Posts Tagged ‘las vegas weekly’

It’s been almost a year since I last wrote for 944 magazine (Las Vegas edition). There was no particular reason for this dry spell other than 944‘s editors stopped assigning me stories and I stopped pitching to them. Plus, much like the rest of the magazine industry, 944‘s freelance budgets tightened up (not as much as some others). But a month or two back, I was given an assignment out of the blue by 944 to do a profile of Ryen McPherson, who co-runs the video production company Shoot to Kill Media. However, you might be more familiar with his earliest filmed work: Bumfights.

Yeah, I had to interview the Bumfights guy. If you don’t know the story, let me sum it up: Teenagers from San Diego get bums to fight each other on film in SD and Las Vegas. Make it into DVD. Becomes a cult sensation and target of moral and legal detractors. McPherson and pals sell off rights to Bumfights but still end up in court, doing a short stint in jail after some bureaucratic confusion over community service time.

By all reports I could find, McPherson was an anti-establishment, anti-internet maverick who did time for filming homeless men beating the hell out of each other. As you might expect, I was a little anxious about our meeting. But the Ryen McPherson I found at a Starbucks at Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway was a calm, reflective, tattooed 26-year-old, passionate about music and film and dedicated to producing the highest quality product possible. He excitedly showed me video clips on his Macbook. He freely admitted the Bumfights ordeal was a folly of youth but an education experience. And he revealed his fiercest ambition is to direct music videos — just for the love of the medium.

You can read the full article (“Killer View”) here, though because of 944‘s limited space, you miss some of the context I provided above. Shoot to Kill just finished a new music video for local band Lydia Vance’s song “Again Tomorrow.” Check it out at Shoot to Kill’s website (click on the song title). It’s both funny and shocking, but overall entertaining. And the music ain’t so bad, either.

Oh, I’m also still writing about local music for the Las Vegas Weekly. My last article, on electrocore band This Romantic Tragedy, ran a few issues back, and I should have a couple more stories in next week’s issue. Also: The Utopian webcomic is back from hiatus. In case you weren’t keeping track. And I have another 944 deadline this week. So things are good. Keep your eyes peeled.

We’re about to round a corner with the completion of this week’s two pages from The Utopian. Page 31 is now live, but Friday’s strip is not only the tense conclusion of Part 4 of the serial (“Out of the Closet”), but also will be the last page in the first print collection, which will be released this fall. I received cover art from Mark T. Zeilman (also bass player in a certain awesome local rock band) last week, and, well, I am trying really hard not to post it yet, because it’s pretty rad.

As I’m heading to San Diego for Comic-Con International tomorrow, there will be no new Utopian pages posted next week, but I’ll be back with Part 5, “Revelations,” the first week of August. Which is, coincidentally, 33rd Annual International Pj Week. Bring your party hats.

I’m sure I’ll have all sorts of news for you after I get back from Comic-Con, but until then, chew on the latest article I posted on Examiner.com about Nevada Ballet Theatre’s fall season, and keep your eyes out for tomorrow’s Las Vegas Weekly, in which there should be a Pj-penned article about fast-rising Vegas electro-core band This Romantic Tragedy.

Oh yeah, if you want to be really amused, check out Cracked.com’s “Worst Webcomic” forum, in which the forum trolls dwelling there do their best to ooze snarky criticisms all over The Utopian. Of course, since someone started posting links to my webcomic over there, traffic on my site has increased hundredfold, so I guess that goes to prove, once again, there’s no such thing as bad press. If I get really bored one of these days (because, you know, that happens), I might address each of their complaints in a blog post in my own refined and delicate manner.

And to end on a more positive note, how about good press? Internet pals Kevin Church, Benjamin Birdie, Max Riffner and others get some love for their webcomics over at NPR.com, which is about the most awesome sauce you’ll ever taste.

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.

Photo by Erik Kabik | RETNA (www.erikkabik.com)

Last night was the opening film, opening party and opening ceremonies of the 2009 CineVegas Film Festival. The film, Saint John of Las Vegas, was also enjoying its world premiere at the CHI Showroom inside Planet Hollywood Resort, Hotel, Casino, Film Location and Mall. I won’t attempt a review of the Steve Buscemi-starring indie movie. It was good, funny in the right places, though not great, but my buddy Josh Bell can tell you more about what did and didn’t suck (though he may have missed the allusion in the story to Dante’s Inferno).

I was invited to the opening night festivities (including the after-party at Prive nightclub), but unlike the last few years, I opted not to get press credentials for the festival. This is no slight against CineVegas, but rather an indication of how limited my time is right now: I have just enough to maintain the level of output musically, journalistically and, uh, comic book .. er … y (?) as I have been for these past few months with a little wiggle room for TOP SECRET PROJECTS. But, y’know, that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn down an invite from my peeps at CineVegas.

The premiere of Saint John was attended by most of the cast, director Hue Rhodes, the usual crop of Vegas headliners (creepy-ass Carrot Top, future Peepshow star Holly Madison, a bunch of unrecognizable dudes presumably from song-and-dance shows featuring the music of the 1950s/60s), CineVegas royalty (i.e., Dennis Hopper) and, um, me. ME. And a lot of rubberneckers mobbing the velvet rope outside the red carpet.

