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12 | THE LATEST
“From Normandy to Las Vegas, With Bravery,” by Stacy J. Willis. Seventy years after Omaha Beach, a soldier looks back—and forward. Plus, Ask a Native answers why Las Vegas doesn’t more fully embrace its socially libertarian roots, and Three Questions on genealogy.
14 | Next Exit
“Escape to the Big Screen,” by Stacy J. Willis. Driving into a bygone culture at the West Wind 5.
18 | Green Felt Journal
“Putting the ‘World’ in the World Series of Poker,” by David G. Schwartz. How what once was a niche event became a global phenomenon.
20 | COVER
“The Pioneers,” by Michael Green. How the Mormons helped make Las Vegas—and why we need their engagement now more than ever. Plus, writer Nina Bunche Pierce sets out to learn what makes her son’s remarkable dyslexia tutor tick—and gains a new understanding of pioneer living and Mormon faith.
29 | NIGHTLIFE
“Summer Blockbusters,” by Camille Cannon. These are the not-to-be-missed residencies of the season. Plus, a Q&A with Brett Rubin, private-jet etiquette, Seven Nights and photos from the week’s hottest parties.
53 | DINING
Al Mancini on Bachi HLK. Plus, how David Walzog is bringing a taste of Hawaii to Wynn, and Cocktail Culture.
59 | A&E
“Earning a Prophet,” by Steve Bornfeld. As The Book of Mormon arrives at The Smith Center, we analyze why the outrageous blockbuster was a risky endeavor. And why it wasn’t. Plus, Sin City Gallery displays Linnea “Bunny” Yeager’s work, CD Reviews, The Hit LIst and a review of M.I.A. in concert.
64 | Music
“Feign Austin,” by Jason Scavone. With a slew of new music venues, Downtown is vying for music-mecca status. But will the fans come?
66 | Movies
Maleficent and our weekly movie capsules.
78 | Seven Questions
The Cosmopolitan’s Fedor Banuchi on his property’s indie spirit, rock ’n’ roll’s bright future and catering to the ‘curious class.’
Dyslexia specialist Cassandra Hafen works with student Nathan Kistle. Hafen says her commitment to service is inspired by her Mormon heritage.
ON THE COVER Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh
| | | | | |
Dialogue Seven Days Going for Broke Gossip The Deal Showstopper
June 5–11, 2014
11 13 14 16 18 65
9 VEGAS SEVEN
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
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LAS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE
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DIALOGUE LETTERS The Shakur Effect Sean DeFrank’s May 22 cover story, “The Last Words of Tupac Shakur,” spread widely across the media landscape, appearing on the websites of the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, CNN, Vibe and the United Kingdom’s The Independent, among others. It also generated a spirited discussion on VegasSeven.com. I remember working at my college newspaper when news of Shakur’s death frst came across on The Associated Press newswire. At the time, coverage of the incident made many of us journalism students refect on the role of the media in shaping public opinion about race relations and the law. Sean DeFrank took a sensitive topic and presented it in a beautifully written, well-balanced story with a human touch. Thanks for this great read. – Juliet V. Casey I’m glad the police offcer was professional about the situation. I must let people know why Pac said what he said. Please keep in mind his history with police offcers: His mother was put in jail on trumpedup charges by the police when she was pregnant with Pac. His godfather, Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt, served 27 years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Pac himself was beaten up by the Oakland Police Department, so saying what he said before going unconscious is par for his life. I admire the man for standing his ground to the end. – Hewitt Joyner Tupac was a thug, but he was also a complex human being. The point is
that “thug” is a reductive stereotype that encourages us to ignore the real social problems and emotional harms that turn people into thugs in the frst place. – Ponsonby Britt Tupac may have been controversial and said some things that were abhorrent, but he said a lot of good things, too. He was a character who had the good and the bad. If he were still alive, he would have moved beyond the thug life and been a positive character for good in the world. – Sassan Many of us are able to see both sides: Tupac Shakur’s side, where we see abuses by cops, the “system,” the elite in our society; and the other side—he was a gang member, he beat a rival gang member up and there are street consequences for that. Live by the sword. … Too bad for his fans and his family that he couldn’t rise above that after he made it big. – Al in SoCal This is one of the better crime stories I have ever read. – A.D. Hopkins
THIS WEEK @ VEGASSEVEN.COM
UNITY THROUGH STREETWEAR
LVCK owner Edward Dorville wants to build community one snap-back hat at a time. Read his story at VegasSeven.com/ LVCK.
PORN GOES FEMINIST
RENT OR BUY?
Adult films that challenge sexist norms are gaining a bigger following. But what exactly is feminist porn, and who decides? Lynn Comella goes in search of the naked truth, at VegasSeven.com/ Unbuttoned.
With Las Vegas’ relatively short breakeven horizon for potential homeowners, does leasing Downtown really make sense? Pj Perez surveys the options at DTLV.com/UrbAppeal.
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“It’s not exactly poodle skirts and fattops, but it’s not a squeaky seat and sticky foor either.”
NEXT EXIT {PAGE 14}
News, essays, gaming and drone deliveries
From Normandy to Las Vegas, With Bravery Seventy years afer he landed on Omaha Beach, a soldier looks back—and forward
June 5–11, 2014
AFTER FIVE MONTHS OF U.S ARMY TRAINING,
VEGAS SEVEN
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Gaetano Benza, a 19-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, was loaded onto a ship and sent on an 11-day voyage across the Atlantic. Five thousand troops were aboard, and the captain changed the ship’s course slightly every seven minutes to avoid being torpedoed by German submarines. It was 1944. They landed in Scotland, and a few days later, on June 6, Benza was loaded into a smaller, amphibious landing boat, this time headed across the English Channel directly into battle on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. He had a steel helmet and an M1 rife, which he held above his head when he jumped into the chest-deep water, under fre from Germans. Oh God, he said to himself. Please, God. Some 5,400 miles away, the small gambling town of Las Vegas was growing rapidly as a direct result of World War II. Senator Pat McCarran had worked to bring new military installations to Nevada, and demand for metals fueled the mining industry. Las Vegas’ population grew from fewer than 9,000 when the war started to more than 24,000 by 1950. On that day in 1944, nuclear bombs had yet to be tested in the desert north of Las Vegas, and the United States had yet to decide to use such bombs on Japan to end the war. Moreover, Benza had no way of knowing then, as he prayed and fought, that he’d even survive—much less end up spending 50 years of his life in Las Vegas. He could’ve never imagined, he says, that decades later he’d walk into public schools and tell Las Vegas kids, “I am history. I am going to teach you.” On D-Day, barely more than a kid himself, he had nothing but survival on his mind—his own, and that of others facing Hitler’s forces. “I just crawled on that beach and up the dunes, and we dug foxholes,” Benza, 89, says. He lived in those 3-foot-deep foxholes for four months, running back and forth to the amphibious
boats to transport munitions and other supplies from larger ships. His voice still quavers when he talks about the constant sound of gunfre and explosions, and he remembers on more than one occasion saying, “Goodbye mama, goodbye papa,” when he was sure he was going to die. “But we knew one thing,” he says. “We had to get rid of a tyrant.” The Allied forces’ invasion of Normandy was the largest seaborne invasion in history. More than 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel that day, and more than 10,000 were injured and 4,000 confrmed dead. The Germans lost 1,000 soldiers. Still, the invasion is widely considered to have marked the beginning of the end for Hitler’s forces, and remains one of the fercest, most diffcult battles in history. It’s also a piece of history that Benza feels passionate about, and one that he wants younger generations to remember. “I am so proud I was there,” he says. “People today don’t know as much about history, but they need to.” After the war, he returned to New York for several years, and then moved to Las Vegas to get divorced in the 1960s. (“It was much easier to do here,” he says.) “Las Vegas was an up-and-coming place then,” Benza says. He loved the newly bustling town that had evolved in part thanks to WWII, and so he stayed. He’s still working as a barber three days a week at a local barbershop. On this 70th anniversary of D-Day, Benza is headed back to Normandy to tour the site, and his message about D-Day, and life, is one of defying the odds, and of keeping a fghting spirit. “I still feel good,” he says with a laugh. “You probably won’t believe this, but I’ve never in my life drank alcohol or smoked. I don’t look 89. I can jump up and down. That’s part of what I tell school kids, too— how to live this long. Take care of yourself. “You want to fght with me? Come on, come on, I’m ready.”
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
By Stacy J. Willis
By Bob Whitby THURSDAY, JUNE 5: Downtown
ILLUSTRATION BY CIERRA PEDRO
★
GENEALOGY
★
The Mormon church boasts one of the largest genealogical databases in the world. Anyone, regardless of religion, can access records dating back centuries via the church’s FamilySearch.org website and research centers throughout the country. If you’re curious to know if your greatgreat-great granddaddy was a sheriff—or wanted for shooting one—the Las Vegas Family Search Library in Downtown is a good place to start. We delve into the depths of the church’s database with local library director Wayne Stoker. Just how big is the church’s database?
Billions of records. Approximately a million new records go online every day. The Granite Mountain Records Vault in Utah is the largest genealogical record in the
RED ROCK REVISITED I recently wrote about two little towns near Red Rock Canyon. Despite having visited both Calico Basin and Blue Diamond many times, I made an error when stating that the latter has a motel. Blue Diamond resident Scott L. emailed to say, “I enjoyed your write-up, but thought you might want to know that there are no motels in Blue Diamond. There is a little apartment complex across the street from the store, but the nearest motel is at Bonnie Springs.” Upon additional research, Scott is correct; the little motel with the themed rooms is indeed at Bonnie Springs Ranch. Thanks, Scott!
Questions? AskaNative@ VegasSeven.com.
world and is currently being scanned and indexed—that will take a number of years. The important thing is that access to that information is available for free to the public at large; 30 percent of our patronage are people who are not members of our church. What’s the furthest back you’ve seen someone trace his family history?
Most people can readily trace their genealogy into the 15th or 16th century, because family histories are quite available that far. It becomes more diffcult beyond that, but some have traced their genealogy back into the early hundreds. Most people who trace their history that far back do so by tracing royal lines.
How far have you traced your ancestry? Any startling revelations?
Back into the 1400s. Let’s just say you’re going to connect with very inspiring relatives, and you’re going to get inspired by those you want to avoid. – Zoneil Maharaj
Las Vegas Family Search Library, 509 S. 9th St.; open Mon-Sat; call 702-382-9595 for hours; LVFamilySearchLibrary.org.
FRIDAY, JUNE 6: So it’s too hot
out right now to go running, right? Wrong. You just have to know when and where to do your running. The when is today at 9 a.m. The where is, once again, Container Park. The what is the Sprinkler Sprint, a 3.1-mile course through a soaking zone and a bubble tunnel, finishing at a Slip ’N Slide. In other words, you will stay cool. DowntownRunners.com.
SATURDAY, JUNE 7: Tuff-N-Uff, the mixed martial arts fighting series, is celebrating 20 years of people putting the hurt on one another with a free event at 7 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center. Even if MMA fighting isn’t your bag, you have to admit the admission price is right. TuffNuff.com. SUNDAY, JUNE 8: Don’t know if you heard, but 2014 wasn’t a great year for the crawfish harvest. Nonetheless, there’ll be plenty of mud bugs on hand at the Straight From the Bayou Crawfish Festival, noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and today at the Sport Center, 121 E. Sunset Rd. They’ll also have great Cajun music, vendors and good times that will definitely roll. EILasVegas.com.
MONDAY, JUNE 9: Hollywood is
about to dump a busload of summer blockbusters on your head, but going to the movies gets expensive. The solution: Put off your movie going until Mondays and hit Brendan Theatres at the Palms. Admission is just $5 on Mondays, which means you can save your cash for that gallon bucket o’ soda. BrendanTheatres.com.
TUESDAY, JUNE 10: Notice a theme in this issue? We’re
exploring Mormon history and culture this week (see stories, Page 20). So—with an irreverent comedic twist—is The Smith Center, hosting The Book of Mormon, winner of nine Tony Awards and considered by people who ponder such things to be one of the best musicals of our time (see story, Page 59). You’ll laugh, you may cry, and you’ll laugh again. 7:30 p.m., shows through July 6. TheSmithCenter.com.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11: It’s time for one of Las Vegas’ finest traditions: Super Summer Theatre. The venue—Spring Mountain Ranch—is so amazing that the show is almost irrelevant. But now through June 28 they’ve got Spamalot, and you can’t go wrong with that. 8:05 p.m.; $13; SuperSummerTheatre.org.
June 5–11, 2014
Because those roots aren’t the moral free-for-all some think they are. Yes, our state legalized gambling; yes, some Nevada counties have decriminalized prostitution; and yes, Las Vegas has a bawdy (though somewhat fading) reputation as “Sin City.” But this all came about during our tenure as a frontier state, starting in the 1860s when fortune-seeking miners flooded the West. It was those adventurous risk-takers who
than our anything-goes marketing message suggests.
13 VEGAS SEVEN
Why doesn’t Las Vegas more fully embrace its socially libertarian roots?
brought their desire for booze, babes and blackjack to Nevada and Las Vegas (hence, our city’s original sin zone, Block 16). But our history is more complex than that, owing to the confluence of the Three M’s: Miners, Mormons and Mobsters. Freewheeling miners may have created Nevada’s market for goods and services, but it was the rather less freewheeling members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who built the enterprises that served that market—from early dry-goods stores to the banks that funded the casinos. The Three M’s—representing what we might now call “moral diversity”—all exerted strong influence over the evolution of Southern Nevada. Ultimately, the groups found it was profitable to work with one another. This makes for a heritage far more nuanced
Container Park is about as hip as it gets in Las Vegas, and here’s a hip, communal event befitting the venue: Summer Movies in the Park. Screenings are at 9 p.m. every Thursday; tonight’s showing is the classic buddy movie Stand by Me.
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AND THE NBA FINALS REMATCH GOES TO …
June 5–11, 2014
Driving into a bygone culture at the West Wind 5
VEGAS SEVEN
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A WOMAN’S FOOT DANGLES out of the driver’s-side front window of a parked pickup truck. She and her friend are frst in line at West Wind 5 Drive-In, and it’s not even dark yet, and the place doesn’t open for another halfhour. Within 15 minutes, a dozen cars will be parked in the line, facing the 20-foot-high, lightbulb-speckled yellow arches that mark the entry. Two years ago, this driveway—off of Carey Avenue and Rancho Drive—was so riddled with potholes and crumbling pavement that you risked blowing a tire on the way in. Today, most of it is repaved. My girlfriend and I pull into the line. We’re here to see Godzilla, which just seems suited for a drive-in. I want to see monsters and mayhem and mass destruction so big in the night sky that the horror is palpable, for $5 on a Tuesday night. The frst drive-in theater was opened in New Jersey in 1933, marketed with the slogan, “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are.” The novelty appealed to a burgeoning car culture, which boomed in the 1950s and ’60s, and made drive-ins a central part of family nights and date nights—who doesn’t remember the classic drive-in scene in the movie Grease? In their heyday, some 5,000 drive-in theaters dotted the American landscape—a fgure that’s dwindled to just a few hundred. California-based West Wind owns seven driveins, including this one in North Las Vegas, one in Reno, four in California and one in Glendale,
Arizona, that is the last operational drive-in in the state. Some of West Wind’s theaters are paired with public markets or swap meets in an attempt to repopulate the old drive-ins with shopper overfow. But here, on a corner lot squished between the Fiesta Rancho and the North Las Vegas Airport, it’s all about resurrecting the basics of the old drive-in experience itself. By the time we fnd a spot on the paved moguls and angle our car at the big screen, people nearby have unfolded lawn chairs, unpacked pizzas and drinks, and taken their kids up to the little playground by the snack bar before the movie starts. Some have wisely driven trucks or SUVs so that they can park backward and recline in the truck bed, under the stars, which are intermittently crisscrossed by helicopters going to and from the airport. As relative novices, we recline the front seats of a Scion, open the windows and moonroof, and then tune the radio to the station assigned to Godzilla. Someone nearby is smoking a joint; someone else has set up a folding table with a beer cooler on top. It’s not
exactly poodle skirts and fattops, but it’s not a squeaky seat and sticky foor inside a stuffy theater, either. We’re enjoying a relatively cool spring night and basking in the idea that the point of a drive-in is primarily to experience the scene—a notion that becomes even more clear when our feature begins. Godzilla is a visually dark movie. We’re at the screen farthest from the digital projection booth, and from our vantage point in the third car row, it’s sometimes tough to distinguish the limbs and fangs of one badass monster from another, or to distinguish one dark, doomed city from the dark, desolate sea. So the lighting isn’t great. In fact, for a full 30 percent of the movie, I’m not sure what I’m looking at, and I fnd my eyes drifting off, trying to see which car the weed is coming from. But the truth about Godzilla is that I mostly wanted to see Yucca Mountain’s on-screen cameo, and that scene was welllit and suffciently hilarious for my fve bucks. And, I just wanted to go to the drive-in. In recent years, I’ve watched movies on laptops and airplanes, on iPads and in theaters equipped with huge recliners and seat-side food and beverage service. I pay for Netfix and cable, I view short clips on my phone, and read critical and fan reviews on my Fandango app. My movie life is plentiful. But we watch movies in part to escape, to enter a world other than our own. And when we roll into the drive-in in 2014, we do just that.
