Fremont Street Experience proudly welcomes the 7th Annual ACM Weekend on Friday, April 5th and Saturday, April 6th. In honor of the 48TH ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS on April 7th, the free concerts will feature country music superstars Gary Allan & Jake Owen, along with ACM Award nominees and special guests.
DOWNTOWN VEGAS vegasexperience.com Binion’s • California • the D • Four Queens • Fremont • Golden Gate • Golden Nugget • Main Street Station
Sunny Sweeney
Joe Nichols
9:00pm 9:50pm 11:00pm 12:00am
Sunny Sweeney ....................................1st Joe Nichols ............................................ 3rd Kip Moore ................................................1st Gary Allan ............................................. 3rd
Kip Moore
Street Street Street Street
Stage Stage Stage Stage
Chris Janson
Randy Houser
9:00pm 9:50pm 11:00pm 12:00am
Chris Janson ..........................................1st Randy Houser ....................................... 3rd Jana Kramer ..........................................1st Jake Owen ............................................. 3rd
Jana Kramer
Street Street Street Street
Stage Stage Stage Stage
The LaTesT April 4-10, 2013
Lights, Camera, But No Action
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Tax incentives may be a devil’s bargain. But if Nevada wants to lure flm production, it doesn’t have much choice.
By Kurt Rice
Silver State Production ServiceS
founder Chris Ramirez invited me to take a seat in his offce to discuss Nevada Senate Bill 165, the Motion Picture Jobs Creation Act. So I shook his hand, squeezed sideways past a desk just large enough for a laptop piled high with paper, and settled into the narrow, windowless cell that serves as the only private workspace in Silver State’s small studio in the creative warren of Fremont Street’s Emergency Arts. Ramirez’s lanky dog, Downtown Abby, opened one lid, stretched her toes and went back to sleep. Passage of SB165 would certainly be good news for Silver State Productions. Not only would Ramirez get an
adult-size offce and maybe a couch for Abby, but he could also safely increase his current staff. “I am taking a gamble with 15 full-time employees right now. If the bill passes, I can keep those 15 people employed, and then I could see our company growing to 40 to 70 full-timers and building a bigger studio.” SB165 offers qualifying flm productions (which specifcally do no not include pornography, most live programming and student projects) with budgets greater than $100,000 a tax credit for up to 27 percent of the money they spend in Nevada. It may seem obvious that a guy who makes his living in flm would be all in favor of a tax break for the industry. But
of the idea and as long as the numbers can pencil out, we’re good to go.” But some are far less enthusiastic and argue that, sure, while it’s great for guys like Ramirez, it ultimately screws the rest of us. The Nevada Policy Research Institute, which identifes itself as a “free-market think tank,” says the bill is “a loser for taxpayers.” “Every dollar that is awarded through a special tax credit is a dollar that is unavailable to fnance public services,” NPRI Deputy Policy Director Geoffrey Lawrence says. Lawrence cites data from the Louisiana Legislative Fiscal Offce, which concludes that “the program creates a net loss for the state’s budget even after accounting for all multiplier effects and additional employment created by the flm industry. The fscal effect was an annual net loss for the state budget of more than $48 million annually in every year between 2006 and 2011.” On the other hand, in a Nevada Film Incentive Task Force comparative study published in May 2012, authors Josh Cohen and JR Reid, both players in Nevada’s flm industry, cited numbers from the Louisiana Economic Development offce showing the state’s flm-production revenue increasing 6,600 percent between 2002 and 2006 after passage of a 25 percent flm-production tax incentive. They argue that with careful structuring, incentive measures can work to engender growth, concluding that “Nevada’s primary competitors have found that 25 percent is the sweet spot for attracting medium-size productions, long-term jobs and infrastruc-
ture, while still keeping the program fscally positive and benefcial to feeder industries.” Selecting statistics to ft desired conclusions isn’t exactly new. And to further confuse things, it seems that states may not be doing a great job of tracking incentive data. A Pew Center on the States meta-study published in April 2012 titled “Evidence Counts” concludes that “no state regularly and rigorously tests whether [incentives] are working and ensures lawmakers consider this information when deciding whether to use them, how much to spend and who should get them.” The Pew study includes a particularly telling example. New Mexico—cited repeatedly by proponents of SB165 since producers of Vegas chose it over the actual Las Vegas—has had diffculty pinning down whether or not its incentive is fscally advantageous (see Page 77). Pew also notes that a 2008 study “conducted by New Mexico State University researchers, found that the state’s investment generated just 14 cents per dollar in new revenue,” but that another study conducted a year later by Ernst and Young for the State Film Offce “found that every dollar spent on the flm tax credit generated 94 cents in new state revenue.” Ramirez understands the concerns of those who are worried the Motion Picture Jobs Creation Act will end up costing the state more than it brings in. He believes we don’t have to give away everything; we just have to offer something to give producers the excuse they need to come to Nevada.
And he’s willing to back down if it doesn’t work. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to take money from anywhere,” he says. “[But] I frmly believe tax incentives will help. I’d love for the state to put up hurdles and say, ‘Listen, we have reservations about this, but if you do X, Y and Z [you can] prove to us [the incentives are worth it].’ I think the whole industry would jump through those hoops.” Ford agrees. “The decline in the number of dollars we have been able to bring into the flm industry tells the whole story,” he says. “It is just overwhelming. Film production income in Nevada has declined 43 percent in the last decade from $155 million to $89 million. Other states’ flm incentives are the reasons why the industry comes here and only does a couple days of shooting. They get what they need from Nevada and then they go to New Mexico. Why would they tell the Ralph Lamb story in New Mexico? Because they have a tax incentive.” The Tax Foundation—a Washington, D.C.-based think tank whose analyses NPRI uses to bolster its argument against SB165—admits that flm tax incentives are an “arms race.” The solution? A moratorium on them, either voluntary or unilateral. But the foundation concedes that getting the states to lay down their incentives and make peace will be extremely diffcult. In the meantime, if Nevada wants to attract flm production, it doesn’t have much choice. One certainty about tax incentives is that they always have unforeseen consequences. Another is that if we don’t have them, production will head for states that do.
