The 2015 Nightlife Issue | Vegas Seven Magazine | Nov. 5-11, 2015 by Vegas Seven

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

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“The Skivvies have managed to carve out a niche that we never knew needed to exist: It’s part Weird Al-parody and part sexy burlesque… an unusual explosion of satire and sultry.” -Out Magazine

12 | THE LATEST

“Free Speech Butts Against Tourist Safety,” by Emmily Bristol. Controversial street performer ordinance to go into effect on Fremont Street Experience. Plus, a look at Republic Services’ new recycling center.

16 | COVER

“A View From the Top,” by Mark Gray. From senior executives and vice presidents to partners and owners, meet the top guns who are piloting Las Vegas’ nightclubs and commanding more than half a million square feet of pure, unadulterated party power. Plus, the 2015 Tastemaker Awards.

25 | NIGHTLIFE

“Meet the Tastemakers,” by Ian Caramanzana. Our nightlife superheroes pick the best from their worlds—from Best Amenity to Best Hangover Meal. Plus, Q&As with Ms. Redd and Steve Aoki, and photos from the week’s hottest parties.

NOV. 20 & 21 • 7:00PM

41 | DINING

“A Taste of Pawn Plaza,” by Al Mancini. Sampling the offerings at Rick Harrison’s new mini container park. Plus, a profile of Cosmopolitan restaurant director David Duran, and Drinking.

47 | A&E

“Mixed Emotions,” by Geoff Carter. Why keep the mix tape alive in the era of Spotify playlists? A music geek makes a case. Plus, Seven’s 14, a look at a graphic novel version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and how FX’s Fargo continues to be a show to savor.

52 | Movies

Geoff Carter on Love the Coopers.

62 | Seven Questions

Hakkasan Group CEO Neil Moffitt on gossip, the hotel business and those ever-inflating DJ paychecks.

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ON THE COVER Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh

LAS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE

FOUNDED FEBRUARY 2010

PUBLISHER

Michael Skenandore

EDITORIAL

Nicole Ely Genevie Durano SENIOR EDITORS Paul Szydelko, Xania Woodman SENIOR EDITOR, A&E Geoff Carter ASSOCIATE EDITOR Camille Cannon SENIOR WRITER Lissa Townsend Rodgers STAFF WRITER Emmily Bristol CALENDAR COORDINATOR Ian Caramanzana EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

MANAGING EDITOR

SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Melinda Sheckells (style)

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Michael Green (politics), Al Mancini (dining), David G. Schwartz (gaming/hospitality)

ART

Ryan Olbrysh Cierra Pedro Anthony Mair, Krystal Ramirez

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Kayla Dean, Troy Fosgate, Tia Keys, Sierra Lomprey, Jonmaesha Shadrick, Mitchell Weiss

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DIALOGUE

Reader Comments

442ND REGIMENT COMBAT TEAM My grandfather was a part of the 442nd

RTC, and served with the L company (“The True Measure of Bravery,” Nov. 5). He passed away this year after living a fantastic life. Thanks for the article. It touched my heart, and, as always, has made me proud of my grandfather and family history. —Erika Murata via email TRANS VEGAS

Thank you to the staff, writers and publishers of Vegas Seven for sharing the journeys of our brothers and sisters (“Lives in Transition,” Nov. 5) in the hopes of creating further dialogue and understanding of our community. —Candice Starr on Facebook

442ND REGIMENT COURTESY KEITH K AWAMOTO; THE W BY ERIC BRODER VAN DYKE/SHUT TERSTOCK

So appreciative of Vegas Seven for doing a cover story on the local transgender community. Who knows how many people will be impacted by this? They are such an important part of our community, yet are too often underrepresented in mainstream media. This is magical. —Ryan Marquardt on Facebook

OUR

SITES TO

SEE

THE NORTH STRIP’S FUTURE While the North Strip has struggled in the last few decades since the Western-themed El Rancho disappeared in a spectacular inferno, hope is on the horizon. Columnist James P. Reza speculates on what could happen now that the W brand is coming to SLS. Read more at VegasSeven.com/AskANative.

DOWNLOAD THIS Instead of browsing through endless feeds in search of recent streams or songs from your favorite local artists, tune in to our online music column Hear Now, where Zoneil Maharaj does all the work for you. In this week’s edition: Alt-rockers Wax Pig Melting return with another EP, rapper James Shahan delivers a powerful message and more. VegasSeven.com/HearNow.

THE REBELS BEGIN Will the Rebels be tournament-bound in March? The season tips off on Friday when UNLV hosts Cal Poly at the Thomas & Mack. Check out RunRebs.com, where writer Mike Grimala will be analyzing the matchup from every angle.

FACEBOOK: /VegasSeven TWITTER: /7Vegas INSTAGRAM: /VegasSeven

THE LATEST News, politics, deals and the future of recycling

Free Speech Butts Against Tourist Safety

injury is more than a tragedy; it’s a window into a world of creativity. Some can suddenly play musical instruments, others find themselves painting masterpieces. The Black Mountain Institute explores the phenomenon in a free talk called Stroke of Genius, 7 p.m., in UNLV’s Stan Fulton Building. BlackMountainInstitute.org.

FRIDAY, NOV. 13 This week is huge for equestrian buffs. The Las Vegas National Horse Show is at the South Point Arena Nov. 10-15, and you’ll have to wait another year to see so many competition horses gathered in one spot. Hunters, jumpers, pros, amateurs—they’re all here. Today’s riding begins at 8 a.m. ShowPark.com.

Sa SATURDAY, NOV. 14 Think you get excited about

bacon? You aren’t even in the same league as the carnivores at the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. This thing features 10 chefs competing in the Extreme Bacon Bite Challenge, an Elvis competition and a baconinfused wedding, and that’s just the sizzle. 5-10 p.m. at Rain in the Palms. BlueRibbonBaconFestival.com. Veteran Thom Martin at his post in the Fremont Street Experience.

ers made of palm leaves for donations that he lives on, is looking forward to the ordinance, too. “I wish the ordinance was stronger,” he says. “I want them to get more strict about performers who are drinking, because it causes problems.” Still, some buskers are on the fence about the rule. “It’s more like a double-edged sword. I’m not sure about it,” says Buddy Big Mountain, a registered member of the Mohawk of Kahnawake Tribe of Canada, who performs traditional dances with a Native American marionette. The privately held tourist attraction has been the frequent subject of First Amendment controversy, including a unanimous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2003, which ruled that there is a First Amendment right to distribute leafets and collect petitions, among other constitutionally protected activities. In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada again raised First Amendment issues about prohibitions at Fremont Street Experience. It’s unclear if there will be any court challenges to the new ordinance, but freespeech advocates Maggie McLetchie and Allen Lichtenstein have each raised concerns about the vague language in the law, including what constitutes a violation. ACLU of Nevada executive director Tod Story says his offce worked with the City to draft the ordinance. “We believe it protects the rights of performers. We’re pleased with the outcome,” he says.

Su SUNDAY, NOV. 15 Combine some of the most

talented singers in Las Vegas with a 20-piece orchestra and a 60-member choir, and you’ve got God Lives in Glass, a concert/fundraiser at 3 p.m., and only today, at The Smith Center. The show, which features drawings from children all over the world, benefits The Smith Center’s education and outreach programs. TheSmithCenter.com.

M MONDAY, NOV. 16 It’s fall, which means

UNLV’s jazz ensembles are swinging. For a mere $10, you can check out three separate ensembles and groove to the magic of guest saxophonist Brandon Fields, 7:30 p.m. at the Alta Ham Fine Arts Center. UNLV.edu.

Tu NOVEMBER 17

It isn’t every day that you get to meet a World War II fighter pilot. Traian Matye, the author of Prop Wash, a Fighter Pilot’s Hazy Recollections of WWII, will be speaking at Henderson’s Green Valley Library at 11 a.m. Matye, 93, flew 75 combat missions in his P-47 Thunderbolt. MyPublicLibrary.com.

W WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18 Who among us hasn’t at

some point wanted to chuck it all and become a deep-sea treasure hunter? Before you do, learn a little about the trade at Springs Preserve’s newest traveling exhibit Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure, through Jan. 31. You’ll discover what it’s like to recover artifacts underwater, be the captain of a sinking ship and be in the middle of a hurricane. SpringsPreserve.org. Have an event you want considered for Seven Days? Email VegasSevenDays@Gmail.com.

PHOTO BY EMMILY BRISTOL

VegasSeven.com

PAGE 14

Th THURSDAY, NOV. 12 For a select few, brain

➜

November 12–18, 2015

By Bob Whitby

By Emmily Bristol

“ONE CITY’S TR ASH”

★ A CURATED GUIDE TO THIS WEEK IN YOUR CITY ★

Fremont Street Experience ordinance limits street performers

LIFE UNDER THE Fremont Street Experience canopy could be a lot different when new rules are scheduled to be enforced on Nov. 16. Recent violence—including a shooting in 2013—is one of the reasons the Las Vegas City Council passed the new law that institutes a permit process and restricted zones for street performers. Under the new ordinance, street performers, also called buskers, will have to apply for one of 38 permits available by random lottery each day in order to work on the pedestrian-only Experience between the hours of 3 p.m. and 2 a.m. The ordinance was modeled after a similar law regulating buskers at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, according to a KNPR interview earlier this year with City Attorney Brad Jerbic. In the same interview, Councilman Bob Coffn complained about what he called “inappropriate” performers “with a bare ass hanging out.” Both Jerbic and Coffn did not return repeated calls for comment. A self-proclaimed visual entertainer wearing a pink bikini who goes by “Bunny,” says he was more concerned about comments by council members, whom he called “flled with hate,” than the ordinance itself. “[Councilman Coffn] is the biggest attacker. He kept saying trans-phobic comments about ‘fat man ass,’” Bunny says. “For the most part, we’re family down here. Even people who don’t like each other look after each other. Some people who are out here are [just] trying to make a few bucks to pay their rent or they’d be homeless.” Not all Fremont Street performers play well with others, however. The new ordinance has caused a further rift between two segments of street performers—the mellower daytime buskers and a rowdy group of more aggressive performers—says balloonist Sandi Adao. “I don’t mind the naked people, the topless nuns and showgirls,” says Adao, who is in favor of the ordinance. “Then you have the ones who are aggressive.” One issue mentioned by multiple Fremont Street buskers has been the proliferation of costumed performers who seek children for photo ops and then hit up their parents for money. Turf wars between performers are also another problem. Adao says she’s been frequently harassed by performers who will block her sign or start fghts over sidewalk space. “It’s that attitude that’s ruined the Fremont Street Experience,” she says. Army veteran Thom Martin, who offers fow-

I think it’s going to be extremely cool for people to see what happens with [their garbage] as it goes through the [recycling] system.

THE LATEST

One City’s Trash A first look inside the Southern Nevada Recycling Center By Melinda Sheckells ➜ NORTH LAS VEGAS receives the crown jewel

of the recycling world on November 12 when Republic Services opens the country’s largest and most advanced residential center dedicated to the reuse of paper, plastic, glass and metal. The Southern Nevada Recycling Center, West Cheyenne Road, offers the public a chance to understand what happens to these products once they leave the bin via an interactive learning center and tours of the plant. Len Christopher, general manager of Republic Services, shares a frst look at the privately funded $35 million facility.

GETTING SMARTER

At 110,000 square feet, this center can process 70 tons of garbage in an hour using the most advanced equipment available, including optical sorters that scan by category, type, color and density, creating a clean end product without any fne organic matter. The building itself also has solar panels so it will be able to generate a portion of its own power. “WHERE’S MY BLUE BIN?”

“Everyone asks me when they fnd out I work for a recycling company, ‘When am I getting automated?’—meaning, ‘When will I have one bin for all my recyclables? When do we get rid of the old three-bin system?’ The answer is: We had to build this [facility] to be able to handle the volume. The City of North Las Vegas and the City of Henderson are on the automated system, about 165,000 homes. In Clark County, we have some pilot programs,” Christopher says. SHOW AND TELL

BUSTING THE BIG MYTH

Despite what it may look like, your trash and recyclables are not being collected and mixed together. “The truck comes through the neighborhood and collects recyclables, and then the same truck comes later in the day to collect the garbage. So with that truck, they run two separate routes. All the recycling comes here, it is dropped off, then the drivers go back out and fll that truck with garbage and it goes to the transfer station.” For a full tour of the Republic Services recycling center, visit VegasSeven.com/Recycle

Clockwise from top: Guests can tour a real “working” cab of a Republic Services truck. The foliage lining its bumper is made of newspaper and the light fixtures are made of milk cartons; the entire facility is controlled by tablet; fiber—newspaper, cardboard and paper—is the top commodity; this recycling center is capable of handling 2.3 million pounds of aluminum each year.

