Jill Scott
SEVEN NIGHTS WHAT TO DO AFTER DARK By Ian Caramanzana
THURSDAY 3
At the end of this month, it will be three years since Paul Walker passed away. The actor is most famous for portraying Brian O’Conner, the fearless but cheeky cop-turned-street-racer in The Fast and the Furious, a role he reprised in six of the seven films that followed it. And rumor has it, that Walker will somehow appear in the forthcoming installment, Fast and Furious 8. (Isn’t technology amazing?) If you’re still looking to get a fix of the piston-pumpin’, gasolineburnin’ action, you can venture to the annual SEMA auto convention during the day and hit the official afterparty at Tao. There, you can mix and mingle with other speed demons and witness a performance by Los Angeles singer and rapper Ty Dolla Sign, known for his smooth yet gruff vocals on dance-floor anthems such as “Paranoid” and “Blasé.” Enjoy complimentary admission with your SEMA badge. And if you’re itching for more rides, you can scope the parking lot. (In the Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.)
FRIDAY 4
Welcome to the weekend! Get a double shot of soul to keep those good vibes in check. The Soul Train Music Festival takes to the Mandalay Bay Events Center with performances by Tyrese, Jill Scott and Anthony Hamilton. Each is a superstar in his and her own right: Tyrese is a Grammy-nominated singer, actor and producer; Jill Scott has her hands in singing, acting and poetry; and Anthony Hamilton’s Comin’ From Where I’m From went platinum and took home a Grammy. Attending the concert is a ticket to witness greatness. Get down when Tyrese performs “Pullin’ Me Back,” or when Scott launches into the smooth sulk of “A Long Walk.” It’ll do you good before the weekend’s craziness. (In Mandalay Bay, 8 p.m., BET.com/Soul-Train-Weekend.)
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SATURDAY 5
Duke Dumont (right) and Protomartyr
Steve Aoki is undoubtedly one of the most successful DJs in the world, but while he’s embraced fame, his life is certainly not without its challenges. Growing up in the suburbs of Newport Beach, California, Aoki struggled with a lack of Asian peers, which led to bullying and his classmates throwing around racial slurs. Some of the incidents led to brutal scuffles, but thanks to the guidance of his mother, Aoki learned to shrug the haters off in nonviolent ways. He’s come a long way, so celebrate with the “How Else” hitmaker when he mans the decks at Hakkasan. (In MGM Grand, 10:30 p.m., HakkasanLV.com.)
SUNDAY 6
If there’s one thing we can look forward to on Sundays besides football or church, it’s '- )UDQ]HQ·V weekly party, 6XQGUDL·V. The event features a hip-hop-heavy set by the San Francisco native and Hot 97.5-FM DJ, and given its consistency over the years, it’s sure to be a winner. Expect to hear the hottest radio hits as well as the occasional throwback. (In The Cromwell, 10:30 p.m., DraisNightlife.com.)
MONDAY 7
If you’re in search of more variety, venture to the Double Down Saloon for a set by the Bargain DJ Collective. Led by the inimitable DJ Rex Dart, the group will spin “punk, funk and junk,” which should be a welcome change to shake up your party regimen. Don’t be surprised if Dart and company fuse James Brown or CHIC with cuts by the Ramones or the Exploited. It’s expected. (4640 Paradise Rd., 10 p.m., DoubleDownSaloon.com.)
TUESDAY 8
Feelin’ sluggish after an unproductive Monday? Give your ears a beating with the pulverizing post-punk of Protomartyr at Bunkhouse Saloon. Over the summer, the Detroit quartet released a new song as part of Adult Swim’s singles collection. “Born to be Whine” is an eerie slow burner inspired, frontman Joe Casey says, by “louche, elder rockers confined to man caves and a list of fearsome things that were ruminated on during a particularly dire phone interview.” Take a listen and you’ll find it adequately reflects the lyrical content. Hear it tonight, alongside other bone-rattling, bass-thumping tunes such as “Dope Cloud” and “Come & See.” (124 S. 11th St., 10 p.m., BunkhouseDowntown.com.)