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Ramirez hasn’t always believed incentives were necessary. A couple of years ago when Silver State Productions was working in Reno on The Motel Life, he was able to convince the producers to shift production from New Mexico to Nevada. “[At that time] I thought, ‘We don’t need tax incentives. Nevada is such a beautiful state.’ But I was so naïve. [Other states were] giving away so much money and making it so attractive.” He predicted there would “come a point when people will build their own Las Vegas. Sure enough that’s what they did; they built their own Fremont Street in New Mexico to shoot [the CBS TV show] Vegas.” Producers are eager to shoot in Nevada, but it just doesn’t
make sense for them when so many other states offer incentives. “Everybody I met at the Sundance Film Festival was talking about Nevada working on a tax incentive,” Ramirez says. “Everybody I bring it up to thinks Nevada and Las Vegas would be an amazing place to flm. We have the hotel rooms, we have the rental cars, it’s fve hours from L.A.” To help illustrate, Ramirez explains that Jason Statham is shooting a remake of Burt Reynolds’ Heat, but the outcome for Nevada is opposite of what happened with The Motel Life. “One-hundred percent of the script takes place in Las Vegas, so they came out over Christmas [to shoot some exteriors], and we showed them such cool shit. They loved it. So I said, ‘OK, so can we do this here?’ They said no, absolutely not. Why? Because the decision is up to the fnanciers. All their money is tied now to incentives. Now movies won’t even get made without them.” Similar bills have been foated in Nevada before—most recently in the 2011 session—but none have passed. Senator Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, the bill’s primary sponsor, seems confdent it will make it through this time around. “This bill came out of the chute with bipartisan support. I am a Democrat, and the Senate minority leader, Republican Michael Roberson, is a co-sponsor. It also came out with bicameral support and, for a lack of a better term, bi-industrial support in the sense that I have the chambers of commerce as well as labor on board. The governor’s offce has already indicated, although I don’t want to speak for the governor, that they are enamored
April 4-10, 2013
From gritty alleys off Fremont Street to Glitter Gulch and the desert, Las Vegas has plenty to offer film productions—just no incentives.
Photo by TK
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April 4-10, 2013
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In the Thomas & Mack, UNLV expanded on its glitzy pregame show and player introductions, increasingly ramping up the spectacle as the Rebels regained their status as a national power, remaining one for the rest of Tarkanian’s career. Danny: In the ’70s when I was a young kid and idolizing the Rebels, they had the red, blue, green and yellow lights that few around [the Convention Center], and it was wonderful. They started with that. Then they added the red carpet. And they added the freworks [in 1986], but then the freworks always got better. Then they added the shark [spotlights] going around the foor, the shark clap and the shark mascot. It all evolved. It just got bigger and bigger. Calvert: Some coaches, like Jerry Pimm at UC Santa Barbara and John Thompson at Georgetown, used to go in the locker room after their teams were announced because of it. Some people said it was worth 10 points. CBS was the only network in those days that carried the introductions, which was pretty cool because no one ever did that before. The Chicago Bulls copied us. They came to us and visited with all of us. They got their own music, but they did virtually the same damn thing that we did.
Leon Symanski: They brought me out on a recruiting visit [in 1984], and I had never been here before. It was the last home game of the regular season, and they were late picking me up from the airport. So as I was coming in the tunnel to the Thomas & Mack, it was when 18,500 were on their feet, a standing O for the seniors, who were out on the foor with their parents, along with Lois and Jerry. Flowers were raining down, fashbulbs were popping, cameras were rolling—it was very surreal for my frst time in the Thomas & Mack to have that experience.
The 1986-87 Rebels had one of the greatest seasons in program history, led by sharpshooting Las Vegas native Freddie Banks, All-American forward Armon Gilliam and slickpassing guard Mark Wade, along with athletic forwards Jarvis Basnight and Gerald Paddio, and senior subs Gary Graham and Eldridge Hudson. Symanski: Nike would provide us with apparel, and that year we had these black, shiny sweatsuits that were almost leather-looking. And they were kind of thug-looking. We were in the preseason NIT, and we made it to the semifnals for that Thanksgiving weekend, and the frst game we played against Temple and went to double overtime and won. So the next day was Thanksgiving, and Coach Tark said, “OK, all four teams are going to have Thanksgiving dinner in this ballroom, and here’s what time you have to be there.” And, of course, we all showed up, shoes untied, wearing these black leather-looking sweatsuits, hats on backward, and the other three teams were basically in sport coats and ties. Lois and Jerry were there at the entrance of the dining hall, and Lois looked at us and said, “You guys have to go back and put on your sport coats.” And everybody just started laughing, and Coach looked at his wife and said, “You gotta be kidding me? These guys don’t own sport coats.” And when we walked in, the whole place went silent. All the other teams were just looking at us. That kind of summed up that year, because we had six seniors, and we had guys who were very mature and knew what we had to do, and weren’t intimidated by anyone or anything. And that really helped our confdence level.
