pm, free. Big Dog’s Draft House, 4543 N. Rancho Dr., bigdogbrews.com. Daughter of the King: An Evening Wth Sandra Lansky 2/18, 6 pm, $25. Mob Museum, 300 Stewart Ave., mobmuseum. org. Dam Short Film Festival 2/4-2/7, Historic Boulder Theatre, 1225 Arizona St., 702-2933171, damshortfilm.org. Dowtown Podcast Thu, 9 pm, free. Scullery, 150 Las Vegas Blvd., 702-910-2396. GenderSense In memory of Leelah Alcorn. 1/22, 7 pm, free. Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, 401 S. Maryland Pkwy, 702-733-9800. Gladiator Gauntlet 1/24, 9 am, $50-$60. CrossFit Veni Vidi Vici, 3306 St. Rose Parkway, Ste. 110, crossfitvenividivici.com. Las Vegas Car Stars: Back to the Future 5/14-5/16, times vary, free. Fremont Street, lasvegascarstars.com. Monday’s Dark with Mark Shunock 1/26, 2/16, 3/16, 4/20, 5/18, 6/15, 7/20, 8/17, 9/21, 9:30 pm, $20+. Vinyl, hardrockhotel.com. Motley Brew’s Great Vegas Festival of Beer 4/11, 3 pm, $30-$75. Fremont East, Downtown Las Vegas, greatvegasbeer.com. RuPaul’s Drag Race Battle of the Seasons: Condragulations 2/1, 9 pm, $30. House of Blues, ticketmaster.com. Sons of Norway Lutefisk Dinner 1/31, 3 pm & 6 pm, $20. Boulder City Elks Lodge, 1217 Nevada Highway, 702-869-5775.
Splendor in the Glass Wine & Beer Tasting 2/7, 3 pm, $85-$100. Westgate Las Vegas, VegasPBS.org/winetasting. Stars and Stardust: Sidewalk Astronomy 1/24, 6 pm, free. Neon Museum, 770 Las Vegas Blvd. N., neonmuseum.org. Switch: Trans* Clothing Swap Thu, 5 pm, free. Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, 401 S. Maryland Pkwy, 702-733-9800.
Sports Arenacross Championships 5/1, 8 pm, $40. South Point Arena, southpointarena.com. Arenacross 5/3, 8 am, $20. South Point Arena, southpointarena.com. Big City Showdown Findlay College Prep vs. Bishop Gorman 1/24, 2 pm, $5-$10. South Point, 702-797-8055. Championship Bull Riding 3/7, 8 pm, $20$60. South Point Arena, southpointarena. com. Ellis Mania 10 2/21, 8 pm, $20+. The Joint, 702-693-5222. Jay Cutler Desert Classic 4/4, times vary, $30-$78. The Pearl, ticketmaster.com. Harlem Globetrotters 2/5, times vary, $24+. Orleans Arena, orleansarena.com. UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz 1/31, 3 pm, $250$1,000. MGM Grand Garden Arena, 702891-7777. UNLV Men’s Basketball Utah State 1/24, 5 pm, $15-$100. Air Force 1/31, 7 pm, $15-$100. Fresno State 2/10, time TBA, $15-$100. Boise State 2/18, 8 pm, $15-100. Wyoming 2/28, 5 pm, $15-$100. San Diego State 3/4, 8 pm, $20-$110. Thomas & Mack, 702-739-3267. UNLV Women’s Basketball Colorado State 2/7, 4 pm. New Mexico 2/21, 2 pm. Utah State 2/25, 7 pm. San Jose State 3/6, 5 pm. All games 5 p.m. Cox Pavilion, 702-739-3267.
Galleries Amanda Harris Gallery of Contemporary Art Thu-Fri, 5-8 pm, and by appointment. 900 S. Las Vegas Blvd., 702-769-6036. Artistic Armory 5087 S. Arville St., 702-5479005. Arts Factory 107 E. Charleston Blvd, 702383-3133. Galleries include: Joseph Watson Collection Wed-Fri, 1-6 pm; Sat, noon-3 pm; Sun, 11 am-2 pm. Suite 115, 858-733-2135. Sin City Gallery Wed-Sat, 1-7 pm; Sun, 11 am-2 pm. Suite 100, 702-608-2461. Trifecta Gallery Mon-Fri, 11 am-5 pm; Sat-Sun, 11 am-3 pm. Suite 135, 702-366-7001, trifectagallery. com. Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art Daily, 10 am-8 pm, $11-$16. 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 702693-7871. Blackbird Studios Fri-Sun, noon-7 pm. 1551 S. Commerce St., 702-782-0319. Brett Wesley Gallery Wed-Sat, 1-7 pm. 1025 S. First St. #150, 702-433-4433. Clark County Government Center Rotunda Mon-Fri, 8 am-5 pm. 500 Grand Central Parkway, 702-455-7030. Clay Arts Vegas Mon-Sat, 9 am-9 pm; Sun, 11:30 am-6:30 pm. 1511 S. Main St., 702-3754147. Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery Mon-Fri, 9 am-5 pm; Sat, 10 am-2 pm. At UNLV, 702895-3893. Downtown Spaces 1800 Industrial Rd., dtspaces.com. Galleries include: Wasteland Gallery Thu, 6 pm-9pm; Fri & Sat, 6 pm11pm, Sun-Wed by appointment. Emergency Arts 520 Fremont St., 702-6863164. Gainsburg Studio & Gallery Mon-Sat, 10am5pm. 1533 West Oakey Blvd, 702-249-3200. Left of Center Gallery Tue-Fri, noon-5 pm; Sat, 10 am-3 pm. 2207 W. Gowan Rd., 702647-7378. Michelle C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory By appointment only. 620 S. 7th St., 702-3669339. P3Studio The Octave of Visible Light A Meditation Nightclub By Lia Chavez. Thru 2/8. Wed-Sun, 6-11 pm. Cosmopolitan. West Las Vegas Arts Center Wed-Sat, 9 am-7 pm. 947 W. Lake Mead Blvd., 702-229-4800. Winchester Cultural Center Art Gallery Tue-Fri, 10 am-8 pm; Sat, 9 am-6 pm. 3130 S. McLeod Dr., 702-455-7340.