Matt Jacob appears Thursdays on Pregame.com’s First Preview, which airs 10-11 a.m. weekdays on ESPN Radio 1100-AM.
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
Escape to the Big Screen
Ordinarily, I have as much tolerance for sequels as Donald Sterling has for mixed marriages. For that, you can thank Caddyshack II, The Godfather: Part III and Rocky IV-XXIX. This particular sequel, though… man, I’ve spent nearly a year anxiously awaiting this one. You’ve got good vs. evil, hunted vs. hunter—one side determined to exact revenge; the other eager to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke. But enough about Sharknado 2 (coming to a boob tube near you July 30, by the way). Let’s analyze this Heat-Spurs NBA Finals rematch and see which side is the best bet to capture this bestof-7 series, which tips off June 5: ➜ Miami captured a fourth consecutive Eastern Conference crown by going 12-3 against the Bobcats, Nets and Pacers. The Heat are a highly profitable 10-5 against the spread, but only 4-3 ATS on the road. Moreover, Miami is 4-6 ATS when catching points this season. (LeBron James & Co. are a 4-point underdog in Game 1, and a slight ’dog in the series.) ➜ San Antonio earned another shot at Miami by knocking off Dallas, Portland and Oklahoma City, posting a 12-6 record. After failing to cover the spread in their first six playoff games (all against Dallas), the Spurs enter the Finals on a 9-3 ATS tear, including cashing in seven consecutive home games—all of them blowouts. Gregg Popovich’s troops are 9-1 on their home floor in the playoffs. ➜ San Antonio finished with the NBA’s best regular-season record, so unlike last year, it has homecourt advantage. That’s important: Going back to Game 2 of last year’s clash, the home team has won seven of eight meetings in this rivalry (6-2 ATS). ➜ San Antonio could lose this series before it even begins, as Tony Parker left the Spurs’ seriesclinching victory over Oklahoma City after tweaking his left ankle. This following a hamstring injury he suffered in the previous round. Clearly, Eva Longoria is sticking pins in the legs of a voodoo doll of her philandering ex-husband. (The lesson: Don’t mess with a Desperate Housewife.) Conversely, oft-injured Heat star Dwyane Wade’s HGH treatments—er, I mean trips to the rejuvenation machine—appear to be working: He’s averaging 18.7 points on 52 percent shooting in the playoffs. ➜ Conclusion: This time last year I told you to back the underdog Spurs, and had they not blown a five-point lead with 28 seconds remaining in Game 6, we would’ve cashed. This year, despite Parker’s iffy status, San Antonio is a small favorite (-125), for good reason: The Spurs are bigger, deeper, smarter and more versatile. They also have the better coach, the home-court edge and the one player in the NBA (small forward Kawhi Leonard) who gives LeBron fits. And with four full days of rest prior to the start of this series, expect Parker and his graybeard mates to be fresh from the word jump. Spurs in 7.
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@AlliPerson Mary Poppins must have had some realllllly shitty grades in high school if she’s literally magical and still had to find work as a maid.
@iBowl300s So Las Vegas clubs have drones delivering bottle service now? This city has reached a whole new level of douchebaggery.
@TonyDasco If @jmanziel2 acted like a fool here in #Vegas last weekend, we would have told the national media. #LetItGo
@PattonOswalt
VEGAS SEVEN
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YOU ARE GOING TO BE REPLACED. Not in the vague, generational sense that all of us are going to die and eventually be replaced by heavily tattooed, bearded professional ennui sufferers. But in the very real sense that soon, you are going to be, very suddenly, replaced. Probably by robots. Tao Group honcho Jason Strauss recently posted an Instagram video showing a drone delivering bottle service at Marquee Dayclub. For a mere $20,000 minimum buy and a day’s advance notice, a drone operator (not on site at Marquee— presumably sequestered away at Creech’s top secret Baller Bunkers) will deliver a bottle of bubbly. We have no idea what the appropriate method of tipping your drone is. Do you just put out some batteries on the table and nod at it, knowingly? The drone delivery took place at about the same time as Floyd Mayweather’s Internet-breaking brawl with the rapper T.I. went down at the Fatburger on the Strip. Tangential to that story of T.I.’s unfailing hubris, though, was that Mayweather threw a birthday party for his 14-year-old daughter, Lyanna, at MGM Grand earlier on May 24. Nicki Minaj was a guest at the party—according to TMZ;
Mayweather shelled out $50,000 to have her show up for an hour and hang out. Apparently even birthday clowns are being replaced. Though you could save a considerable amount of money at your kid’s next birthday by hiring a clown, slapping a pink wig on and having her sing “Super Bass.” Eva Longoria’s star-crossed SHe at Crystals, the steakhouse for ladies, shuttered abruptly May 24. The restaurant, which opened February 2013, originally operated as the Beso steakhouse and Eve Nightclub until July 2011. A confict with management led Longoria to shutter Beso/Eve before it would eventually open under Morton’s auspices less than two years later. (Morton’s, in turn, is owned by Landry’s.) In the restaurant’s new incarnation as SHe, there was a nightclub component, but it didn’t last long. The club closed down to become a special-events space after only a couple weeks of operation.
Jonathan Fine, owner of PBR Rock Bar at the Miracle Mile Shops and Rockhouse at the Palazzo, is said to have made an offer on the space. Employees, meanwhile, were offered positions at other Landry’s properties around Las Vegas, including Morton’s and Golden Nugget restaurants. The very foundations of our nightlife system could be upended by a new paradigm. After the May 30 Backstreet Boys show at Planet Hollywood, the Boys brought their after-party to Chateau at Paris, where Nick Carter jumped in the DJ booth to spin some EDM. And really, who needs to spend six fgures on Avicii when you can get a ’90s boybander to play the same tunes? Because when it comes right down to it, how good is Avicii at tight choreography with four other dudes? Not that good, we’re willing to bet. Advantage, Carter. Finally, rumor has it the Quad (née Imperial Palace) is already up for a potential name change. But it seems like it would be a missed opportunity to back out on the “Q” cachet at the Linq. The Querulous? The Quinine? Come on, Caesars, let’s go obscure with this. The Quinquereme? That’s a Roman galley with fve oars. Think of the branding opportunities.
@timdahlberg Right now I’m watching a fight from Ukraine on my phone. Yet I can’t watch the Dodgers anywhere. #puregreed
@neiltyson Was ready to count up to 1,000,000. But #AMillionWays shortchanged me. It showed only 22 ways to die in the West.
@Joan_Rivers According to a witness at the scene, Tupac Shakur’s final words were “Fuck you.” Damn! I was going to use that as my epitaph.
@LVCabChronicles Attention all #Vegas cabbies. It’s that time of year again. @NormanChad will be descending upon us soon. You know what to do. #OperationDetour
@DanHopp Rangers. Kings. It’s “Stupidly think other cities can’t make pizza” vs. “Stupidly think other cities can’t make tacos”
@colebastedo Seattle’s new minimum wage is $15/hr, up from the old minimum of a pile of used Pearl Jam bootlegs.
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ILLUSTRATION BY JON ESTRADA
June 5–11, 2014
Brave New World: Cocktail Robots, Mayweather and Minaj
Don Sterling got $2 BILLION for selling the Clippers? Uh, hey...I don’t want any black people in my house! Make me an offer!
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gathering of the world’s top professional poker players. The frst non-pro didn’t win the main event until 1979, when Hal Fowler bested 53 other players to take home the bracelet. That year also saw the frst woman, Barbara Freer, enter the main event. By the end of the 1980s, less than 200 players were anteing up $10,000 to compete in the main event, making the World Series of Poker a relatively niche showcase. Today, Caesars sells the tournament as an egalitarian shot at greatness—anyone with $500 and faith in their poker skills can compete for a bracelet. Indeed, few recent main-event champions entered the tournament as household names. To most of us, $10,000 is a heartstoppingly large amount of money to risk on a poker game. But, in a city where that buys a middling nightclub luxury package, it’s not unreasonable to stake it with a 10 percent chance to break even, and a 1-in-6,000 (or so) chance of winning $10 million. With legal online poker now gaining traction in the United States, it’s diffcult to imagine where the next decade will take the World Series of Poker—will we see the frst bracelet awarded in an online event? That’s a leap, to be sure—but not as big as the one from Fremont Street to West Flamingo.
Have you checked the price of oysters lately? I’ve seen ‘em by the dozen for $28, $32, $36 and even higher in the fancy restaurants. Those babies are top of the line, but come on. For about three years, P.J. Clarke’s in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace had the antidote, with a daily $1-oyster happy hour that was the bomb. But since Clarke’s closed late last year, oyster fans have been looking for the next best thing. Though not quite on the same level, there are a few pretty good oyster plays around. The lowest price on raw oysters continues to be at South Point’s Big Sur Oyster Bar, where oysters and clams are half-price from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. These are large Louisiana oysters served with lemon, cocktail sauce, and horseradish; after discount, they’re $10.50 per dozen, or 88 cents apiece. Next best for price is a just-introduced happy hour at a new restaurant called District One Kitchen & Bar (3400 S. Jones Blvd.). The happy hour runs from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday though Friday and oysters are $1 apiece. They come with cocktail sauce and lime only (no fancy setups) and they’re usually the smaller but high-quality blue points or Kumamotos. This happy hour has several other good choices, like serrano pepper wings and Vietnamese beef carpaccio, plus it’s a pretty happening spot. A recent price increase to $14 per dozen makes it $1.17 apiece during happy hour at Rhythm Kitchen (6435 S. Decatur Blvd.), which runs 4-6:30 p.m. seven days a week and all night on Mondays. These are also the big Louisianans, and they also come charbroiled or baked Rockefeller-style if you prefer. Rhythm Kitchen is the best play if you want some liquid accompaniment—wine by the glass is half price, Red Stripe in the bottle is $3, and a draft PBR is $2. Fanciest (and most expensive) of all is the happy hour at Comme Ça at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, which runs from 5 to 8:30 p.m. daily. Comme Ça serves kusshis from the Canadian Pacific, with horseradish and a mignonette (no cocktail sauce here unless you ask) for $2 each. These smaller oysters are also considered higher quality, but it ultimately comes down to your preference. In addition, Comme Ça is running an event called Brasserie, Burgers and Oysters during happy hour on Wednesdays through June 30, with a selection of oysters shucked tableside for $1.25 each. The best deal of all if you’re going for volume is to target a seafood buffet that serves fresh oysters, but that doesn’t carry the same cachet as having them served to you with the setups. And for a variation on the theme for those who don’t do oysters or raw, Home Plate (4785 Blue Diamond Rd.) does Vegas’ best fried clam baskets, served with cocktail and tartar sauce, for $8.99.
David G. Schwartz is the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research.
Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com.
Putting the ‘World’ in the World Series of Poker How what once was a niche event became a global phenomenon
June 5–11, 2014
SINCE THE FIRST TOURNAMENT AT
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Binion’s Horseshoe in 1970, the World Series of Poker has evolved from a nearly familial gettogether of a few of the country’s top poker players to a global brand. And all it took was single transaction and relocation. When Harrah’s Entertainment— now Caesars Entertainment— bought Binion’s Horseshoe in January 2004, it also acquired the World Series of Poker. Harrah’s more or less sold the Downtown hotel-casino to West Virginiabased MTR Gaming three months later, retaining the rights to the Horseshoe name and the World Series of Poker. That April, Harrah’s held the WSOP at the newly renamed Binion’s, which, in both name and neon, had lost its Horseshoe. The following year, the competition shifted to the Rio. The move was straight out of the Las Vegas playbook, sacrifcing a tie with tradition for future growth. And the World Series did grow. In 2003, its last year under Binion ownership, about 7,500 entrants competed for almost $22 million in prize money. The following year, the frst under Harrah’s stewardship, the player pool and total prize money doubled. But the big uptick started with the move to the Rio. In 2005, more than 32,000 entrants vied for more than $100 million. Since then, the growth has been steady, even through the recession. Last year,
nearly 80,000 players competed for almost $200 million in prizes, ranging from $85,000 for the Casino Employees No Limit Hold ’em event to more than $18 million for the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop event. The WSOP’s most signifcant growth, however, has occurred beyond Las Vegas. This year, the six-week competition spans three Rio ballrooms and will attract participants from more than 100 countries. But players no longer need to travel to Las Vegas to win a WSOP bracelet. Since 2005, circuit events have been staged in casinos around the United States, and in 2007 the tournament expanded overseas with the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe in London. Today, a World Series of Poker Asia Pacifc pushes the brand’s reach even farther. This year, 11 of the 76 bracelets will be earned outside of the earlysummer tournament, a sign of how the World Series of Poker has shifted from annual event to brand. The nature of the participants has changed, too. The series originated as a semi-closed
PHOTO COURTESY POKERNEWS
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The Pioneers How the Mormons helped make Las Vegas—and why we need their engagement now more than ever BY MICHAEL GREEN
it’s less than two miles from the old las vegas Mormon Fort State Park to The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, but 159 years separate the founding of the fort from the Las Vegas premiere of the controversial musical The Book of Mormon on June 10. What happened in between the two events is a tale of the occasional heartbreak and extraordinary labor with which Mormons helped create modern Clark County—and in the process gained infuence far beyond their numbers. ¶ When the musical sprung from the irreverent minds of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to become the toast of Broadway in 2011, wags around Las Vegas wondered whether it could or would be performed here. That the question would even be asked is a sign of the power that many Southern Nevadans believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints wields in their community. It’s also an acknowledgment of how much Mormons have shaped the community, often in ways that ft with their church’s history. Admirers praise their commitment; critics often fnd them insular. One longtime observer recalls June 5–11, 2014
that upon moving to Southern Nevada more than three decades ago,
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what he heard “reminded me of the old anti-Semitic line, ‘The Jews control everything.’ People talked about Mormons the same way— they stick together, they help each other a lot, the same kind of basic stereotype.” ¶ The Mormon church reports having about 8.7 million members worldwide, with 180,000 in Nevada. According to statistics provided by Shannon Hiller, the church’s public-affairs representative in Southern Nevada, about 105,000 Mormons live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area—about 5 percent of the city’s population.