PHOTOS BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Designed by Fervor Creative, the interactive learning display provides a safe gateway into the recycling center for student and public tours. There will also be access to an observation deck over the machinery for special guests. “It’s going to be extremely cool for people to see what happens with the material as it goes through the system. In the beginning, you see a big pile of recyclables, and by the time you get to the back, we have a warehouse full of fnished bails.”

Alex Cordova

A View From the Top From senior executives and vice presidents to partners and owners, meet the top guns who are piloting Las Vegas’ nightclubs and commanding more than half a million square feet of pure, unadulterated party power By M A R K G R A Y

➺ Fresh out of high school in New York City, Alex Cordova began throwing parties in small clubs. Fast-forward 20 years, and he’s still at the forefront of the party landscape, although the scenery is a bit different now. As the executive vice president of marketing for Hakkasan Group, Cordova oversees marketing efforts on behalf of all of the company’s U.S. venues, including Hakkasan, Omnia, 1 OAK, The Bank and soon Jewel. With so much on his plate, how does he do it? In a word: delegation. “I would like to say I’m very hands-on in a lot of the departments, but because we’ve grown in such scale, I’ve had to learn to delegate a lot of responsibility and trust in my staff,” he says. “In the past year, I’ve really worked hard on that, and I’m very grateful to be able to work with such intelligent people. I’m able just to direct and not have to micromanage every aspect of every little detail in the venues, although I do like to try to get my hands dirty now and then.” Cordova has no problem being on the front lines of the nightclub world. After all, that’s where it all started for him in Las Vegas, having moved here to promote clubs and eventually landing the management contracts for former venues Risqué and Tabu. Later, he would rise through the ranks to become an executive with Pure Management Group. Really, he’s cut his teeth in all aspects of nightlife, which is what has placed him at the helm of the Hakkasan Group nightlife team. “We have a very sophisticated team in terms of executives. My counterparts and I will identify where we need to be and we’ll kind of split duties, and make sure there’s always oversight of our properties,” he says. “It’s just really important to us to have our staff see us everywhere. Sometimes it’s very challenging, but you know, we lead from the front. We make sure that they at least know that we care about them enough to be there.”

PHOTO BY JIM K. DECKER

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Executive Vice President of Marketing, Hakkasan Group

2 0 15 NIGHTLIFE IS S UE Pauly Freedman

VegasSeven.com

ferent, and I believe the change of music and the change of pace are what people want today and what people will want more and more in the years coming. “I’m a business guy before anything, and I always look at it like, ‘What can I do before everybody else?’ I’ve been doing that for 20 years. I think we’re ahead of the game,” Drai says. It’s diffcult to bet against Drai, given his impressive track record. In his Las Vegas career alone, he’s opened nightlife institutions including Drai’s After Hours, Tryst, XS and now Drai’s Nightclub & Beach Club, all of which have made their mark on the city’s entertainment landscape. He admits that he’s a hard-driving boss, and the respect of his staff is earned. “I’m very hard to work with in the sense that I’m demanding, but I work as hard as they work, only harder, and they love that. And I’m very fair,” he says. “Sometimes I’m crazy for a few minutes, but at the end of the day, I’m very fair and they love that about me. They know I care for everybody.”

➺ When it comes to his professional life, VicVictor Drai tor Drai is something Owner, of a fortune-teller. He’s Drai Management Group made a very proftable living staying ahead of trends, whether they be related to his careers in entertainment, fashion or nightlife. As the owner and namesake of Drai’s Management Group, he’s again trying to see the future. The Morocco-born kingpin believes hip-hop and R&B are the future of Las Vegas nightlife, and he’s now at the forefront of that movement, having inked nightclub residencies with Chris Brown, The Weeknd and Trey Songz. So, why not dive into the DJ war, as so many other clubs have? “I wanted the club to be more of the star than anything. I was thinking the DJ craze would be over last year, and it’s not. So I decided to do something dif-

➺ In a former life, Pauly Freedman was a chef. For the past seven years, however, he and his team have been cooking up nightclub experiences at Wynn Resorts. As the head of Encore Beach Club and Surrender Nightclub, Freedman is the man the general managers report to, and by default, the man all 300 employees report to. It all works, he says, because of the company’s “open-door policy,” as well as the culture that’s been created. “We believe in promoting from within, and we are very transparent,” he says. “Everyone has a voice; we lay the cards on the table and we just tell the [staff], ‘This is our expectation. There will not be any secrets.’” Freedman, like many club operators, works long hours. He’s used to that, having been a nightlife promoter and consultant with 20plus years of experience beginning with Utopia. His nightlife team reflects his work ethic. “They are committed to the job. We love our job. We are all well compensated for our job, and so there is a lot of pride in it,” he says. “We recognize each other, we respect each other and we are a big family.” Freedman says he’s a stickler for details, something he learned, no doubt, while attending UNLV’s College of Hotel Administration. “We micromanage,” he says. “The staff sees it. And what they don’t see, we share with them so they understand what the level of commitment is from us. They have a voice; we listen to them.” Of course, no one is blind to the fact that the name “Wynn” is on the building. “There is a certain expectation from Steve Wynn,” Freedman says. “You can build these beautiful places with all the bells and whistles, but if you don’t have the experience in the venue, then what do you really have?”

November 12–18, 2015

PHOTOS BY ANTHONY MAIR

Executive Director, Surrender Nightclub & Encore Beach Club

Matt Minichino

Vice President of Nightlife & Entertainment, SLS Las Vegas

➺ Matt Minichino is aware of the

challenges ahead of him as he seeks to change the trajectory of SLS. The New York native is tasked with moving the property’s nightlife program in the right direction, and that, he says, is exactly what’s happened since he came aboard in March. “We’re in the most competitive daylife and nightlife market in the world,” he says, “and we’re a stand-alone hotel at the end of the Strip. We have to have a diverse range of entertainment for the property in order to find our way.” Over his 13-year career, Minichino has served among the top brass at Coyote Ugly and Pure Nightclub during the clubs’ heydays. As director of nightlife at Hard Rock Hotel, overseeing the Rehab pool party, he worked alongside and learned from some of the heaviest hitters in the market. “I’ve always been surrounded by or worked for really talented people,” he says. “It really makes a world of difference.” For SLS, Minichino sees a bright future that works well, based on the employees and with the way he operates. “The direction that SLS Las Vegas is going now is different than the direction it was trending when I got here. It was very short-sighted and one direction, very EDM heavy,” he says. “I come in with a strong point of view. Obviously, along with identifying what the property is and what it needs, I understand that we need to be very diverse in the entertainment that we offer.” SLS is making a “huge commitment” to live entertainment, Minichino says. “We need to have an offering for everyone in Las Vegas from all age demographics, from 21-50. We can’t just focus on one genre of music and one demographic and [expect to] compete. We have to go after the other 85 percent, as well.”

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

➺ On September

20, former Light Colin Comer Group executives Colin Comer and and John Pettei John Pettei took over Managing Partners, Light Nightclub and Play Management Group Daylight Pool Club as managing partners, and it was not unlike a family reunion. “To be honest, you never know what a situation like that is going to be,” says Comer, who had been the venues’ VP of marketing. “I’m pretty comfortable in terms of talking to groups and things like that, [but] I got a little nervous walking in.” Any fears were unfounded, however, as the staff broke into cheers upon seeing the faces of two of the men who helped open the venue in 2013, but left following a management change. The boisterous reception was, Pettei says, “a relief.” “For me, it was a culmination,” says Pettei, formerly the GM of both clubs. “We had been sitting in the sidelines for two-plus months, just Colin and I, sitting in an offce bouncing ideas off of each other, working, talking

about want we want to do. So when we walked in, it was like, “OK! We are here. Let’s do it. This is real.” Now at the helm of Light via their newly formed Play Management Group, the two longtime hospitality execs see Light and Daylight as their home. “We also want to take a little bit more of a boutique, more-family-and-less-corporate approach to how we do things,” Comer says. “Sometimes when things get so big and so corporate, you lose a little bit of that personal touch. If there is anything that I would like to see our company do—and we do now and will do exceptionally—it is to make it about being fun. A big keyword for us is ‘family.’” That tight-knit atmosphere can pay dividends. “A big thing we want to have as part of our management style is a participative feel,” Pettei says. “We believe that thinking collectively—involving everyone in at least the thought process, not making fnal decisions [ourselves]—is a beneft. Some of the greatest ideas come from people that sometimes are afraid to open their mouths. We have seen that already in a short time. It’s motivating, and it’s exciting for a lot of the players that we have here.”

COMER AND PETTEI BY JIM K. DECKER; MINICHINO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

Jon Pettei and Colin Comer.

2 0 15 NIGHTLIFE IS S UE

➺ Jon Spadafora and Steve Kennedy, two longtime nightlife veterans, are well aware of what they have with Chateau Nightclub in Paris Las Vegas: They have the “Everyman’s club,” one free of high bottle service minimums and pretentiousness. “One thing that we realized early on was that nightlife was evolving for the one-percenters,” Spadafora says, “which is great—those parties are a lot of fun to go to, and I think most people will strive to be that one-percenter at some point in time. But the reality is that there’s a tremendous amount of [regular] people who come to Vegas.” Granted, Chateau is happy to have those big spenders, but rather than focusing on the deep pockets, the two-headed operating team went after a different market. “And we’ve had a lot of success opening our doors to opportunities that other clubs might not,” Kennedy says. Spadafora, whose work centers more around the club’s operations, adds, “The nightlife experience was becoming so expensive and so focused on that $10,000 customer that there was an opportunity to replicate that experience with the customer who maybe didn’t have that sort of a wallet.” In realizing this, the two conveyed their vision to the staff. “We thought it was important to let our staff in on the decision-making process,” Spadafora says. “We knew that if we were going to make an impact on the customers, the most efficient way to do that was through great service, and that’s more than how the club looks or what’s there. Hopefully the atmosphere with our staff spills over.” Kennedy, the club’s marketing wiz, adds, “We teach management styles. We treat it like a business, and we treat our staff like employees and respect them, and I think we get the respect back.”

From left: Yannick Mugnier, John Wood and Ronn Nicolli.

Yannick Mugnier Senior Executive Director of Operations

John Wood

Senior Executive Director of VIP Services

Ronn Nicolli

Senior Executive Director of Marketing XS Nightclub

make sure it is running to the standard that the hotel sets.” And despite their long history in nightlife—each has been at this for more than a decade—neither of the three has ever been the type to accept that the status quo is good enough. “Each of us has had to learn new responsibilities and tasks moving forward. Yannick became almost like a doctor of production over here,” Nicolli says. “And then on John’s side, obviously motivating and educating the hosts to the new talent and things that we are bringing in, basically re-educating them on how to sell. When we frst opened the doors, it was about selling a brand. And now it is about selling the DJ and the venue. It was a lot of hands-on work for everyone here to make sure that we acclimated to these changes and that we stay on top.”

Jason Strauss

Managing Partner, Tao Group

➺ When Jason Strauss left New York City in 2005 to open Tao Las Vegas, he wasn’t sure how long he’d be staying. “I came out here to do the marketing and help with the construction and the staffing, and I ended up staying 10 years because the business was so explosive,” he says. At the age of 31, Strauss was already a nightlife veteran. He and his business partner, Noah Tepperberg, had started promoting parties in high school and went on to work for Peter Gatien, who was once dubbed “The King of New York Clubs.” Strauss and Tepperberg eventually began curating events in other East Coast cities before taking ownership in several hospitality venues in the Big Apple. The duo did incredibly well in New York, just as they’ve done in Vegas. “We came to Vegas with a lot of learning and the DNA of how we wanted to conduct business, how we wanted to execute exceptional hospitality—and we just implemented it,” Strauss says. “It was us sort of cutting our teeth and making a lot of mistakes in New York before coming out to Vegas that led us to our path of how we operate today.” Now with the Tao, Marquee and Lavo brands thriving under the Tao Group umbrella, Strauss relies on his team of trusted employees. “My partners and I, we’re in at least one of the venues once a week each,” he says, “but we have a really good infrastructure of directors and general managers that do most of the day-to-day business with our support, and we’ve always felt our job is to make the directors and the GMs successful. That’s our daily role, whether it’s through mentoring or support. That’s the role of the ownership and the partners. Our directors and GMs really execute the vision and the culture.”