WEDNESDAY 9
Now give your ears a rest by indulging in the smooth, melodic tunes of Adam George Dyment, a.k.a. Duke Dumont. The English house heathen was recently in the news after he cut his performance short and stormed offstage at Edmonton, Canada’s Union Hall in September when a member of the crowd continuously spit and spilled drinks on his mixer. “I know you guys paid a lot of money, but I don’t get paid enough to get spat on,” he said. We’ve got to hand it to the guy for putting self-respect first, having dignity and still being able to address his fans despite the circumstances. Nevertheless, Dumont blessed us with two new funky, groovy tunes, “Be Here” and “Worship.” Give back at Surrender. (In Encore, 10:30 p.m., SurrenderNightclub.com.)
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Balmain Paris sweatpants Neiman Marcus in Fashion Show, NeimanMarcus.com; TheFashionShow.com. Title Boxing gloves and shoes TitleBoxing.com
IN THIS CORNER ...
JESSIE VARGAS By Mike Grimala
Photography Anthony Mair
Styling Kris Kass Kris-Kass.SquareSpace.com. Styling Assistant Garen Alvarez. Makeup Natasha Chamberlin NatashaChamberlin.com using MAC Cosmetics. Location City Boxing Club CityAthleticBoxing.com Thank you Armin Van Damme
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This page: Hood by Air top Barneys New York in Grand Canal Shoppes, Barneys.com; GrandCanalShoppes. com. G-Star RAW denim G-Star Raw in Fashion Show, G-Star. com; TheFashionShow. com. Vans shoes Vans in Fashion Show, Vans.com; TheFashionShow.com Opposite page: Vargas holding the WBO belt wearing Title Boxing shorts and shoes TitleBoxing.com
THE DETAILS City Boxing Club/City Athletic Boxing is the official training camp of Jessie Vargas, offering adult classes, private training and youth instruction. 3401 Sammy Davis Jr. Dr., 7980 W. Sahara Ave.; CityAthleticBoxing.com; CityBoxing.Club.
Jessie Vargas
remembers his first good deed.
I
was 5 years old,” he says. “We were in school and someone broke a clipboard and nobody knew who it was. The teacher said if no one was going to come forward and accept responsibility for the damage, no one was going to recess. And no one came forward for like five minutes. And I’m saying to myself, ‘Why is everyone being punished for one person?’ So I said it was me.” “It was the dumbest thing I could have done,” he says with a laugh. But he doesn’t really mean it. Now 27, Vargas has become a championship boxer, but he hasn’t changed much since that first act of altruism. In a sport where no one wants to be labeled a “nice guy,” Vargas has compiled a 27-1 record with 10 knockouts (and two world titles) without sacrificing his reputation as a patron saint of the Las Vegas boxing community. Long before he beat Sadam Ali to claim the vacant World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight belt in March, Vargas’ approval rating in local gyms was already at or approaching 100 percent. And whether or not he wins his next bout—a November 5 date with Manny Pacquiao in the living legend’s comeback fight—Vargas will continue to reign as a hero of the ordinary people who populate the city’s boxing clubs. Armin Van Damme is one of those people. A German immigrant who has resided in Las Vegas since the early 1990s, Van Damme owns and operates City Athletic Boxing and has seen the way Vargas genuinely cares about and connects with people behind the scenes. Vargas works out regularly at City Athletic. “Jessie does things that nobody ever knows about,” Van Damme says. “He’s sponsored by Real Water, so one day he says to me, ‘Would you mind getting sponsored by Real Water?’ You know, to have the water here in the gym. So I said sure. So Jessie goes out to Real Water with his own truck, with his dad, and picks up all the cases of water and brings it here. The next day he’s here unloading the cases himself. That’s what Jessie does.” To lifelong devotees of the sweet science, who scratch and scrimp to make a living in the boxing industry, a simple gesture like that—the kind in which Vargas specializes—can go a long way. To understand why Vargas feels such a compulsion to give, you’ve got to go all the way back to that kid in the kindergarten class, the one who took the blame and stayed inside while his friends got to run around the playground. The son of Mexican immigrants, Vargas moved to Las Vegas as a toddler and grew up in a full house on the west side with a large extended family. Vargas says living in close quarters with his relatives taught him how to sacrifice and feel for others, and that his empathetic nature was already instilled in him when he took up boxing at age 8. Over the next 15 years, Vargas became a fixture at a number of Las Vegas gyms as he worked to pursue his boxing dreams. As he spent day after day training, his modest upbringing remained the foundation of his approach to people.