W. Paul Reeve, a widely published Mormon scholar and an associate professor of history at the University of Utah, agreed that “where there are high numbers of Mormons there can be a feeling of exclusion if you are on the outside looking in.” One factor is how involved Mormons are in their church and in family activities. “For Mormons, so much of their daily interactions revolve around their church community,” Reeve says, “that they can sometimes forget to look up and look around them and realize that there are other neighbors of other faiths.” But there are also strong traditions and trends within Mormonism toward reaching out to the community. Reeve cites “The Doctrine of Inclusion,” a 2001 article by M. Russell Ballard, then one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles—the group that leads the Mormon church— that reminds members to “get to know your neighbors.” Ballard goes on to recommend that church members stop thinking of non-Mormon neighbors frst as “non-Mormons.” “Personally,” he wrote, “I don’t think of myself as a ‘non-Catholic’ or a ‘non-Jew.’” “For Mormons,” Reeve says, “community is always more important than the individual. Mormonism is a rejection of life as a Darwinian struggle of all against all. Mormons [have a] covenant to mourn with those who mourn, to comfort those who stand in need of comfort. Ideally, that principle extends beyond the Mormon community.” And in Southern Nevada—where Mormons have been prominent in government, business and philanthropy— it has done just that, with tremendous impact on the history of the Valley.
Beginnings today, if a teenager announced that an angel had appeared to him and led him to special tablets, you might be skeptical. When Joseph Smith reported having this experience early in the 19th century, it wasn’t that unusual. It happened during the Second Great Awakening, a series of religious revivals across America that prompted the formation of new religious groups. It also created or reinvigorated reform movements that ranged from abolitionism and temperance to utopian socialist communities where groups came together and shared their land or bounty or expenses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew out of this swirl of activity. From the start, Mormons—with their unique cosmology and forms of organization—faced discrimination and violence. The church migrated from upstate New York, wound through several intermediary stops and settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. But in 1844, Smith was murdered in Nauvoo while in jail on charges of disturbing the peace. New church leader Brigham Young decided to move Mormons westward, away from Americans who might express their displeasure with the church’s different approach to religion. John C. Frémont’s recent report of his explorations west of the Rockies gave Young his template, and, in 1847, he led the frst group of Mormon emigrants into the Salt Lake Valley. Hoping both to help his church fourish and to protect it from attack, he proposed the large State of Deseret that included access to the Pacifc Ocean.
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In 1855, Young extended that footprint into New Mexico Territory, dispatching William Bringhurst to lead the mission. When the Mormons reached the Las Vegas Springs, they found the Southern Paiutes whom the church had ordered them to “cultivate.” Not being sure whether the Paiutes were friendly, the Mormons followed a creek about four miles northeast and built their fort-mission on a natural bench, now the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard North and Washington Avenue. The mission lasted only two years. The potentially lucrative discovery of lead at Mount Potosi divided the missionaries over their purpose; the debate led to Young removing Bringhurst as the mission’s president. Later in 1857, the U.S. Army headed for Salt Lake over charges that Mormons were ignoring federal law. The ongoing battle with federal offcials was known as the Utah War—suddenly there were more pressing matters for the men who had established the Las Vegas outpost, and the fort was abandoned. The fort—which is Nevada’s oldest building—served as a beachhead for subsequent settlement, passing into the hands of ranchers and becoming the home of Las Vegas pioneer Helen Stewart, who sold her land to the rail-
road. That sale led to the May 15, 1905, land auction and the building of the town of Las Vegas. With a red-light district within walking distance of the train depot, early Las Vegas wasn’t the kind of community that Mormons had in mind. In the early 20th century, though, Mormons had a great impact on the development of rural Clark County. They built communities in Bunkerville and Mesquite, and in the Moapa Valley towns of St. Thomas and Overton, the site of Nevada’s frst permanent stake in 1912. Mostly farming areas that also supplied nearby residents, they had a stronger Mormon presence than the railroad town that grew near the frst Mormon mission in present-day Nevada. Bunkerville even started as a communitarian (and polygamist) experiment, though that effort proved about as short-lived as the Las Vegas mission. Meanwhile, national politics hadn’t made things any easier. When the Republican Party was formed in 1856 to oppose the spread of slavery, it reserved additional moral outrage for a different institution: “It is the duty of Congress,” intoned the original Republican platform, “to prohibit … those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.” To most Americans, Mormons were
outlaws. They ft with what the world would come to know of Las Vegas better than anyone could have imagined.
The Evolution of Las Vegas the mormon population grew as Las Vegas grew, with an estimated membership of just over 400 when Las Vegas fnally topped 5,000 residents in 1930. That was enough to spur the construction of the frst Mormon chapel and ward in 1925—20 years after Catholic, Episcopal and Methodist churches opened, but nearly two decades before the frst Jewish temple. Those who have lived in Las Vegas long enough tend to wax nostalgic for a time that never was: when the mob “ran” the town and everybody was safe. But those who have lived in Las Vegas even longer recall childhood in the 1930s and 1940s that included events at each church, open to all regardless of faith or membership. The town wasn’t large enough for any group to be exclusive. Many of the Mormon settlers in early Las Vegas moved from Bunkerville or the Moapa Valley, apparently motivated in part by business opportunities that
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also led to political opportunities. The Bunker family opened its mortuary, and three brothers entered politics. Berkeley Bunker became an Assembly speaker and later the frst Mormon U.S. senator (later still, he was a U.S. representative from Nevada). The Whipple family arrived from Logandale, and Reed Whipple became a banker and city commissioner. The Christensens owned a jewelry store that still operates, and became prominent in elected offce. When Las Vegas was a small town, the Mormon emphasis on community made them important leaders in setting up the trappings of civil society. Mormons, for instance, were crucial to the formation in 1944 of the Boulder Dam Area Council, now the Las Vegas Area Council of the Boy Scouts. And, as offcials and volunteers, they became the driving force in Scouting and in the local and state PTA.
Remaking Las Vegas while clark county now has 24 Mormon stakes (something akin to a Catholic diocese), Las Vegas and its Mormon population hadn’t grown enough
– University of Utah history professor W. Paul Reeve
June 5–11, 2014
“Mormonism is a rejection of life as a Darwinian struggle of all against all.”
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PHOTO BY SCOT T JARVIE
The Las Vegas Mormon Temple at the foot of Frenchman Mountain.
to have its own until 1954. That year, Mormons or those with close connections to the church began the process of reshaping Las Vegas. On January 18, the Continental Bank of Salt Lake City opened the Bank of Las Vegas in conjunction with local investors. The next year, Utah investors sent down a manager, Parry Thomas, who had a long family history in the Mormon church. Thomas was the only banker willing to regularly lend money to casino operators—“character loans,” as they became known, since onetime illegal gamblers, mobsters or not, hated to write anything down. Asked why he would do this, Thomas said, “I’m in the banking business, and these people were good loans.” Along with the bank’s involvement in real estate through Thomas and Jerome Mack, a member of a pioneer Jewish family in Las Vegas, the loans made the operation wildly successful, and enabled several Strip and Downtown casinos to build or rebuild. Other Mormons played a signifcant role in gaming. The staff that took care of Howard Hughes after he moved to Las Vegas late in 1966 became known as the “Mormon Mafa,” under the command of Bill Gay. Thomas, meanwhile, helped Hughes buy property. While Thomas and other leaders hoped that Hughes would help drive out the mob, or at least the aura it gave Nevada, Thomas knew it would take more. He engineered the sale of a parcel that Hughes owned to Steve Wynn. Thus did Wynn owe some of his success to the role played by the Mormon church, and the rest really is history— and the present. Wynn cites Parry Thomas as a major infuence on his life—and on Las Vegas. The Thomas infuence even continued to the next generation: Thomas’ son Roger was the interior designer of Wynn’s hotels. The irony is that Mormons have historically opposed gambling as taking “money from the person who may be possessed of it without giving value received in return.” Although Mormons have worked on the casino foor, the general rule in the church has been that if a Mormon works in the casino industry, “don’t touch the dice.”
June 5–11, 2014
The Church and the Culture
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in 2010, the unlv department of Sociology, led by professor Robert Futrell and working with several university and community groups, conducted the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area Social Survey. Only one-third of the residents surveyed felt a sense of attachment or identifcation with their neighborhood, compared with a national average of more than two-thirds. “Valley residents’ stronger attachment to being a ‘Las Vegan’ than a ‘neighbor’ in a neighborhood raises important questions about civic involvement. If residents feel a limited sense of attachment to their neighbors and neighborhood, then they may be less
“For things like education, childhood sports and Scouting, Mormons are invested in the community in a way in which a lot of groups aren’t.” –UNLV sociology professor David Dickens
willing to act together to solve neighborhood problems,” the report said. “Also, stronger neighborhood attachment could reduce transiency of residents, creating more long-term neighbors … who can help to anchor sustainable communities.” But with less involvement in gaming and more of an investment in other industries or the community as a whole, Mormons appear to have been less transient. David Dickens, a UNLV sociology professor and co-author of Las Vegas: The Social Production of an AllAmerican City, noted the results: “Transience has a lot to do with it, and so does turnover: People don’t identify with being from here. I think the implication for things like education, childhood sports and Scouting is that Mormons are invested in the community in a way in which a lot of groups [aren’t].” Dickens harkens to the theory that political scientist Theodore Lowi offered in his 1969 The End of Liberalism, referring to “interest-group liberalism” as a partial explanation for how Mormons have an infuence disproportionate to their share of the population. “My experience,” he says, “has been that part of their focus in their religious practices is a strong infuence on the family, so whatever affects their kids, they participate in.” In turn, if the majority of parents don’t volunteer or participate, those who do will have an outsized impact. That has been the case with educational groups such as the Clark County School District and the PTA. The LDS has encouraged education; combine that with the church’s emphasis on family, and you start to understand why Mormons have held numerous elected and appointed positions in the institutions that help give form to childhood culture in the Valley. But these historical roles may be changing. The Mormon role in the PTA, one insider says, has declined with the arrival of increasing numbers of Hispanic and Asian immigrants “be-
cause they disagree with many of the organization’s political views and positions they have taken” on such subjects as sex education, where the PTA is a bit more liberal than the Mormon church. Meanwhile, the infux of new arrivals to Southern Nevada inevitably has reduced Mormon infuence. In 1990, Nevada’s population of just over 1.2 million included an estimated 110,000 Mormons; while the 2010 census showed that, though Nevada’s population had more than doubled to more than 2.7 million, the Mormon population had increased by less than 70,000. That the Mormon church hasn’t kept up with the population may be signifcant on religious grounds, but it’s more signifcant on political, social and cultural grounds. Especially until the Great Recession, Las Vegas was a transient community: Not only did thousands move in and out each month, but they also moved around within the area. The stable, less transient Mormon population helped promote a sense of community—a sense that many inside and outside Southern Nevada have long seen the region as lacking.
Politics and Power both of nevada’s u.s. senators are Mormon. The most powerful Mormon politician in the U.S., and Nevada’s most important political fgure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is a Democrat who described himself as “unchurched” before going to high school. After meeting Mormon families in Henderson, he converted to Mormonism while attending Utah State University (where he was a student of Leonard Arrington, one of the most distinguished scholars of Mormon history). Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Dean Heller, a Republican, said in 2006, when he frst ran for the House of Representatives, “I’m a Mormon, and I teach Sunday school every week.” The highest-ranking Mormon state legisla-
tor, state Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, is a Democrat whose previous political activism included serving as statewide PTA president. But Mormons are and long have been political conservatives, whatever party they have belonged to. Mormons joined the conservative exodus to the Republican Party that unfolded amid the Democrats’ Great Society liberalism of the 1960s until the rise of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and afterward. Mormon infuence in politics has been most apparent in the important positions held by church members. For example, one of Nevada’s longtime LDS leaders, James Gibson, a Henderson businessman and conservative Democrat, was a major state Senate power from the 1950s until his death in 1988. His son Jim, also a conservative Democrat, served as the mayor of Henderson from 1997-2009, ran for governor in 2006 and has been a church stake president. Other powers belonged to the Mormon church but weren’t closely identifed with it. Howard Cannon served four terms in the U.S. Senate, while the Lamb family dominated the Legislature (Floyd Lamb was a longtime state Senate fnance chair) and Southern Nevada politics (Ralph, the legendary sheriff, and Darwin, a county commissioner). All were Democrats, and generally considered “Jack Mormons,” meaning they don’t necessarily abide by LDS teachings. Mormon infuence has been important to Nevada, but especially under certain circumstances. “Everyone looks at the notion that Mormons would be powerful statewide, and the church has done well at getting members to run,” says David Damore, an associate professor of political science at UNLV and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute. But the church’s infuence has been most apparent, Damore says, in “low-turnout races,” and in some urban areas. Another factor is when church members are especially motivated, including when church members are seeking offce: Most other Republicans wrote off Nevada in the 2012 caucuses with Mitt Romney in the feld, and he cruised to victory. An additional motivation can be based on a single issue. In the 1970s, Mormons in the West turned out in force to help defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. More recently, Damore says, “The big example would have been the same-sex marriage initiative campaign, working with social conservatives to get that on the ballot to push that through.” Nevadans approved the measure in 2002, and Mormons were active in the campaign for Proposition 8 in 2008 to block same-sex marriage in California. In Nevada, Damore sees possible changes in how Mormons approach politics. “LDS growth has not kept up with the rest of the state’s population. With the state turning Democratic, [having the same degree of infuence] will be even more diffcult. Also, I think you see a little bit of a generational shift,
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where the older generation would have been more Republican, very conservative, while some of those under 50 tend to be less so. I think the newer generation isn’t necessarily voting as a bloc.” But Mormons have retained power in local governments. A Mormon has served as mayor of North Las Vegas for more than 30 years, of Henderson for 17 years, and four of the fve members of the Boulder City Council are Mormon. Mormons occasionally have held a majority of the seats on the Clark County Commission. As Damore says, “You have Mormons in key decision-making positions, both
elected and bureaucratic.” Bob Broadbent exemplifed Damore’s point. A Boulder City pharmacist when he became the town’s frst mayor in 1960 (until then, the town had been under federal control), he moved up to the Clark County Commission in 1968 and went to Washington, D.C., to run the Bureau of Reclamation in 1981. (His successor, Bruce Woodbury, came from a longtime local Mormon family.) Broadbent returned home in 1987 as director of McCarran International Airport and later helped start what became the Robert N. Broadbent Las Vegas Monorail.
The Book on The Book the book of mormon won nine Tony Awards in 2012 and worked its way into the nation’s cultural fabric. Controversy never really exploded, in large part thanks to Mormons’ generally calm, even bemused reaction: They welcomed the interest the show inspired; perhaps it would even prompt some theatergoers to look into Mormonism. The New York Times interviewed former missionaries who saw it. “It’s way, way too close to home,” one said. Another said, “It’s right on, but I
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cringed a little bit, a couple of times.” The church’s offcial response, says local church spokeswoman Hiller, has also been philosophical and above-thefray: “The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but The Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ.” Nearly 160 years after the founding of the Mormon Fort, it’s hard to argue with that assertion: The Book has had, and will continue to have, a far greater impact on Las Vegas than the musical. But those South Park guys are really funny anyway.
