ArtsVegas - Las Vegas Art, Culture, and Entertainment

Recap: Viva Ska Vegas @ Henderson Events Plaza

Hektor Esparza — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:39:11 +0000

This year’s Viva Ska Vegas festival was decidedly riding the Third Wave more than skank fests of the past. Viva Ska Vegas was hosted by Tazy Phyllipz, creator of So Cal radio show The Ska Parade.

Be Like Max represented the local Ska set, but noticeably absent were The Remedies who played a show elsewhere in town the same night. Newer bands like Roncovacoco and Suburban Legends charmed the easy-to-please and eager-to-dance crowd. The Skeletones brought out older fans only to disappoint by playing new material.

Mike Park of Skankin Pickle was there with an all Asian Ska band called The Chinkees. Park defended Third Wave Ska champions Reel Big Fish saying, “People talk shit, but they were one of the only bands still touring when Ska became less popular.”

Park and crew hammed it up and rallied the rude boys and girls with a tale of meeting Tim “Lint” Armstrong of Operation Ivy and Rancid fame back in the day. The Chinkees then performed a competent cover of Op. Ivy’s “Bank Shot.”

Let’s Go Bowling and Reel Big Fish were the names the Third Wave rudies were there to see, and they delivered by playing their most recognizable hits.

Photos by Torch

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Hektor Esparza

Hektor Esparza has been writing about the arts and culture in Las Vegas since 2001. He was actually born in Brownsville, Texas but thinks he can call himself a native since his earliest childhood memories include seeing Jaws III in 3D at The (original) Red Rock 11 Movie Theater. Hektor is a father, a lifelong skateboarder and a darn good whistler. Check out his Non-Profit Foundation, Push Forward.

Veteran in the Valley: 10 Years Later, part 4

Nate Serefine — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:16:48 +0000

Las Vegas has the fastest growing population of veterans in the country. Veteran in the Valley is a column focusing on the strange transition from soldier to civilian in Las Vegas and the veterans that call this city home.

We knew we were going to be deployed to Iraq long before we actually left. As I mentioned in Part 3, I was part of a brand new unit with brand new equipment and that meant a lot of training and a lot of certification. A fast-paced 18-month schedule of time in and out of the field culminated with trips to the Mojave Desert in California and the Louisiana swamp to become combat ready.

"All the stuff you’d never be allowed to bring to an airport."

The flight to Kuwait was an odd experience. I’m not sure what the standard is, but our flight was a chartered commercial airliner complete with uniformed pilots and flight attendants…and completely filled with big tattooed dudes carrying guns, lighters, knives, and pornography and alcohol, just for good measure. Basically all the stuff that you’d never be allowed to bring to a civilian airport. Like with any military flight, chartered or not, we all had to get weighed with all of our gear before take-off. If I remember correctly, I weighed in at just under 500lbs, and I know I couldn’t have personally weighed more than 225. And I wonder why I have back pain today.

We stayed in a camp in Kuwait for two weeks, Camp Doha, to acclimate to the desert weather and make sure all of our stuff was good-to-go. When we got ready to leave, we had all of our vehicles lined up in a staging area doing last-minute checks of equipment and loading in live ammunition. Then something bad happened. One of the Stryker gunners dropped a 40mm grenade as he was loading into the launcher, and it hit the ground and exploded. Nobody was hurt from the blast, but my immediate supervisor freaked out and set the stage for the rest of the year-long deployment for me.

"Gas! Gas! Gas!"

A bit of back-story here: This guy, we’ll call him Figs, served in Desert Storm in the early 1990s when there was a real fear of Saddam Hussein using chemical weapons, most notably sarin gas. Now, remember, we aren’t even in IRAQ yet. Figs yells “Gas! Gas! Gas!” and runs to the back of our truck and grabs the first mask he can find, which happens to be mine. Two more things of note: 1. When someone yells “Gas” in the military, you put on your mask as quickly as possible and worry about the reality of the danger after, and 2. Gas masks are meticulously fit to an individual to assure an airtight seal.