HOROSCOPE
free will astrology
By Rob Brezsny
ARIES
LEO
SAGITTARIUS
March 21-April 19
July 23-Aug. 22
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Is there a patron saint of advertising or a goddess of marketing or a power animal that rules publicity and promotion? If so, I’m going to find out, then pray to them on your behalf. It’s high time for your underappreciated talents and unsung accomplishments to receive more attention. What tricks do you have for attracting the interest of those who don’t know yet about your wonders? Polish up your self-presentation, please.
In the early 1300s, the people of the Mexica tribe had wandered for centuries through what we now call Mesoamerica when, according to legend, their priests received a vision of an eagle eating a snake on a prickly pear cactus. Two years later, the prophecy was fulfilled and Tenochtitlan was built. Have you had an equivalent vision, Leo? If you haven’t yet, I bet you will soon. Go in search of it. Be alert.
Italian composer Gioachino Rossini didn’t like to work hard, and yet he was also prolific. His desire to avoid strenuous exertion was an important factor in his abundant output. He got things done fast. If given a choice, he would tap into his creative energy while lounging in bed or hanging out with his buddies. In the coming weeks, Sagittarius, I recommend you consider strategies like his.
TAURUS
VIRGO
CAPRICORN
April 20-May 20
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
During his 67 years of life, Taurusborn Leonardo da Vinci achieved excellence in 12 different fields, from painting to engineering to anatomy. Yet on his death bed, Leonardo confessed, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” Typical for a Taurus, he underestimated himself! It’s very important that you not do the same, especially in the coming weeks.
By the end of the 16th century, nutmeg was in high demand throughout Europe, and the Dutch East India Company fully controlled the global sale. Ultimately their monopoly collapsed because pigeons ate nutmeg seeds then flew to other islands, enabling new plants to grow. What’s your equivalent of the pigeons? Can you find unlikely allies to help you evade the controlling force that’s limiting your options?
Each hour of every day, the sun offers us more energy than oil, gas and coal can provide in an entire year. Sadly, much of our star’s generous gift goes to waste. Is there a comparable dynamic in your personal life, Capricorn? Are you missing out on a flow of raw power simply because you haven’t made the necessary arrangements to gather it? If so, now would be an excellent time to change your ways.
GEMINI
LIBRA
AQUARIUS
May 21-June 20
Sept. 23-Oct. 22
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Where you have been and what you have done will be of little importance in the coming weeks. Both your mistakes and your triumphs will be irrelevant. You have a sacred duty to spy on the future and reconnoiter the pleasures and challenges that lie ahead. I suggest you head off toward the frontier with an innocent gleam in your eye and a cheerful hunger for interesting surprises.
Have you triggered any brilliant breakthroughs lately? Have you made any cathartic departures from the way things have always been done? The last few weeks have been a time of retrenchment and stabilization for you. But I bet you will start going creatively crazy very soon—and I mean that in the best sense. To ensure maximum health and well-being, you simply must authorize your imagination to leap, whirl and dazzle.
According to my analysis of the longterm astrological omens, 2015 is the year you can get totally serious about doing what you were born to do. You will be invited to fully embrace the central purpose of your destiny. I suggest you adopt Oscar Wilde’s motto: “Nothing is serious except passion.” Your primary duty is to associate with people and places and situations that feed your deepest longings.
CANCER
SCORPIO
PISCES
June 21-July 22
Oct. 23-Nov. 21
Feb. 19-March 20
Will you ever find that treasured memento you misplaced? Is there any chance of reviving a dream you abandoned? You are in a phase when these events are more likely than usual to happen. The same is true about an opportunity that you frittered away or a missing link that you almost tracked down. If you will ever have any hope of getting another shot at those lost joys, it would be in the coming weeks.
The cassava plant produces a starchy root that’s used as food by a halfbillion people all over the planet, but in its raw state, it contains the poisonous chemical cyanide, which must be removed by careful preparation. I see this process as a metaphor for the work you have ahead of you, Scorpio. A new source of psychological and spiritual sustenance will soon be available, but you will have to purge its toxin first.
“Give up all hope for a better past,” writes Emily Fragos in her poem “Art Brut.” That’s generally sound advice. But I think you may be able to find an exception to its truth in the coming weeks. As you work to forgive those who have trespassed against you, and as you untie knots that have weighed you down and slowed you up, you just may be able to create a better past. Dare to believe you can transform your memories.
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The BackStory
photographs by adam shane; grooming by tai shane
LAS VEGAS WEEKLY PHOTO SHOOT | INTERACTIVE STUDIO | JANUARY 15 Not all great ideas see the light of day. When I was approached about doing a shoot with flying musicians, I jumped (no pun intended) at the opportunity. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had a harness lying in wait at the studio and few opportunities to put it to good use. The band members from Brumby took to flight well, striking poses as natural as birds on the wind. Of course, a spare shot parodying a famous Beatles pose was loved by all and preferred for the story (see Page 17), leaving these few precious frames and the impending awesome-yetcomplex illustration on the sidelines. â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Adam Shane