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PHOTOS BY ANTHONY MAIR; STRAUSS BY ELIZABETH BUEHRING

Partners, Element Hospitality

worked here in the past.” Several trade publications have ranked XS among the top nightclubs in America, so they are clearly doing a number of things right. “We are hands-on, and that’s what leads to our success,” Mugnier says. “We all want to be here. We all want to be with the people, and we all want to

Jon Spadafora and Steve Kennedy

leader, Jesse Waits, left the property in July, he left it with the threeheaded management beast—Yannick Mugnier, John Wood and Ronn Nicolli. Not surprisingly, the transition has gone off without a hitch. The members of the trio play off each other’s strengths, which is second nature considering they have been working together for eight years. Many of XS’ other employees have been there from the beginning—one of many factors that has propelled the club to high status ever since it opened its doors in 2008. “I don’t know if the club has one personality,” Wood says. “The venue is timeless, we like to say. We have been open longer than a nightclub should be open in Las Vegas, and we are continuing to grow. It is a mesh of all of us and anybody who has

November 12–18, 2015

➺ When XS’s well-known

2015

TASTEMAKER AWARDS We asked, they answered. For a second year, Vegas Seven invited more than 100 Las Vegas Tastemakers—well-known personalities from the nightlife scene, spirits industry and the worlds of cuisine, fashion and general socialite-ism— to weigh in on what they’re into and what they’re over. CONTRIBUTORS: Kat Boehrer, Camille Cannon, Ian Caramanzana,

David Morris, Melinda Sheckells and Xania Woodman

Las Vegas’ tantalizing nightclub landscape. SBE.com/Nightlife/Locations/Hyde-Bellagio. BEST VISUAL EXPERIENCE

Omnia wins for best visuals by a landslide. It seems our Tastemakers are as much in awe as thousands of happy patrons have been by the lighted marquees that glide along the walls, framing the grand centerpiece. The famed Omnia chandelier is a 22,000-pound mechanical masterpiece adorned with lights and strobes that moves and gyrates. Photos don’t even do it justice; this one really needs to be seen to be believed. OmniaNightclub.com. BEST CLUB FOR LOCALS

Call them crazy, but sometimes our Tastemakers actually want to talk business over cocktails or just wind down, yes, at a club. Hyde’s cozy interior and comfy couches make it the perfect venue for any of those activities. Those are ever-present at the club, but if you want to turn up, Hyde’s got you covered as well. Big names such as Omarion, Jamie Foxx and Travis Barker have all blessed the club with their talents. SBE.com/Nightlife/Locations/Hyde-Bellagio. BEST DJ ROSTER

Hakkasan Group wasn’t kidding around when it came to town and quickly dominated the nightlife game by scoring a DJ roster that is quite accurately the best in the West. Having secured DJ Mag’s No. 1 DJs of 2015, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, as well as industry toppers Calvin Harris, Hardwell and Tiësto, the city’s 800-pound gorilla allows its headliners to handpick their opening acts. So pay attention to the support, because today’s openers are bound to be tomorrow’s superstars. HakkasanGroup.com. BEST HEADLINING RESIDENT DJ

Diplo beats out Tiësto, Baauer and Alesso for best headliner, and rightfully so. No matter how frequently the beatmaster comes through to his Wynn Resorts residencies, his parties are always raging and, dare we say, Mad Decent. One can expect a night out with Diplo to quickly get out of control with girls twerking on stage, on the DJ table and in the booth. Partygoers can’t help but appreciate his eclectic song selection, which usually includes popular radio tracks in addition to EDM favorites.

everything from industry nights to starstudded parties, so he knows how to get any crowd going. Beyond the nightclubs and casinos, Five has also ventured into the restaurant industry as a co-owner of Downtown hot spot, Itsy Bitsy Ramen & Whisky. We can’t think of anyone better to fly the Vegas flag. Facebook.com/DJFive. OPEN FORMAT CHAMPION

Variety is the spice of life, and DJ Vice has an incredibly seasoned palate. He also loves to share it with others; the Tao Group resident DJ has treated thousands to his eclectic taste since Tao opened in 2005. Don’t be surprised to hear the hottest rap songs such as Drake and Future’s “Jumpman” juxtaposed with Avicii’s “Levels” or Vice’s own single with Caitlyn Scarlett, “Bad Love (Hold On).” Our Tastemakers want to expose you to new things, or learn a thing or two, and we can’t think of a better teacher. DJVice.com. BEST POOL PARTY

Two-story Encore Beach Club bests its biggest competition, Wet Republic, but only by the slimmest of margins. The summer hot spot consistently welcomes amazing talent such as Kaskade, Zedd and Tommy Trash. Cabanas and bungalows line the perimeter with windows that overlook the Strip if you need a break from the action, or if you want to wave to passersby to brag that you are so lucky to have a VIP area at the Best Pool Party in Las Vegas. EncoreBeachClub.com. BEST WINTER PARTY

Imported from New York City in 2011, Lavo’s Saturday Party Brunch is the stuff of legend for weekend revelers and club-loving locals. Kicking off its fifth season in October, the party brunch’s 2-6 p.m. timeslot fills your need for indoor daydrinking when temperatures cool off, raging from fall to spring seasons with costumed performers, bottle service and black-out curtains to keep the big bad sunlight out. Like its cousin Proper Brunch (LavoLV.com/Brunch), food is also a major player at Party Brunch, proving that lemon ricotta waffles and white polenta pancakes pair nicely with Champagne and vodka with Red Bull. LavoLV.com/Lavo-Brunch.

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Hyde at Bellagio.

BEST BIG ROOM NIGHTCLUB

BEST BOUTIQUE NIGHTCLUB

Omnia is quite literally a big room, weighing in at 75,000 square feet, and our Tastemakers agree that there’s no better place to enjoy some of the world’s biggest EDM bangers played by the big names who crafted them. At Hakkasan Group’s largest venture, you can witness Calvin Harris work “How Deep Is Your Love” into his mix, or catch Tiësto pump the crowd up to “Wasted.” Simply put, it’s the best place to experience a wild, Vegas-style party that’ll be talked about for months. OmniaNightclub.com.

Like Bellagio, Hyde is luxury exemplified. Maybe it’s Philippe Starck’s Italian design using reclaimed wood, views of the iconic fountains, lavish chandeliers or marble (lots and lots of it!), or maybe it’s the fact that you can pass seamlessly from deep within the club onto the patio with ease. Either way, it’s easy to see why choosy Tastemakers choose Hyde. Whatever the occasion—be it impressing a client or getting away from the big room nightclubs— lakeside Hyde is a breath of fresh air in

Not only did he win the Internet with his surprise mix tapes and endless “Hotline Bling” memes (have you seen the Frasier one?), Canadian rapper/sweater sensation Drake dances out of our Tastemaker Awards with not one, but two trophies. There’s no doubt that Champagne Papi knows how to throw a party—he celebrated New Year’s Eve, Labor Day and a private birthday party on the Strip this past year, and has memorialized unforgettable Las Vegas nights in many a lyric. Who better for you than the boy, huh? BEST LOCAL RESIDENT DJ

When he’s not behind the turntables, this SKAM Artist is behind the poker tables. DJ Five has manned the decks at Tao since it opened in 2005, playing

PHOTOS BY TONY TRAN

BEST NON-DJ RESIDENT & BEST CELEBRITY CLUB HOST

2 0 15 NIGHTLIFE IS S UE BEST BOTTLE LIST

In some clubs, a bottle list is just a menu of marked-up widgets you order to legitimize the rental of your party real estate. Nothing sexy about that. But there’s no reason why, when you’re paying $750 for a $39 bottle of vodka, there shouldn’t be a little wiggle room for quality and to express your personality. XS embraces the opportunity to set before you not only the standard bearers of Grey Goose, Patrón and Dom Pérignon, but also the new entrants such as Elyx, 50 Bleu, Roca Patrón and Beau Joie, not to mention Stolichnaya ginger beer for Moscow Mules. And it never hurts to have a few large-format bottles on hand, just in case. How about 30 liters of Armand de Brignac “Ace of Spades” brut for $200,000? BEST COCKTAIL SERVERS

In a city that prides itself on service, it stands to reason that this would be one of our most competitive categories. So it should come as no surprise that we have a tie! Omnia’s Karla Luna and Hakkasan’s Abbi Cooperman have smiles that can light up a room and energize your night. But that’s not all. Our 2013 pick for BestLooking Cocktail server, Luna says that what sets her apart is her passion. “Some people fall into the restaurant and nightlife business out of necessity, while others have a real passion for hospitality. I am enthusiastic about being in the service industry as a career and am not just doing it to get by.” For Cooperman, it’s all about the guest interaction. “It’s so amazing meeting people from all over the world and hearing about their lives. I truly love and appreciate my repeat guests who come back just for the ‘Hakkasan experience.’”

COCKTAIL SERVERS BY JIM K. DECKER

BEST INDUSTRY NIGHT

What makes our Tastemakers the Tastemakers? They know what’s hot—now and in the future. So it’s no wonder they chose XS’ Movement Mondays as the city’s best industry night. Occasionally alternating with

The Lightning Round!

Diplo’s Mad Decent Mondays, the Movement series brings clubgoers sets by progressive, cutting-edge talent. Past bookings include Kanye West collaborator Hudson Mohawke, trap/hip-hop/electronic producer RL Grime and “heaven trap” proprietors Slander. Best of all? It’s free for locals. XSLasVegas.com. BEST BOTTLE SERVICE PRESENTATIONS

When you want to really pop off—and have the ducats to do it right—no place helps you make a statement quite like Omnia. Forget having a herd of waitresses simply spell out your name in cardboard letters—how 2012! Here, ethereal aerialists descend from high above to deliver vintage rosé while an entire marching band parades out the large-format spirits. But what is perhaps the craziest thing we’ve seen in any club is Omnia’s life-size faux horse that was wheeled out for a truly special delivery. OmniaNightclub.com.

BEST PRE-PARTY DINING WITH A SCENE

STK attracts the bold and the beautiful before club nights at Marquee and serves dinner with a twist. Between its center-room DJ booth, pulsating musical selections and appealing crowd, a visit can also serve as the main attraction. Find scenesters dressed in their best party attire, munching on high-class delectables and sipping attractive cocktails. The party is especially bumpin’ on Monday nights before Marquee’s industry soiree. TOGrp.com/Restaurant/STK-Las-Vegas. BEST UNDERGROUND LEADER

By now, you should be aware of After, either because it took home this same award last year, or because of the afterhours outfit’s infamous strict “DJ Rules,” which went viral on the web around the same time. In 2015, the group promoting #proper #afterhours continues to bring fresh, underground acts such as Spektre, Coyu and D-Unity to a city saturated with big-name DJs and megaclubs. And with events being held at places such as Foxtail and Backstage Bar & Billiards, the after-party never seemed so inviting. AfterLasVegas.com.

BEST BRAND AMBASSADOR

Kristen Schaefer actually does do it all. When the former Absolut Vodka brand rep was promoted to brand “agent” for Absolut Elyx, she went copper crazy for the singleestate product and its exclusive copper pineapple chalices, and she took the whole town with her. From the city’s intimate dens of mixology to orchestrating EDMfueled bottle parades in nightclubs, no glass has been left unfilled. Now a triple-agent, Schaefer is also the first female president

› BEST PARTY STARTER Tequila. › BEST DJ DUO OR TRIO Nervo. › BEST BOUTIQUE CRASH PAD The Cosmopolitan. › BEST DANCE FLOOR (FOR ACTUAL DANCING) XS. › BEST VALET-TO-CLUB-TO-VALET ARRANGEMENT 1 OAK. › BEST POST-CLUB GRUB

The Peppermill. › BEST PARTY HOLIDAY Halloween. › BEST DECISION EVER (IF YOU’VE BEEN DRINKING) Uber. › THE BOTTOM LINE—DAYCLUB OR NIGHTCLUB Nightclub.

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Lisa Pittman’s women’s weekend, Shedonism, came incredibly close to taking this one, but perhaps our Tastemakers chose Share Nightclub & Ultra Lounge’s Share Thursdays simply because it happens yearround. The recurring party features male and female go-go dancers, two-for-one drinks until midnight and sounds by DJ Nick Ayler, making it the best excuse for anybody to start the weekend early. Since admission is free and there’s no dress code, it’s an experience that should be shared with everyone. (Sorry, had to.) 4636 Wynn Rd., ShareNightclub.com.

Only narrowly beating out XS’ Natalia Badzjo, Tao Group vet Larson Legris takes his place as Las Vegas’ go-to rainmaker. He is the one host who can make the impossible possible, be it populating your last-minute dance-floor table with a full complement of models on Memorial Day weekend; scoring you an invite to some of the city’s most exclusive parties; landing seemingly impossible fight tickets; or absolutely anything else you may desire. And as one of this year’s Featured Tastemakers, Legris hands out some hardware of his own on Page 25.

When it’s time to move the party away from the Strip, our Tastemakers hit up Downtown—natch—and Commonwealth is their venue of choice. The pre-Prohibition-style digs boast a killer craft cocktail menu, an eclectic lineup of local resident DJs (including Impakt, PDOT and Cyberkid) and a balcony with a stunning view of Fremont (which happens to be the best place for drunk-people-watching). Beyond that, we’ve also heard rumors of a super-secret speakeasy within the footprint, which makes this the perfect place to turn up or simmer down with a drink. (Full disclosure: Commonwealth is owned by the owners of Vegas Seven parent company WENDOH Media. But our Tastemakers didn’t hold that fact against it, so neither will we.) 525 Fremont St., CommonwealthLV.com.