So Figs grabs MY mask and puts it on. I inform him of his mistake as calmly as someone who has the fear of imminent death by a nerve agent can, but he’s having none of it. I devolved into tunnel-vision. I realized that if this was a gas attack, I was going to die, and I decided right then and there that if I was dying, this sorry son of a bitch was dying, too. I reached up and patted the knife strapped to my chest to make sure it was there just as people started laughing. This wasn’t an attack and Figs was caught looking like a scared little rabbit in the wolves’ den. This event would not soon be forgotten by anyone who happened to witness it.

After the commotion at the staging area, we got on the road. We were convoying up the highway through Kuwait and into Iraq. Our Strykers were obviously visible on the Kuati highway system, and we had gunners standing up out of the hatches in the backs of the vehicles to keep an eye on everything. Still, some car just had to do something stupid.

"They opened fire."

You don’t take a car speeding down the highway and merge INTO a heavily armed military convoy literally on its way into a warzone, but obviously someone didn’t get that memo. One of our Strykers in the Bravo company (more on that later) tried to signal the driver to get out of the way. The soldiers in the back of the vehicle tried to wave them off. Nothing was working. They had no choice; this could be a threat. They opened fire.

We had fired on someone before we even got into Iraq.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Nate Serefine

Nate Serefine moved to Las Vegas in 2012 but is no stranger to the desert. Nate is a disabled Army veteran who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2003. He’s currently a government drone and posts pictures and stuff at Empty Foxhole where he describes his experience in the Army and the transition back to civilian life. In Las Vegas, he can usually be found walking around the West side or taking the bus and looking at pictures of cats online.

Startup Weekend @ InNevation Center

Nate Serefine — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:22:08 +0000

The InNEVation Center hosted Startup Weekend Las Vegas, May 3-5. The nearly 120 attendees split into 12 teams to concept, design, code, and pitch an idea to a panel of judges over a weekend. The first night started with pitch exercises, aimed to get everyone into the spirit of collaboration. Out of those gazillion, 12 teams would be formed from the best ideas.

The event has come a long way from its beginnings at the El Cortez. Yeah, Tony Hsieh is no longer in attendance, but the organization and flow is lean and mean. The Las Vegas startup community has grown at a fast clip but is still tight-knit. Everyone there knew each other, had collaborated before, or owned the same SWLV t-shirt from events past. It was a cool sight to see.

Rob Meadows, CEO of Originate Labs and local boy done-good, waxed some 'biz tips before the pitches got started. He laid down 10 pointers for those in the room who were about to get "body-odor intimate" with their teams for the next day or so.

This list may have seemed pedestrian, but many tech-minded people lose sight of what it is their thingamajig can actually do for a general audience. This should be tattooed on every team member's back starting with the next Startup Weekend.

Purpose: Why are you starting this?
Problem: What are you trying to solve?
Solution: How are you going to solve it?
Timing: Is this the right time? Is the world ready for it?
Market: Is there one to support it? Room for expansion?
Competition: Who are they, and why are you different?
Product: Okay, now let's see what you actually have.
Business Model: Don't say, "we'll figure it out once we get users."
Team: Who is on-board? Can you all get along together for the next few years?
The Cheddar: How are you going to spend it if you get funded?

After the Friday evening ice-breaking events, teams were formed and the crunch time began. We left the building wondering which teams already had their members picked-out and how many would just wing-it in the spirit of the event. Time would tell, and they had precious little to work with.

Sunday night marked the end of the fevered coding, designing, and planning, and the beginning of the pitch stage. Here’s how it broke down: each team would have 5 minutes to pitch their product to the judges followed by a short question and answer session. These were the teams:

1. PostSwap
PostSwap is a Twitter extension of sorts. It’s a tool to allow users to select tweets that they would like to be retweeted and promoted by their friends. The system works by assigning points to PostSwap users who retweet advertisements or other users' promoted tweets. Once you have enough points, you get you ask other users to promote your tweets. The team managed to get the service up and running and even raised $686 on their Indiegogo page as of this writing.

2. BurpIt
BurpIt is the Yelp of food. Hear me out, ok? As the team very clearly (and cleverly) laid out, Yelp has great data…on restaurants. What if you want to find the best eggrolls, not just the places that serve eggrolls? That’s where BurpIt comes in. Location-based results for actual dishes are pulled into your mobile device and ranked with user-generated scores and comments. Restaurant partners provide full menu listings for the app making your dining decisions that much easier to make on an empty stomach.