I didn’t stay for the after-party. It’s been a long week and I wasn’t feeling it. Plus: I have another CineVegas party to attend on Friday, so I will gladly drink their free booze then. And I will also gladly eat and drink sin dinero at First Food & Bar on Friday for that grand opening. Oh, and maybe enjoy a Foster’s or two tonight at the Rio’s Voodoo Beach, where Cracker is playing one of those free show things. Yeesh.

Also, in between all the event moochery, I found time to write a new article for your consumption in this week’s Las Vegas Weekly. It’s about long-time local band Cherry Hill, which, in what is either marketing genius or idiocy, is releasing its brand-new album at a show this Saturday billed as the group’s “final performance.” I know, right? Read all about it, kids.

Another week, another local music story for the Las Vegas Weekly. This time around, I hung out with Left Standing before their CD release show at Wasted Space inside the Hard Rock Hotel. Sadly, the Weekly‘s space dedicated to local music coverage is limited, so I had all of 450 to 500 words in which to work. That may seem like a lot, but it’s not. After compiling my notes, I struggled to come up with a decent angle for the article, which had to be a combination interview/show review/CD preview — not something easily done in such a small space.

After letting the story “cool” overnight, I awoke on deadline day with the revelation that the article might best be served by a Gonzo-style, experiential trip through the night at the Hard Rock. I described the gyrating go-go dancers, the wobbling, drunken tourist frat boys, the individual band members and their particular tics, the basketball fans glued to the flat screens … you name it, I threw it in there. Problem was, that put me over my word count before I even finished the second paragraph.

Sigh. Such is freelance journalism.

So I ended up with a serviceable piece that hopefully did the band justice, if not the overall experience. After finding ways to squeeze stories into 200-word boxes for Six Degrees, I’ve gotten pretty good at compressing a whole lot of content into not much space. But it still doesn’t mean I like it.

In February 1993, my first published piece of quasi-journalism ran in Scope Magazine, the then-monthly alternative newsmagazine that would go on to morph into the Las Vegas Weekly, Greenspun Media’s gloss-covered, nightclub ad-filled alt-weekly. While working for Greenspun from 2004 to 2006, I was a regular contributor to the Weekly, covering everything from nightlife and music to business and education, but my crutch was always local music. I helped launch the bi-weekly “Loud!” column, which exclusively covered the Vegas music scene (I co-created a similar monthly feature for the CityLife a few years earlier).

So I suppose it isn’t too surprising that I’ve returned to the pages of the Weekly in this week’s issue with an article about the return of 1990s doom groove maker A Pig Named Jodi to the Vegas scene. It’s a story about the band’s homecoming that is as much a homecoming for me. To be honest, I haven’t spent that much time thinking about the local music scene outside of how to get my band, As Yet Unbroken, pushed to the top of it (Speaking of which, our new song “Almost Gone” maintained its spot as the most downloaded song on the Weekly‘s website AGAIN this week). But when arts and entertainment editor Spencer Patterson — with whom I worked previously at the paper before running off to launch Racket magazine — approached me about again covering local music for the Weekly, I quickly fell into a familiar place. I mean, sure, interviewing big rock stars is nice and all, but I feel much more like I’m doing something worthwhile by giving my scene brethren a little love in print.

So look for another story in (I believe) next week’s issue as well, and so long as I don’t get terribly distracted, there should be plenty more coming. And if you have any story ideas about Vegas-based bands, venues, producers, studios, etc., feel free to fling ‘em my way.

In February 1993, my first published piece of quasi-journalism ran in Scope Magazine, the then-monthly alternative newsmagazine that would go on to morph into the Las Vegas Weekly, Greenspun Media’s gloss-covered, nightclub ad-filled alt-weekly. While working for Greenspun from 2004 to 2006, I was a regular contributor to the Weekly, covering everything from nightlife and music to business and education, but my crutch was always local music. I helped launch the bi-weekly “Loud!” column, which exclusively covered the Vegas music scene (I co-created a similar monthly feature for the CityLife a few years earlier).

So I suppose it isn’t too surprising that I’ve returned to the pages of the Weekly in this week’s issue with an article about the return of 1990s doom groove maker A Pig Named Jodi to the Vegas scene. It’s a story about the band’s homecoming that is as much a homecoming for me. To be honest, I haven’t spent that much time thinking about the local music scene outside of how to get my band, As Yet Unbroken, pushed to the top of it (Speaking of which, our new song “Almost Gone” maintained its spot as the most downloaded song on the Weekly‘s website AGAIN this week). But when arts and entertainment editor Spencer Patterson — with whom I worked previously at the paper before running off to launch Racket magazine — approached me about again covering local music for the Weekly, I quickly fell into a familiar place. I mean, sure, interviewing big rock stars is nice and all, but I feel much more like I’m doing something worthwhile by giving my scene brethren a little love in print.

So look for another story in (I believe) next week’s issue as well, and so long as I don’t get terribly distracted, there should be plenty more coming. And if you have any story ideas about Vegas-based bands, venues, producers, studios, etc., feel free to fling ‘em my way.