BEST LGBT PARTY

VIP HOST WITH THE MOST

BEST OFF-STRIP PARTY

November 12–18, 2015

Best Cocktail Servers Abbi Cooperman (left) and Karla Luna.

of the United States Bartenders’ Guild’s Las Vegas chapter and a proud new mother.

2 0 1 5 NIGHTLIFE IS S UE BEST EDM BLOG

If it’s got bumpin’ bass, takes place in a nightclub or is about the hottest DJs in the game, it’s on DancingAstronaut.com. Our Tastemakers refer to this site to stay upto-date on everything EDM, trap, techno, deep house and dubstep—most of it true. Beyond its easily navigable, beautifully designed website, Dancing Astronaut has broken stories about Elijah Woods’ DJ tour, gotten interviews with Oliver Heldens and uploaded exclusive HARD Summer sets. The reach is out of this world. BEST PLACE TO PARTY SANS EDM

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. And sometimes you want to actually be able to hear them say it. When the thought of pounding oontz gives you the icks, follow your nose for tiki cocktails, Disney décor and Dole Whip right over to Chinatown, where the bartenders and servers (meet one on Page 30!) at Golden Tiki are having as much fun as you’re about to. Oh, and save us a seat for when the spot’s audio-animatronic mascot, William Tobias Faulkner (WTF to his friends), fires up for his bone-chilling tale of “Whoa!” 3939 Spring Mountain Rd., TheGoldenTiki.com. NIGHTCLUB RIPEST FOR RENOVATION

Time takes its toll on all things—especially party time. Which explains why The Bank in Bellagio is our voters’ choice for the venue most in need of a facelift. The walls of The Bank have seen a lot of love over the years since it was created from a rib of the original Light and deserves a shout-out for longevity. Top celebrities including Chris Brown, Trey Songz and Tinashe have all visited The Bank, but maybe it’s time for a little nip and tuck? TheBankLV.com.

Vape pens had some tough competition, being pitted against other such eye-rollinducing notions as high-waist denim cutoffs (sorry, ladies), Macklemore haircuts (sorry, guys) and IO Hawks (the Segway-ish boards; sorry, nerds), but according to our esteemed Tastemakers, nothing is more undesirable than an ominous vape cloud looming over your view of the DJ booth. To make matters worse, the majority of the “juices” give off the scent of rotten fruit or bad chocolate. BuzzFeed’s Ryan Broderick said it best: “Vape pens are mouth fedoras.” Leave ’em at home, folks. BEST HANGOVER BRUNCH

DW Bistro has been a brunch institution since 2010, with lines circling the block to prove its popularity. Forget nursing a carton of coconut water while hooked up to an I.V. bag, this is the city’s preferred hangover helper. Trust us: Nothing knocks the sense back into you after a long night of partying like DW’s signature jerk-spiced Bloody Mary mix with heirloom tomatoes and jalapeño bacon, and a bowl of New Mexican-style slow-cooked pork simmered in red chili sauce. DWBistro.com.

BIGGEST NIGHTLIFE STORY OF THE YEAR Jesse Waits has been an integral part of Wynn

Nightlife’s success for about a decade. So when Andrew Pascal and James Packer managed to woo the XS and Tryst Nightclub boss across the street to their forthcoming, multibillion-dollar Alon Resort, the entire city took notice. While details on Waits’ new projects remain scarce, we fully expect him to have a heavy hand in shaping Alon’s culinary, entertainment and day and nightlife offerings. As evidenced by Waits culture of “stage life” at XS, we also anticipate the Tastemakers will follow.

PHOTO BY JON ESTRADA

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

TREND THAT HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME

NIGHTLIFE Your city after dark, photos from the week’s hottest parties and Ms. Redd is solid gold

Aaliyah Skyy (a.k.a. Brenton Coon)

Veteran drag queen, clothing designer and entertainer ➜ With more than 10 years of experience as a host and entertainer, Skyy has made quite an impact on Las Vegas’ ever-changing LGBT community. She’s performed onstage and behind the scenes at Hard Rock Hotel, The Mirage, the Tropicana and the Havana Room. By day, Coon, a student at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, designs ready-to-wear and one-of-a-kind pieces for his clothing line, BDARRICKS. BEST GAY CLUB NIGHT

Fridays: Share Nightclub has Stripper Circus, Piranha Nightclub has a new theme every weekend, and every other LGBT venue has something fun or crazy going on. BEST GAY BAR

Charlie’s Las Vegas, hands down! You can just relax and unwind and enjoy a nice cold beer. They host drag shows as well as live bands and burlesque performers. It’s always a good time. BEST GAY CLUB

With a never-ending cycle of local entertainers, out-of-town guests, Strip headliners, themed shows and contests, Piranha Nightclub has something to offer everybody and rarely disappoints. BEST LGBT COMMUNITY CHEERLEADERS

It’s a tie between Larry Edwards— a.k.a. Hot Chocolate—and Garrett Pattiani, creator of Garrett’s Gay Guide at Gay.vegas. BEST BACHELOR(ETTE) PARTY SPOT

Our nightlife superheroes pick the best from their worlds— from Best Amenity to Best Hangover Meal By Ian Caramanzana

BEST PARTY ACCESSORY

Your best friends and your handy Uber app. Let’s face it, no night of fun and partying is complete without your besties and a safe, reliable ride home.

VegasSeven.com

Hosted by Alex Serpa and Sable Bleu every Saturday night at Flex Cocktail Lounge, The Queens of Las Vegas offers everything from celebrity impersonations to comedy. It is also the longest-running drag show in Vegas.

Meet the Tastemakers

BEST DRAG SHOW

November 12–18, 2015

PHOTO BY JIM K. DECKER

From left: Jennifer Tramaglino, DJ Low, Aaliyah Skyy and Larson Legris.

Bachelors and bachelorettes will have a blast at Share Nightclub, dancing to the hottest new music or watching the sexiest go-go dancers in Vegas. It’s an absolute feast for the eyes!

Hospitality & Entertainment Consultant, Urban PALM ➜ When it comes to nightlife, “Jenn T” saw it all as Light Group’s chief of staff for more than a decade. In 2015 however, she added to her résumé by pursuing other endeavors including hospitality/entertainment consulting and launching the “assistant’s assistant” app, Urban PALM. Diplo.

BEST BATHROOMS

BEST DATE NIGHT

BEST AMENITY

BEST LATIN PROMOTER

Have you seen the photos that come out of the “selfe zone” in the XS ladies’ room? Pure gold. It might have its own hashtag. Light’s bathroom attendant, Rosie, has been around since Light in Bellagio and always knows just what you need when you walk in. I swear, one time she had a backup pair of contacts in my prescription.

DJ Low

Resident DJ for 99.3 Latino Mixx, Embassy Nightclub and Commonwealth

Some may think what’s most appealing for women is going to be a décor element or maybe really good lighting. For me, it’s a summertime staple: shirtless Diplo onstage at Surrender.

LADIES’ CHOICE FOR FAVORITE DJ

DJ Ikon’s open-format sets aren’t just the same old tracks you hear every night. As a respected music producer, he’s a master at reading a room and when the ladies report to the dance foor, he knows just what to mix next. BEST LINE-TO-TABLE EXPERIENCE

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Light door hosts know how to take care of the locals. You’ll always walk up and feel like you have a personal invite to the party.

Theatre. It’s all in the name! Having a cup of coffee with a blank notepad and laptop just seems right there.

Kevin Hart.

If you don’t know Frank Montes, then I’m sorry, but you haven’t been to the best Latin clubs in Las Vegas. He has been promoting for more than six years. Some of the clubs he has managed include Crown (in the Rio Hotel), Oracle and Embassy nightclubs.

➜ Born in Guatemala, DJ Low (a.k.a. Louis Velasquez) migrated to Los Angeles when he was 9. He has been an offcial DJ for Latino Mixx 99.3-FM in Las Vegas for fve years, and holds residencies at Embassy Nightclub, Commonwealth and Club Pura in San Francisco. He’s mixed shows for radio stations including La Fiesta 98.5-FM in Westhampton, New York, and Hawaii’s Rudeboy Radio, and is part of Lo Maximo Productions, a collective of Latin DJs from all over the world. BEST LATIN NIGHTS

Embassy Nightclub has been doing it for more than fve years strong, and lately bringing Latin artists every Thursday. Commonwealth took a risk doing Latin Night on Tuesdays. No one else was doing Latin Nights Downtown, and so far they’re great. Let me tell you, those drinks are phenomenal.

BEST LATIN DJ

Gil Barba has been in the Latin industry for as long as I have. Not only is he a good DJ, he will try to help you in any way, so you better yourself as a DJ. His music goes from old to new music and open format selections. BEST SONG TO PLAY TO GET THE PARTY STARTED

Nicky Jam is killing it with “El Perdón,” which features Enrique Iglesias. This song got 7 million YouTube plays within the frst week of being out. The song is so big in the Latin industry that he had to do an English version. I also can’t forget about J Balvin’s newest single, “Ginza.” These two songs get the party going and the ladies screaming. BEST UP-AND-COMER

DJ June B has only been in the industry for a year or so, and he has made his name stand out from the rest. He is an offcial radio DJ for Latino Mixx 99.3-FM. He is also a resident DJ for Embassy Nightclub, Club 2100, etc.

BEST CELEBRITY GUEST HOST

In a city with what seems like endless entertainment options, live performances, DJs and shows, when you see a true entertainer perform live, it stands out, it speaks to you. You have this epiphany: “Wow, I totally understand why he is so famous.” We’ve done multiple events with Kevin Hart, he is a genuine and true entertainer. From crowd interaction and respect from his peers to his overall joy and genuine happiness to be a part of the event—it sets him head and shoulders above what we have come to know of a celebrity host. BEST LOCAL DJ IN THE BOOTH

With the intense market of the DJ world, it’s always nice to see a fresh face. M!ke Attack has been a resident at Marquee for years now and I can honestly say that it’s

Larson Legris

Director of VIP Services, Marquee ➜ A veteran in our city’s dynamic nightlife scene, Larson Legris has been with Tao Group since its namesake club opened at the Venetian. He’s since taken his talents to Marquee, where he works with some of the biggest names in the industry. In 2015, the heavyweight celebrated Tao’s 10-year anniversary and helped open Lavo Casino Club. BEST BASE OF OPERATIONS

If I ever needed a place to sit with my future business partner and discuss our grand scheme to take over the world like Pinky & the Brain, it would be at Inspire

very exciting to see someone who genuinely loves their job. The excitement on his face as he reads the room is my favorite part about having him as a resident. Oh, he’s also incredibly talented and can hold down our venue as well as, if not better than, some of the big dogs. BEST PLACE TO BE ANONYMOUS

BEST LADIES ANTHEM

“Beez in the Trap,” by Nicki Minaj and 2 Chainz. Why? If you beez in the trap, then you already know.

BEST NIGHTCLUB ELEMENT DESIGNED WITH WOMEN IN MIND

Hecho en Vegas in MGM Grand. The food is amazing, starting with their guacamole and chips, and their mango mojito is so delicious.

A restorative rib platter from John Mull’s Meats and Road Kill Grill.

I am a foodie at heart; it’s what I live for. It’s not often that a local spot can steal the thunder from the mega chefs on Las Vegas Boulevard. Chef Dan Krohmer at Other Mama has done that and much more. With a tiny dining room and casual décor, he has created something so special in a shopping center that you will have to check your navigation twice to make sure that you’re in the right place. The caviar French toast is my favorite item. BEST HANGOVER MEAL

I’ve defnitely dealt with my fair share of hangovers. John Mull’s Meats and Road Kill Grill is a little off the beaten path, in a old neighborhood with a ranch-style home converted into a brilliant kitchen where you can fnd the best barbecue in Las Vegas. From the tangy sauce made in house to the array of options, including buffalo, rabbit, frog legs and more—you’ll forget how awful your head is pounding.

DIPLO BY DANNY MAHONEY; L ATIN NIGHT BY TOBY ACUNA; JOHN MULL’S MEATS AND ROAD KILL BY ANTHONY MAIR

NIGHTLIFE

Jennifer Tramaglino

NIGHTLIFE

By Ian Caramanzana

The Fat Jew.

named Los Angeles Lakers. The duo, consisting of DJs Justin Credible and sourMILK, does more than just provide stellar open-format sets for thousands of clubgoers; they run a tastemaking, musiccurating blog. Check it out at LALeakers.com, and if you’re an aspiring artist, it wouldn’t hurt to send some demos to the two. Your song might appear on the site, or even better, in a live set. Witness the next one at Drai’s. (In the Cromwell, 10:30 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.)