3. PL8SEE
Pl8see is a social game based around deciphering vanity license plates. The game plugs into your Facebook account and allows users to type in vanity plate info they create or see on the road and challenge their friends to figure out what it means. Billed as “fucking hilarious” on the game’s own site, I can see the people of Las Vegas going crazy with this thing. I mean, I’ve personally seen "STR8 FN" and "KY GIRL" in this town.

4. Unite Me
UniteMe.org is a cause marketing site designed to bring local businesses, non-profits, and customers together. An individual can visit Unite Me and buy a voucher for a participating business and redeem it for face value there. A local charity takes a percentage of the voucher’s worth from the business and Unite Me makes a commission. Customers get products, businesses get customers, and charities get donations. As the team put it, it’s a win-win-win.

5. Scan Register
Scan Register lets you easily register your purchases and throw those product registration cards out the window. Scan a barcode, fill out the form, and send in your information for warranty or rebate purposes right from your mobile phone. A simple solution for one of modern life’s most irritating little problems.

6. 3D Collab
The 3D Collab team is passionate about 3D printing. There’s no denying the fact that 3D printing is going to be a multi-billion dollar industry in the next few years, but the team wanted to focus more on community rather than retail. The website allows users to bounce ideas off each other and fork designs to tweak them for their own personal use. Engineers, designers, materials specialists, and artists can all help each other out to make the best products available and then the 3D Collab team will print and ship the final design.

7. AdventureTell
Ever want to get outside but just don't know where to start? Fire up AdventureTell and the location-based software will queue up a list of user-generated trails along with targeted ads for the equipment each trail requires. The app uses gamification to entice users to get out there and discover (and map) new trails to win badges and titles.

8. Room Champ
Room Champ is a tool for event coordinators that helps them fill their quotas of hotel rooms. According to the team’s research, hotels with event discounts are losing business to travel sites that are undercutting their prices. Room Champ gives event coordinators event-specific, photo-rich splash pages where they can sell hotel rooms at group rates. The design of the pages are an improvement on the experience usually associated with booking a room for a conference or event, and the event planners win by keeping their business (and rates) instead of losing out to expedia.

9. Unprint
Unprint wants to eliminate paper receipts. Using Near Field Communication technology built into most modern smartphones and a RaspberriPi, Unprint plugs into existing legacy point-of-sale equipment to allow customers to simply tap their phone on a receiver to get a digital receipt instead of a paper one. The team intends to give the hardware away to businesses and make money by selling sales analytics the technology tracks back to businesses for marketing and inventory purposes.

10. Happy Soul School
Happy Soul School had literally the worst audience to pitch to. A room full of coders is not looking for spiritual fulfilment in the form of a lifestyle coach. Maybe in a different venue this idea would fly. The gist was a membership-based site that eventually led to spiritual-based certifications & overall feelgood vibes. This would work well at Startup Weekend Sedona.

11. Shortsale Auditor
Shortsale Auditor is a service for homeowners that are underwater on the house. Basically it’s a document generator allowing the user and the bank an easy way to make sure that the important paperwork is correct before the parties even reach the table. An expedited shortsale helper, the site can really streamline a burdensome process.

12. Flu Buddies
Are you sick? Better log it into this system so the rest of the world can stay the fuck away from you. Flu Buddies gives a map view of people experiencing flu symptoms. Users can check in, giving their location and when they started having symptoms, as well as if they had a flu shot or not. Now if only it would bring you a nice bowl of soup, too.

Well…Who won? AdventureTell won best design (go Gill Sans), but top honors went to Unite Me. The Groupon-esque idea had the benefit of directly helping charities, so it had a built-in marketing team. The benefit for users is that they get to spend the full dollar amount of their “donation” while feeling good about it. The business participants give back to the community, and Unite Me get’s 10% for making it all happen. Win-win.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Nate Serefine

First Friday Gallery Highlights – May 2013

David Hardy — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:47:29 +0000

Here's a quick roundup of gallery offerings in the Arts District this month. Above: detail from "Cottontail" by Charley Harper @ Trifecta

Trifecta Gallery

American Modernist Charley Harper (1922 – 2007)

Design in the desert consists of 4 rare originals from the estate of Charley Harper, signed artist-proof screenprints from the highly collectable sold out editions, U.S. Department of the Interior poster re-issues, and even sticky birds color-form vinyl sets.