Rothermel: We had the largest home crowd we’ve ever had: 20,321 when we played Navy [led by All-American center David Robinson]. Le Riggle was our ticket manager, and she came to me early and said, “Brad, we’ve sold it out. We have no seats.” So we created the concept of “best available seat.” If you had a ticket and you saw an empty seat, you could sit there until the holder of that seat came. And if you look at pictures from that game, you can’t see the aisles. They were completely flled. So when we got to 19,000 [tickets sold], Le came down and said, “We have no tickets left.” I said, “Just keep selling them, but let’s call the fre marshal.” So we called the fre marshal and said, “How many can we sell?” He said, “How many do you think you can sell?” I said, “Probably 25,000.” He said, “Oh no, we can’t put 25,000 in there.” I said, “Well, you tell us what we can have, and we’ll sell up to that.” And he said, “What about 20,200?” I said, “Le, that’s it.” But we could have sold a lot more. That night Armon Gilliam became a nationally recognized basketball player. David Robinson got three fouls early, and Armon dominated him.
UNLV entered the 1987 NCAA tournament with just one loss, an 89-88 defeat at Oklahoma in which Gary Graham hit a 3-pointer before halftime that offcials ruled a 2-point basket. After beating Idaho State, Kansas State and Wyoming in the frst three rounds of the tournament, Tarkanian would gain one of
his greatest victories ever, followed immediately by one of his most crushing defeats. Symanski: All season we were just blowing people out. So we’re playing Iowa in the Kingdome in Seattle in the Elite Eight, and they had great players and all the momentum. Our chemistry was off, we were not hitting shots, and we were down by 16 at the half. So Coach Tark comes in and does his speech at halftime, and then Gary Graham said, “All right, coaches, you’re going over there. Team, we’re going over here.” And the seniors took the team aside, and we had our own meeting at halftime, without the coaches. It was basically a look-each-other-in-the-eye gut check, and we said, “We need to play like we know how to play, and we’re not going to lose this game. Let’s break this into four fve-minute games, and by the time we get to the fourth game, we want to be ahead or tied.” And that was our strategy. Rothermel: Gerald Paddio was a great player for us, but he’d had 19 lousy games in a row. He had a real good preseason NIT tournament in New York and hit a jump shot with no time left to beat Temple, and then we beat Western Kentucky in double overtime. But he’d been terrible after that; he couldn’t hit a shot. I said to Coach, “Why in the hell do you keep playing Gerald?” He said, “I’ll tell you what, Gerald will win a game for us before this year is over.” So we went in the locker room at halftime of that Iowa game, and Jerry pointed right at Gerald and said, “You’re
either going to shoot us in it or you’re going to shoot us out of it, because we’re coming to you every time.” And he went out and made, I think, seven of his frst nine jumpers, and within 10 minutes we caught them [Paddio and Freddie Banks combined for 23 points during UNLV’s 27-4 second-half run]. Lois: We all got in the bus to go back to our hotel after winning the game, and when we got there, there was a big crowd of people, and they rocked the bus. I mean, they rocked the bus, yelling out to the players. I was worried they were going to turn the doggone bus over, that’s how many there were. And I said to myself, “My God, this is like being a rock star.” Symanski: I think we got [to New Orleans for the Final Four] too early. I think we got there on Wednesday when we should have gotten there maybe on late Thursday. We stayed in the [French] Quarter, and we should have stayed out of the mayhem. Because our guys were older, we really didn’t think we had to adhere to the rules. We wanted to go see New Orleans, and maybe that got us a little distracted from the task at hand. Coach was not happy with our practices; we were not focused. He seemed a little out of sorts, too. I think he felt a little different type of pressure. We were ranked No. 1 and we were the No. 1 seed, and Indiana came in and they probably had a little bit more focus than we did. Our defense was not as sharp as it should have been; we still played an amazing game to be scoring in the 90s. Freddie hit
Photo provided by UNLV Special Collections
April 4-10, 2013
would we be able to go from 6,500 to 18,500 and still fll it? We all had doubts about that. Danny: At the time, my dad only wanted it to be about 12,000 seats. He didn’t think they could sell out the 18,500. The thing that sticks out in my mind, and only in Vegas could you do this, the opening act for the Thomas & Mack was a fundraiser for the basketball team hosted by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Diana Ross. The whole team wore black tuxedos with white-and-red-striped tennis shoes. And there’s a picture of Diana Ross singing “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” and holding hands with Booker, and some other players all swaying to the music. That doesn’t happen at any other college. Vegas was a special place in a lot of ways, particularly early in my dad’s career, because of things like that. Having Wayne Newton sing the national anthem or Bill Cosby come to watch you practice, those things just didn’t happen at other colleges.
of his university, his city, his family and his heritage, and to bring any type of shame to any of those entities, he’s going to take it very personally.
Ten players were suspended for at least one game that season, nine for not paying incidental charges at ho-
April 4-10, 2013
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After upsetting No. 1 Arizona and reaching the Elite Eight in the 1989 NCAA tournament, Tarkanian signed 6-foot-7 junior Larry Johnson from Odessa (Texas) Junior College. Adding Johnson to a roster that returned standouts such as Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon, David Butler, Anderson Hunt and Moses Scurry gave Tarkanian all the pieces he needed for a special season. Anderson Hunt: We got our confdence in ’89 at the end of the season after we beat Arizona, even though Seton Hall put it on us after that. But once Larry came, that just took us to the next level. We couldn’t be stopped then. Koloskie: We were playing San Jose State at home, and it was 56-34 at halftime. And our guys played the most fawless frst half of basketball that you could ever play. So all the guys get in the locker room, and they’re just sitting there. And Tark would always do the same thing, come in with his hands in his pockets, head down. He’d walk to the front, walk to the back, kinda thinking of what he’s going to say. And if we weren’t playing very well, he’d start out by yelling. He would go off for like fve minutes. So, anyway, at this game, Tark’s walking back and forth, and he’s looking at the stat sheet, and he really doesn’t know what to say. And Larry Johnson looks at him and says, “What do you got to say now, Coach?” And that’s the only time in 10 years I ever saw Tark smile at halftime. Hunt: Tark was the master motivator. Before every game, he’d say, “You know these guys think they’re better than you. They don’t think you deserve this.” Or if you were playing on CBS or something, he’d say, “You can fool me, you can fool the coaches, but you can’t fool all the people back home watching in your neighborhood.” He motivated us every game, whether we played Pacific or LSU.