If you’ve looked around Las Vegas and wondered, “Where are all the old buildings?” make it your mission to visit the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort just north of Cashman Field. Built by Mormon missionaries in 1855, the fort was nestled in a meadow alongside a creek; it quickly became an oasis for passing Paiute and gold-seeking travelers along the Old Spanish Trail. The settlers—the original group numbered 29—farmed the area but abandoned it two years after it was built. Today, Las Vegans can play the role of Mormon pioneer, walking the paths surrounding the fort and exploring the adobe building filled with historical relics. The fort hosts numerous events and workshops: From 10 a.m. to noon June 7, visitors can learn to make a dreamcatcher; from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. June 21, a Navajo host teaches how to make fry bread; the same day, from noon to 1 p.m., learn how to make adobe bricks; from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 28, create your own petroglyph. Fort admission: $1 for adults, free for children 12 and under. 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tue–Sat. – Nina Bunche Pierce
June 5–11, 2014
THE BUILDING THAT STARTED IT ALL: THE OLD MORMON FORT
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PHOTO COURTESY NEVADA STATE PARKS
[ VEGAS EXPLORER ]
June 5–11, 2014
Commitment and comprehension: Cassandra Hafen works with student Nathan Kistle.
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From the Words to The Word
A mother sets out to learn more about her son’s remarkable dyslexia tutor—and winds up with an education in pioneer living and Mormon faith
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
– Luke 12:48 in 2010, when one of her children was struggling to read, Cassandra Hafen took it upon herself to learn more about dyslexia. A veteran teacher of English as a Second Language, she found herself in new territory, so she retrained and became a certifed specialist in the sonorously named Barton/Orton-Gillingham method. This unique approach calls for the engagement of all of a student’s senses: visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic. It has a lofty track record—it’s the preferred method at the New York’s Windward School, perhaps the nation’s top dyslexia program—and now Hafen was determined to bring it to her one-on-one practice in suburban Henderson. As the mother of a severely dyslexic son, I had gone through some of the same struggles as Hafen. So when I learned about her in 2013, I called immediately. As I sat in the sessions and watched her create a sequential language system for my child, building on itself in an almost three-dimensional way, I knew I’d struck gold. She had what you might call quiet spirit—a strength of character that allows her
to be gently proactive rather than restlessly reactive. She always seemed to be a step ahead. I wasn’t alone in noticing this about Hafen. “Our son responds to Cassandra because of her gentle manner, patience, calming voice and clear expectations,” another parent, Gina Venglass, told me. “She believes in him, and he knows this.” An adult student told me that it was Hafen who helped him pass tough police academy tests so he could begin his career in law enforcement. Her skills are empowered by a unique ability to pin down the roots of challenges—and to empathize. “Cassandra understands why a student is struggling,” says Las Vegas dyslexia screener Katrina Letourneaut, who has been a mentor for Hafen. “And she works hard at building their self-confdence.” I began to wonder what accounted for her remarkable alchemy. How did she inspire the mind of a child where so many others have failed? To put it grandly, what made her who she was? As we got to know each other better, that question led me to an exploration not simply of her teaching style, but of her approach to life, her ethical outlook and, ultimately, her Mormon faith. Soon enough, I found myself immersed in the story of one of Henderson’s most powerful extended families.
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“To whom much was given, of him much will be required.”
June 5–11, 2014
BY NINA BUNCHE PIERCE
When I told Cassandra that her commitment seems to run in the family, she told me I didn’t yet know the half of it. Then she gave me a book.
June 5–11, 2014
*****
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the hafens have been mormon missionaries for fve generations. In 1993, Cassandra and her husband, Russ Hafen, who runs Henderson’s Hafen Nursery, tried to master Mandarin for their LDS mission in Taiwan. (Learning such a diffcult second language, she says, triggered her interest in literacy.) In Taiwan, she taught English, cleaned houses, took care of the elderly and proselytized. Today, Hafen is a member of the American-Chinese Foundation and continues to teach literacy to a student in Taiwan via Skype. “Service to the community, industry, hard work and frugality were inherited,” Hafen says. The tradition of community service is apparent in Hafen’s relatives: Her husband’s cousin Andy is the mayor of Henderson, and Andy’s daughter, Tessa, ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2006. “My parents followed in their parents’ way of life,” Tessa Hafen told me. “They’ve
always been active in church, helping neighbors, working in the community. I am grateful for that sense of purpose and that understanding of where we came from, why we are here and where we are going.” When I told Cassandra that her commitment seems to run in the family, she smiled and told me I didn’t yet know the half of it. Then she gave me a book. ***** on may 11, 1860, 6-year-old mary Ann Stucki and her family left Bern, Switzerland, for the United States. They crossed the Atlantic on the William Tapscott with 731 Mormons. After coming ashore in New York, they boarded a train for Nebraska. There they joined Mormon pioneers en route to Zion, trudging by handcart across 1,300 miles of plains. Many years later, Mary Ann would write Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: A Woman’s Life on the Mormon Fron-
tier. Her story has survived fve generations, fnding its way onto Cassandra Hafen’s bookshelf, and into my hands. From 1856 to 1860, the family was among 2,969 Mormon missionaries, using 662 handcarts—pulled not by livestock but by the travelers themselves. Mary Ann and her 9-year-old brother walked along the two-wheeled cart; her 2-year-old sister and a 6-month-old brother rode inside. Mary Ann’s father, a carpenter, pulled the cart while her mother pushed it from behind. “Mother’s feet were so swollen,” Mary Ann wrote, “that she could not wear shoes, but had to wrap her feet with cloth.” Hitched to the handcart was one cow for milking. “One day a group of Indians came riding up on horses. Their jingling trinkets, dragging poles and strange appearance frightened the cow and sent her chasing off with the cart and children,” Mary Ann wrote. “We were afraid the children might be killed, but the cow fell into a deep gully and the cart turned up-
side down.” No one was hurt, but after that, their father did not hitch the cow to the cart again. At last they arrived at Emigration Canyon, Utah, and gazed for the frst time at the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Like LDS President Brigham Young himself, they said, “This is the place.” But in reality it was a dry, hot primitive desert land, not at all resembling the beauty of Switzerland from whence they came. The family prayed for their own survival as well as the other LDS pioneers. (More echoes of this heritage: “Life doesn’t always turn out how we want it to or we think it will,” Tessa Hafen told me, “but God is mindful of us.”) When the family arrived, knowing no English, people greeted them with baskets of fruit and other goods. “Even though we could not understand their language,” Mary Ann wrote, “they made us feel that we were among friends.” Mary Ann’s father settled at Fort Clara in Southern Utah; he built a wigwam, a waterwheel, a cotton gin, a loom and a
T H E
M O R M O N
L E G A C Y
in my family only by my great-greatgrandfather, John George Hafen, in the mid-1800s, by order of the Church,” Russ says. “It hasn’t been practiced in the Hafen family for fve generations.” Mary Ann eventually had seven children with John George Hafen, birthing all of them at home. “I have never had a doctor at the birth of any of my children, nor at any other time for that matter,” she wrote. “And I never paid more than fve dollars for the services of a midwife.” (Another strong echo: Today, Cassandra Hafen is not only a dyslexia tutor, but also a member of the International Childbirth Educator Association and a doula, assisting in the home birth of her own sister’s baby in April.) The Hafens labored with other skilled families to build the cities of St. George and Salt Lake City. They also peddled in mining towns in Utah and Nevada. Community and commerce thrived. In 1891, John George Hafen moved Mary Ann to Bunkerville, Nevada. Mormons
had been active in Southern Nevada for years already, having built what is now known as the Old Mormon Fort along the Las Vegas Creek in 1855. Mary Ann’s move heralded the eventual settling of many Hafens in Southern Nevada, most notably in Henderson. Five generations later, Tessa smiles about what it meant to grow up a Hafen. “Everywhere I went there were family members—aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins. It was, and is, really a wonderful thing. I have so many cousins—as children, cousins are your best friends in the world.” ***** “ when i first read mary ann’s story, I felt grateful and amazed,” Cassandra says. “I don’t know if I could have endured what she went through—she set such a good example for our family.” Cassandra has made it her mission to live up to that example. Along with her dyslexia and doula work, she is a
co-founder of S.E.E.K.—Seeking Enrichment and Expanding Knowledge— an educational enrichment program for homeschoolers. To sum up her worldview, she likes to quote Luke 12:48: “To whom much was given, of him much will be required.” Each day, Cassandra tutors her students right across the street from her LDS church in Henderson. I fnd myself thinking of her as a modern-day pioneer, extending her faith into a public service to make illiterate people literate. Thanks to her, my son is making strides at a pace neither he nor I thought possible. My son has an unusual gift for words, and when he uses the gift to describe his dyslexia, I always fnd myself learning something important. Not long ago, he helped me see something important about Cassandra: “The most frustrating thing about struggling to read is—well— life,” he said. “I just got used to living in a cage. With Mrs. Hafen, I feel like we’re fling away at the padlock.”
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spinning wheel. Vineyards and a dam were built. The town of Santa Clara was born, a predominantly Swiss, Germanspeaking Mormon settlement. On November 24, 1873, Mary Ann, who had already married and been widowed (her husband died 10 days after the wedding in a buggy accident), married another Swiss emigrant, John George Hafen. He also would marry Mary Ann’s younger sister, Rosie, who had also been widowed. He had four wives in all, and is the common ancestor of many of today’s Hafens living in Southern Utah and the Las Vegas Valley—including Mayor Andy Hafen and Cassandra’s husband, Russ. Today, Andy Hafen stresses that, even in the mid-19th century, Mormon polygamy was “not a wholesale thing,” and that John George was called to the practice by the church leaders. At the time, the church sometimes asked men to marry widowed young women in particular to protect them—and to proliferate. “Polygamy was practiced
June 5–11, 2014
From left: Cassandra Hafen on her LDS mission in Taiwan; a well-thumbed copy of Mary Ann Hafen’s pioneer memoir; Mary Ann and her family in 1895.
NIGHTLIFE Your city after dark, photos from the week’s hottest parties and scene notes from the underground
Brace yourself for the not-to-be-missed residencies of the season By Camille Cannon
June 5–11, 2014
Summer Blockbusters
29 VEGAS SEVEN
PHOTO BY AL POWERS/POWERS IMAGERY
Snoopadelic Cabaret.
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WHEN YOU THINK “PROHIBITION,” we’ll bet fappers, brass bands and dapper suits come to mind. During Snoopadelic Cabaret at Tao, you’ll fnd all of the above … plus Snoop Dogg … plus alcohol. At the party’s May 3 debut, DJ/rapper Snoop’s vice-loving persona and scantily clad go-go’s collided in ironic wonder with the speakeasy era. We reckon people of the 1920s never got to enjoy “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” while sneakily sipping booze out of a coffee mug. But, oh, if they could see us now ... Snoopadelic Cabaret is scheduled for July 3, August 30 and two additional dates in the fall. In the Venetian, 702-388-8588, TaoLasVegas.com. “Atmosphere” producer Kaskade recently announced an intimate nine-city tour, and tickets for some dates sold out within hours. Luckily for Las Vegas, Kaskade is committed to the booth of Marquee’s day and nightclubs a total of 17 times this summer. After stellar sessions on May 3 and May 24, he continues his Summer Lovin’ experience during
EDC weekend June 21 and 22, with additional dates July 5 and August 30. Did we mention he’s the two-time recipient of DJ Times’ “America’s Best DJ” title? That’s one more reason to add a date (or several) to your schedule. In the Cosmopolitan, 702-3339000, MarqueeLasVegas.com. Last summer, Macklemore crowdsurfed through Surrender during his performance at the club’s threeyear anniversary. After such a show, it’s no wonder the rapper (and his production partner, Ryan Lewis) are back for several dates this year. The duo who made thrift shoppin’ cool again return July 4. As a bonus: Lewis will spin solo July 2. Maybe you can spot his suaveness strolling the property between gigs. In Encore, 702770-7300, SurrenderLasVegas.com. Aside from sets at EDC, Carl Cox sightings have been few and far between in Las Vegas—much to the dismay of his dedicated fans. Now having signed on for several dates at Light, this summer marks the Brit’s
frst offcial residency on the Strip. Cox kicked it off in a big way May 26, spinning into the wee morning with an after-hours set of house and techno. The pioneer continues to keep us on our toes, next appearing June 19, a rare Thursday night at Light for EDC Week. In Mandalay Bay, 702-693-8300, TheLightVegas.com. Supplying the beats to a bikini competition is one job most warmblooded males would envy. In the case of Rehab’s Bikini Invitational, DJ Crystal Hefner, the better half of Playboy’s head honcho, Hugh, flls those duties. She’ll choose the tunes as beauties compete each month for $100,000 in cash and prizes. Spot the bombshell in the booth June 14, July 12, August 9 and September 6. Check out the rock on her fnger while you’re there. In Hard Rock Hotel, 702-693-5555, HardRockHotel.com. You can always count on Hakkasan for top-tier talent. On any given weekend you can see heavyweights such as Calvin Harris, Tiësto and Steve
Aoki on the decks. This summer, the megaclub brings in special guests: up-and-comer Martin Garrix and Grammy winners Deep Dish. Garrix’s May 26 appearance marked his frst as an offcial resident, and he’ll be back for EDC weekend June 23. As for Deep Dish, the recently reunited duo made their anticipated Las Vegas return June 1. In MGM Grand, 702-891-3838, HakkasanLV.com. While many are familiar faces to the Strip, every DJ is new to the roster at Drai’s Beach Club and Nightclub. The 65,000-square-foot rooftop paradise made its debut last month. Already among its residents are two of the season’s most highly anticipated spinners: reclusive Swede Eric Prydz and Dutch Brothers Showtek. They’ll be joined by more than a dozen acts, including Adventure Club, DVBBS and Las Vegas’ own 3Lau. You can catch them all by day and night several times a month, ThursdaySunday. In the Cromwell, 702-737-0555, DraisNightlife.com.
MARTIN GARRIX AND K ASK ADE BY BRENTON HO/POWERS IMAGERY, MACKLEMORE BY ERIK K ABIK, SHOWTEK BY SHANE O’NEAL
NIGHTLIFE June 5–11, 2014
Clockwise from top left: Martin Garrix, Macklemore, Kaskade and Showtek.
By
NIGHTLIFE
Camille Cannon
Halfway 2 Halloween.
you’ll fnd eye and ear candy in the form of 23-year-old Jesse Marco, model, DJ and mentee of Mark Ronson and the late, great DJ AM. (At MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)
Jesse Marco.
SUN 8
MON 9 Get excited for Atlanta-based DJ/production duo Heroes X Villains at XS. They’ve played Las Vegas before, but not since dropping their dance anthem “Twerk” in April. So even if you’ve already seen them, you’ve gotta go again. The twerking is optional. (In Encore, 10:30 p.m., XSLasVegas.com.)
TUE 10
June 5–11, 2014
Haven’t made your way to Drai’s Beach Club & Nightclub yet? Get there for Yacht
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THU 5
FRI 6
Second only to the tablefipping, hair-pulling ladies of Bravo, our favorite Real House franchise is the Real House DJs of Las Vegas. The showcase of local spinners returns for a second season at Liquid with sets from DJ Que and Mics. If grooves aren’t enough to get you through the gates, maybe the promise of complimentary tequila from Montalvo and bodypainted models ought to do it. (At Aria, 11 a.m., LiquidPoolLV. com.) Later, drum-and-bass crews Bad Company UK and Blokhe4d shake the walls of House of Blues’ OBA Lounge. (In Mandalay Bay, 10 p.m., Facebook.com/HyperAudio.)
Don’t let the calendar dictate what you wear or how you rage: It’s time for AWOL Production’s Halfway 2 Halloween Party! The 18-and-over affair transforms the Candy Factory rave warehouse of yesteryear into a labyrinth of creepy sights and excellent sounds. Rock your favorite costume and get ready to rattle with DJs spinning speed garage, house, trap, dubstep and more. Oh, and watch your back: There will be zombies. (1400 Industrial Rd., 9 p.m., Halfway2Halloween.com.) Or you could forego the fright fest and gear up for Flashback Fridays at 1 Oak with a performance by R&B sexer-uppers,
Club, an easy, breezy, industry pool party 11 stories above the Strip. The dress code encourages swimwear or club attire, but, please, don’t be that dude who shows up in a bucket hat. (At the Cromwell, 10 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.) Brooklyn Bowl hosts Thievery Corporation tonight and tomorrow. Expect to hear nightclubby tunes as well as some bossa nova jams from the duo's most recent release, Saudade. (At the Linq, 7 p.m., Vegas.BrooklynBowl.com.)