“You never see a rich guy walking into the gym and saying, ‘Hey, I want to box,’” Van Damme says. “Usually it’s the guys who don’t have anything. Jessie grew up in the community and he’s been in all the gyms, and he knows what it’s like. I think that makes him aware and the effect he can have on people. He understands it’s the relationships in your life that make the difference.” Those personal relationships sustain Vargas.
M
ore than a mile above Las Vegas, Vargas represents hope to people
who need it. The Spring Mountain Youth Camp is a juvenile detention facility located at the top of Mount Charleston, designed to help troubled kids assimilate after their sentences come to an end. The camp offers social counseling, vocational training and academic programs for about 240 youths per year, ranging in age from 12 to 18. “It’s probably the first placement where the judge sends kids to help them get back on track,” says Sean Doak, a probation officer at Spring Mountain. “A lot of times when juveniles go home, the family hasn’t changed, the community hasn’t changed, their old friends haven’t changed. With the Spring Mountain program, we try to prepare them for that.” Like other fighters from Las Vegas, Vargas occasionally likes to train at Mount Charleston because of its high altitude. During one such training session two years ago, he visited the Spring Mountain Youth Camp, and in getting to know the boys detained there, he started to recognize himself. As a teenager, Vargas was the one who was brushing off his schoolwork and running with a not-so-great crowd. He remembers times when he came close to stepping over the line and doing something that could have sent him to a place like Spring Mountain. Luckily for Vargas, he had boxing. It was the only thing that mattered to him at that age, and he credits the ring as his savior. He would have done anything to keep fighting, so he walked the line, staying out of trouble just enough to continue his athletic pursuits. After his visit to the youth camp, Vargas was moved to action. He figured boxing might motivate the kids at Spring Mountain the way it motivated him to keep clean when he was young, so he presented a plan to Clark County officials and
the Spring Mountain administration: a boxing program for boys who were making progress and exhibiting good behavior. The idea was given the green-light, and Vargas, with help from his sponsor, Title Boxing, provided the gear and the equipment to launch the camp’s athletic gym and boxing program. For Vargas, it was important to show the kids that their lives were not over and that they could still work to achieve something special. “One mistake can change anyone’s life,” Vargas says. “Troubled youth, they go through tough situations, and I went through tough situations as well when I was young. Sometimes you need that voice that helps to keep you on the right track.” Out of the 100 boys populating Spring Mountain at any given time, Doak says only about 20 or so are selected to participate in the boxing program. Kids who make real progress in getting their lives back on track are allowed to go on “outings,” as Spring Mountain buses its young boxers into the city to work out at local gyms. Sparring is not allowed at Spring Mountain, so outings are the only times when the boys are able to step in the ring and throw live punches. It’s a privilege they work hard to earn.
November 3 - 9, 2016 vegasseven.com
In addition to his frequent trips to Mount Charleston to work with the kids, Vargas is also active on many outings, serving as a trainer to the Spring Mountain novices. “No one wants to have these kids,” says Van Damme, who hosts Spring Mountain outings at his gyms. “When the television cameras are up there at Spring Mountain, you see lots of boxers up there. Jessie shows up there when there are no cameras. Jessie doesn’t need the recognition. He works with them because he feels how others feel.”