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tels where the team stayed the previ- title match against Duke, UNLV rode ous season, and another for failing an 18-0 second-half run to a crushto keep current on a student loan. ing 103-73 triumph—still a title-game Tarkanian kept his team focused record for largest margin of victory. through the turmoil, but the Rebels’ Hunt: When we played Duke, season almost became derailed on Tark said, “They’re white-collar, February 12, 1990, when point guard and we’re the blue-collar guys. Greg Anthony fell to the Thomas All the people working in steel & Mack foor after colliding in the mills, they’re rooting for us. frst half with Fresno State’s Wilbert All the people on Wall Street Hooker. Despite breaking his jaw in and corporate America, they’re two places, Anthony was at practice rooting for Duke.” It was funny, the next day, wearing a hockey helbut that motivated us. He didn’t met. He played against No. 25 New really even have to coach the secMexico State two days later with his ond half. After we went on that jaw wired shut, leading the team to a run, it was like we were on cruise 109-86 victory, and remained in the control. We expected to win, but lineup the rest of the season. we didn’t expect to win by 30. Calvert: Greg Anthony breaks That was just one of those nights his jaw, and then the next day where everything was clicking. he’s at practice? That’s incredRothermel: When he had ible. He lived on milkshakes. the game under control, he’d He frst wore that mask, but then he ditched that, with his jaw wired shut. If that didn’t spur everybody on to the ultimate, then I don’t know what did. Rothermel: When Greg went down, it was literally the break that united the team. That demonstrated, especially to Stacey and Larry, that he was tough, that he could play tough. Calvert: This team personifed the loyalty to Jerry. It was defnitely “us against the world” because then all these —Anderson Hunt things came down; everything was coming to a head: the put those boots out on the foor suspensions, the accusations of improprieties and rule-breaking and put his hands up behind his head and stretch back. You knew and all this kind of stuff. They it was over when that happened. just basically came together and withdrew from everybody. Hunt: Tark just kept telling us, “You need to stick together. Two months after the Rebels won the They don’t want us to win a national championship, Rothermel, championship. They’re going a strong proponent of Tarkanian, to do anything they can to break us down and get us unfo- announced his resignation as athletic director, effective at the end cused. The NCAA really wants me, but they’re trying to take it of the year. On July 20, the NCAA banned UNLV from defending its out on all of you.” crown, citing gross rules violations, but a deal was worked out just before the season started that alThe Rebels nearly stumbled in the lowed the Rebels to defend their title Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, but banned Tarkanian’s team from surviving a two-point win over Ball the 1992 NCAA tournament. Then, State, before steamrolling Loyola in December, the NCAA fled a letter Marymount 131-101 to reach the Fiof inquiry alleging 29 infractions by nal Four, and wearing down Georgia UNLV, mostly stemming from the Tech 90-81 to reach the champion1986 recruitment of Lloyd Daniels. ship game for the frst time. In the Even with the constant distractions,
the Rebels—with their core of Johnson, Augmon, Anthony, Hunt and center George Ackles— picked up where they left off, destroying each opponent and becoming national celebrities in the process. Hunt: We were so big. I remember going to [the shortlived bar] Tarkanian’s, right across the street from UNLV. There was one night when there was a boxing match on the Strip, and it seemed like everybody who had gone to the fght came to Tarkanian’s, and the line was wrapped around Maryland Parkway. We were like rock stars at Tarkanian’s. So when we’re walking in, Eddie Murphy was in line still trying to get in, and we walked straight through. Looking back on it, it’s like, “Wow!” But when I was young, it was like, “Yeah, we do this all the time.” We defnitely got a lot of extra … a lot of extra love. I’ll say that. I remember signing breasts. I remember signing babies, all types of stuff. It was crazy. Those were the good-old days. Koloskie: That season we had our players get interviewed by legal counsel; we had them getting interviewed by the NCAA. We had media attention at our practices, and it was never about the team. It was about everything other than the team. We had people trying to dig up dirt all over, and different things coming out. And it was every single day. The only solitude that our athletes and coaches had during that time was the three hours that they were in practice. Hunt: On every road trip, we used to always have a gambling party: cards, dice. We used to call it “the Rio.” And wherever we were playing, we’d invite the other team over. Sometimes they would come, sometimes they wouldn’t. I threw one when we were playing Georgetown in the ’91 NCAA tournament, and I told [Rebels center] Elmore [Spencer]—it was standingroom-only in the room, a fre hazard—don’t open the door for anybody else. So I hear a knock on the door. I said, “Don’t answer the door, Elmore.” I think I was on the dice, too. He
We were like rock stars. Eddie Murphy was in line trying to get into the bar, and we walked straight through.
opens the door, and all I hear is Mrs. Tark saying, “Anderson, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” So I said, “Yes, Mrs. Tark.” I’ve still got the dice in my hand. She says, “Don’t you know this is the biggest game of my husband’s career? He has never beaten Georgetown. If you get all these people out in 30 minutes, I won’t tell him.” I said, “OK, Mrs. Tark, I’ll get them out in 15.” And she never told him.