WED 11 Round out your week with a visit to Light for Baauer’s Studio B. Led by the 25-yearold Brooklyn native, the monthly residency promises guest performers (last month’s was rapper A$AP Ferg) and trippy visuals provided by artist-on-therise SuS Boy. (In Mandalay Bay, 10:30 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.)
Color Me Badd. (In The Mirage, 10:30 p.m., 1 OakLasVegas.com.)
SAT 7 Miami-based duo GTA brings their bouncy beats to Daylight after spinning at Light last night. The group’s philosophy is “death to genres,” and their mission is simple: “To set the room on fre and get the asses clapping, every time.” And where better than a beach club to do just that? (At Mandalay Bay, 11 a.m., DaylightVegas.com.) Hakkasan has electro-house heavyweight Hardwell in the main room, with an opening set by British import Mark Eteson. In the Ling Ling Club,
Thievery Corporation.
HALFWAY 2 HALLOWEEN COURTESY OF AWOL PRODUCTIONS; THIEVERY CORPORATION BY ANDRZEJ LIQUZ
You may have seen him hanging with Puff Daddy, Cassie and friends at Rehab over Memorial Day weekend. You may read his musings on “new ish” in the world of hip-hop at JustWhooKid.com. You might even tune into his Whoolywood Shuffe radio show on Sirius XM. Now you can turn up with G-Unit Records’ DJ Whoo Kid as he sets the industry night soundtrack at The Bank. (In Bellagio, 10:30 p.m., TheBankLasVegas.com.)
NIGHTLIFE
Beyond Burning Man Brett Rubin mixes things up in the underground By Deanna Rilling
June 5–11, 2014
THE BEST DANCE FLOORS are increasingly being found in less likely locales, such as in the middle of the high desert or poolside as the sun rises after the Electric Daisy Carnival. Brett Rubin throws those kinds of parties. After 15 years as a DJ, Rubin is now spending more of his time in the studio as well as focusing on creating events that bring music out from behind nightclub walls. But Rubin will once again get behind the decks when After after-hours moves into its new home at 1923 Bourbon & Burlesque in Mandalay Bay, as well as Minnesota’s Northern Lights Music Festival the third week in July.
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You’ve had an extensive history in the Las Vegas scene. What are your impressions of its growth and its affect on local DJs? Back when I frst started playing in Vegas, there was after-hours and maybe a weekday with good house music; everything else was mash-ups and hip-hop. We were still doing the underground stuff, especially the after-hours at Empire Ballroom. We worked to build an audience for the music, and eventually, it kind of came around into the mainstream scene. [Today, clubs are] importing so many headliners from out of the country and out of state, and a lot of venues are using one or two local guys as their support and giving them all the shifts. And they are spending so much on the headliners that the local guys aren’t making the money that some of them deserve. A lot of these local guys can put on just as good a show as some of these people who are getting a huge amount of money. So, I think that’s a battle for a lot of the local guys, who really have to do a lot of our own work and make our own opportunities, throwing our own events in warehouses and in the desert. But it brings us together a lot more too. What was your path to the DJ booth? I started DJing in the late ’90s, and I threw a rave in Tucson. It was my frst event that I promoted and organized. After that, I really had the itch to learn how to do what these guys were doing. I was 19 years old in 1999, and I bought a set of turntables, a mixer and some speakers from someone with some
crates of records that came with it— mostly hip-hop—and started going to the record store and digging for vinyl and kind of developing what kind of sound I like. Today’s sound would be more progressive, I think. How did you end up in Las Vegas? After college, I picked up my first residency in Chicago in 2002, and played for a couple of years there. I then took some time off from spinning before I moved to Vegas at the end of 2005, and worked in marketing for the Light Group and eventually for Vegas Group Entertainment, doing some hosting and throwing events at places such as Tao and Privé. But after about a year in Vegas, after I left Light Group, I really had the itch to get back to DJing. I would sit at my
desk at work, and all I wanted to do was download music. Eventually, I bought some new equipment and messed around again, and Empire Ballroom was the first place to let me play. The rest is kind of history. Every day you wake up and do what you love to do, it’s a good day. Now that you’re starting to focus on production more, what vibe or sound are you going for? My style of production is in tune with what I play, which is a lot of late ’90s, a lot of tech house, techno and deep house—very groovy. I’ve defnitely slowed my BPMs down quite a bit over the years. Going to desert parties such as Burning Man and other festivals is where I get my inspiration from, so my music in the studio tends to gravitate toward that direction.
What do you enjoy about the culture of those desert festivals and parties as opposed to the nightclub world? With the clubs it all revolves around money and being seen, and there’s a lot of unoriginality in the music in the clubs. A lot of these DJs—granted they made some of the music—but you know they’re all playing the same set and they’re all playing the same tracks. The stuff that we [underground DJs] do isn’t about the money or the fame; it’s about the music and it’s about having a good time and coming together. Musically, the stuff that we play at after-hours and out in the desert is more of a story. It has more creativity. If you really understand the music, then it’s a lot more meaningful than regurgitating the Top 10 Beatport tracks over and over.
NIGHTLIFE
THE HOOKUP
Tickets, please: Meet the Challenger 601, and check out the interior view (inset).
Private Jetiquette Your boarding pass for epic selfes (and maybe even the mile-high club)
June 5–11, 2014
IN A TOWN LIKE LAS VEGAS, PJs (that’s “private jets” to the rest of you) are nearly as common as commercial fights, so one just never knows when the opportunity to climb aboard might present itself. Especially during the summer festival and holiday season. With that in mind, it’s probably best to keep your manners in their full, upright and locked position with these tips from Todd Spitzer, vice president of sales with Aero Jet Services.
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What are the most common faux pas committed by private-jetsetting newbies? Showing up with more passengers than were originally intended, changing destinations at the last minute and showing up late. Is it true that on a private plane I can surf the Web, Skype, call my pals and upload selfes to my Instagram feed through the entire fight? Yes. To be marketable in this
industry most aircraft must have Wi-Fi. The importance of having fully accessible technology is one of many reasons private chartering is favorable among clients. Whether it’s a business or pleasure-trip client, most want to have full Web accessibility, and be able to send and receive emails and text messages. Wouldn’t you want to be the envy of your friends and pucker up for that private-jet selfe? But private jets are only for millionaires and rock stars, right? Is there ever any way it makes sense for a “normal” person to consider chartering a jet? There are many different ways that “normal” people can fy privately. One way is buying an “empty leg” on a jet. Aero Jet specializes in offering these at a reduced rate. Will there be a stewardess on board? Well, actually, they’re called cabin attendants. On a heavier “cabin class” aircraft, there’s a small galley where
they can prep food and beverage. They’re not classifed as fight attendants, but they do provide a safety role with their knowledge of CPR and frst aid, and will assist in case of an emergency. They are not considered a crew member, though, but are considered a passenger on the fight. Will I get peanuts or mini pretzels? Special beverages, catering and other personal favorites will be on board per client request. From martinis to sushi—no request is too small. Anyhow, who wants peanuts when you can have pistachios, or even a PayDay bar? Can I join the mile-high club? What happens on an aircraft stays on an aircraft.
How much luggage can I bring? Each aircraft has its own size and space; it’s best to speak with the person coordinating your flight. Smaller aircraft allow a carry-on and small bag. Our larger aircraft have greater storage capacity, and can fit large items, including ski gear or an abundance of Louis Vuitton baggage. Can I bring my dog? Yes, Fido and Lola are warmly welcomed. In fact, clients may order special catering as well for their furry loved one, although there may be an additional charge for cleanup. For more private jetiquette, visit VegasSeven.com/TheHookup. To charter a flight, visit AeroJetServices.com.
PHOTOS COURTESY AERO JET SERVICES
By Laurel May Bond
PARTIES
THE SEVEN EDM ANTHEMS OF SUMMER
With the sunny days and sweltering nights of summer almost upon us, we begin to piece together the soundtrack of the season.
“BOOTCAMP,” JAY HARDWAY
GHOSTBAR The Palms
[ UPCOMING ]
June 7 Presto One and Exodus spin June 11 #LadiesBeLike with sounds by Presto One June 13 MICS and Mark Stylz spin
Jay Hardway took the clubtune formula and updated each element with surprises in the drops and twists in the beat. The Dutchman, who is best known for his collaborations with superstar Martin Garrix, is now making waves in the industry with his innovative solo release. “REAL LIFE,” MAT ZO
Mat Zo has created a song that pairs well with either poolside piña coladas or late-night vodka tonics. “THE LITTLE DEATH,” TOMMY TRASH & KILLAGRAHAM
Tommy Trash adds to his list of beloved club tracks with this collaboration with KillaGraham. “The Little Death” captures the signature Tommy Trash electro flow, and pairs it with KillaGraham’s darker, dubstep sounds. “YOU,” (TIËSTO VS. TWOLOUD RADIO EDIT), GALANTIS
A vocal track with simple, memorable lyrics is an obvious choice for one of the best songs of summer. The familiar words and uplifting melody make this Galantis remix a surefire go-to song for headlining DJs across the board. “APOCALYPSE 2014,” (KRYDER & TOM STAAR REMIX), ARNO COST & NORMAN DORAY
The song was added to tastemaker Pete Tong’s Essential Selection in April, and if Pete Tong says a track is cool, it is going to be cool.
46
“TREMOR,” DIMITRI VEGAS & LIKE MIKE AND MARTIN GARRIX
VEGAS SEVEN
June 5–11, 2014
Dyro emerged on the mainstream scene as one of Hardwell’s supporting acts for the Revealed bus tour. His recent string of releases, including the single “Sounds Like,” have dominated dance floors around the world.
Leave it to the masterminds behind “Animals” and “Mammoth” to release a collaboration like this, the official Sensation 2014 anthem. - Kat Boehrer
See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com
PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA AND BOBBY JAMEIDAR
“SOUNDS LIKE,” DYRO
DINING
“Walzog recently traveled to Hawaii to meet with the captains of some of the boats that would be catching his product.” SCENE {PAGE 56}
Restaurant reviews, dining news and the best summer cider out there is ...
Striking a Healthy Balance Bachi HLK vies to make daytime dining just a little healthier By Al Mancini
53 VEGAS SEVEN
PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR
Chicken and waffles at Bachi HLK.
June 5–11, 2014
WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE
say a meal is “healthy”? It’s a question I was forced to ponder over a few recent meals at the new westside breakfast and lunch spot Bachi HLK. Because the HLK in the title stands for “Healthy Life Kitchen.” According to the menu, the restaurant believes in “sourcing ingredients of quality, raised in ways that minimize impact on the environment and contribute to a healthy lifestyle.” They also have an array of juices, several vegetarian options and a handful of gluten-free dishes. So yes, this place is probably healthier for you and for the planet than most restaurants. But as I was digging into fried chicken and waffes on a recent visit, enjoying a cocktail from the full bar, I didn’t really feel like I was increasing my life expectancy. And that’s just fne with me. I prefer to take my healthful eating in baby steps, as long as the chef brings plenty of favor to the table. The menu at Bachi HLK actually does offer many healthful choices. You can get a green-tea crepe; blueberry fax granola; quinoa with cottage cheese, fruit and honey; or a “crunch salad” of kale, Brussels sprouts, apple, cabbage, radicchio, sunfower seeds, endive, quinoa, blue cheese and walnuts. But you’ll also fnd more than a halfdozen egg dishes and plenty of pancakes, waffes and French toast. And the healthiness of the lean ostrich burger seems painfully outweighed by the torchon of foie gras, also on the menu. What makes Bachi’s menu interesting are the small touches. That ostrich burger, for example, comes topped with pineapple ketchup, grilled onions and charred tomato, with bacon, fried egg and blue or Gruyère cheese optional. There are three types of sausage available with breakfast, as well as three different syrups. And the various house-made jellies and jams are delicious.
DINING
Wild mushroom hash and an ostrich burger (inset).
Al’s
Menu Picks Wild mushroom hash ($12.95), custom four-egg omelet ($10.95), Count Meet Bachi HLK ($10.95).
Among my favorite dishes here so far has been an order of wild-mushroom hash made with several varieties of mushroom, potato, kale, Gruyère, egg, onions and béchamel. It had a complex earthiness to it that clearly demonstrated I wasn’t in just any old breakfast joint. The restaurant’s take on a Monte Cristo sandwich—made with roast turkey and Gruyère—was also outstanding, a beautiful spin on a breakfast standard. I wasn’t quite as impressed with the aforementioned chicken and waffes. While the green-onion waffes and accompanying curry butter and coconut syrup were
delicious, the sweet chili sauce on the strips of fried chicken was heavy and overpowering. It’s not that I didn’t like the favors; I just would have preferred if the chef had incorporated them into the breading, rather than a sauce. While I generally like the food at Bachi HLK a lot, I have had a few other disappointments. The chicken apple sausages are far too sweet for my taste. And the hollandaise sauce on the eggs Benedict is incredibly bland. I’m also not a big fan of using turkey on the Benny, since it tends to drown out the Canadian bacon. It’s also worth noting that while the staff here is friendly and helpful, service during both of my visits was ridiculously slow, despite a near-empty house each time. How healthful my meals at Bachi HLK have been may be up for debate. But the food is unquestion-
ably much better than what you’ll fnd at a typical breakfast place. Moreover, the prices are fair, and the portions are huge. Hopefully that will at least help them earn a healthy customer base.
BACHI HLK
6825 W. Russell Rd., 702-220-4560. Open for breakfast and lunch daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Breakfast or lunch for two $20-$40.
[ JUST A SIP ]
THIS SUMMER, MAKE IT A CIDER Cider has come a long way. Granted, the syrupy-sweet, lightly spiked apple and pear juice we guzzled in college with reckless abandon (then rued the following day—I’m looking at you, Wood-
chuck) is still available—and in fact, it’s proliferated! But that rising tide has also brought us countless new quality entrants June 5–11, 2014
into the cider game, including Tieton Cider Works from Washington State, with which I am most impressed. Pink Lady,
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Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill—all of these apple varieties find a home in Tieton’s portfolio of 10 ciders ranging from dry and semidry to semisweet and sweet. Even a confirmed beer-lover will appreciate the dry-hopped Yakima Valley cider; the apricot cider is pucker-up-sour and refreshing, and all are naturally gluten-free. True, there are gourmet ciders made from heritage apples and Champagne yeast that come in corked 750-milliliter bottles, but when price, volume and accessibility are factors—which is often—this is the way to go. $8, Khoury’s Fine Wine & Spirits, TietonCiderWorks.com. – Xania Woodman
Get the latest on local restaurant openings and closings, interviews with top chefs, cocktail recipes, menu previews and more in our weekly “Sips and Bites” newsletter. Subscribe at VegasSeven.com/SipsAndBites.
