Bleeding Neon

The summer issue of HRH, the Hard Rock Hotel’s boutique magazine, actually came out a few weeks ago, but I was waiting to post about it until after the digital edition was live. And so it is. And so here we are.

I don’t have too much to say about my cover story on Them Crooked Vultures. Like my Muse story for the spring issue, I didn’t have a chance to interview the band (Them Crooked Vultures isn’t really doing much press), so I had to make 1200 words about a year-old rock supergroup appear out of nowhere. Thankfully, I did get a chance to see the band when it performed at the Joint in the spring, so I at least had that. To fill in the gaps, I had to use a handy-dandy series of “behind the scenes” videos Them Crooked Vultures posted on its YouTube channel. Really, it wasn’t much different than doing a basic interview with the band or being provided B-roll from a publicist, so it kinda worked out fine … I think.

As usual, my words are enhanced and accompanied by live photos shot by my pal Erik Kabik, who always does amazing work. But even more than that: I share a contributors page with one of my heroes, Cameron Crowe. Crowe, who is a good friend of rock photographer Neal Preston, turned out for the HRH issue release party/Preston photo exhibit at the Hard Rock’s new SkyBar — an event I also attended. Sadly, though, I had to run off to catch Henry Rollins at Wasted Space and left the party before Crowe arrived. I don’t know what I would have had to say to him, but he’s one of the few people (Rollins being one of the other) whose work and career has really shaped my life and I’d be interested in meeting. Well, I’d actually be more interested in learning from him, but one must crawl before he can walk, right? Right.

It didn’t occur to me until just now that I haven’t written a story for HRH, the Hard Rock Hotel’s glossy on-property magazine, since the fall of 2008. I was actually assigned a story for last spring’s issue, but due to a bunch of nonsense you don’t really need to know about, but one day I will include in my tell-all memoir, “Screwing It Up,” I turned the story over to another writer and have been absent from HRH’s pages since then … until now.

As you may determine from that sexy, silvery cover you see to your right, the new issue’s cover story is about Muse, who rocked the Joint at the Hard Rock back in December. And this guy wrote it. “No Resistance” is 1776 words of pure gushing Pj prose exploring the bombastic rock band’s struggles to become king of the U.S. rock scene (which they haven’t yet, but SHOULD).

Photography for the article comes courtesy of Erik Kabik, a good dude and great shutterbug. When the digital version is put online, I’ll link to it. In the meantime, you’ll have to actually get off your couch and go to the Hard Rock to pick up an issue if you want to read it. Which I highly recommend.

I know I already shared this over at my old site, but since the “old” incarnation of pjperez.com has been rolled up here, I don’t feel too bad reposting. Especially because of this: The winter 2008 issue of HRH, the Hard Rock Hotel’s in-house magazine, is now available online in a fully interactive digital format. And if you’re interested in reading my feature about Billy Idol (which appears on the cover in about half of the copies — the other half feature Kings of Leon), then click here to enjoy an interview with the legendary rocker. That’ll link you directly to the article.

The shots of Idol featured on the cover and in the story look live, but they were actually shot by Robert M Knight before Idol’s Sept. 12, 2008 show at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel here in Las Vegas. Knight is a very humble guy, but he’s been one of the most prolific music photojournalists of the last 35-plus years, shooting all the greats, from the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin to the Ramones and Jimi Hendrix. As he’s known all these musicians for so long, Knight just showed up to take photos for his own collection, and Idol let him kind of do whatever he wanted — which meant, of course, getting some iconic Idol poses with good lighting on stage before the madness began. That was right before I went upstairs to Idol’s dressing room to do the interview for the story, and as I’ve discussed elsewhere, he was gracious, funny and candid — if not a bit mumbled.

A large number of Idol’s fans hit up the old website to check out the article, but I know the scans I originally posted were hardly legible, so hopefully for those who couldn’t procure a copy from the Hard Rock, this zoomable digital version will be helpful.