After winning 45 straight games dating to the previous season, the Rebels returned to the Final Four for a rematch with Duke. UNLV led 74-71 with 3:51 left when Anthony was called for an offensive foul, his ffth personal of the game, which sent him to the bench. Without their point guard, the Rebels unraveled down the stretch, losing 79-77 when a hurried, last-second shot by Hunt failed to fnd the mark. Koloskie: After the game was over, it was probably the most devastating experience I’ll probably ever have. To have been in that locker room after that game, it was the most down I’ve ever seen a group of guys. Hunt: We had just beaten them by 30 the year before. And a lot of guys were thinking about where they were going in the NBA draft. And we just … it just wasn’t the same. I think Tark didn’t have enough confdence in Elmore Spencer, Melvin Love, all our big guys, to check Christian Laettner, so that’s a reason why he didn’t play those guys. I think we underestimated Grant Hill. He was probably the best player on the court that day, as a freshman. They were more athletic that year than they were in ’90. But that’s no excuse; we still should have won. Nine times out of 10, we’ll win that game. I haven’t watched the flm to this day. Koloskie: I remember Larry Johnson’s voicemail at his apartment after that. When you would call it, he was, “Hey, this is Larry. Sorry we didn’t get it done. And, yes, I know I maybe should have taken the last shot.” Everybody took the responsibility for things they didn’t do in that game.
TWILIGHT OF THE SHARK The Duke loss was the beginning of the end for Tarkanian at UNLV. University President Robert Maxson, who envisioned turning UNLV into
nightlife
working with live musicians, it’s very diffcult to fnd sounds that no one else is using. You’ve got to have songs. It’s all about the songs. Why do you think that three of the biggest DJs—Calvin Harris, David Guetta and Swedish House Mafa—are successful? Because it’s songs. That’s where it is in my opinion.
Paul Oakenfold Is the New Ibiza
Catching up with the DJ/producer who helped change Las Vegas nightlife By Deanna Rilling
April 4-10, 2013
Before everyone graBBed on to (and subsequently strangled the life out of) the “Las Vegas is the new Ibiza” tagline, Paul Oakenfold can be credited as one of the frst in the scene to call it, circa 2008. His groundbreaking three-year Perfecto residency at Rain changed the game as we know it, including the electronic dance music that now commands the prime-time slot, instilling the idea of a costumed cast of performers hanging from the ceiling and even allowing the previously taboo glow sticks back into the club. The model of a world-renowned DJ/producer as the main draw subsequently helped transform Las Vegas into the electronic-dance-music playground it now is. We caught up with the legendary British DJ/producer Oakenfold before he returns to Las Vegas to spin a guest set at Lavo on April 9.
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You were the first big headlining DJ/producer in this current wave of electronic dance music in Las Vegas. What are your thoughts on the path clubbing in the city has taken? It’s great. It’s similar to what we have—and still have— in Europe with Ibiza. When I went home, a lot of British people asked me, “What’s it like [in Las Vegas]? What’s going on?” There are a lot of DJs, whether [they have] a monthly, weekly, bimonthly
residency. It’s good for the scene. Since Perfecto can be attributed to the shift in music programming/creating interactive club experiences in Las Vegas, do you think electronic music will continue as the dominant draw in Vegas clubs, or will we move on to more commercial hip-hop or open-format again? I think it will continue without a doubt.
Would you do another Las Vegas residency? If it’s the right one, yeah. We did Perfecto for three years, and toward the end of it I had other things that I needed to do, and I liked the idea of taking some time away from it and seeing what happens. What’s your opinion of the sound electronic music has taken as of late? Well, it all sounds the same, doesn’t it? It all sounds the same, and everyone’s playing
the same records. I’m generalizing of course; not everyone’s got the same records. It’s interesting because you hear a lot of the promoters complaining, but they’re still booking the same DJs. What will it take for current producers to experiment more with the music—and who could lead that charge? Daft Punk will change it when their record drops, because a lot of the new producers all look [up to] Daft Punk and they’re going to follow them straightaway. What’s good is the Daft Punk album is based around live musicians—they’re not following a trend—and it’s still more of an ’80s sound with their infuences. That will be incredibly refreshing, because the record will do very well and a lot of people will realize they don’t have to copy everyone else. From my point of view, it’s songs: songs, melody and great singers with more of a cutting-edge sound. It’s harder to fnd sounds, because technology is so readily available and unless you’re
How would you describe your Fluoro sound as opposed to the Perfecto sound Las Vegas is familiar with? Fluoro I’ve always been a fan of, I enjoy it, it’s very melodic, but very cutting edge. I don’t tend to play Fluoro sets in America. I’ve always been playing different kinds of stuff. Even with my threehour residency in Vegas, the last hour was more underground; the frst hour was more commercial. I haven’t really found a club in America where I can play Fluoro. It’s a real late-night/after-hours sound. Saying that, there’s always a way of making it happen, just like we did with Perfecto in Vegas. Any plans for an afterhours gig in Las Vegas? We were talking about doing an after-hours. I’d like to play there once a month and do after-hours. Although it’s got to be with the people who have the same kind of vision. Since you’ll be at Lavo on a Tuesday industry night with more locals, how will you musically gear your set? The industry like yourself has been good and supported me, so the whole idea was to come back and do an industry night to give something back, really. That’s why I’m doing Lavo. Vegas is a big part of what I’ve done; I’m proud of what I’ve done in Vegas, and we created a scene when there was nothing there. A lot of my community was all against it. I took some stick for going to Vegas. I have a lot of good friends there, so to come and play more of an industry night was something I thought I’d like to do, and I’ll play my style, which is melodic.