The Light Group has finally released more details about its first off-Strip restaurant, Hearthstone Kitchen & Cellar in Red Rock Resort, which is part of the property’s $35 million renovation. Executive chef and partner Brian Massie will do a menu with an evolving selection of small plates meant for sharing based on seasonally available ingredients sourced from sustainable and organic local farmers, ranchers and fishermen. Attempting to create a neighborhood restaurant feel within a giant casino, the group will give Hearthstone a wood-burning oven as its centerpiece, a cozy outdoor patio and a private chef’s table enoteca, or wine cellar. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the world from Red Rock, there’s another renovation happening at El Sombrero Cafe, which after a 64-year run closed in April amid a great deal of mourning by Las Vegans. Much to everyone’s surprise, a new coat of paint has been slapped on, and while the diner’s Facebook page has yet to announce the exact resurrection date of El Sombrero Mexican Bistro, it’s anticipated to reopen relatively soon. Las Vegas continues its campaign to be called the Ninth Island, thanks to large numbers of Hawaiians making this desert their second home. The Honolulu Cookie Company said “aloha” last month in the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian with their signature favorite pineapple-shaped shortbread cookies that come in flavors such as Kona coffee, pineapple, macadamia nut and lilikoi (that’s passion fruit for you haoles). The cookies are baked fresh on the island at 5 a.m. then shipped directly to Las Vegas, but if there’s enough demand, they’ll eventually start producing them here in town. If a hot dog from the cart located outside of Emergency Arts was your go-to late-night Downtown snack, you’ll be pleased to know that Cheffini’s has found a brick-and-mortar (or whatever is the structure’s material) home at Container Park. The menu will include the all-beef favorites from the original cart, as well as introduce a chorizo dog, plus vegan and turkey varieties. They’re also getting into the java game, providing coffee, espresso, French press and other caffeinated drinks from the adjacent window. The American dream at work, folks. Grace Bascos eats, sleeps, raves and repeats. Read more from Grace at VegasSeven.com/ DishingWithGrace, as well as on her diningand-music blog, FoodPlusTechno.com.
BACHI HLK PHOTOS BY ANTHONY MAIR
LIGHT GROUP KINDLES THE HEARTH, AND VEGAS BECOMES THE NINTH ISLAND
SCENE DINING
Chef David Walzog shows off a beautiful monchong; Asianstyle opakapaka at Lakeside (inset).
Taste of the Islands David Walzog uses his ocean-to-table philosophy to bring Hawaiian seafood to Wynn
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ONE OF THE MOST ANNOYINGLY persistent myths about dining in Las Vegas is that it’s impossible—or at least diffcult—to get good seafood in the desert. There may have been a time when that was true. But in 2014, Las Vegas restaurants boast a wider variety of fresh, pristine ocean delicacies than you’ll fnd in many coastal cities. Both Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare in Wynn and Estiatorio Milos in the Cosmopolitan fy in seafood from the Mediterranean several times a week. BarMasa in Aria and Chinatown’s Kabuto both source exotic types of sushi from Japan. And now, thanks to chef David Walzog, Wynn’s Lakeside Seafood is presenting
diners with a sampling of what the waters around Hawaii have to offer. The restaurant recently launched a program called Ocean to Table, which entails a rotating selection of fsh indigenous to Hawaii. Walzog relies on about 30 Hawaiian fshing boats to supply it. Every day, he contacts the head fshmonger to fnd out what they’ve caught, and places his order. About six or seven Hawaiian species of seafood are listed on Lakeside’s menu on any given day. If guests are interested in seeing them before ordering, most are on display in the kitchen. Should they decide to sample one, they can order a 7-ounce portion in one of
four different preparations, which also rotate seasonally. (Current selections include Asian, Mediterranean, citrus and caviar beurre blanc.) Walzog says the inspiration for the program was “to have a story to tell” to his customers. “People want to know the provenance of food these days and know where products are coming from, and also know to what lengths we go to source things,” he says. To be able to tell that story better, Walzog recently traveled to Hawaii to meet with the captains of some of the boats that would be catching his product. He explains that he wasn’t content simply calling or texting in
his orders to fshmongers he’d never met. “What about a face? What about a relationship? What about really understanding who these people are, and going out to dinner with them?” Thanks to the relationships he formed during his trip, guests at Walzog’s restaurant may have the chance to sample fsh species they’ve never before encountered. Recent offerings have included opakapaka (pink snapper), uku (blue-green snapper), monchong (sickle pomfret) and ono (wahoo)—each one further proving that our little patch of desert is actually one of the best places in the world for enjoying the bounty of the world’s oceans.
OPAK APAK A DISH BY JEFF GREEN
June 5–11, 2014
By Al Mancini
DRINKING [ SCENE STIRS ]
THESE FOODIE CLUBS SHIP THE BEST OF THE KITCHEN AND BAR TO DAD’S DOOR Trust us: Dad does not want a subscription to the Golf Socks of the Month club for Father’s Day (June 15)—again. But we’ll bet our bitters that he wouldn’t complain about a box of whiskey arriving at his door. Here’s our list of preferred clubs for foodies and beverage aficionados. Just think of us as the Craft Fairy. THE FARE TRADE Serious foodies only! The Fare Trade ships delectable regional artisan specialties, along with suggestions about how to use them. Plus, online videos put top chefs in your kitchen. June’s box includes Nonna’s Smoky Sauce, White Speckled Grits and Texas Grapefruit Shrub. $65 per month, TheFareTrade.com. (See also Plated.com.) BESPOKE POST Each themed “box of awesome” arrives stuffed with manly goodness. “Maker,” for example, includes a sturdy apron, spice collection and cedar grilling wraps; “Seared” pairs a Himalayansalt block and grilling tool with habanero sugar. Subscribe for $45 each month, or get boxes a la carte for $55. BespokePost.com. THE MANTRY COMPANY Along the same lines, Mantry (“The modern man’s pantry”) delivers a box of American artisan foods all tucked into—what else?—a sturdy wooden crate. Past boxes have included Franklin BBQ espresso barbecue sauce, Som drinking vinegar and Dancing Deer Co. buttermilk pancake mix with bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup. $75 per month, Mantry.com. CASKERS From the site that already delivers deals on incredible hard-to-find craft spirits to your inbox comes three clubs: Vodka ($115), Select ($135) and Whiskey ($155). Every quarter, receive three incredible, hand-picked bottles, along with tasting notes and insider perks. Caskers.com.
PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA
Earlier this year, STK (“Not Your Daddy’s Steakhouse”) in the Cosmopolitan declared war on the city of San Francisco, specifcally, on its Fernet Branca-drinking community. You see, the Italian amaro has a bit of a following in the restaurant industry (think mother’s milk), and San Fran has long been the dominant consumer. But that could very well change as STK is on pace to out-Branca Branca’s No. 1 seller, Tempest Bar. While shots have done much of the heavy lifting for STK— $3 from 5:30-7 p.m. Sun-Thu and 11 p.m.-midnight nightly; $2 from midnight to close—the company-wide signature cocktail, Not Your Daddy’s Manhattan ($18, made with Bulleit bourbon, Fernet Branca and Carpano Antica Formula sweet vermouth) has certainly helped. Find the recipe at VegasSeven.com/CocktailCulture.
BEER BOXER Powered by the online craft-beer marketplace LetsPour.com, BeerBoxer ships fresh, limitededition and sought-after labels that you might not otherwise be able to purchase in this market. Monthly plans start at $50, BeerBoxer.com. – X.W.
June 5–11, 2014
Fernet About Frisco
FLAVIAR Get noncommittal with the flavor(s)-of-themonth club that is Flaviar. It would cost you more than $350 to buy the full-size bottles from which the June collection samples in five 45-milliliter bottles. $41 per month, Flaviar.com.
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That’s Not Your Daddy’s Manhattan!
JULIBOX COLLECTION Raising the home bar, Julibox delivers everything needed to make two each of two different cocktails; a pre-shipment email reminds you to pick up any citrus needed to complete drinks such as the Strawberry Letter and Basilica. $36 per month for six months, Julibox.com.
A&E
“Yeager became one of the most in-demand photographers of the pinup era, not just because of her talent, but also because as a woman, female models felt more comfortable being photographed nude by her.” ART {PAGE 62}
As The Book of Mormon arrives at The Smith Center, we analyze why the outrageous blockbuster was a risky endeavor. And why it wasn’t. By Steve Bornfeld
it as a satirical romp, others disapproving of its mockery and “misinterpretation” of their beliefs and practices. (Celebrity Mormon Marie Osmond told me in 2012 that she had “no desire to see it.”) Yet social critics have observed that as a community, Mormons are reluctant to publicly express moral outrage due to feeling misunderstood in general, which was underscored by the media’s perplexed coverage—more quizzical than thoughtful— of Mormonism during Mitt Romney’s presidential run. So, let’s spitball about sensitivity. Indignation would be unseemly from me as a theologically disinterested, entertainmentfrst critic. That’s despite wince-worthy show dialogue such as this that would make even Satanic cultists blanch. (The devout and
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PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS
Earning a Prophet
OFFENDED? OUTRAGED? Inspired to spittlesoaked declarations of damnation? Nah. As a non-Mormon—Jewish, specifcally, and not too observant since a shotgun bar mitzvah long ago—I am less than morally apoplectic over The Book of Mormon, the startlingly rude, religion-eviscerating musical about golly-gee-willikers! missionaries in AIDS-wracked, warlord-ruled Uganda. Surely some folks—particularly in Mormon enclaves of Las Vegas—will believe its June 10July 6 Smith Center run amounts to tuneful blasphemy with an intermission. Or not. Hard to know without exit polls in the Reynolds Hall lobby. Since the musical’s 2011 debut, reports have said reaction from Mormons nationwide has been mixed, some enjoying
June 5–11, 2014
Books, music, stage and a pernicious Pawn parody
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the delicate are advised to skip the next sentence. Think of it only as bad thoughts with bad words.): “Fuck you God, in the mouth, ass and cunt.” You see why Newsweek called The Book of Mormon “maybe the most obscene show ever brought to a Broadway stage” and The New York Times labeled it “more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak.” Yet The Times also proclaimed it “the best musical of this century”—admittedly, only a decade and change, and measured against a Broadway overrun by revivals and TV/movie-inspired mediocrities. Its debatable disrespect (sacrilege?) bugs me not, as is. But rename it The Torah? Replace shiny-eyed missionaries with scraggly-bearded, yarmulke-wearing, Hebrew prayersinging dancing rabbis—especially if concocted by mocking non-Jews? Die, godless scum. Observant or not, you heap vile ridicule on my tribe, and I’ll have Most Wanted posters plastered at every Jewish deli. You’ll never eat pastrami in this town again. Therein lay the folly of declaring something uncontestably offensive. Nothing is more personalized than our sensibilities, nothing more individualized than our threshold for offensiveness—and, paradoxically, nothing more hypocritical than groupkvetch when what was brilliant parody aimed at others’ beliefs becomes satirical sludge when aimed at ours. Cultural hypocrisy is—dare we say— practically a religion. So, what to expect from this 2011 Tony winner (nine of them, including Best Musical) from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with Avenue Q co-writer/composer Robert Lopez? In general: Two naïve, painfully earnest teen missionaries from Salt Lake City head to Uganda to convert the natives, but their faith takes a pummeling by the disease, poverty, famine and violence that somehow diverts the natives from appreciating their beatifc smiles and sagacious, soul-saving life lessons. In particular: Female genital mutilation and baby rape serve as comic plot points. Production numbers are set to songs including “All-American Prophet,” “Making Things Up Again,” “Baptize Me” and “Joseph Smith, American Moses.” Another, “Spooky Mormon Dream Hell,” imagines a nightmare vision riddled with prancing demons, gays and Genghis Khan. Jesus drops in, as do Brigham Young, Frodo, Darth Vader, Johnny Cochran and Hitler. Don’t miss lyrics such as I’ve got maggots in my scrotum. Or sight gags, including a teenager’s rear cavity invaded by a sizable item. Profound philosophical questions are posed in dialogue such as, “Can bullshit feed a hungry soul?” and, “Does it matter if the gospel is true?” While the characters are sweetly likable, what informs their lives—in essence, who they are—is savaged. Initial reaction from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was
FREEDOM OF SPEECH HAS ALWAYS BEEN AS MESSY AS IT IS INDISPENSABLE, BUT RARELY HAVE WE BEEN AS CULTURALLY CONFUSED AS WE ARE NOW. admirably even-tempered. “Parody isn’t reality, and it’s the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny,” wrote Michael Otterson, the church’s public affairs representative, in a 2011 Washington Post article. “The danger is not when people laugh, but when they take it seriously.” How to combat it? Impishly. In numerous cities, the church bought ads in the playbills touting the genuine Book of Mormon, with taglines such as: “The book is always better.” ***** Let’s admit that in a contradictory culture both obsessively sensitive (chastened celebrities, politicians, talk-show hosts and sports team owners issuing daily mea culpas over verbal and Twitter transgressions) and depressingly rancid (nine out of every 10 online commenters), Mormons are among the last acceptable targets of ridicule that won’t get most people’s skivvies in a twist. Can you imagine, say, a musical satirizing traditions and beliefs of Native Americans when the words “Washington Redskins” become a PR hell for the NFL? Or a musical needling Mexicans in an era when two TV newscasters were shamed last month into apologizing for wearing sombreros and feigning festiveness during Cinco De Mayo (with one, ABC’s Lara Spencer, excoriated for calling it “Cinco De Drinko”)? Compared to … what was that God quote again? Without a President Romney at America’s helm to lend gravitas to the perception of Mormonism and to “heighten awareness” and “start a national conversation” (the most preten-
the one whose possible objections are least likely to dent the box offce and get show creators interrogated over their insensitivity by CNN’s Don Lemon, while earning plaudits from critics who probably wouldn’t be so sanguine if the target feld was larger, the targets more likely to bite back big-time. Couldn’t they write a musical that ripped every faith a new one, given that the supposed silliness of religion en masse is their point, and they all wear their dogma like halos? Of course they could have. Of course they didn’t. Equal-opportunity offensiveness is simpler on South Park, where meeting the fairly low bar of basic-cable ratings is nowhere near as fnancially perilous as a Broadway musical, juggling impatient investors with trying not to alienate people to whom you wish to peddle $100-plus tickets. *****
As a theater nerd, I join others of my species in appreciating The Book of Mormon’s success, both straightforwardly and ironically. All too rare is the musical that crashes through the insulated world of Broadway to achieve the status of a cultural happening, even to those who consider being forced to sit through a musical an tious, meaningless tropes in American act of the devil. Les Miserables and Wicked discourse today), no Mormon lobby were worldwide blockbusters, but don’t will hijack the media’s attention. slip into coffee-break chitchat the way Freedom of speech has always been as The Book of Mormon does. messy as it is indispensable, but rarely Perspective, though, demands a nod have we been as culturally confused as to a smaller-scale, pre-musical work we are now. Even in the realm of satire, that hit the church like a live grenade parity—the everybody’s-fair-game a dozen years earlier. In 1999, gutsy ethos—is an abandoned ideal. playwright Neil LaBute, the Prince of Remember when it wasn’t? Dark Themes and a church member Remember the 1970s, himself, had the frst when Mel Brooks staging of his Bash: Latshotgunned every racial terday Plays, a searing BOOK OF MORMON and ethnic sensitivity in series of one-acts that June 10-July 6, sight in Blazing Saddles? put a Mormon spin on The Smith Center, When Norman Lear classic Greek tragedy. $39-$150, 749-2000, used All in the Family’s (It has been staged by TheSmithCenter.com. Archie Bunker to Las Vegas community denigrate every group theaters several times.) except WASPs—but used More gasp-inducing Archie’s mere existence in its fang-baring deto upend WASPs most of all? Outraged piction of Mormons than anything in activists protested here and there, but The Book of Mormon, with no lightheartthe entertainment value—and larger ed snark and satire to soften its barbed truths about the absurdity of bigotry— edges, it centers on freshly scrubbed triumphed. Mormons amiably confessing to hate With The Book of Mormon (and South crimes, infanticide and murder, somePark), Parker and Stone are the Brooks/ how squaring them with their beliefs. Lear spiritual heirs, maneuvering Breathtakingly bold, it triggered swift through a societal minefeld unlike retribution against LaBute from the those before. The cost is obvious— church via disfellowship, a measure just we’ve lost that offensive inclusiveness, shy of excommunication, persuading if you will. the playwright to depart the church. While The Book of Mormon is ballsy, it’s Now that’s paying a price for your also safety-coated, confning its bombart. Predictably, it only reverberated throwing to a group largely undefended among boots-on-the-ground theater in a culture that otherwise treats bulloyalists and religious observers. lying like war crimes. Yes, the show Relative to LaBute, though, Parker, disembowels religious faith and those Stone and Lopez are just controversywho think the Bible is closer to a docucourting dilettantes—until they start mentary than a fantasy anthology. Yet swinging some iron balls and write a Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims new musical called The Koran. don’t absorb the brunt of its giddy scorn. Then Mel Brooks and Norman Lear Only one group is saddled with that— will bow down in awe.