S
teven Carson was sent to Spring Mountain a little over a year ago, when he was 16. The Las Vegas native had been on and off probation since he was 13 and didn’t really know any way of life other than “running the streets.” “Just a lot of stupid shit,” he says. “Drugs, money. Bad things.” On his first day at Spring Mountain, Carson asked if he could join the boxing program. The answer was no. “Only kids on good behavior can get on the program,” Carson says. “I was still doing stupid shit, acting out. Then my caseworker, she said she’d make me a deal. If I went two weeks on good behavior, with no incident reports, with good grades, she would put me on the list. That’s when it clicked with me. Within a week I was doing much better and I eventually got in.” Carson had strapped on boxing gloves a few times as a kid, but had never seriously trained before he was admitted to the Spring Mountain program. Once he got started, he was hooked. He worked harder than anyone, inside and outside the ring. Boxing became his singular passion, driving him to discipline himself the way it had for Vargas a decade earlier. The parallel wasn’t lost on Carson. He remembers Vargas as a regular visitor and a role model. “The first time I saw Jessie up there, he was running and training in the gym they have up there. He was training for [Timothy] Bradley Jr., and I thought that was the coolest thing. He’s a world champion boxer. They brought the whole camp into the cafeteria, and he gave us like a motivational speech. And again, right after he beat Sadam Ali, he came up there the next week. As soon as he got back, and he had the belts with him. I felt like I could relate to him. A lot of us did. He grew up in Las Vegas, and he’s been in a lot of the situations we’ve been in. It was cool to think he would come all the way up there because he cared about us.” Doak saw firsthand the impact Vargas had on Carson and the rest of the Spring Mountain kids. “Jessie will get down to a basic level with them,” Doak says. “He’ll say, ‘Hey, guys, I’ve been on the streets, I know what you’re facing.’ So he’s able to have that empathy with them where they can connect. He’s very open with them. After he speaks to them, he stands at the door and he shakes hands with everyone and says, ‘This belt, this is for us.’
November 3 - 9, 2016 vegasseven.com
Kids are very keen on that. They can tell when it’s genuine. It’s the eye focus, it’s the body language. Kids will let you know. Jessie has that.” After his release in June, Carson remained obsessed with boxing. He transitioned to one of Van Damme’s gyms, showing up at 10 a.m. and working out until 8 p.m. Eventually, Van Damme enlisted Carson to help around the club, working the desk, maintaining the equipment and leading classes for beginners. Now Carson is at the gym six days a week. He’s taking online classes to earn his high school degree, and though he doesn’t know whether he wants to give college a try, he thinks he could have a future as a trainer. He’s had four amateur bouts and sports a clean 4-0 record. He’s invited his probation officers to his fights. Carson has come a long way since his first day at Spring Mountain, when he realized he’d have to make major changes in his life if he wanted to pursue boxing. That realization is still helping him today. “I love being in the gym,” Carson says. “I love the atmosphere. I love going to the fights. I love it all. It keeps me accountable, because I can’t do certain things that I used to and still box.” He’s also developed personal relationships that have stuck with him. “I’ve met some of the best people in my life so far through boxing. I met Jessie, and he’s always been real cool. Every time I see him at the gym, he gives me a look and says, ‘What’s up, Steven?’ I think that’s really cool of him. He’s fighting Pacquiao.” Now, when the new crop of Spring Mountain kids come to the gym for an outing, it’s Carson who teaches them the basics of footwork and throwing a decent jab.