MON 16

November 12–18, 2015

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THUR 12

White Label Thursdays at The Sayers Club sets the (literal) records straight with Dre Day. The Las Vegas native began his radio career as a street team member for KWID Wild 102-FM, and eventually moved to 98.5 KLUC as a DJ and on-air personality. Now he works for Hot 97.5 and mans the decks for big names such as E-40, Omarion and Lupe Fiasco. See how the radio DJ handles vinyl. To quote the similarly named Dr. Dre, it’s “Dre Day (And Everybody’s Celebratin’)!" (In SLS, 10 p.m., TheSayersClubLV.com.)

FRI 13 It’s bingo time! No need to bring your visors, daubers or grandmas, though; Bingo Players spins at Hakkasan. The Dutch electro house DJ/ producer creates some fun, addicting tunes, just like the game of chance. Don’t believe us? Take a listen to his latest single, “Curiosity” or any

installments of his monthly Hysteria Radio mixes, and you’ll agree. And if you think otherwise, you can catch Irish techno/house darling Fergie DJ mixing it up at the Ling Ling Club. (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)

SAT 14 Start the party early at Ghostbar for GBDC. This time, pop culture commentator, writer, social media personality and White Girl Rosé co-creator Josh Ostrovsky (a.k.a. The Fat Jew) hosts the party. He’s been busy fghting off plagiarism allegations, but we’ve got a soft spot for the guy simply because he’s able to pull off a gelled-up ponytail. See if his ’do can withstand the madness of the weekly party, but don’t be surprised if he throws a picture of you on the ’gram. It’s what he’s known for, anyway. (In the Palms, 1 p.m., Palms.com.) Twenty-year-old future-house champion

Oliver Heldens returns to Omnia! What’s the reason for his absence? He’s been busy touring across the pond and crafting music with some of the biggest names in the industry; Heldens shared several photos on his Facebook page of him working in the studio with Martin Solveig, Martin Garrix and Tiësto. His monster single with the latter, “Wombat,” features an irresistibly catchy melody that’s complemented by epic strings and choppedup vocal samples. He’s bound to play it tonight, and since Tiësto is an Omnia resident as well, perhaps he’ll make an appearance. If huge names aren’t for you, Melo-D holds it down at Heart of Omnia. (In Caesars Palace, 10:30 p.m., OmniaNightclub.com.)

We all have our vices, and luckily, one just happens to make regular appearances at Marquee for Marquee Mondays. See Vice. The Las Vegas veteran recently teased his remix of Caitlyn Scarlett’s “Bad Love (Hold On).” The song features Vice’s signature hard melodies with Scarlett’s angelic vocals. It’s one of those songs that’ll be our go-tos for months, along with his previous hit with Estelle, “Bright Lights.” We can get used to his frequent collaborations with rising female singers. Maybe he’ll tease more tonight, or even better, bring one along with him to pull it off live! (In the Cosmopolitan, 10 p.m., MarqueeLasVegas.com.)

TUE 17 Hyde’s Lost Angels Industry Night gets crackin’ with SKAM Artist DJ Crooked.

Vice.

Even though “crooked” is in his name, he’ll get the party straight with a proper open format mix of the hottest in hip-hop and EDM. Admission for locals is free, so take advantage. (In Mandalay Bay, 10:30 p.m., TheLightVegas.com.)

WED 18 You’ve seen his hilarious dance moves in the music video for Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” now see them frsthand when Walshy Fire hits Surrender. You probably know him as a member of Diplo’s neo-dance hall project, but he’s also a DJ, producer and emcee. Since he’s got so many titles next to his name, we have no idea what to expect, other than a good time. But we do hope he’ll expose us to other dance hall classics. Oh, yeah, since it’s industry night, locals get in free. Pon de riddim! (In Encore, 10:30 p.m., SurrenderNightclub.com.)

SUN 15 When it comes to basketball, you can root for whomever you want, but thanks to LA Leakers, we’ve developed an appreciation for the similarly

Walshy Fire.

NIGHTLIFE

the kind of woman who blends in. Her Amazonian height and Rita Hayworth mane made her a singular standout while cocktailing at nightlife venues including Pure and Blush. Now, in addition to her modeling and burlesque work, Redd is cocktailing at Golden Tiki, where her sultry, retro style fts like an opera-length glove. You’ve worked at a number of clubs on the Strip, but you don’t have the typical “look”…

I was hired by Steve Davidovici at Pure. Most of the girls were very young, 21 to 23, which I was not at the time. They’re usually on the shorter side, petite, tanned, mostly long brown hair. Here I am: 5 feet9, bright red hair, curvy and pale. I thought: There’s no way I’m getting this job. But he hired me and said, “You’re what I want. You’re what we’re lacking in here.” When you go to nightclubs, I’ve noticed everyone seems to look the same. I’d even have customers comment, “Everybody else kind of looks the same, and then there’s you.” Has anyone been surprised to see you working at Golden Tiki?

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

They told me they’re bringing in this big bachelor party and I’m going to be the waitress. These guys came in, and I popped around the corner: “Hi guys, welcome to Golden Tiki. My name is …” and before I could even get it out, one guy blurted out “Ms. Redd!” [They recognized me from a shoot I did] about fve years ago at Frankie’s Tiki Room for Bachelor Pad Magazine. And he looks at his friends and he’s smiling like, “Oh, you guys!” And they’re looking a little lost. And so am I. I ask ,“Are you the bachelor?” And he’s grinning, “Yes! Yes, I am!” And he turns to his friends, “You guys are the best!” Finally I put it together and I’m like, “Sweetheart, I’m actually your waitress.” And he’s like, “But you’re Ms. Redd!” And I said, “Yes I am. And I’m just going to be your waitress tonight.” Apparently they had been outside and the bachelor looked at the Golden Tiki and was like, “Man, I wish someone like Ms. Redd was in there.” And here I was—his waitress!

Redd Alert

Pinup model Ms. Redd peels back the layers on what it’s like being both a cocktail waitress and a burlesque queen By Lissa Townsend Rodgers

When did you decide to dedicate yourself to burlesque?

My dad was in the hospital. I was doing a model signing at Viva Las Vegas the next day, and I was also hosting a pinup contest at Blush. I brought my pictures to show him— most people might think that’s a little odd, but he was always very proud of what I did. He sat me down on his hospital bed and said, “I really think you should pursue burlesque.” I started laughing, and I said, “Did you tell mom that

one?” And he’s like, “Honestly, you’ve done everything with class and elegance, and there’s nothing wrong with it. I think you really should pursue it. It makes you happy.” The next morning my dad passed away. He had told me: “Promise me next year you’ll be up on the stage at Viva doing the burlesque contest.” And I thought, “God, you’re crazy. That takes a lot of time and effort.” But after he passed away, I was absolutely determined. On the frst day of voting at Viva Las Vegas, I beat everybody by 100 votes. [I advanced and eventually] came in second. Which classic burlesque stars inspire you?

I love Shannon Doah. I’ve been able to perform and share the stage with her. That was a dream come true. The legends—they have so many stories and to talk to them is amazing. They defnitely paved the way for the women who are coming up now. Tatiana clothing did a line a couple years ago for Tempest Storm, and I was selected to represent her. I didn’t know that until they put a camera in my face and were trying to interview me with half my curlers and half my makeup: “How does it feel to represent Tempest Storm?” And I about passed out. “Um, I’m just fnding this out now? I’ll let you know in about 30 seconds when I can process everything. But … it feels amazing.” Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of places here that do burlesque …

I really wish that there was an authentic burlesque show in town. Most of what is called burlesque on the Strip—it’s more of a topless revue. Unfortunately there’s not a genuine classic burlesque show: There are little shows in bars, but it is time for Las Vegas to bring something classic in that form now. Everything else has been revived in this town. So, what comes after burlesque?

I’m trying to get into a chef program to do stuff with celiac food because unfortunately most of it tastes like shit. I cook Italian food like nobody’s business. Two years ago for Christmas, I made eggplant parmigiana, lasagna, and we did a whole huge Italian meal. And my mother’s uncle and her cousin came—they’re from New York—and they’re like, “Where the hell did you learn to cook like this? My God, girl, you cook like an authentic Italian! It’s a shame you can’t eat this.” And I sat down and I started eating and I said, “I can. It’s gluten free, too.” I have a lot of knowledge about food and beverage—when I hang up the dance shoes, that might be somewhere I might eventually go.

PHOTO BY HOLLY WEST

➜ MS. REDD HAS NEVER BEEN

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NIGHTLIFE

Steve Aoki will blow out the candles Nov. 21 at Hakkasan.

cake-slinging DJ and performer known for throwing some of the best bashes around the world. He employs state-of-the-art production elements— such as his long-running enlistment of Kryoman, the LED cryo-shooting robot—and always goes all out to give his audience the time of their lives. Aoki returns to Hakkasan on November 19, and will celebrate his birthday with another show there on November 21. We asked Aoki, how does a man known for throwing parties celebrate his own birthday?

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

What have been your best birthdays?

I spend my birthday in different places all around the world because I’m always touring. If I’m in America, I’ll have a birthday party on the day and I’ll have a birthday week celebration. I’ll do parties in Miami and Las Vegas, wherever I’m playing. I’m the guy who brings the cake out at the shows. It’s ftting to throw a nice little birthday party. We made birthday T-shirts at Hakkasan, like, two years ago, which was really cool. We gave them out at the shows. I had a birthday party at Dim Mak Studios, this really small club I used to own in Hollywood. Steve

Let Him Throw Cake

How fitting is it that Steve Aoki’s birthday is coming up? By Kat Boehrer Angello and I played. His birthday is [about a week] before mine, and we did a back-to-back set. What’s the best birthday present you’ve ever received?

DJ AM gave me a brand-new laptop. My laptop had been destroyed by Champagne and all that stuff. Back then, in 2008, when he hooked me up, we were playing everywhere. People were always around you. It’s not like you were high up onstage. It was probably the most expensive gift I’ve received from a friend. It was a big deal, because he was not only one of my

best friends, but he’s someone I really looked up to. I’ll never forget that. What present do you want most this year?

It’s not about physical things for me. What I’m excited about is just the experiences. Just being able to spend more time with people I care about, whether it’s family or friends. That’s what I look forward to the most. What’s the coolest present you’ve ever gotten someone else for their birthday?

The best presents are the ones that you really put some time into instead of just going to a store and buying things. Back

in the day, I used to make mix tapes, like, proper mix tapes. Cassette mix tapes. That was my gift to my family. I made my dad two mix tapes: one of stuff that I was listening to at the time, so he could hear what I liked, and then one of old rock ‘n’ roll music from his childhood. What kind of music were you listening to at the time?

When I was 14, I was listening to a lot of straight-edge hardcore; I was a straight-edge kid. It was all screaming, and these bands singing about unity and brotherhood. Things like that. [Or] rock ’n’ roll—the Beatles, Rolling Stones, that kind of stuff. What flavor birthday cake are you going to get this year?

I have no idea, but my favorite favor is strawberry shortcake. As girly as that sounds, it’s my favorite cake for eating. [But] for throwing, any cake that’s really, really soft and has lots of frosting and colors. The more colorful frosting, the better. Then your cake face is white, green, yellow and red … I’ve gotten a close look at some of those cakes that you throw, and they’re massive.

Yeah, they’re good cakes.

PHOTO BY AL POWERS/POWERS IMAGERY

➜ YOU KNOW STEVE AOKI. He’s the

NIGHTLIFE

PARTIES

SAYERS CLUB SLS

[ UPCOMING ]

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com

PHOTOS BY THOMS TRAN

November 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Nov. 12 White Label Thursdays with Dre Dae Nov. 13 In The Valley Below performs Nov. 18 The Polyphonic Spree performs

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

A Taste of Pawn Plaza Sampling the offerings at Rick Harrison’s new mini container park By Al Mancini

PAGE 44

➜ TELEVISION IS A FICKLE GAME.