CONCERT
M.I.A. GIVES A PAPER-FLAT PERFORMANCE
Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan, May 31 On the global stage, M.I.A. looms large—a renaissance
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woman with painting and cinematographic skills who has melded world beats and political rebellion into her own brand of electro hip-hop. On an actual stage? Not so much. Stripped of the gripping imagery of her provocative videos, the rapper’s low-key delivery came off as more lazy than sassily nonchalant. The artist, who has publicly opined on everything from Wikileaks to the oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka, had few words for her fans, and even when she pulled dozens of them onstage to dance with her for “Y.A.L.A.,” the moment felt forced. M.I.A. briefly came to life on the dubstep banger “Double Bubble Trouble,” off 2013’s Matangi, her singsongy vocals and driving beats building to a satisfying crescendo that had the crowd jumping. She kept up the momentum through the hip-shaking “Galang” and “Paper Planes.” Then she abruptly left the stage after performing for less than an hour, with no encores. M.I.A is still one of the most intriguing creative minds in pop music, but for now, I’ll catch this artist where she first became famous: on the Internet. ★★✩✩✩ – Felicia Mello
Eye of the Bunny Model-turned-pinup photographer’s unique perspective revealed at Sin City Gallery By Pj Perez
June 5–11, 2014
BETTIE PAGE MAY HAVE ALREADY BEEN A WELL-KNOWN PINUP
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and fetish model in the New York area when she met the late model-turned-photographer Linnea “Bunny” Yeager while vacationing in Miami. But when Yeager’s photo of Page wearing nothing but a Santa hat graced the pages of the nascent Playboy in January 1955, both women’s respective profles heightened considerably. Page became an international sensation, and Yeager became one of the most in-demand photographers of the pinup era, not just because of her talent behind the camera, but also because as a woman herself, female models felt more
comfortable being photographed nude by her. “It was very unusual that a woman would photograph the body of a woman,” says Helmut Schuster, whose Gallery Schuster represents Yeager’s work. “Many times it was the view of a man of a woman’s body. She decided she had something to say, and the woman has a different view of a woman’s body.” That “different view” will be on display during Bunny’s Bombshells, an exhibition of Yeager’s photography showing at Sin City Gallery in the Arts Factory through July 20. The show includes several Page photos, artful silhouettes and even a male nude, as well as shots of Yeager herself, who refned her craft by taking amazing self-portraits throughout the years, a process she documented in her 1965 book, How I Photograph Myself. “She certainly was ahead of her time with regard to today’s culture of a selfe,” says Laura Henkel, owner of Sin City Gallery. Yeager, who died on May 25 at age 85, has experienced a renaissance of sorts in the last several years. Not only has Schuster helped mount several BUNNY’S BOMBSHELLS exhibitions of Yeager’s photography Sin City Gallery, across the globe, but he also helped 107 E. Charleston Blvd., bring to life her bikini designs Suite 100, through July 20, (made out of necessity for photo free, 702-608-2461, shoots in the 1950s, when the tiny, SinCityGallery.com. European-style bathing suits were hard to come by in the United States)
THE BOSS WITH THE SAUCE Maybe it’s the heat or the beer or the smell of grilled meat, but songs like “Bawitdaba” and “All Summer Long” only amuse me from June to August. Perfect timing, since Kid Rock plays the Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan on June 6-7 ($75).
WE’RE ALL IN THE MOOD FOR A MELODY Billy Joel has his share of demons, but the man can write a hit song like nobody’s business. When Joel takes the stage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on June 7 ($84.50-$199.50), he isn’t just playing notes—he’s playing memories.
through an eponymous line of retrostyle swimwear launched in 2012 by German clothier Bruno Banani. “It is amazing how her work in the ’50s has infuenced pop culture today,” Henkel says. “The introduction of the bikini from France to the U.S., and, of course, neo-burlesque and rockabilly stylized fashion.”
ON SALE NOW Are you a Little Monster? Lady Gaga brings her artRave: The ARTPOP Ball to the MGM Grand Garden Arena on July 19 ($38-$203). Despite the relatively soft sales for her recent album, the multimedia spectacle that is Lady G. always shines on tour.
M.I.A. PHOTO BY ERIK K ABIK/RETNA
[ ART ]
The
(LOCAL) ALBUM REVIEWS
HIT LIST
By Jarret Keene
TARGETING THIS WEEK'S MOST-WANTED EVENTS
By Camille Cannon
CLASSICAL CROSSOVER
PUNK ROCK
Marisa Johnson
The Objex
(Self-released) Before spinning this, I felt I needed another punk disc like I needed a hole in my head. But the Hitters’ new 15-track album cracks my skull wide open in ways I didn’t anticipate. Opening cut “Corporation Cannon Fodder” expertly, if inelegantly, captures the agony of being chained to a cubicle, another soul-vacuumed cog. Even ska-inflected “Flatfoot Decay” (I mean, c’mon, ska?) wrenches me. Hitters drummer TJ Hoopes recorded Revenge in his garage-cum-studio, but you wouldn’t know it. ★★★✩✩
(Self-released) This local songbird sang with Andrea Bocelli and opened for Enrique Iglesias, but on her debut album the sonic template is clearly Sarah Brightman. PBS-friendly music isn’t my favorite genre, but I can’t deny that Johnson’s performance on the title track is both alluring and technically impressive. “Refugee,” with its lyrics about liberating the heart from love’s enslavement, is an emotional highlight and deserves to be heard—and applauded—by millions. Let me add this: The syrupy symphonic production and arrangements are first-rate. ★★★✩✩
(Self-released) If punk is dead, then just call me a necrophile, sings Objex singer and sex object Felony Melony on a blistering, guitar-lacerating track called “GG” (titled in honor of the late outlaw shock-rocker GG Allin). Gotta be a rock ’n’ roller/I’m the one you can’t control her. Indeed, there’s no stopping—or even momentarily slowing down—Melony on this blast of adrenalized angst. There are very few three chords-and-the-ugly-truth bands I can get behind, but Nova confirms that the Objex’s stellar explosion is imminent. ★★★★✩
Revenge, Rebellion, and What Have You
DISC SCAN
My Own Way
Upcoming albums on Jarret's radar …
The Pretenders’ peerless frontwoman Chrissie Hynde unveils Stockholm, the frst album recorded under her own name. The disc features contributions from Neil Young, Caesars’ Joakim Åhlund and John McEnroe(?!). First single “Dark Sunglasses” is a bright, new wave-inspired rocker.
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The World’s Most Popular Torch Singer of Doom, Lana Del Rey, returns with Ultraviolence, and I’m ultra-ecstatic. The song titles—“Brooklyn Baby,” “Shades of Cool,” “Cruel World”—look gloomily promising. JUN
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FALLEN STAR Is there a more overwrought critical
NOT JUST FOR BANGS Vegas Fringe Festival is back! The fourth annual celebration of live theater kicks off June 6, featuring more than a dozen productions performed multiple times through June 15. All shows take place at Las Vegas Little Theatre (3920 Schiff Dr.), including Boise, Idaho, and Oregon Trail: The Play. LVLT.org. NAKED GIRLS READING … ... is just one event to look forward to at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender June 5-8 at the Orleans. The 57th annual showcase also offers courses, performances from pros across the globe, fashion shows, a poker tournament and no shortage of pasties. BHOFWeekend.com.
description of a book than “page-turner”? It’s weak, nondescriptive and usually indicates the reviewer had nothing else to say. So call me “weak” when I use that exact phrase to describe Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3, a gripping story of actress Lombard’s death in a fiery plane crash in 1942 on Mount Potosi just southwest of Las Vegas, where remnants of the accident remain to this day. Author Robert Matzen has woven a tale that is part biography (Lombard’s, her co-stars’ and lovers’, and Hollywood’s), part mystery and part historical dissection of the inexplicable crash—and it’s damn-near impossible to put down. Where Fireball really succeeds is in its structuring.
THE OTHER SINGING BARBER Thanks to Broadway and Tim Burton, you may be familiar with Sweeney Todd,, but do you know The Barber of Seville? Opera Las Vegas presents Giochino Rossini’s 19th-century comedy June 6-8 at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre. No humans are harmed in the telling of this classic. OperaLasVegas. com.
Interspersing Lombard’s fascinating life (with nods to the other
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21 passengers who died) with the scene on the ground and the
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Super Charged Little Nova EP
June 5–11, 2014
HARD-CORE
Hard Pipe Hitters
SATURDAY NIGHT JIVE For those in the mood for throwback jams: Henderson Symphony Orchestra provides live accompaniment to the Charlie Chaplin short Kid Auto Races at Venice and feature film The Circus at Henderson Pavilion on June 7. You can pick your own seats at HendersonSymphony.org.
rescue and recovery effort, Matzen lends a well-researched reality to a night shrouded in mystery. – Todd Peterson
MUSIC
Feign Austin
With a slew of new music venues, Downtown is vying for music-mecca status. But will the fans come?
June 5–11, 2014
By Jason Scavone
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FIRST FRIDAYS’ EVOLUTION from the little arts festival that could to Zappos-backed civic touchstone is an understandable progression. An earnest arts community hits a fnancial rough spot, and a white knight sees value, rides in to save the day, and in the process broadens the scope of the event to make it a little more mainstream. Story old as time, right? When Sheryl Crow headlined First Friday on April 4, though, it pushed the event into unexpected territory. Here was a national-level headliner playing an event that, just a couple of years ago, was a relatively laid-back street fair. The difference-maker in that case was Container Park, which had opened four months earlier. Suddenly, there was a venue where these acts made sense, and an entity, Downtown Project, with the will to make it happen. For all the expansion that’s happened Downtown and the already plentiful music venues there—Beauty Bar, LVCS, the old Bunkhouse, Triple B—we’re on the verge of a Downtown music explosion. The common refrain is that Downtown is “the next Austin.” But what does that mean, and when will it happen? If Sheryl Crow was the frst shot across the bow, it’s only because Fremont Country Club ran into a bump after opening in February 2013. Because of the nature of their tavern limited license, the venue—owned by Triple B owners “Big Daddy” Carlos Adley and his wife, Ava Berman—weren’t approved for 18-and-over shows. Something Adley says forced him to pass on booking numerous national acts.
In April, the Las Vegas City Council gave special dispensation for Fremont Country Club to host 18-plus shows, something Adley says will allow the club to operate regularly, instead of its past sporadic bookings. “We don’t want to alienate that 18-and-over demographic. They’re vital in the overall big picture,” he says. “We’re reaching out to bring in fresh meat. The way you do that is by creating more world-class venues that bands that come Downtown have an option to play. In the past there’s been one or two locations Downtown, and that’s it. So you limit your clientele. With the selection of these locations, this will open the horizons in every aspect.” Adley expects to start announcing national-level bands—primarily rock, country and alternative—in July, with the frst show about a month later. But Fremont Country Club is just one piece of the puzzle. Downtown Project’s booking maestro Mike Henry—who came to the organization after 25 years in, where else: Austin—has his fngers in a number of pies in the area. The focus on programming at Container Park is on indie rock with local and up-and-coming touring bands and the occasional ticketed show with national-level acts. Cults is up next on June 20, and the park will be doing two more this summer. “Container Park is fnding its niche,” Henry says. “I don’t think we’re ever going to see Mogwai at Container Park. It’s a place of discovery. As a programmer it’s really interesting. It’s a sandbox to play in.”
Downtown Project is also involved in the former Azul, which in its new incarnation as Place on 7th will be mostly an events space that does occasional shows, like The Foreign Exchange on July 14. Not to mention the performance-oriented Inspire Theater and Scullery in the Ogden, which will take on more jazzy, arty fare. Henry hints at even a couple of other unnamed venues yet to come. The other big gun in Downtown Project’s arsenal is Bunkhouse, the old-school haven for local bands that’s expected to fnally reopen in the fall. “I don’t think Bunkhouse will change that much from what it was before. There will be touring bands that come in, as it was before, but its heart and soul is local music,” Henry says. Adjacent to Bunkhouse will be Wheel House, the last in the wave of new venues. (Wheel House is a collaboration between Downtown Project and Commonwealth/Park on Fremont coowners Ryan Doherty and Justin Weniger, owners of WENDOH Media.) When March rolls around, Wheel House will have country nights every Thursday and focus on national and local rock acts for the rest of its schedule. If there’s an Austinization process, it’s that so many venues will offer variety as each settles into a niche. Even the old warhorses, such as LVCS, already pursue programming largely defned by metal and rockabilly. It will be up to programmers to fgure out what works in a suddenly competitive ecosystem. But Henry isn’t worried about Downtown music eating its own— yet: “The fear would be that you’re overbuilding too fast. All of a sudden there are too many venues and the audience—which is an evolving, emerging scene—can’t support it. I don’t think we’re there. What I see out there is a good mix. We’re not going to be cannibalizing. Then the fear becomes once you’ve got something going on, people come in and try to jump on it. I think it’s exciting. It’s going to be unrecognizable in a year.”
SUMMER OF DOOM There’s only one underground music extravaganza you should be prepping for this weekend: Doom in June IV at Cheyenne Saloon. This festival of heavy, sludgeriffing rock is back, this time with two days and nights’ worth of 22 bands from all over the country. Kicking off the event at 5 p.m. June 6, Las Vegas atmosphericinstrumental trio Spiritual Shepherd will celebrate the release of The Monkey’s Paw EP. The band excels at conjuring dark, menacing grooves. Aggressive enough for headbangers and sufficiently artsy for the post-rock crowd, Spiritual Shepherd expertly navigates the space between sonic realms. Other local acts you should catch during Doom in June: Lotus (June 6); female-fronted stoner-doomsters Demon Lung (June 7); and deathdoom quartet Spun in Darkness (June 7). Oh, and one last update on Doom in June: The night of June 7 will be closed out with a Black Sabbath tribute band from Salt Lake City called Irony Man. Nothing like an ersatz Ozzy to wrap up a doom-metal fest. (Don’t blow out your hearing, though. Las Vegas Death Fest is next week, June 12-14, at LVCS, boasting 56 international death-metal acts.) If that’s too much metal for your lobes, there are more, um, piercing options. Celebrating “20 years of depravity,” Orlando, Florida, industrial-metal maniacs Genitorturers will flay Cheyenne Saloon at 10 p.m. June 8. Led by sexy siren Gen, this performance-based ensemble isn’t above grabbing an all-too-willing audience member and rending his or her flesh in the name of art. Man, I used to love seeing this band play grungy Orlando clubs in the early ’90s, back when Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids opened for them. Also on the bill: Las Vegas alt-metal quartet Wretched Sky. For some jam-heavy blues-rockin’, I suggest Austin, Texas-based duo Greyhounds at Brooklyn Bowl at 10 p.m. June 9. Tagged as “Hall & Oates meets ZZ Top,” this band walks a line between pristine pop and raw retro-stomp. The single “What’s On Your Mind” is nothing short of a Southern dance-floorigniting masterpiece. Your band releasing a CD? Email jarret_keene@yahoo.com.
