Bleeding Neon

Yep, that’s me, approximately AHEM AHEM years ago at 19 or 20, playing guitar and singing with Rahne, my Nine Inch Nails-like musical project about which you’ve probably read too much here. I had no idea this photo existed until my old bass player, Brian “Sterling” Kirsch, posted it on Facebook somewhere.

This is when Rahne was still just me and Sterling backed by a cassette player (fancy!), and our shows were more about dress-up than, um, music. I mean, the music was serious, but so was the planning that went into glamming up. This particular image was shot at Cyber-City Cafe, which was a gay-owned and very gay-friendly internet cafe at Flamingo and Maryland Parkway. And we were a gay-friendly band. That probably explains why this night, I wore a tight baby tee that read “SLUT” (now I remember!) on the front. I believe later I added the Rahne logo above it. And I think I still have it somewhere.

And yes, I was wearing sunglasses at night.

Somewhere, I have this show recorded on cassette. It includes a terrible cover of Prince’s “Darling Nikki,” long before everyone else covered “Darling Nikki.” If I find it, I’ll attempt to share a digital version with you. Because you’re full of self-loathing.

A few months ago, a new magazine rose out of the Las Vegas desert like … um … I’m not sure I actually have a simile here. Anyway, DAVID Magazine launched in May (or April? One of those.), bringing to Southern Nevada a new, monthly, glossy city magazine. The thing that makes this one distinctive? It’s kinda sorta slanted toward the Jewish community. But it does it in a sneaky way that wouldn’t have you even blink. The features and ads are diverse. The quality is top-notch. And the magazine hires sexy-ass writers like me.

I was asked to write a story about a local Jewish musician. Off the top of my head, one came to mind immediately: Hal Savar, who leads the cover band Acoustic Soul. I wrote about Savar before, for the Las Vegas Weekly, but this would be a much longer feature, and I actually had a lot of material unused from my first interview with Savar. He and I met up again at a Starbucks to talk more specifically about his Jewish upbringing, which I didn’t expect played into his music so much, but it does! Kinda interesting. You should read the story.

DAVID is available for free at a bunch of places in Vegas, including Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. There’s no online version of the stories, but I did do a really poor scan of my story if you’re interested. Click below!

Yes.

Muse + Silversun Pickups, April 10, Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Consider my mind blown.

I know I neither am nor look that old, but sometimes, I’m made to feel like it. And an assignment I fulfilled for the Las Vegas Weekly a few weeks ago was one of those times.

I had to cover the CD release party for a young pop-punk-metal band, A Smile From the Trenches, at The Farm, one of Las Vegas’ only all-ages music venues. It was the Thursday before Nevada Day, the day our fine state celebrates its statehood — and it happens to be Oct. 31, so basically, state workers and students get off every year for Halloween. So The Farm saw a decent number of teens for a weeknight, a few hundred by my estimate. Good news for the local music scene, right? Yes. But …

Let me put this into perspective: I am 33 years old. I do not wear skinny jeans. I have significant gray in my beard. I don’t smoke. And I don’t care much for screamo bands whose names do not start and end with “Thursday.” So there I was, either stuck in a room surrounded by kids more than half my age listening to loud, screamy bands, or stuck outside surrounded by underage smokers, being very careful not to look even sideways toward a female patron for fear I’d look like a pedophile. Or more likely, feel like it. And this being an all-ages venue, there was NO LIQUOR IN SIGHT.

The article turned out all right, I think, and the guys from both A Smile From the Trenches and its record label, DC Hardcore, were very nice and accommodating. And the band was definitely far less terrible than its predecessors that night. But in all, it’s not a situation I’d like to repeat anytime soon. Fellow slightly-worn journalist Dave Surrat was there that night to write about the venue itself for the CityLife, and if not for his not-so-young presence and that of promoter pal John “Ducky” Slaughter, I’d likely have gone fully insane.

But I think this can all be summed up by my tweets from that night:

• The Farm has no signage but easy to find: Parking lot full of teens. Ugh.
• has never felt as old as I do at this all-ages venue right now. Oh the things I do for music journalism.
• is finishing my Corona and then heading back to the emo teen hell. Also, I lost $5 at video poker. Think @lasvegasweekly will cover that?
• Either this screamo band has six members or they just have a young girl who appears to play keyboards but really’s just there to look cute.
• Good news: The kids still mosh. Kind of.
• is standing next to the modern equivalent of rock hoes. The bands change but the hoes stay the same.
• Why yes, Virginia, I am watching a screamo band cover Katy Perry’s “Hot & Cold.” Why do you ask?

I’ve been an unabashed fan of She Wants Revenge from the first moment I heard “Tear You Apart” almost four years ago. Oh, sure, the band (really a duo — Justin Warfield and Adam “DJ Adam 12″ Bravin — expanded live to a quartet) copiously borrowed sonically from Joy Division, New Order and Depeche Mode, but Justin and Adam put such a fresh, dance floor-ready spin on it, that the aping was just fine. I gobbled up the “These Things” EP, then the self-titled full-length, then the eagerly-awaited follow-up, “This is Forever,” and ultimately the band’s last EP, “Save Your Soul.”

Those albums form a fairly cohesive aural snapshot of the band’s first four years, staying close to the darkwave groove first unleashed upon hipster bars of the world in 2005, sometimes adding more subtle textures, sometimes getting more funky, but generally keeping alive the flames of Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and their ’80s counterparts. But with the release of “Up and Down,” She Wants Revenge puts that all in the past.

Welcome to She Wants Revenge 2.0.

Adam (I’m eschewing the formality of last names here as Adam is someone I’d consider a fair acquaintance, and let that be my full disclosure) has been hinting — OK, overtly broadcasting — on Twitter for the last few months that SWR has been making music by which to have sex. He wasn’t exaggerating. He and Justin have almost completely shed their ’80s postpunk sound (save for the EP’s instrumental, “Love Me”) for something entirely contemporary. From the opening, booming pulse of “Your Love” to the whiplash synths of “A Little Bit Harder Now,” SWR has found the place where Justin Timberlake meets Prince meets The Faint.

Justin’s distinctive robotic baritone and visual storytelling is still intact, but it’s been accented by raps hearkening back to his MC days (remember Bomb the Bass’ “Bug Powder Dust?”). As well, the duo is joined by new discovery ZinaStar on “All Wound Up,” where she delivers a Pussycat Dolls-style verse as well as background vocals.

The more goth-inclined members of SWR’s fan base might be put off by the suddenly mainstream club-friendly sound, but if they’re not able to grow with the band, then they’re missing out. This is pure ass-shaking ear candy you can enjoy without feeling guilty. And it’s made by two dudes who, I can confirm, are real people, writing their own music, playing in a real band that plays real venues. And they’re doing it all without the support of a major record label, so that $5 you should drop on iTunes today for “Up and Down” is money well spent.