So when you get a hit show, especially a hit cable show, the smart thing to do is exploit it for all it’s worth. That’s the line of thinking that brought us Honey Boo Boo talking keychains and Duck Dynasty Chia Pet beards. Fortunately, Pawn Stars’ Rick Harrison has done something a bit more significant with his fame by building the new Pawn Plaza adjacent to his Gold & Silver Pawn shop. The two-story complex is set up like a small version of Downtown Container Park, made up of small multicolor boxes that hold each establishment. The restaurants are located on the frst foor, and since most are too small to dine in, there’s an outdoor courtyard with tables and chairs. The largest of the dining spaces, Rick’s Rollin’ Smoke Barbeque, also operates a bar on the second foor, where you can enjoy food from any place within the plaza. I recently took a tour and sampled a few bites from each spot. The frst thing any health-conscious eater will notice about Pawn Plaza is there’s virtually nothing available that’s good for you. I’m not suggesting the food isn’t high quality. It’s just that you won’t fnd anything remotely reminiscent of a salad or a vegetable juice anywhere. But if you’ve seen the way the guys eat on the TV show, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. First up on my tour was Inna Gadda di Pizza, a nod to the classic Iron Butterfy song. The spot is run by 34th Floor Hospitality’s Ralph Cautela, who entered the restaurant business on the East Coast as a dishwasher before working his way up to pizza chef. Later, as the opening director of food and beverage at the Cosmopolitan, Cautela brought his East Coast spin on pizza to the so-called Secret Pizza shop. And he’s doing the same again here. The dough, the thickness of the crust and the cheese-to-sauce ratio are pure Big Apple street pie ($3/slice plus $.50 per topping), and the homemade meatballs make a great accompaniment. Right next door is Smoke’s Poutinerie, a Canadian chain that recently began expanding in the States. As the name indicates, it specializes in the classic Canadian comfort food poutine. The menu features more than two dozen varieties, which I’m sure some will appreciate, but are part of a growing trend that prompted the Vegas Seven dining team to include “Imposter Poutine” in the We’re Sooo Over It category in our recent Restaurant Awards issue. I stuck with the traditional recipe: fries, gravy and cheese curds ($5-$11), which was delicious in its simplicity.

VegasSeven.com

Former East Coaster Ralph Cautela still has a way with pies.

PROFILE

Restaurant reviews, news and what’s Guy Fieri up to?

November 12–18, 2015

DINING

Duran’s was a meteoric rise, but after four years at Wynn, he was already anxious to take the next step.

DINING November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Clockwise from top: Ribs at Rick’s Rollin’ Smoke, Panda doughnuts at Pawn Donut & Coffee and open seating for all.

The aforementioned Rick’s Rollin’ Smoke Barbeque & Tavern is a spinoff of the Rollin’ Smoke on Highland Drive, just with the new landlord’s name tacked onto the marquee. The new spot doesn’t offer some of the original’s more extravagant offerings, such as the ridiculously over-the-top Outlaw Burger. Instead, the Downtown location concentrates on smoked meats, served alone, on sandwiches and in classic bar foods. I sampled the spare ribs ($19 or $32), beef hot links ($14), sliced brisket ($15) and chopped brisket point ($15), all of which were wonderfully spicy. To chef/owner John Holland’s credit, the amount of sauce applied to the ribs has been reduced, so you

can actually taste that smoke. Only the brisket points were heavily seasoned with a lot of sauce and a peppery rub, but that served as a nice counterbalance to the others. I’ve frequently listed Rollin’ Smoke as one of Las Vegas’ top barbecue joints, and the new location (which offers a 20 percent discount to locals) is just as good. For dessert, Pawn Plaza offers a pair of spots dedicated exclusively to sweets (as well as some nice cannoli at the pizza place). The frst is the latest addition to the Rita’s Italian Ice chain. If you’re unfamiliar with the menu, it offers a take on Italian ice that tastes closer to sorbet than that which I remember from my youth, as well as frozen custard.

Scoops come in various favors and combinations. I had what they call gelati—not a proper gelato, but rather a combination of mango ice and vanilla custard. It was a great notion with the smooth, sweet soft-serve mellowing the bite of the mango. For baked goods, check out Pawn Donut & Coffee. The offerings change daily, but on my visit, I got a kick out of a panda Boston cream doughnut ($2.25), which used icing and Oreos to replicate a panda face—as cute as it was satisfying. Pawn Plaza brings a nice selection of dining options to a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard that has long been lacking. Just don’t try to haggle with Rick and his crew over prices. Everything is clearly marked.

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.

Just because it’s fall doesn’t mean your only options at the end of the meal have to be pumpkin spiced or apple-flavored. When you need another type of sweet on your palate, head to the original Border Grill (in Mandalay Bay, 702-632-7403, MandalayBay.com) for its new dessert menu. Mexican classics get seasonal touches, such as tres leches cake with homemade condensed milk and huckleberry sauce, and raspberry meringue, or original creations, including an ice cream sandwich of cinnamon-dusted churros filled with salted cajeta—a milky caramel flavor—ice cream. For purists, there’s arroz con leche, a creamy, silky rice pudding served with fruit and puffed rice. Meanwhile, just down the hall at StripSteak, Glenfiddich hosts a Scotch dinner (7 p.m., $125, in Mandalay Bay, 702-6327200) on December 1, featuring four courses of the word’s most awarded single malt whisky, all paired with dishes from executive chef Gerald Chin. When I chatted with Chin in advance of his being named the best chef on the Strip by Vegas Seven, he emphasized that while he’s running a steakhouse, he’s still incorporating the fun stuff, some of which you’d get to try at this dinner. It opens with the Instant Bacon, a slab of pork belly that arrives under a cloche of smoke. The steak is still the star, served in the third course of Creekstone prime strip steak with twicebaked Maytag blue cheese soufflé. I can’t think of a better way to sample some of the reasons behind the award. Say what you will about Guy Fieri—about his spiky, bleach blond hair, his exuberant personality, his over-the-top dishes of the Guy-Talian Fondue Dippers and bacon macn-cheese burger—the guy knows how to get our attention. Which we assume is exactly the point of naming his new restaurant Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borracho. If your Spanish is rusty, el burro borracho translates to the drunk donkey, which harkens back to Fieri’s oft-maligned condiment, Donkey Sauce. The new spot, set to open early next year at Rio, will be the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host’s take on Mexican fare done with Fieri’s signature flair: Crispy Mahi Mahi Juan Tacos, Flaming Queso Fundido and Drunken Fish Tacos (we’re starting to think that Fieri’s animal mascots might have a drinking problem). The restaurant will be located next to VooDoo Beach Pool for optimum party atmosphere, but upscale enough to enhance dishes such as street tacos, tortas, enchiladas and burritos. And thus the Mayor of Flavortown expands his empire. 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.

PHOTOS BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

PUMPKIN-FREE DESSERTS, SCOTCH WITH YOUR STEAK AND GUY FIERI’S DRUNK ASS

Life in the Fast Lane David Duran reflects on his wild ride in the restaurant world By Al Mancini

is standing on one of the highest rungs of Las Vegas’ food and beverage ladder. As director of restaurants for the Cosmopolitan, he oversees all of the resortmanaged restaurants, in-room dining and pool service, and interacts with its stellar team of celebrity chefs. Duran is a thirdgeneration restaurateur who, at the age of 10 began working weekends in his father’s restaurant, El Burrito West on Decatur Boulevard and Washington Avenue. At the age of 17, he jumped into the fne dining world, convincing his sister’s boyfriend to offer him a job as a busboy at the awardwinning Renoir in The Mirage. Four years later, when he turned 21, Duran was promoted to the lofty post of captain. Going from a family-run Mexican joint to a fve-star restaurant was an eye-opener for the young man, exposing him to elements of the dining experience he’d never before encountered. “The frst thing was the canapés we dropped for every guest,” he recalls. “It was panisse with salmon rillettes, and I think it took a week before I was even comfortable saying those words. And sweetbreads, I’d never heard of in my life.” Yet Duran became fascinated with the fne dining scene. When Renoir closed in 2004, he followed executive chef Alex Stratta to open the chef’s namesake restaurant Alex in Wynn. “That experience was completely different. You had this grandiose room with the staircase. I remember the frst time I walked in there, just being in awe in comparison [to Renoir]. But it was a great team. It was a much bigger team with twice the staff and twice the number of seats.” Duran’s was a meteoric rise, but after four years at Wynn, he was already anxious to take the next step. He approached Stratta about an open management position at Alex. Instead, he was offered an assistant manager job at the chef’s more casual Italian restaurant, Stratta, where he was later promoted to general manager. After accumulating two years of management experience, he re-entered fne dining as general manager of Michael Mina’s American Fish. But just three months later, he again felt the itch to expand his horizons. “I was to the point that I didn’t feel that I was still challenging myself as much as I could.” So when the Cosmopolitan posted an opening for the director of restaurants position in 2012, Duran reached out to some old friends in the company and landed the gig. Duran’s responsibilities have evolved, as has the resort and its restaurant program. There are plans to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the modern Japanese restaurant chain Zuma, and Tao Group’s impending Beauty & Essex will replace Comme Ça in the P3 Commons restaurant row. All of this comes at a time when many are wondering if the Cosmopolitan can retain its reputation as Las Vegas’ “cool” casino. Duran feels confdent it can. “That draw is still there, and that excitement is still there. What we’re doing is realizing we have an opportunity to refresh and stay relevant.” If he pulls that off, Las Vegas will just have to wait and see what’s next.

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

DINING

➜ AT JUST 33 YEARS OLD, DAVID DURAN

DRINKING

House of Spirits

Back Bar USA President Tim Haughinberry has a brand-new 8,000-square-foot playhouse, and he knows exactly how to use it

VegasSeven.com

expanded and later quietly grounded his own spirit company, Montecristo Rum. He had even purchased Henderson’s Gold Mine Tavern in 2007, which he still owns. By then it was clear that where Haughinberry succeeds the most is in the intangible, with relationships. When he saw the need for a trustworthy third-party marketing frm, he flled it by parlaying all his marketable skills into Back Bar USA—at frst working from his Montecristo partners Robert and Michael Frey’s offces, and later from another small warehouse. But with 21 full-time employees and more than 200 promo models, bartenders and other part-time staff, Haughinberry knew 2015 was the time for a change of venue. Something else that has changed: Haughinberry has created a fourth tier, one that produces signature Back Bar USA events. It started with the company’s own 2013 holiday party, where Haughinberry was praised for being able to bring the disparate corners of the industry together for a common cause, then took off with Las Vegas Invades Tales of the Cocktail in 2014 and July’s Beer & Barrel Project at Mandalay Bay. But come 2016, Haughinberry’s full attention will be on the third annual For the Love of Cocktails, Back Bar’s burgeoning cocktail week that benefts Tony Abou-Ganim’s Helen David Relief Fund (Feb. 1214, ForTheLoveOfCocktails.com). “This year we got the United States Bartenders’ Guild involved, the Downtown Project, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts ...” Haughinberry says. Little had he known back when he was just starting out that someday he would rattle off such an august list of collaborators. He might not have believed it at the time. “When that Southern sales position came along, it was an accumulation of everything I was good at. I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” he says. “That was just another stepping stone. I don’t know where we’re gonna end up, but this is just another stepping stone to something else.”

➜ TIM HAUGHINBERRY looks entirely at home in his new offce. A former antique car garage on Western Avenue has been transformed into his company’s national headquarters, complete with attractive, modern cubicles, ample warehouse space, a burgeoning art collection and an impressive glass-enclosed conference room. But Haughinberry isn’t selling timeshares, insurance or homesecurity systems from these new digs. In a word, Back Bar USA sells experiences. And specifcally branded experiences, via three divisions: one that establishes and manages corporate beverage programs, another that creates meaningful branded events, and a third that creates, staffs and fully executes turnkey promotions. “We did 4,000 tasting activations last year just in the State of Nevada,” Haughinberry says. But don’t look for Back Bar’s name on those: “Sometimes you don’t even know that Back Bar is there. It’s our job to represent the brand.” What Back Bar’s three tiers have in common is liquor, so the chic new HQ—all 8,000 square feet of it—therefore features a fully equipped kitchen for massive cocktail batching exploits and the frst commercially available Tobin Ellis Signature Cocktail Station by Perlick (which will soon be manned by Las Vegas’ frst “barceptionist”). And that conference room table? It breaks up into banquet tables for special events. Narrow desks for bartending demonstrations are stored in the warehouse. This is the house that ‘party’ built. Haughinberry founded Back Bar USA in 2008, at a time in Las Vegas when trust was at an all time low. The Pure Management Group offces had just been raided by the IRS. Casinos and liquor brands were being fned for pay-for-play schemes. Haughinberry—a former bartender-turned-liquor salesman for Southern Wine & Spirits—knew the ins and out of the business: He had attended UNLV for a while in the 1980s, gotten his sommelier certifcate and, in 2001, launched,

November 12–18, 2015

PHOTO BY KRYSTAL RAMIREZ

By Xania Woodman

4TH ANNUAL

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6PM TO 10PM SPONSORED BY

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themobmuseum.org Steps from Fremont Street | Downtown Las Vegas 300 Stewart Ave | 702.229.2734

Why keep the mix tape alive in the era of Spotify playlists? An old-school music geek makes a case By Geoff Carter

➜ I DON’T PURCHASE MUSIC the way I used to. By that, I mean that the process has become fairly complicated; it’s no longer as easy as heading to Tower, Virgin, Odyssey or some other music retailer and snatching up an armload of CDs based on what I’d recently heard on the radio. For starters, Tower, Virgin and Odyssey no longer exist. Compact discs are still around, but in an era where you can simply download music fles—and at a more favorable compression rate than you’ll get on the average CD—there’s little point to buying them. And to paraphrase The Ataris, (most) radio still sucks.