First introduced to American homes though the Ford Times periodicals in the 1950’s, Harper's minimalist renderings convert shapes and behaviors of wildlife’s most recognized forms down to their simplest terms.

The graphic nature of his cut-outs and silk-screens were imagined and created before the advent of digital design on personal computers, hence the B.C.PC reference in the shows title.

Tastyspace

"Renewal" Paintings by Paris Buchanan officially on view at TastySpace Friday, May 3rd from 6-8pm.

Buchanan is a Napa Valley-based painter who seeks to create an open dialogue through her work. She draws inspiration from travel and connecting with people she may meet and cultures she may experience along her journey.

It may be said that each time we go away and come back or somehow remove ourselves from our daily lives, our souls are renewed.

Joseph Watson Collection

The Joseph Watson Collection proudly presents The Joe Show. This exhibit will feature new paintings by artist Joseph Watson as well as a few of his classics.

He is known for a balance of great storytelling as well as execution in his works. The new series of paintings will highlight bar scenes as well as several other memorable concepts.

Amanda Harris Gallery of Contemporary Art

Please join us to view the latest works by RC Wonderly. The artist uses humble materials to create his art. His minimalist work is rooted in the relationship between the two and three dimensional, with a focus on the materials – OSB, plywood, linen, wool, sheetrock – and the processes used to manipulate them.

Wonderly received his BFA from the University of Dayton, Ohio, the same year he won the first place award for sculpture in the Las Vegas Art Museum’s Round Up and received an artist’s fellowship award from the Vermont Studio Center.

He has shown his work in numerous solo and group shows. Circle Gets the Square is his first solo exhibition since 2007.

Boulder Plaza

The UNLV Art in Public Places Class in cooperation with the city of Las Vegas Arts Commission present

Go Home! a special video performance piece. The event will take place in Boulder Plaza this First Friday, May 3rd at 8 p.m. with repeat performances on the half hour though 10 p.m. The performance is in conjunction with the RTZvegas Gallery exhibition, " Home, the Topography of Place."

Boulder Plaza is located in the heart of the arts district on 1st Street and Boulder Avenue.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Veteran in the Valley: 10 Years Later, part 3

Nate Serefine — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:20:23 +0000

March of 2002. Ft. Lewis, WA. I was finally done with training, and in the "real" Army. As far as intelligence analysts are concerned, I got assigned to just about the worst unit possible at the time. I was part of the first Stryker Brigade that was being formed in Ft. Lewis.

"You'll never see this again in your life."

Back in Arizona, before we graduated from the analyst school, we were shown some new Army technology. We all needed top-secret clearances to be analysts in the first place, and the powers-that-be were very adamant that showing us this tech was a treat. Laid out before us in all it's olive-drab splendor were some pretty cool pieces of technology. They told us that we'd never see anything like this ever again.

Flash forward to Ft. Lewis, and there I was in a brand new unit filled with all of this secret technology. Lucky me, right? Before any conspiracy theorists start flooding my inbox, the pieces of technology weren't all that special by today's standards. Technology moves fast, and I'm not even sure what we had is even classified anymore.

The Stryker was the core of the unit; a lightly armed and armored wheeled vehicle that transported infantry and supported them with various weapons systems. When I got to the unit, the Stykers hadn't even arrived yet. We were the first unit in the Army to get them, and they were supposed to change how we fought wars.

Up until this point, there were either "heavy" or "light" units in the military. Think of it this way: you either had tanks and big guns or boots-on-the-ground grunts with small arms. The Stryker was and intermediate vehicle. They were fast, relatively quiet, maneuverable, and configurable for virtually any mission. They were the Cadillacs of the battlefield.

"I likened it to all the logos plastered on a NASCAR jacket."

Building a new unit from the ground up was virtually unheard of at the time. We had state-of-the-art equipment showing up weekly: Oakley ballistic glasses, Gerber knives, Camelbak water packs, you name it. I likened it to all the logos plastered on a NASCAR jacket. That's what happens when Uncle Sam writes you a blank check, though.