Oakenfold chats about his current projects and the new defnition of a DJ residency at VegasSeven.com/Oakenfold.
nightlife
parties
pure
Caesars palace [ Upcoming ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Amit Dadlaney and Teddy Fujimoto
April 4-10, 2013
April 9 Life’s a Beach San Diego beach giveaway April 23 Jeremih performs April 26 Miguel hosts
nightlife
parties
Body english Hard Rock Hotel [ Upcoming ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Hew Burney
April 4-10, 2013
April 5 AC Slater, Flinch and Valentino Khan spin April 6 Green Velvet and BePM Crew spin April 7 Richard Beynon and DJ Shift spin
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VEGAS SEVEN
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Teddy Fujimoto and Roman Mendez
April 4-10, 2013
April 4 Good Girls Gone Bad ladies night April 5 Ricky Rocks live drum performance April 8 OB-One spins, plus Perfect 12 contest
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April 4-10, 2013
A&E
[ Continued from Page 77 ]
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Vegas initially seemed a strong bet, backed by solid buzz and expected double-barreled charisma from its headliners: a veteran movie star in Quaid and an established TV star in Michael Chiklis, late of The Shield and The Commish. More advantages? Compelling setup: tense face-offs between rugged lawman Lamb (toothy/scowly Quaid) and mob-connected casino operator Vincent Savino (chromedomed Chiklis in understatedmenace mode). Seductive setting: 1960s Vegas, at its classy, tuxedos-and-gowns best (as opposed to today’s glitz-blitzed Strip and its fannypacked throngs). Plus both stars—and ace mob chronicler Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas, Casino)—among the producers, invested in a quality product. Packin’ that showbiz heat, Vegas debuted on September 25 opposite NBC’s Parenthood and ABC’s Private Practice, capturing 15 million viewers, topping its competitors combined. Eventually, Vegas leveled off to a weekly average of 12 million viewers, a still-decent performance. That could mean exactly zip. It’s the demos, stupid You’d imagine baby boomers, who are turning seniors into the dominant age demo in the United States, and can fash way more cash than their offspring, would be ardently courted by advertisers, whose patronage fuels network TV. Wrong-o. You’re 18 to 49 years old? Uncle Ad Man wants YOU. You spend money and you’re prone to changing buying habits and switching brands, rendering you susceptible to their comeons. You’re 50-plus? Catch the early-bird special, Granny and Gramps. You save your money, your spending patterns have calcifed (why buy Crest when you’ve been scrubbing the pearlies with Colgate for decades?), and you’ve already made your major purchases in life. Under that rubric, Vegas is foundering. Those 12 million viewers? Only a piddly 2.7 million come from the jackpot demo. That 16th-tie ranking overall? Reverse it for demo standings: Vegas places 61st. Let’s backtrack into the math-nerd calculations of Nielsen Media Research—at whose stats-obsessed altar networks worship—and their demo grading system. Formula: A demo rating represents the percentage of
Television Vegas, starring Taylor Handley, Dennis Quaid and Jason O’Mara, faces an uncertain future, its demographic ratings pointing toward cancellation.
the 126.5 million adults ages 18 to 49 who live in a U.S. household with a television—and are watching a particular program. On that scale, NBC’s Sunday Night Football, with a 7.8 rating in the 18-49 demo, occupies the tippy-top rung this season. However, given that sports is event programming, a fairer comparison is the weekly-series category, in which CBS’ The Big Bang Theory rules with a 4.9. Now consider Vegas’ trajectory: Bowing with an alreadylow 2.5 in the 18-49 demo, it dropped to 2.0 in week two, and by week four had tumbled to 1.6. Over one month—an alarming 40 percent plunge. Gauged over 15 episodes so far, Vegas averages 1.7. Comparatively, in the same Tuesdayat-10 slot on CBS last season, Unforgettable scored a 2.3—and got canned. (CBS has since revived it for a summer run.) Should Vegas’ time-slot competitor, Parenthood, earn renewal from NBC despite attracting fewer overall eyeballs than Quaid and Company, remember that its paltry 1.9 demo still trumped Vegas. Perhaps on sinking NBC— which placed a humiliating ffth, behind Univision, in the 18-49 demo for all prime-time programming during February sweeps—Vegas’ numbers wouldn’t sound the cancellation alarm. Bottom-dwelling already, the Peacock net wouldn’t have much to lose by nurturing a show like Vegas, heavily promoting it and taking time to add more youthful elements. (Patience proved fruitful to NBC decades ago, when it wouldn’t abandon initially
PreemPtions and schedule hoPscotch … are nearly always a ticket to cancellationville. low-rated Cheers and Seinfeld.) On CBS—the leader in overall viewers that also took the 1849 crown in February—Vegas’ prospects are considerably iffer as the Tiffany network is less inclined to let a demo loser drag down its stellar ratings. Ironically, this Nielsen quagmire might’ve been avoided (and more creative freedom granted) had Vegas landed on less pressurized cable—say, HBO, where it would’ve made a cozy companion to Atlantic City-themed Boardwalk Empire. Yes, it’s the demos, plus … Budget-busting issues will also factor into CBS’ verdict. Vegas is reportedly an expensive little prime-time bauble. Trade publications note that Quaid and Chiklis earn salaries beftting their status, and re-creating earlier-era Vegas—the series is not flmed here, but on sets in New Mexico and California— represents a sizable expense. Placing Vegas in the early ’60s might also cost it viewers. Despite the era’s vivid history, successful series set in the ’60s, or arcing into them from the ’50s, are fairly rare. Among around 40 in prime-time history, you could only call a handful—China Beach, Crime Story, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Wonder