W
hen Vargas steps in the ring at the Thomas & Mack Center on November 5, it will be the biggest fight of his life. He’ll be fighting for himself and fighting for his city, because they are one and the same. To Vargas, that’s a big responsibility. “It’s very important to me to be looked at as the guy to be representing Las Vegas,” Vargas says. “To be honest, I’m just another friend here in the city who’s doing something positive with the youth and doing anything he can to help anyone in the city. I want everyone to be proud of me.” Beating Manny Pacquiao would undoubtedly alter the course of Vargas’ career, but the people closest to
Vargas don’t believe it would change him one bit. “Jessie is not changing,” Van Damme says. “He beat Sadam Ali and he is the current WBO champion, and he’s still the same person.” Van Damme gestures to the other side of the gym, where Vargas is posing for pictures and autographing gloves for a family that has come to watch him train. “I think he’s going to beat Pacquiao and it’s not going to change him.” In other words, he’d still raise his hand if it meant the rest of the class could enjoy recess. “Anywhere I go, I’m that type of guy they’ll look at and say, ‘Hey, that’s Jessie,’” he says. “But they leave out ‘That’s Jessie Vargas, the WBO world champion who’s going to beat Manny Pacquiao,’ just because I’m a friend more than anything.” Vargas is the best of Las Vegas, and the city deserves a hero like him. 7
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The Imaginary Boy THE CURE’S LOL TOLHURST TALKS HIS NEW MEMOIR, DJ GIGS AND GIVING SOMETHING BACK TO HIS FANS By Lissa Townsend Rodgers
Most of the friendships made at age 5 are long forgotten. Lol Tolhurst and Robert Smith not only maintained their childhood ties, but also made a career and celebrity out of them as The Cure. Tolhurst’s new memoir, Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys, illuminates the band’s early days in dismal Crawley, England, when they fled from skinheads, shared one leather jacket and played hospital gigs where they covered “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” through cult fame and eventually international stardom, playing huge gigs for rioting audiences. For 13 years, drummer/keyboardist Tolhurst rolled from suburb to stadium, drink in hand, until his alcoholism caused a split with the band in 1989. He eventually reconciled with his mates and even rejoined The Cure for a series of anniversary gigs in 2011. Tolhurst long ago left gloomy Britain for sunny L.A., where he lives with his family and plays with his band, Levinhurst. This week, he’ll visit Las Vegas to sign books at Zia Records and spin discs at Artifice’s Scarlet goth night. Cured has a lot of vivid detail about the band’s early days—what you wore, what music was playing. Did you take notes or keep a diary? It was all from memory because I never kept a journal or anything like that. Back in the day, it was kind of existential—I’m just going to live for the moment, which seemed like a really good idea at the time but was probably ultimately a little shortsighted. But I was thinking a lot about this stuff and everything started to come back to me, it really did. If I talk about it, one memory starts falling onto the other and you remember everything. I’d wake up at four in the morning saying, “Oh, my goodness, that’s why that happened!” It’s a very forthright book. You don’t sugarcoat things ... What I realized is that the memoirs I enjoy myself, the books I like reading, they always had something in common. They were honest, they were forthright, they weren’t just like an advert of somebody’s life. Or the other version, which is a score-settling exercise and probably quite libelous. More than that, you have to be truthful with yourself, because the main reason for writing the book in the first place was kind of to explain my life to myself. Once I can do that, I can make it interesting for other people, as well. What part was the most fun to write? Probably the beginning, because that’s the stuff that nobody really knows about The Cure or myself or Robert. When you’re doing it, you’re not just remembering it, you’re reliving it, for good or
November 3 - 9, 2016 vegasseven.com
bad. I liked reliving my teenage years through writing about them. That was the most fun. People have this kind of romantic idea of the starving artist—I counter that with, when you’re a starving artist, you’re not really thinking about the art, you’re thinking about starving. … But there’s something to be said for driving around in a small van, club touring with people that you love, just going out there and seeing the world, especially when you’re young, like 19 or 20. There’s something quite magical [there]. You go [to] these places and people are happy to see you—it’s not like you’re just a tourist; you’re bringing something to the community, you have something to give them. I have a lot of friends all around the world whom I’ve kept for years.