Aside from all of this, I was a new private. Thanks to a glitch in the payroll system that kept me from getting a paycheck the last few weeks in Arizona, I reached Ft. Lewis with a wad of cash from back-pay. I took that money and went all-out, buying up stuff for my barracks room to make it comfortable. I stored away the scratchy standard issue olive-drab wool blanket and bought nice sheets. I grabbed a TV and a computer desk and chair to get a proper entertainment setup. I even got a coffee pot and a sandwich press. I wanted to make the place feel like home.

"Pack, unpack, and repack."

It took me awhile to convince my new brothers-in-arms that I was just another guy and not a narc for the man. Once I was accepted, though, things got much better. I fell in with a couple of cool guys from the Fire Support Team, and we got to know each other pretty well. FST, charmingly called "fisters" (all-male unit, after all), intelligence, and other groups like communications and supply, all made up the headquarters of my unit. While all the infantrymen were training and going to the rifle range, we would meticulously pack, unpack, and repack huge storage containers with all the gear that made this whole unit function.

Our unit was designed to be fast and mobile, and nobody had ever used this equipment before, so our primary job as headquarters was to figure out how to make it work quickly and efficiently. We were literally writing the book on how to fight a war with the Strykers and many other units after us would read these procedures and learn from us. We would go out into the field, set up the HQ, tear it down, and pack it back up, move a few miles away, and do the whole thing over again. Repeat this for 18 months and then go to war.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Nate Serefine

Reinventing Radio: An Evening With Ira Glass @ The Smith Center

David Hardy — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:24:05 +0000

"So … This is radio."

Saturday night's "Reinventing Radio" at the Smith Center began with a near pitch black room. Host Ira Glass paced around the stage, faintly illuminated by the glow of an iPad–"I tried to convince the staff here to have the entire show in darkness." Eliminating the visual allows us to tune-in to someone's voice in a way that's much more intimate and personal, which is what he was trying to stress.

Over the next two hours, Glass took us on a trip that highlighted the process of creating This American Life. He talked about the shows beginnings in 1995, when Chicago public radio station WBEZ found itself at the crossroads of a new era. The then-burgeoning internet was still a few years away from starting to influence the way people listened to radio, and they decided that they wanted the station to be a "creator of stories," rather than a purveyor of information passed through the NPR pipeline. He pitched the station manager with the idea of "writers and artists" collaborating on stories and TAL was born.

"The job of journalism is to tell what is."

One of the hallmarks of the show is the way that it establishes a scene rather quickly and immediately gives us an entree into the (often mundane) details of someone's life, "On the largest warship ever built, stocked with the most advanced weapons in the world and a crew of over 5,000, an American sailor was doing her job in the war against terror.

"My name is Prevon Scott. I'm just filling up the vending machines."

Glass controls the audio snippets from the iPad, pressing the button like an evil villain for effect. The segment is from 2002, when they interviewed Prevon Scott working aboard the USS John C. Stennis. Of the 5,000 crew on board, only about 60 pilots are involved in combat operations. The rest of the staff is there for support, even if that means filling up vending machines for 12 hours a day.

"Don't leave out everything that makes life worth living."

Glass is referring to the joy, humor, and pleasure notable absent from most "serious" broadcast journalism. That kind of introspective pleasure is what separates TAL from everything else 18 years later. Of course, the show can be serious as well. "Every story is detective story," Glass said, quoting Roland Barthes.

"It goes in. It got its teeth into me. And then I couldn't get out."

He played another clip of a woman recounting a shark attack in New Zealand when she was 13. One of the ways the show immediately hooks you is starting with action. "Plot, narrative suspense, idea," Glass confided.

"In the best stories, all questions are answered at a single moment."

Another trick that the show often uses is the big reveal at the end of a story. Details are answered along the way, but to literally keep you in your car waiting to "find out" what happened, the entire picture is left hazy until the last chapter. In that particular shark story, everything compounds at the moment the doctor is "slicing into her arms and ankles" — without anesthetic — to find an artery because her blood pressure was so low. We only find out why after she recounts the gruesome pain of the event.

One of the lighter moments of the night came when Glass described how much time he spends talking to lawyers about what can and can't be said on-air for fear of an FCC fine. There was a story where the late David Rakoff was quoted saying, "you can suck a mile of cock — it does not make you Oscar Wilde. Believe me, I know. I've tried." One of the FCC's regulations stipulate that merely censoring the offending word isn't enough if it "conjures up an image," and after asking a lawyer if a "bleeping" would suffice, he was answered with "you could say 'a mile'."

