Bleeding Neon

A classic.

Left to right: Lemmy Kilmister, Willy Wonka, Ringo Starr, Thurston Moore

Amongst all the recent discussion of my musical past, it may have slipped my mind to talk about my musical present.* Well, let’s fix that, shall we?

That badass rock band in which I kind-of play drums, As Yet Unbroken, returns to form this Friday, July 3, at the Aruba Hotel (1215 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) to join up with the monthly music-art-performance mash-up called N.O.I.S.E. (Network of Immersive Sensory Entertainment, I believe). It’s a hippie-ish vibe over there, but our friend Steve (who also plays in another band performing that night, The High Rollerz) hooked it up and despite the fact that we will MELT THE FACES OFF THOSE LONGHAIRS, we’re quite looking forward to being surrounded by creative people.

Starting at 10 p.m. and costing you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, N.O.I.S.E. takes place right after First Friday (and the Aruba is all of five minutes from the Arts District … walkable, almost) and features multiple artists live painting, a DJ or two, two rooms of live music, a communal drum circle and … probably a lot of incense-burning. But it should be good times. You should come on down and see what I do when I’m not making comics, writing articles or drinking myself into a stupor. Here’s a flier or something.

*Um, so I totally wrote about AYU all of one week ago. Whatever.

Most 1970s video or most 1970s video ever? YOU DECIDE:

(via @ToastyHybrid)

I don’t typically get too personal on this here bloggy-blog, as I have enough creepy stalkers out there (all of whom I love and appreciate, of course), but I hear you interwebs people like that sort of “I can identify with this fella because he is human like me” connection, so I’ll oblige:

On Friday, June 26, my brother Joshua and his wife Jennifer welcomed into the world their first child — a bouncing, baby boy named Zachary Benjamin.  That means your pal Pj is now AN UNCLE. Woe be to my new (first!) nephew, for I have decreed that he shall be exclusively referred to as Zack Attack! (exclamation point VERY necessary). I warned Josh over dinner a few months ago that, by choosing to name his forthcoming son Zachary, I would be forced to call him Zack Attack!. And not surprisingly, Josh was totally fine with this. He even claimed to have named Zack Attack! after the one-and-only Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell. I’m sure he was not serious, but if he was, that instantly elevates him to a level of awesome of which I can only hope to one day attain by naming my first-born “A.C.,” training him in the ways of perms and wrestling, and insisting he call his cousin exclusively by “preppy.”

In case you want to follow the exploits of Zack Attack! further, the baby has a blog somewhere out there in cyberspace (seriously, even unborn children have blogs? ZOMG). Furthermore, you may want to subscribe to Josh’s blog, “404 Error – Failure to Communicate,” in which he writes about wrestling, comic books, music and other stuff in a manner so gregarious it’s overwhelming.

Five-sixths of Theory of Flight with The Fist. Photo by Michael Gaskell / MG Studio

My assault on the local music scene continued last week with a Las Vegas Weekly article about up-and-coming sextet Theory of Flight, whose Dishwalla-meets-30 Second to Mars sound is propelling the band to the next level.

We met for an interview in the green room at the House of Blues before a local music showcase featuring Theory of Flight. The guys were super-accomodating, very honest, earnest and passionate about their music and continued to reinforce just how great most of our local bands can be. In the last month or so, I’ve interviewed a number of groups — all male-dominated, sorry to say, which might be a topic for a future article — and surprisingly, there hasn’t been a douchebag among them. For the most part, these guys get along fabulously, work harder than they play and actually support other bands. I’ve been looking for some drama, but honestly, it’s hard to come by.

I’m optioning a few local acts to profile next for the Weekly, but I’ll be taking a brief detour for my next assignment; however, I’m not telling you about it until the story’s done. I know, I’m such a tease. In the meantime, you have been keeping up with The Utopian webcomic, right? Shit’s about to get heavy.