Years and Mad Men—bona fde hits. Excepting Mad Men, they were Nielsen champs when boomers dominated the coveted demo, supporting series centered around themselves. Baby-boomer nostalgia—dig those Kennedy-era cars with the fns, and those dorky fedoras!— likely isn’t destination viewing for their kids and grandkids. Yet in February, Chiklis told a fan on Twitter: “No [it won’t be canceled]. Vegas is a powerful show with a huge audience that will continue to grow. … We need a run of shows without so many preemptions. CBS is very smart. They have a plan.” Actors are complimentary to their network overlords. Until they’re thrown overboard. What about, ya know, the show? Creatively, Vegas is a goodbut-not-as-good-as-it-couldbe series hobbled by inexplicable lethargy from a surprising source: Quaid. On the big screen, he’s a compelling presence. On the small screen, not so much. Drawling to excess as Lamb—our take-no-shit sheriff from 1961 to 1979—he never seems to own a scene. Famously, Marshall McLuhan labeled flm a “hot medium” and TV a “cool medium.” Dial-
ing down his intense persona, James Caan, another macho movie dude, ft the small screen snugly but still tossed off sparks on NBC’s former Las Vegas. Quaid’s setting, at least when he isn’t shooting or clobbering some baddie, is set several notches too low. Ripple effect: Chiklis, so memorably intimidating as good-cop/bad-cop-in-one Vic Mackey in The Shield, doesn’t have enough to bounce off of in their few shared scenes. Wisely, Chiklis turns down the heat on Savino—the casino kingpin can’t afford unbridled ruthlessness, caught between pleasing his Chi-town mob overseers and sidestepping Vegas law enforcers—but he may be victimized by his own skill. So burned into our psyches is the brutish Mackey that it’s tough not to superimpose it over everything Chiklis does. Plots have been decent, though creakily familiar, juxtaposing what one could call The CBS Murder Mystery of the Night for the hero to solve (yaaaawn) against the more intriguing machinations at the Savoy, the resort run by Savino. Breakout performer? Radiating the slinky carnality of a classic Hitchcock blonde, Sarah Jones dazzles as count-room manager/skimmer Mia Rizzo, whose cool, cat-like sexiness makes the screen purr. Portraying her dad, wiseguy Johnny Rizzo, menacing Michael Wiseman was a tripwire ever ready to explode. You couldn’t turn away when he was on, but he was sacrifced too early for a short-term plot point when Lamb’s younger brother, Deputy Jack Lamb (Jason O’Mara) killed him in self-defense, even as he dated his daughter. Disappointingly, while Pileggi reportedly punches up dialogue, he hasn’t penned an episode since the pilot. Encouragingly, though, recent outings have introduced an extra element of glamour. Hollywood characters have surfaced in Vegas, widening the plotlines—a hook that just might reel in younger viewers. What if Vegas still bites the desert dust? CSI, our network iron man, has already been green-lighted for Season 14. Vegas might not survive on TV. Vegas always will.
concerts a&e
New Found Glory
Mindless Self Indulgence
extreme thing Festival Desert Breeze Park, March 30
April 4-10, 2013
Sage Francis
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Extreme Thing by Fred Morledge/PhotoFM
We Gave It Hell
An army of scantily clad underage rebels with multi-colored hair descended upon Desert Breeze Park for the 12th annual music festival. Mindless Self Indulgence played a 45-minute set complete with absurd insults from outlandish frontman Jimmy Urine. Recognizable tracks such as “Stupid MF” and “Straight to Video” brought waves of nostalgia to those old enough to experience it. Colorado natives 3OH!3 took the stage next, playing to a relatively tame crowd with the exception of a few troublemakers. Sage Francis was the highlight of the hip-hop stage, which mainly featured lesser-known indie rappers. Sage stayed true to his name with astute social and political commentary. His set started out well with some of his more melodic singles such as “Sea Lion,” but then declined when he rapped over hit songs such as the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” New Found Glory closed the festival by playing fast and hard. Lead singer Jordan Pundik projected his iconic nasally vocals into the mic with intensity. It was difficult understanding him, but the crowd didn’t mind. And as long as there were plenty of teenagers giving away hugs and kisses, nothing seemed to matter. ★★✩✩✩ – Ashley Gates
A&E
movies
real american Zero
G.I. Joe is like a video game, but without the fun of playing By Michael Phillips
Tribune Media Services right in the middle of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which is one sort of action movie, there’s another, better one that lasts fve or six very good minutes. We’re in the Himalayas, where the fancy ninjas such as Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Snake Eyes (Ray Park) go for a little me-time and to brush up on their training. With a sword to my head, I couldn’t tell you who was fghting whom, but on the face of a mountainside, with dozens of ninjas hooked up to mountain-climbing ropes, the slash-and-plunge combat served up by director Jon M. Chu (who made the tasty second and third Step Up flms) makes for a lucid and exciting sequence. It may be hoked-up digitally beyond anything resembling human behavior—it’s Spider-Man behavior, with the climbing ropes used for mile-
long swings—but it works. Then we’re dragged back to the other movie, the one in keeping with the concerns, the body count and the general “eh” quality level of the frst G.I. Joe flm released four years ago. The stars of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which is not to be confused with G.I. Joe: Appeasement or G.I. Joe: Let’s Talk Through Our Differences, are Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock; Channing Tatum as Duke; D.J. Cotrona as Flint; and Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye. The plot concerns the murder of the Pakistani president; stolen nukes; a frame-up job by arch-fends COBRA (not the insurance people, for the record) disgracing the Joes. The Joes fght back. Spoiler: They win. Now and then screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, whose Zombieland I liked, fre off a peculiar zinger that catch-
Live action figures Tatum and Johnson.