PHOTO BY GEOFF CARTER
A&E
Life Is Beautiful alums Cults return for their second Downtown performance on June 20.
STAGE
SPAWN OF PAWN Reboot of Pawn Shop Live! is still jaw-droppingly juvenile
PHOTO BY EDISON GRAFF/STARDUST FALLOUT MEDIA
THEY SHOULD HAND OUT PAINKILLERS AT
the door of this one. Flashing back to the original Pawn Shop Live! at the Golden Nugget in February, I labeled it “an amateurish misfre of major proportions.” Updating to the rewritten Pawn Shop Live! at the Riviera, I amend that to “an amateurish misfre of TITANIC proportions.” Rumor has it another revamp is pending. Stop, guys. … STOP. Have mercy on us. And yourselves. In your lingo: Let’s not rewrite it up. When this intended spoof/valentine to History Channel hit Pawn Stars debuted Downtown, it was juvenile, screechy and sloppy. Crank up the amperage on those defects and voila!—the Strip version. Judging by a recent performance of this afternoon mess, at which a dozen ticket-buyers bailed out mid-show, shrinking an already sparse crowd of around 50 puzzled patrons at the Starlite Theatre, the strategem is one big whoopsie. Nothing has changed in the setup. Parodying the crew at the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop— owner Rick Harrison; dad “Old Man” Harrison; Rick’s son, Corey, a.k.a. “Big Hoss”; and Corey’s pal, Chumlee—it give us Slick (Sean Critchfeld), Old Fart (a half-body-sized puppet operated by Troy Tinker, replacing the departed, and fortunate, Enoch Augustus Scott as numerous characters), Lil’ Boss (Gus Langley) and Chump (Garret Grant). Don’t blame the cast—the Saturday Night Live crew couldn’t squeeze a halfhearted giggle out of this pablum, either. Rather than toss out useless chunks of the original show that tell a snoozy family history, it merely reshuffes them. Interaction with shop
customers—the bartering that lends the TV show its juice—still gets short shrift. When it does pop up, another multiple role-player, Anita Bean, slogs through braying imitations of celebrity visitors Phyllis Diller (whom most younger showgoers don’t recognize) and Criss Angel (whom any tourist who hasn’t seen Angel’s show likely wouldn’t know). And a video segment on how to be a “Vegas balla” is so pointless that its inclusion in a show that makes no sense makes a kind of perverse sense after all. Jokes still insult the sophistication of a 13-year-old, hanging in the awkward silence of a perplexed audience. Casting a major role with an oversize puppet manipulated by an actor in plain view is still a gimmick—sorry, “theatrical device”—that exacerbates the witlessness. (When it—i.e., Tinker—croaked out “God Bless the USA,” I considered moving to Bosnia.) Actors race around like headless chickens, performing as if their only direction is, punch-itpunch-it-PUNCH-IT-HARDER. That isn’t polishing a show. That’s ramming it down our throats, daring us to spit it back up—which the dozen walkouts did, as I would have if I weren’t paid to swallow it. What to do with Pawn Shop Live! now? Do the words “Jack Kevorkian” suggest a solution? Enduring this production again, my mind forced to wander for relief, I recalled my long-ago job as an overnight security guard at a medical-science morgue, obligated to watch stiffs. Perhaps my career hasn’t progressed as much as I’d thought. Got an entertainment tip? Email Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.
A&E
MOVIES
MAGNIFICENT MALEFICENT
Every supervillain has a backstory, and this one is especially compelling.
Angelina Jolie reigns as Disney’s evilest queen By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services
THE FORMULA WORKS. It worked with Wicked onstage and it worked with Frozen on flm—tilting the storytelling prism so that a new angle on a wellknown fairy tale appears in the light. The strategy depends on humanizing characters formerly known as evil, so that another tale of conficted impulses emerges from the story we know, driven by female antagonist/protagonist hybrids who aren’t bad, just misunderstood. So it goes with Malefcent, the Disney corporation’s bombastic, moderately entertaining explanation of why the “queen of all evil” from its 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty got that way, and why she wasn’t, really. This is almost entirely Angelina Jolie’s show. Malefcent is her frst picture in four years, and from the tip of her character’s prosthetic cheekbones to the needle-sharp tippy-top of one of the massive horns (like party favors that got out of control) approximately 14 inches north of her skull, truly this is a performance that goes from point A to point B without seeming rote, or ho-hum. Screenwriter Linda Woolverton sets up a duelingkingdoms narrative, humans uneasily located adjacent to the land of sprites, fairies, wicker men and a color palette bright enough to make you urp. As a young girl, Malefcent has wonderful wings and an exuberant spirit. One day in the forest she meets an interloper, Stefan, shy and charming. Years later, now a career-minded young adult, Stefan (played by the perpetually strenuous Sharlto Copley of District 9) is required to kill Malefcent to
prove himself worthy of running the kingdom. He can’t go through with the deed, but he drugs his ex-sometime-girlfriend and robs her of her most conspicuous adornments. What else can Malefcent do at this point? She lets it go—can’t hold it back any more—and exacts revenge on her one-time squeeze by casting a spell on his newborn daughter, the princess Aurora. Much of the action and some of the dialogue overlap and intersect with the ’59 animated flm, itself drawn from the Perrault and Grimm versions of Sleeping Beauty. Malefcent is all about second thoughts. Our antiheroine, who dominates the proceedings like a drag act looking for her spotlight, spends much of the flm as Aurora’s conficted fairy godmother, her heart warming, reluctantly, to the girl under the spell. (Malefcent’s child-care trio is played by motion-capture versions of Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville and Juno Temple; Sam Riley is her shape-shifting sidekick.) There are elaborate battle sequences with Malefcent wiping out hordes of human soldiers that recall the dark-toned, blood-free slaughter of another recent fairy tale do-over, Snow
White and the Huntsman (which I liked, actually). Elle Fanning plays the older Aurora, and while she and Jolie are required to stay within the boundaries of a specifc type of green-screen acting, they’re awfully good at it; their work is vivid and emotionally potent, even when the frst-time feature director Robert Stromberg, an Oscar-winning art director, doesn’t bring much in terms of fuid camerawork to the party. As Malefcent herself thaws into pretty-niceness, Jolie keeps a tight rein on the transformation and on the flm as a whole. There are moments when you wish the spell-caster would banish James Newton Howard’s sloshy, pushy musical score to the neighboring kingdom of Generica. On the other hand, makeup wizard Rick Baker deserves plaudits (or kudos, whichever is ranked higher) for the title character’s angular, serrated look. And now Disney can move on to developing the untold story of Cruella de Vil and how she was wronged by a caddish London playboy with an affection for dogs. Malefcent (PG) ★★★✩✩
June 5–11, 2014
SHORT REVIEWS
VEGAS SEVEN
66
A Million Ways to Die in the West (R) ★✩✩✩✩
A Million Ways to Die in the West is a grim vanity project by Family Guy guru Seth MacFarlane, determined to carry his own movie in a romantic-comic leading role. MacFarlane plays Albert, an inept sheep farmer in 1882 Arizona. When his flighty, shallow steady (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him for a sniveling fancy man with money (Neil Patrick Harris), Albert suffers a crisis of confidence cured by the hot new gal in town (Charlize Theron). What we have here is a failure of craft.
The Immigrant (R) ★★★✩✩
This prickly period piece about hard times starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner leaves you unsettled. Although it’s far more about survival than love, there is a sense of seduction in director James Gray’s ambitious film. The sepiasaturated scene evokes that vast influx of refugees in the ’20s and ’30s. The theme of compromise as the price of progress in this country is a compelling one. The film is sometimes fraught, but the ideas are so rich, the look so lovely, Ewa’s journey so heartbreakingly real, even the flaws suit it.
Blended (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩
Adam Sandler is a bottle of cheap beer that’s lost all its bubbles. So let’s focus on what works in Blended, because he sure doesn’t. Drew Barrymore, in her third pairing with Sandler, still brings energy and conviction to her performance as Lauren, a mother of two thrown together on an African vacation with this lump. Jim, a widower, is raising three emotionally stunted daughters who need a mom. Every setup is an eye-roller. Sandler is aimlessly going through the motions, a character others dismiss as “a buffoon,” “a chubby loser” in need of a fist-bump.
By Tribune Media Services
Godzilla (PG-13) ★★★★✩
The latest Godzilla, fine and fierce, removes the camp (though it’s not humorless) and smartly doesn’t overexploit its star. The premise cleverly rewrites the Godzilla lore as we know it. What first appears to be a plant meltdown is being caused by the radiation-seeking monster. I find the screenplay’s attempts to make us care about the humans rather touching, which isn’t the same as saying the characters’ crises are dramatically vital. But so much of Godzilla works on a sensory, atmospheric level, the workmanlike material can’t kill it.
Chef (R) ★★ ✩✩
Million Dollar Arm (PG) ★★★✩✩
Palo Alto (R) ★★★✩✩
Neighbors (R) ★★★✩✩
Chef is an hour’s worth of story with a two-hour running time. After a video of an argument with a sour restaurant critic (Oliver Platt) goes viral, a frustrated chef (Jon Favreau) loses his job. Encouraged by his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara), the chef buys an old food truck, and he and his son (Emjay Anthony) embark on a Twitter-fueled marketing experiment: a cross-country jaunt accompanied by the chef’s friend and fellow kitchen master Martin (John Leguizamo). The movie, slick and shallow, is fairly entertaining anyway.
Written and directed by Gia Coppola, Palo Alto is adapted from a collection of short stories by James Franco and conjures a delicate sense of middle-class adolescence, the indeterminate, nascent feelings of the teenage years. Revolving around a group of high school kids, the film follows shy April (Emma Roberts), who falls into an affair with her soccer coach (Franco) as drifting Teddy (Jack Kilmer) pines for her. They bounce aimlessly through school and parties at once debauched but tedious. Coppola transforms weakness into strength, vulnerability into armor.
Devil’s Knot (Unrated) ★★✩✩✩
The scope of the West Memphis Three/ Robin Hood Hills murders should’ve given director Atom Egoyan pause. The 1993 tragedy was compounded by an incompetent police investigation, ham-fisted prosecutors and a biased judge. This decadeslong case accused three heavy-metal-loving young men of a Satanic/witchcraft ritual murder. Reese Witherspoon stars as Pam, whose 8-year-old son was a victim. There’s too much tragedy, grief and outrage here for a single movie. Summing it up in under two hours does nobody justice.
In Disney’s Million Dollar Arm, a modest but heartening surprise, Jon Hamm steps into a comfortable leading role, that of a canny sports agent who brings baseball to India and then brings a couple of promising athletes back to California (filmed in Georgia, where director Craig Gillespie shot Million Dollar Arm when he wasn’t on location in India). The film combines factual characters with fictional ones and keeps the sentimental uplift to a refreshing minimum. Like Disney’s Invincible, Million Dollar Arm has a way with corn, but it doesn’t feel like one of “those” Disney movies.
One part smart, one part stupid and three parts jokes about body parts, the raunchy Neighbors is a strange success story. It’s nobody’s idea of a well-structured screenplay, even though its premise—new parents battling frat-house neighbors—springs from a high-concept idea that could’ve come from scriptwriting software. Directed by Nicholas Stoller, Neighbors sets up a series of conflicts and vows of revenge as the couple goes headto-head with the bong-addled, beer-sloshing pledges next door. The family unit at the heart of Neighbors is sunny insecurity incarnate.
Moms’ Night Out (PG) ★★✩✩✩
Faith-based films are commonplace this year. But faith-based comedies that work? Moms’ Night Out doesn’t join their ranks. A PG-rated romp that never romps, it lacks the jokes, sight gags, pacing and performances that laughs are made of. But when you’re sending three mothers out for an “epic” night and you’re abstaining from alcohol, profanity and jokes about sex, you’d better make sure the gags are killer and that you’ve got a cast that can land those laughs. For 45 minutes, the film can’t manage so much as a smile, mainly due to bland leading lady Sarah Drew.
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SEVEN QUESTIONS
Does the emphasis on indie bands gel with the hotel’s overall demo? We’re a luxury property that’s also cutting edge, and we consider our demo the “curious class.” But as times change so will we. We book bands with an indie spirit. We book a lot of older and established artists that were and remain progressive—like, for example, Kraftwerk. Indie is more of a mindset. How did you get into the live-music business, and what were your formative concert or club experiences? I threw raves in college in the ’90s and used to manage clubs in Boston. I worked the No. 1 concert venue in Boston—everyone came there from Billy Idol to Audioslave. From 8 to 10:30 p.m., the bands performed, and from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., DJs like Tiësto and Carl Cox would take the stage. It was great to work in a venue that supported both of those approaches. How did you go about selecting an artist like Jennifer Keith Quintet, who perform vintage Americana pop, for the Chandelier Bar on July 3-6? Just look at the venue as a whole: It screams for that look and sound. In the beginning, we went through trial and error with the Chandelier. We wanted to go with something that felt more authentic. You can call it vintage or retro if you want, but it’s not an act [with members of] Jennifer Keith Quintet. They wear those outfts offstage, too.
The Cosmopolitan’s VP of entertainment and nightlife on his property’s indie spirit, rock ’n’ roll’s bright future and catering to the ‘curious class’
June 5–11, 2014
By Jarret Keene
VEGAS SEVEN
78
Your Valley to Vegas: Spring Concert Series that ended in April featured quite a diverse lineup, with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Haim and Empire of the Sun playing two venues—the Chelsea and Boulevard Pool. Did you land these acts because of our proximity to Coachella, or was it all because of the Cosmopolitan’s booking prowess? A little bit of both, actually. We booked Lana Del Rey and Lorde nine months prior—Lorde before she was booked for Coachella. We picked
some bands based on their Coachella proximity, while others—like Young the Giant—didn’t play the festival. We’re not really competing with Coachella, but they certainly present us with an opportunity to book a great band on this side of the country. Except for minor competition such as Beauty Bar and Vinyl, your property seems to have cornered the local market on live cutting-edge indie rock. Did you secure a genre niche intentionally, or do your
booking people simply select their favorite bands? It’s a combination. When we were frst contemplating a strategy, we wanted to offer cutting-edge music, and C3 Presents [an Austin, Texas-based concert-promotion agency] is at the industry forefront. But certainly a lot of the stuff we saw booked here in Las Vegas was legacy stuff. So it was tactical, yet there’s an art involved. In the end, you sit back with a bunch of people and decide what’s great music, what our guests want and if it can work.
So you’re not pessimistic about live rock music in an increasingly EDM world? No, I’m not. My background is in nightclubs, and I do very little of it now, and 90 percent of what I do pertains to live music. Live music is bigger than ever. The Cosmopolitan’s Boulevard Pool hosts the “Set Your Life to Music” concert series on Thursday nights. Upcoming shows include: Neon Trees (June 5), Night Riots (June 12), Dash Berlin (June 19), Bleachers (June 26), Big Data (July 10), Jurassic 5 (July 17), Mac Miller (July 24), Rebelution (Aug. 14) and Interpol (Aug. 21). For additional concert information, visit CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.
PHOTO BY ERIK K ABIK
Fedor Banuchi
You balance oversight of live rock music with EDM-fueled nightlife host sales. Aren’t they two different worlds in your mind? They are two different worlds, but they’re merging. You can hear [the merging] in artists today like Capital Cities and Empire of the Sun. It’s always been that way, with bands playing keyboards and electronic instruments. So, yes, our host team sells bottle service, and we have a daytime pool program that provides the most compelling areas to view the Strip. But I also think we provide a party atmosphere that’s not over the top. The clubs are here if you want them, and we have the best live-music venues, too.