“WHEN YOU’RE A STARVING ARTIST, YOU’RE NOT REALLY THINKING ABOUT THE ART, YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT STARVING.” @V\ [HSR HIV\[ OH]PUN [V ÄUK `V\Y V^U ^H` to making it as a band and creating your own personas. Now that the internet provides a sort of road map, do you think it’s harder or easier for bands today? I actually think it’s harder now than it was when we started. Obviously, the internet has made [some things] a lot easier: You can make your music and put it out there and everybody in the world can hear it. It’s the craziest thing. But it’s a double-edged sword. Sometimes it means there’s so much noise and traffic out there that you don’t know what to listen to. I think that makes it much harder, for young bands especially, to kind of rise though that noise. There’s twice as many bands, twice as much stuff, it’s all on the internet and it’s all available all the time. When we started, we’d tour around, we’d come to America, and there were maybe five, six, seven hundred bands doing the same thing, and we could all kind of survive because we
weren’t stepping on each other’s territory. ... Now, there’s no profit to be made from selling records, so everybody has to get on the road. It’s really very crowded. But now you’re back out on the road. How does DJing work as part of the book tour? It’s a way to give back to a community immediately. I always talk to people when I come to DJ. I meet people I might have met 30 years ago. It’s nice to meet them and say “thank you.” I’ve managed to have a life doing pretty much what I wanted for the last 40 years, and some of it is down to [the fans]. So, that’s the way I look at it; It’s fun. It’s something that connects you, rather than just [appearing] in town. 7
Book signing at Zia Records Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m., 4225 S. Eastern Ave., ZiaRecords.com DJ set at Scarlet Nov. 5., 10 p.m., $5, Artifice, 1025 1st St., ArtificeBar.com
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[ MEET ]
DAVID DYER TAO GROUP’S MOST SOCIAL EXECUTIVE By Kat Boehrer
Photography by Carlos Larios Digital marketing manager David Dyer oversees all the digital and social media content for nightlife destinations including Tao Nightclub and Restaurant, Marquee Nightclub and Lavo Italian Restaurant & Casino Club. After spending more than half of his six years in Las Vegas working for Tao Group, he’s learned the ins and outs of navigating the industry—both URL and IRL.
LET THE GOOD TIMES SCROLL Digital and social media have become increasingly vital to nightclubs, and a venue’s online presence (or lack thereof) has the potential to make or break ticket sales. “On one hand, we’re putting out content that reminds [patrons] of the good times we had in our venue,” Dyer says. “On another, we’re giving a sneak peek to the first-time guest of how much fun they’re in for before they even arrive.”
ON COMMUNITY BUILDING “The key is knowing your audience and being flexible. If you’re delivering content that everyone else is putting up, you’re not giving your audience much of a reason to follow you. Once you figure out how to deliver rich content that is exclusive to each channel, you can start treating each [venue account] like its own community.”
STAR- STUDDED SOCIALS And how does Dyer feel about this glamorous business from behind the scenes? “I’m from Raytown, Missouri, so the only celebrity I’d ever encountered before moving to Vegas was a band member from Train at a barbecue joint. It was pretty eye-opening [when I started] working at Tao Group with some of the biggest singers, rappers, DJs and athletes in the world on a weekly basis.” Dyer often integrates the scheduled talent into his campaigns and considers himself lucky to work on projects that allow him to think outside the box, as Tao Group’s guest artists “not only promote upcoming parties but [also] engage with the fans.”
ON BUYING FOLLOWERS AND LIKES “I definitely would avoid any type of service that offers likes, comments or followers. It [artificially] makes your account look better than it is. In nightlife, that’s the equivalent of putting cardboard-cutout people on the dance floor. It just looks dumb.” 7
November 3 - 9, 2016 vegasseven.com