es your ear, especially when Jonathan Pryce (in the dual role of the real U.S. president and the evil lookalike now running things) escalates global warfare with a demented sort of élan. Many are killed. The Joes truly enjoy their killing. They kill with style and a smile. Bruce Willis plays the ur-Joe, Joe Colton, who joins the Joes in the retaliation promised by the title and whose kitchen drawers and cupboards are flled with lovingly ogled weaponry. The directive behind this sequel, clearly, was nonstop
action. Let’s think about that phrase a second. Do we really want our action movies to deliver action that does not stop? Ever? I get a little tired of action sequences that won’t stop. G.I. Joe: Retaliation has some trouble with tone: One minute it’s wisecracks between Johnson and Tatum as they’re sitting on the couch with their little Xbox joysticks, and the next, London is fattened (millions dead, presumably, though we never hear about it) by the antagonists’ weapons of mass destruction. The screening I
short reviews
April 4-10, 2013
Olympus Has Fallen (R) ★★✩✩✩
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This movie is Die Hard in the White House, where terrorists appear out of nowhere to storm Washington, take over the White House and seize the president (Aaron Eckhart) and most of the cabinet. Their only hope is former Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the only man who knows how to get into the fortified presidential bunker where the hostages are. Banning proceeds to stab, shoot and strangle his way through legions of terrorists. There are much better thrillers out there; this one is just a manifestation of a first-person shooter video game.
Admission (PG) ★★★✩✩
In this fraught romantic comedy, Portia (Tina Fey) is a Princeton University admissions officer with a secret. Her live-in boyfriend, a professor played by Michael Sheen, treats her like a dog—literally. But on a road trip, Portia visits a new-age alternative high school, run by John (Paul Rudd). John has reason to believe that a promising applicant just might be the same boy that Portia gave up for adoption. Fey and Rudd are smooth as silk together, but the film is only half good.
Spring Breakers (R) ★★★✩✩
Writer-director Harmony Korine is a resolute sleaze monger. He cares little for impulse control. All this helps Spring Breakers, in which not-so-innocent debauchery turns sociopathic on a dime. It’s about four teenage girls, three nasty (Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens and Rachel Korine), one nice (Selena Gomez). Determined to have a memorable vacation, the girls get some spending cash by fake-pistol-waving in a restaurant. But things steadily move into a more dangerous space, with an impressive turn by James Franco as a lively gangsta rapper called Alien.
attended was full of preteens to whom G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been marketed. I submit that playing with G.I. Joe action fgures when you’re that age, as I did—and apparently everyone in the cast of this movie did, according to the flm’s press materials—is not the same experience as a preteen soaking up this amount of PG-13-rated slaughter. That’s what the Xbox is for, after all. G.I. Joe: Retaliation (PG-13)
★★✩✩✩
[ by tribune media services ]
The Croods (PG) ★★✩✩✩
It’s Ice Age with humans and less ice. The Croods are a brood of cavepeople; there’s Ugg (Nicolas Cage), Ugga (Catherine Keener), Eep (Emma Stone) and some others. Earthquaked out of their dwelling, the Crood brood embarks on a search for a new home. They come across Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a caveboy who knows about fire and has things called “ideas.” Guy leads the Croods toward a place he calls “Tomorrow” where survival lies. Not a whole lot here, and like most Dreamworks vehicles, it’s way too much.
The Call (R) ★★✩✩✩
All of the skilled actors on display in this absurd comedy can’t save the film. Las Vegas magicians Burt (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) have a stale act, and Burt’s become a terrible person. They can’t stand each other. And there’s a dangerous new kid in town, a Jackass-y performer (Jim Carrey) who gives the bloodthirsty public what it wants. While Alan Arkin and Olivia Wilde manage ably in their scenes, the rest of the movie is poor.
Jordan (Halle Berry) is a hotshot 911 operator in Los Angeles. On a call in which she tries to coach a teenage girl away from a home invasion, Jordan slips up, fails, and the girl is murdered. Dedicated to redeem herself, Jordan gets another emergency call in the form of Casey (Abigail Breslin), who has been drugged and kidnapped and wakes up in the trunk of a speeding car. Jordan coaches the hysterical teen through a series of daunting situations. Berry is enough of a pro to handle this, but the film is a dud.
Oz: The Great and Powerful (PG)
21 and Over (R) ★★✩✩✩
★★★✩✩
Sam Raimi’s digital blockbuster prequel to the Hollywood classic is uneven but agreeably managed. Oscar “Oz” Diggs (James Franco) is a carny magician who departs 1905 Kansas via tornado and lands in Oz. He runs into witches, including Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), and has the company of a winged monkey (voiced by Zach Braff). Oz must lead the revolution to restore order to the land.
At least this rip-off of The Hangover was done by dudes who wrote The Hangover. In yet another crude comedy, this is the story of Jeff Chang (Justin Chon), who goes out on the town for his 21st birthday. His gonzo friend Miller (Miles Teller) and the more responsible Casey (Skylar Austin) get him blind drunk. Told in the usual flashback, there’s a sorority house, a pep rally, a progressive dorm drinking party, and then the campus police station and the infirmary. There are laughs here, but it’s a total rip-off.
Jack the Giant Slayer (PG-13)
Phantom (R) ★★✩✩✩
★★✩✩✩
This giant, straining blockbuster reinvents Jack and the Beanstalk as see Jack gape; see Jack run; see Jack slay giants. Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) directs, and the movie is a bit too much: too much yelling, too much running, too much flaming tree throwing. Jack (Nicholas Hoult) trades his horse for magic beans, and, you know, the beanstalk connects the human world and the world of giants. Mayhem ensues. It’s just too much fantasy action for its own good.
In March 1968, about 1,800 miles northwest of Oahu in the Pacific Ocean, the Soviet submarine K-129 exceeded its crush depth and imploded, for mysterious reasons. All crew members were lost, and the sub sank with three ballistic nuclear missiles and two nuclear torpedoes. Capt. Dmitri Zubov (Ed Harris) does his best to hold off the alternately motivated KGB agents on board. The movie is OK, but it’s remarkable that they could make a snoozer out of those reliably suspenseful subs.
91 VEGAS SEVEN
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (PG) ★★✩✩✩
April 4-10, 2013
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