So I’ve developed something of a tiered approach to acquiring new music. I read the music coverage of websites such as A.V. Club, Consequence of Sound and Pitchfork, and they tell me whom I should be checking out. I fnd those new artists via Spotify, which I regard as a kind of programmable radio. (I also listen to several streaming independent radio stations; Los Angeles’ Indie 103.1, Seattle’s KEXP and Las Vegas’ own Neon Reverb Radio are my favorites.) If I like a song enough to buy it, I put it to a value test: Is the rest of the album good enough to own? If so, I buy it on vinyl LP; while I’m not the strictest of

Mixed Emotions

audiophiles, I side with those who insist that nothing sounds better than a vinyl record, and besides, they fat-out look better on a shelf. (Most new vinyl LPs come with a free digital download, so I can have that record in my iTunes anyway.) And if I don’t like an entire album, I buy the songs individually through iTunes or Bandcamp. And then, once I have all that music in a place where I can manipulate it, I make a mix tape. That’s the one thing that hasn’t changed in the way I listen to music, even as everything else has changed around it. Nothing beats a personalized compilation of songs—a personal soundtrack no radio station could ever give you. Despite the name, a mix tape doesn’t necessarily have to be a cassette, or even a recordable CD. A mix tape, for the purposes of this discussion, is merely a 60- to 90-minute compilation of unrelated songs that’s made by you, or by someone who’s trying to get into your pants and fgured, well, this plus some fowers and shit should do it. (I’m not talking about the related practice, currently in vogue among hip hop artists, of releasing a collection of new, non-album cuts online and calling it a “mixtape,” without a space between the words. Though I like those, too.)

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Movies, music, television and Dr. Gonzo

November 12–18, 2015

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| November 12–18, 2015

Poet and essayist Geoffrey O’Brien called mix tapes “the most widely practiced American art form.” I’d venture that most everyone has made a mix tape. The ritual is so ingrained in us that it has often featured prominently in our pop culture: both the books and flms of High Fidelity and The Perks of Being a Wallfower have featured mix tapes as tools of selfactualization. And the hero of the Marvel space adventure Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Lord, actually weaponized his mix tape: He used it as a distraction that helped him and his friends to defeat a galactic tyrant. Try doing that with something as dull and safe as broadcast radio. Mix tapes are a kind of personal storytelling. They’re the literal soundtrack to your life—your most beloved songs, sequenced in such a way as to manipulate someone else’s emotions—or, more likely, your own. You can make them when you’re in love, or when you’re heartbroken. You can make them to impress friends with how much of a music snob you are. You can make them for road trips or international fights; you can bring them to the beaches of Ibiza or to the gates of Dollywood. Mix tapes are the souvenirs you get before you embark on an adventure. Years after the fact, you can pop a good one into the stereo and remember everything that went with that assortment of songs—the sights, the sounds, the tastes. Just talking about this foods my head with songs and memories. I can’t think of Kula Shaker’s “Mystical Machine Gun” or Underworld’s “Jumbo” without remembering how it felt to lie on the beaches of Southern Thailand, November 1999. The The’s “The Beaten Generation” and Hunters & Collectors’ “Back on the Breadline” remind me of driving a moving van to Las Vegas in October 1989. And because these songs segued into each other on their respective mix tapes, I can’t hear one without thinking of the other. Every song on a mix tape is a link in a chain of memories. I’ve been making mix tapes since 1985, on cassettes, recordable CDs and now MP3s. I have a goddamned tradition to uphold; the latest volume of my chillout compilation series, which I began in 2004 as a tool for calming my nerves after a day of work at the Seattle Times, breaks this winter. Volume 14 of the Anime for Commuters series is something I’m taking very seriously; I’ll probably revise the fnal playlist a dozen times and spend hours messing with individual tracks in Audacity—adjusting volume levels, editing songs for length— before I share the mix with my friends. If you’ve never made one, you’re missing out on something greater than cutting a bunch of songs together. You’re denying yourself the full beneft of what music has to offer. And as we get deeper into the Spotify playlist era, I worry that our music listening will become less exciting, less adventurous. We’ll lose some of our ability to take that song and make it our song. The reason I don’t simply make a streaming service playlist and send it to friends is because those services are de-

A FEW TIPS ON MAKING A MIX TAPE

FOSSILZED MIX TAPE

Experts have dated this find, now buried at the corner of Charleston and 10th Street, to the late Spice Girls period.

Mix tapes are a kind of personal storytelling. You can make them when you’re in love, or heartbroken. They’re good for road trips or international flights. You can bring them to Ibiza or to the gates of Dollywood. signed to be impersonal. Spotify and its like reduce music to math: If you like listening to bands A and B, then surely you’ll like band C, and we’ll keep pushing C on you until you love it. It doesn’t take into account how you might feel about a certain song when you’re listening to it at your desk at work versus when you’re drifting in and out of sleep on a sunny beach. There are other, more practical reasons a Spotify playlist won’t work for me, among them an acute lack of choice. Many of the artists I’ve included in the Commuters series are missing entire albums from their Spotify libraries because of licensing issues. (Plaid and DeVotchKa are good examples of this.) Some have pulled much of their music from the service to protest the trifing royalties the service pays out, as Thom Yorke has done. Others barely appear on the service at all, as is the case with Yoko Kanno, the Japanese composer whose music inspired the Commuters series in the frst place. A Spotify playlist is too easy to change. Over time, you might get sick to death of “Hotline Bling,” and you’ll purge it from a favorite playlist—perhaps oblivious to the fact that you just edited away a telling piece of your own narrative. Mix tapes are photographs of where we are at a point in our lives, and like pictures, they are locked and permanent. We may not like the faces we see around us in those old snapshots, but photoshopping them out changes

our memories of the past. Mix tapes help to remind us who we were, so we can be more certain of who we are now. Also, I’m annoyed that streaming services offer no good way to tailor our music listening to our complete liking. If a song has an extended ending that we’d rather fade out, or a dumb spokenword intro we’d rather do without, tough shit; Spotify gives you the songs the way everyone else hears them. That is to say, when they can give them to you at all: It only takes one Taylor Swift making a wholly justifed noise about artist compensation, and suddenly, every Prince album is pulled from Spotify, rendering your “Netfix and Chill Jams Vol. 1” playlist largely inert. I’ll readily admit Spotify is a decent tool for fnding music both new and old. Using it has actually made my mixes better; it has allowed me to fnd music I might never have discovered before now. But by itself, it’s too cold and too unreliable an instrument to assemble something as nuanced and human as a mix tape. Yes, human. Mix tapes are a human art, an imperfect art. If you’re anything like me, some of the mix tapes you’ve made are kinda sucky. But they’re a genuine expression of your love for music, which is nothing if not personal. And every once in a while, you can make a mix tape that helps you to get over a breakup, or that calms your nerves on the commute home. You, too, can make a mix tape that saves the galaxy.

First, get your sequence down; consider how your songs relate to each other, and try to arrange them into emotional peaks and valleys. Pay attention to time: Even if you’re just making an MP3 mix, keep it within 90 minutes. Any longer than that and you risk losing thematic cohesion. (Plus, you’ll get tired of listening to it well before it’s done.) I generally keep my mixes to 80 minutes, in case someone would like for me to burn it to a CD. On the engineering side, watch your sound levels. Some tracks are louder and some are quieter; try to get them all into the same neighborhood, using a free program such as Audacity or the volume input controls on your cassette deck. (If you’re actually using a cassette deck—go, you!—be sure to wind the tape to the end of the leader, using a pencil or your pinky, before you hit record. Use every centimeter of tape available to you.) There are other rules you can follow: Don’t repeat artists, don’t use too much non-song dialogue, don’t fade out tracks. I have broken every one of these rules in making mix tapes, and I suggest you do, too. No art form was ever advanced by coloring within the lines, or by compiling songs from a list made by someone else.

A&E

Bad craziness abounds in Troy Little's illustrated Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Bats Nesting in the Pages

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas gets the graphic novel treatment By Lissa Townsend Rodgers

➜ MANY STORIES have been written about Sin City, but the platinum standard remains Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson’s “savage journey to the heart of the American dream” has been an enduring classic for more than 40 years, inspiring everything from a 1996 spoken-word album to a 1998 Terry Gilliam feature flm. Thompson’s story is about to get a little more … colorful. Artist Troy Little has created a graphic novel version of Fear and Loathing (IDW/Top Shelf Productions, $25), full of reptile hallucinations, red Cadillacs screeching down the Strip and, of course, Jefferson Airplane’s deathless “White Rabbit.” “It was an honor to do it,” Little says. Publishing house IDW secured the rights to Fear and Loathing several years ago but fnding the right artist to put pictures to Thompson’s words was a process. “When I frst got the pitch for it, I spent a couple of weeks not doing it because I was too intimidated,” Little says, adding,

“When I fnally was forced to send it in, I spent the night stomping around and cursing the project, thinking I wasn’t going to get it.” It was an approach much in rapport with Thompson himself, who was notorious for stomping, cursing and avoiding deadlines. The script of the graphic novel is taken directly from the book. “We wanted to keep true to the text,” Little says. He spent a year adapting the story to a new medium, and then drawing, lettering, inking and coloring. “It’s a great visual novel, there’s so much to draw from—pun-intended,” Little says. “There were some scenes I was really looking forward to drawing: The race across the desert at the beginning and the hotel scene with ‘White Rabbit’ in the bathtub.” Depicting the characters’ altered states of mind was also something that excited Little about the project: “You can melt the pages when they’re on acid. I have a couple of pages where you have to turn the book around while you’re reading it because all of

the text goes upside down. … I felt like if you played it straight—a realistic-looking comic book—it would kind of fall fat. It wouldn’t capture that energy.” Little will be going on a book tour, which will include his frst trip to Las Vegas. “I’m going about it totally bass-ackwards,” he says. “After drawing the book up in Canada, I’m going to go down to Vegas and see what it’s all about.” But how will he be getting to Las Vegas? “Gonzo road trip,” Little says. “We’re renting a red convertible and barreling through the desert.” Dr. Gonzo wouldn’t have it any other way.

BOOK TOUR APPEARANCES

4-7 p.m. Nov. 12, Maximum Comics No. 2, 520 Marks St. Suite 130, 702-242-6442, MaximumComics.com. Noon-3 p.m. Nov. 13, Maximum Comics No. 3, 7950 W. Tropical Pkwy, Suite 120, 702-722-6642, MaximumComics.com. 7-9 p.m. Nov. 13, Barnes & Noble, 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd., 702-631-1775, BarnesAndNoble.com/Store/2772. 9:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Nov. 13 (karaoke party), free, Flex Lounge, 4371 W. Charleston Blvd., 702-385-3539, FlexLasVegas.com.

Seven’s 14

This week’s must-see A&E events By I A N C A R A M A N Z A N A

FX’s terrific Fargo avoids the sophomore slump By M. Scott Krause

FARGO BY CHRIS L ARGE/FX; MAC MILLER BY BRICK STOWELL; L AFOURCADE COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; COLLECTIVE SOUL BY JOSEPH GUAY