Glass spoke of his college education studying semiotics at Brown University, which has actually served him well in creating stories for radio. Finding that shared meaning that everyone can relate to is at the core of it. “My parents took out a classified ad in The Baltimore Sun that read, 'Semiotics major wanted, high pay, no experience needed.' I have that ad framed above my desk now." And being from Baltimore, it's refreshing to see that Ira hasn't lost all of his Bawlmerese yet. Or maybe it's an intentional device …

Photo credit Stuart Mullenberg

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by David Hardy

David Hardy grew up in suburban Baltimore. Most of his twenties were spent in bands. He moved to Las Vegas when he lost a bet, but ended up loving it. He is a graphic designer, professor, and dreamer. He enjoys the many lowbrow activities that this city has to offer.

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Photo Blog 4/29/13

Stephanie Gonzales — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:13:03 +0000

ArtsVegas' photo blog. Presented by Stephanie Gonzales, a photographer living and working in Las Vegas.

Gonzagraphy Etsy Shop

Bounty Hunter Brothers @ Motor City Cafe, 4/27/13

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Stephanie Gonzales

Stephanie Gonzales is a photographer, born and raised in Las Vegas. She loves: taking pictures of strangers, live music, travel, sunsets, sneaking into the movies, food, her cat Wilson and a good cup of joe.

Veteran in the Valley: 10 Years Later, part 2

Nate Serefine — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:01:58 +0000

“This is the hardest course in the Army.”

After Basic Training finished up, I was flown down to Ft Huachuca, AZ, to learn how to be an Intelligence Analyst. The Army let you pick your specific job (Military Occupational Specialty), as long as you placed high enough on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. This is the reason I joined the Army over the other branches; I wanted to make sure I was going to be an analyst. I maxed out every area of the test except the mechanical portion, so don’t let me near a band saw unsupervised, apparently.

Upon getting to Ft Huachuca, a mere 11 kilometers from the Arizona-Mexico border, we were promptly told that we all now had 30-year Army contracts. 9/11 had just went down, and Uncle Sam realized he was a little short on analysts. This is called "stop loss," and it would come to play a large enough role in the military that someone actually made a movie out of it.

We were all split into classes to go through the very community college-like curriculum. All the instructors were active Army and mine happened to be one of the unlucky many that was barred from retiring due to the stop loss. Every day before class we’d hear about what he should have been doing instead of teaching us. My career was off to a great start.

Jaded as he was, my instructor was very adamant that the Intelligence Analysis course was the hardest course that the Army offered. A full third of us would not graduate, if you were to believe his spiel. This is exactly what I wanted. High school was easy; I wanted a challenge. I studied like mad that first week, but in only the first few days of the course, I could tell that it wasn’t going to be difficult. I stopped studying all together shortly after I started, yet I still ended up with the second highest grade in all the classes combined, and I still contend that the one question I got marked wrong was actually correct.

If you can competently play a game of Risk, you have what it takes to be an Army Intelligence Analyst. You wouldn’t even have to win the game, just be smart enough to play it.

All of this really soured my mood toward the military life that I had signed up for. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself, and here, surrounded by what the Army considered the best and the brightest, I felt disillusioned. Barely five months into my four-year contract (the stop loss will be removed before it effected me) we’re at war and I’m regretting this whole thing.

The one good part of being a "soft MOS" like an intelligence analyst is that you get a few little perks that infantrymen and the like don’t get. Before I graduated from the Analyst course, I was able to pick what base I got sent to. Next stop: Ft Lewis, WA.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Nate Serefine

Blinking Man Earth Day Bike Ride Downtown

David Hardy — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:14:38 +0000

Around 200 people gathered at the Huntridge Tavern on Saturday for Blinking Man's 4th annual Earth Day ride. The "Blinking Bike Posse" puts on the romp through city streets to promote bike awareness while reducing carbon emissions. It's been compared to Critical Mass, but the pub crawl aspect of the ride is what draws the huge crowd.

This year, the organizers had planned six stops along the way, starting at the Huntridge. The venerable institution makes for a good starting point: cheap beer, friendly people, and a huge parking lot. We rode-in from the university district, but many were removing bikes from racks and pre-gaming from their tailgates.

After 30 minutes, the call was made to move to our next stop, Downtown 3rd. The options were plenty: Mob Bar, Hogs & Heifers, and Triple George. We opted for the first. Outside, we saw two bike cops and learned that Metro was getting frisky; participants were running red lights (unlike the law abiding motorists of our fair city). The organizer, Graham Kahr, sorted it out, and it was time to roll-on.

5th Avenue Pub was our next stop, a watering hole known for being rough around the edges. The staff was inundated by the flux of cyclists but was clearly happy to have the business. This place was also easy on the wallet, and the decor is refreshing, more 60's Detroit than contemporary Vegas.

We actually broke rank because we were so excited that Pop Up Pizza was next on the list. Getting there slightly ahead of the pack ensured that we got a couple of slices in the short time. Co-owner Mike Vakneen was busy slinging pies to accommodate the rush, while the slot players barely noticed the interruption.

Lady Silvia was the penultimate stop, and the Flying Monkey food truck was there to aid in feeding those who were still hungry. While the "lady" is a favorite choice of ours, the narrow bar area was too much for us to even think about negotiating in a group this size. We pow-wowed it outside and before long it was time for the final stop.

Commonwealth has been open for a while now, and we've been meaning to give it a try. A friend was already there and texted ahead to let me know of the $5 cover. We killed time at The Beat while waiting for the line to wear down, and by the time we got to the front door, it had magically jumped to $10…for guys only. What we thought was going to be something different and refreshing turned out to be just another strip joint that happened to be located downtown. Just do a search for the word "douche" on Yelp and you'll find nine examples that capture the mood.

We got out of club-land as fast as the angry staff would let us and headed back to The Huntridge to relax for a bit before pedaling back home. There have been at least three occasions where we've seen other bicyclists headed north (downtown) very late at night while we were headed back. I could only wonder what adventures they were pursuing while chasing the shadow of my pillow back home.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by David Hardy

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Review: Band of Horses @ The Cosmopolitan

Paul Sacksteder — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:35:53 +0000

With Coachella’s second weekend coming to a close, the Band of Horses’ presence at the Cosmo's Boulevard Pool marked the end of a busy couple of weeks as the non-official satellite stage for the mammoth Indio, California based music festival. As a closing act, Las Vegas couldn’t do too much better than the Band of Horses. Lead singer Ben Bridwell’s amiable stage presence coupled with a beautiful spring night made for a comfortable and at times emphatic denouement.

Opening band The Olms headed by Pete Yorn and the impressive mod haircut of J.D. King played a jangly mix of songs influenced by the likes Big Star and the Byrds. It was the Band of Horses’ opening few songs, however, that grabbed the sizeable crowd’s attention: “Great Salt Lake,” “Is There a Ghost,” and “Weed Party” highlighted the energy and layers of sound that helped the band get signed to Columbia a few years ago. Bridwell is a charismatic frontman with a neck tattoo of a lion puking blood that belies the ragged etherealness of his voice. Throughout the show, Bridwell’s jerky energetic bursts of movement sent his hat flying across the stage only for him to seek it out a few songs later and stubbornly put it back on his head.

The 90-minute set slowed down considerably at times with more mid-tempo country-tinged rock songs, and while it gave a chance for the under-stated guitar playing of Tyler Ramsey and keyboardist Ryan Monroe’s close harmonies to shine, the vitality of the opening songs never quite returned.

The competency of songs like “Everything’s Come Undone” or the Moore-led “Older” didn’t quite mesh with the poolside locale. Still, when late in the show Bridwell plucked the first view notes for their 2006 hit “The Funeral,” the band’s shimmering sound expanded and settled right in amongst the lights of the casinos and hotels looming in the background.

ArtsVegas: Covering Las Vegas Art and culture since 2009.

Written by Paul Sacksteder

Paul Sacksteder moved to Las Vegas eight years ago to pursue a MFA in creative writing at UNLV. Somewhere along the way the summers seemed a little less hot, Joshua Trees were green enough, and he figured he was a local. These days he's a stay-at-home dad and enjoys dragging his daughter for lunches in Chinatown.