➜ “WAITING FOR DUTCH,” the second-

season premiere of FX Networks’ miniseries Fargo, opened with a brilliant visual: jittery, black-and-white outtakes from Massacre at Sioux Falls, a fake MGM movie starring future President Ronald “Dutch” Reagan and a fictitious starlet named Betty LaPlage. Watching a young Hollywood director struggling to make entertainment out of a violent true story is actually a wonderful meta moment for Fargo fans. The gag works because Fargo pretends to be rooted in truth, but what Fargo series creator (and chief writer) Noah Hawley understands is that Fargo, like the 1996 Joel and Ethan Coen film that inspired the series, isn’t really about a particular city or crime, or even a specific point in time. It’s about those unplanned moments where good crashes into evil, horror collides with humor, and the simplest disagreements have fatal consequences. The threat of violence is everywhere—even in sleepy little towns where the people speak slowly and deliberately, dontcha know. Hawley briefly hinted at this season’s storyline in Fargo’s first season, when retired Minnesota state trooper Lou Solverson (Keith Carradine) recalled something from his past: “Had a case once, back in ’79. I’d tell you the details but it’d sound like I made ’em up. Madness really … I saw something that year I ain’t ever seen, before or since. I’d call it animal, except animals only kill for food.” Patrick Wilson plays the younger version of Solverson, recently returned from the Vietnam War. We know his young wife (Cristin Milioti) is slowly dying of cancer and their 4-year-old daughter, Molly, will grow up to be chief of the Bemidji Police Department and a central character in Fargo’s first season. And yes, we know that the grisly events to come will haunt Solverson forever and lead to his retirement from law enforcement. In addition to Solverson and his family, we meet the Gerhardt brothers: Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan), Bear (Angus Sampson) and Rye (Kieran Culkin). Their family motto is “Everybody earns” but Rye is having a difficult time. Hell, the whole Gerhardt family is having trouble with money. Their income from gambling, drugs and prostitution is down and when the Gerhardt patri-

arch suffers a debilitating stroke, it causes a power struggle between the Gerhardt boys and their mother (Jean Smart). With the Gerhardt empire in disarray, a Kansas City crime syndicate (led by Brad Garrett) decides to move in and claim their territory by force, if necessary. Then there’s Peggy Blomquist (Kirsten Dunst), who slams her car into a dimwitted criminal trying to flee the scene of a triple homicide he’s just committed at the Waffle Hut. Rather than report the accident, Peggy drives home with the body stuck in her windshield so she can get dinner on the table for her husband Ed (Jesse Plemons). The Blomquists are just regular folks (she’s a beautician, he works at a butcher shop) who eat Hamburger Helper, pray before meals, and endlessly echo “OK then.” Will there be serious repercussions from Peggy’s hit & run? You betcha. Fans of Fargo know the show’s best moments frequently hinge on rash decisions. Not everybody sins in Fargo, but everybody pays for their mistakes. Fargo spills a lot of blood but elicits just as many laughs. You want gruesome? One character is buried alive in asphalt, while another is fed into a meat grinder. All that, plus a triple homicide—and we’re still only a few episodes in. If the accents and period clothing don’t put a smile on your face, Bokeem Woodbine’s portrayal of Kansas City baddie Mike Milligan will. Woodbine steals every scene he’s in, just like Billy Bob Thornton’s creepy Lorne Malvo. Based on the strength of Hawley’s writing and the show’s superb production values (particularly the wonderful cinematography and split-screen editing), I have a strong feeling this season of Fargo will be a likely contender for a second Best Miniseries Emmy. Sure, some fans will wait another two months and binge-watch the whole season on demand, but Fargo is a show worth savoring. Pretend it really is 1979, limit yourself to an episode a week, and let the series get under your skin. Fargo’s second season airs Monday nights at 10 p.m on FX. Individual episodes and season passes are available at Amazon and on iTunes. The show’s first season is available for streaming on Hulu.

God Lives in Glass The city’s hottest entertainers come together to raise money for The Smith Center’s education and outreach programs. $19, The Smith Center, 3 p.m. 702-7492000; TheSmithCenter.com.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 Wild & Scenic Film Festival Experience nature’s wonders vicariously through feature films, such as the rock-climbing, mountain-biking-filled The Sufferfest. $15, Clark County Theater, 6:30 p.m., 702-5073400; LVCCLD.org. Village People Young man, this will be quite a show. I said, young man … $29, Gordie Brown Showroom in Golden Nugget, 8 p.m., 702-385-7111; GoldenNugget.com.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 Soul Men & Lady Soul Two quartets of opposite sexes join forces to give us a dose of Motown/soul goodness. $37, The Smith Center, 7 p.m., 702-7492000; TheSmithCenter.com. Sarah Colonna The comedian, author, writer and TV star brings her budding humor to the Venetian’s Lipschtick comedy series. $40, Sands Showroom at the Venetian, 9:30 p.m., 702414-9000; Venetian.com.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16 Twin River with Holes and Hearts Vancouver garage pop meets local alternative rock; shenanigans ensue. Free, Beauty Bar, 8 p.m., 702-598-3757; BeautyBarLV.com.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17 Mac Miller and Tory Lanez The Philly-bred rapper collaborates with one of Toronto’s underground. $33, Brooklyn Bowl, 6:35 p.m., 702862-2695; BrooklynBowl.com. Christopher Norment The author of Relics of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in A Desert World reads from his work. Free, the Writer’s Block, 7 p.m., 702-550-6399

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 Natalia Lafourcade Spend an evening with the three-time Latin Grammy Award-winning Mexican singer/songwriter. $25, Hard Rock Live, 8 p.m., 702-7337625; HardRock.com. American Voices The Las Vegas Academy Philharmonic Wind Ensemble & Chorus performs a variety of patriotic tunes, including a few from Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land. $20, The Smith Center, 7 p.m., 702-7492012; TheSmithCenter.com The Story So Far with Basement and Turnover Poppunk/emo for the macho crowd. We know you’re out there, tough-yet-sensitive guy. $13, Vinyl in Hard Rock Hotel, 7 p.m., 702693-5000, HardRock Hotel.com.

VegasSeven.com

GRAND GUIGNOL ON ICE

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15

Mister Wives This Sister Wives parody tells the story of a polyamorous matriarch’s quest to find a fourth husband. $20, Onyx Theatre, 8 p.m., 702-7327225; OnyxTheatre.com. Trial by Jury and The Beautiful Bridegroom Ten bucks for an opera doubleheader, brought to you by UNLV kids with good pipes. $10, Dr. Arturo Rando-Grillot Recital Hall in UNLV, 7:30 p.m., 702-8952787; UNLV.edu. Collective Soul “Listen” to the Atlanta alt-rockers “Shine.” $33, House of Blues, 7 p.m., 702632-7600; HouseOfBlues.com/ LasVegas.

[ VIDEOGRPAHY ]

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12

Mac Miller; Natalia Lafourcade; Collective Soul.

November 12–18, 2015

Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine, second from right) and the Kitchen Brothers face the music.

MOVIES

The cast of Love the Coopers plays along with a clichéd script.

BLAND TIDINGS Stereotypes and lazy storytelling sink Love the Coopers ➜ ONCE UPON A TIME, there was

a writer and editor who reviewed movies as part of his job at an alternative weekly magazine. As was the case with many such pop culture writers, his plate flled up as the holidays drew near; the major flm studios tend to release a lot of movies at the end of the year, from prestige flms to feature-length animation. And sometimes—not always, but often enough—these major studios release a Christmas-themed flm, in the hopes that it will become a “perennial”—a flm that families return to year after year. Such flms, including It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf, allow families to get into the spirit of a family holiday without actually having to talk to each other. The alternative magazine writer had seen more than his share of these holiday flms, from Home for the Holidays to Planes, Trains & Automobiles, before he was called to sit down in front of Love the Coopers, a flm directed by Fred Claus producer and writer Jessie Nelson. The writer didn’t expect much from it, because most Christmas flms don’t exactly set out to reinvent the genre. And to his astonishment, Love the Coopers fell short of even those diminished expectations. The writer sat dumbfounded for 106 minutes as he was subjected to every Hallmark Special cliché imaginable, including the well-meaning dad who doesn’t want his family to know he’d lost his job (Ed Helms); the doddering, senile aunt (June Squibb); the precocious toddler who’s just learned her frst cussword (Blake Baumgartner); and the sad, lonely man whose heart grows to three times its size (Anthony Mackie). Characters transform into their younger selves as they speak their hearts. An elderly relative is rushed to the hospital while a melancholy Sting song plays. And arguing couples actually say, “What happened to us?” It should be said that the writer is not a cold-hearted bastard. He has

cried rivers at various Disney flms. Like the late Roger Ebert, he is always touched when characters make deep personal sacrifces. He was more than willing to give Love the Coopers a chance to turn the spigot on his waterworks, but its characters sacrifce nothing. Some of them move from a place of selfshness to one of acceptance, but without a compelling reason to do so; they change only because the script demands that they do. A few of the actors, most notably Olivia Wilde and John Goodman, are able to negotiate that tight emotional turn; most others wipe out in the snowbanks. Luckily, Alan Arkin was on hand, and the writer can’t recall a time when Arkin has disappointed him. Arkin maintains that perfect record here. He glides around Love the Coopers’ clumsy dialogue as gracefully as an Olympic skater, and it’s only during his scenes with Helms and Amanda Seyfried that the flm feels more substantial than it is. If the writer hadn’t had Arkin to lean on, he might have been tempted to walk out during the scenes featuring celebrated Woody Allen apologist Diane Keaton, who gets caught acting more than any two other performers in the flm. There remains little more to tell, save for this: Love the Coopers has an annoying, omniscient narrator (Steve Martin). If a character fails to tell you what he’s thinking, the narrator steps in and tells you; sometimes, he tells you even after you’ve fgured out what a character is thinking, because screw you and your intuition. It goes a little something like this: “The writer stormed out of the screening, determined to give Love the Coopers the poor review it deserved.” Having spent some 600 words subjected to that patronizing storytelling device, you can only imagine how the writer felt as he left the theater, relieved that holiday movie season comes but once a year. Love the Coopers (PG-13) ★✩✩✩✩

PHOTO BY SUZANNE TENNER/CBS FILMS

By Geoff Carter

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The rumors about the company are obviously ill founded. It’s so ridiculous, I don’t even understand how or why anybody would have enough time to start circulating such ridiculous rumors. Unfortunately, we’re in a business that’s fueled by alcohol, and people want to be cool. The people who matter to me are the people in our company. They understand that rumors are just rubbish from jealous people who have nothing better to do. I look at those rumors like The Enquirer. What is the ownership structure?

Our headquarters, believe it or not, are in London. We report our fnancials in London. [Hakkasan Group] America is a subsidiary of the London company. The London company is owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates called Tasameem. Tasameem is a privately held company with shareholders that is not connected to any governmental institution. Does Hakkasan Group plan to get into the hotel business?

For me, as a tourist or even a business traveler, there’s nothing better than staying in a hotel where at the end of the day I can eat in a nice restaurant, have a drink at a nice bar, maybe have a later drink in the lounge and not have to leave [the property]. That’s been the mantra of our company for the past four years. We’ve sought to create a wide portfolio of assets, whether they be nightlife, daylife or restaurants. [It’s easy to imagine that we would] create our own hotel company, which is the long-term. We’re going to build in Dubai. That project is still in the design and development stage. Any truth about one of the MGM Grand towers becoming a Hakkasan Tower?

It was discussed at a high level. But we mutually decided that it wasn’t something that we could explore. More because of real estate issues—we were constrained as to what we could develop.

November 12–18, 2015

VegasSeven.com

With the acquisition of Light Group, you retained the restaurants but let Light and Daylight go. What happened?

Neil Mofftt

The Hakkasan Group CEO on gossip, the hotel business and those ever-inflating DJ paychecks By David Morris

The asset portfolio is exactly what it was prior to the acquisition with the exception of Light and Daylight. We try to maintain good relationships with our partners and investors. If we don’t feel that either side is 100 percent happy, the relationship is doomed to fail. There are quite a lot of employees over there, and both the investor group and we as managers did what was right for the employees and the venues. It was just a mutual separation that we felt was right for everybody, including ourselves. Are DJs fees getting too excessive?

DJ fees are very subjective. We are fs-

cally responsible with our analytics. Every booking that we ever make is analyzed. We know how many people we need to [bring in], what table revenues we need to drive, how many tickets we need to sell and what the average spend needs to be for it to work for us. If [our] analysts tell us it doesn’t work, that we’re not going to make money, then we wouldn’t do it. If the analysts say, “Take Calvin [Harris] every day that you can, because the margin is so great and you’ll generate so much money,” then I’ll take that deal. How has Omnia’s opening affected the rest of your business?

Fundamentally, we have a little bit of an advantage, because we know what we’re doing at Hakkasan and we know what we’re doing at Omnia. In 2016, I can assure you that nobody other than myself and two or three other people know what DJs are playing where, so we don’t program against ourselves. Clearly, if you have a superstar DJ in one venue and you have a superstar DJ in another, and our competitors have a superstar DJ, then that will split the crowd. People will be pretty shocked with our programming [at Jewel]. Has Hakkasan Group grown too quickly?

In a perfect world, it would have been nicer to be a little bit slower with our growth. When unique opportunities come along, you either have to take them or the opportunity passes you by. Sometimes these kinds of acquisitions are forced on you. The investment in [Los Angeles-based] h.Wood Group has been a fantastic relationship for us. We’re very happy with that. Obviously, there was the Light Group acquisition, which created a lot of noise in Vegas. Morgan’s Hotels did not want to be in that business any longer, and had we not bought it, somebody else would have bought it. You’re always going to face challenges with that kind of acquisition. Here we are now, several months on from that and I believe we’ve done a good job of integration. There are some great projects coming along. We are opening up Herringbone in City Center, which is an extension of the restaurant in La Jolla. We just recently opened a Herringbone in Santa Monica, which is doing fantastically well for us. Then, obviously, on top of that, Jewel comes [to Aria] in the spring. Our relationship with MGM [Resorts International] is in a really good place, and the rejuvenation of CityCenter makes the timing perfect for these investments. ... That’s the beauty of Hakkasan Group: While we are very passionate about Las Vegas, it makes me very proud to be part of this global hospitality company. To be the head of that global hospitality company is challenging, but it’s a challenge I’m willing to accept. What are Hakkasan’s plans for 2016 and 2017? Read the full interview at VegasSeven/NeilMoffitt.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HAKK ASAN GROUP

SEVEN QUESTIONS

There has been a lot of recent gossip about you and Hakkasan Group’s ownership structure and acquisitions. How do you deal with it?