Rock and Roll PING! email Weegee to get on/off this list (or grab it yourself to PING the rest)
Posted on 10/03/2004 3:32:17 PM PDT by weegee
Las Vegas - Though it's drenched in decades-old feedback, the garage music that helped electrify the 1960s is still alive and brighter than the neon in this town that hosts an annual festival of all things '60s rock.
The Las Vegas Rockaround, which took over the Gold Coast Casino here last weekend, is a celebration of growling guitars, vicious vocals and songs that rarely top 3 minutes. The music is where punk meets R&B, where soul meets frat-rock, where garage meets surf meets the blues meets rockabilly meets psychedelic. More simply put, it's the reason we have the Hives, the White Stripes, the Strokes and the Black Keys.
The three-day Rockaround is a 12-hours-a-day kind of thing where a DJ starts things off at 5:30 p.m. and, after seven or eight bands and a couple more individuals behind the decks, another DJ closes the room at 5:30 a.m. There are burlesque girls (including Denver's Michelle Baldwin), like-minded vendors and the Lady Luck Club, transported temporarily from its home in London for the festival, not to mention everything else Las Vegas offers.
This year's festival was jump-started Friday with the killer 1-2-3 wallop of the Reigning Sound, the Greenhornes and the 5678's. All three bands are adored and respected, and for good reason. While their music ultimately falls into the same general category, there are enough differences - especially in live performance style - to make the bill a dream team of talent.
The Reigning Sound, with frontman Greg Cartwright out-emoting everyone in the room, put forth a set that was even more ferocious than his recent opening gig for the Hives at Denver's Ogden Theatre. The trio ripped its way through material from its three records, tossing in a handful of covers along the way. The energetic fluidity of the set was a highlight of the weekend.
The Greenhornes were strong but not nearly as cohesive as the Reigning Sound. Their dreamy garage pop was the ideal sound to prepare the crowd for the 5678's, the all-girl Japanese band popularized by its fling in Quentin Tarantino's first "Kill Bill" film. The 5678's matched their deft cuteness with a surf-tinged sting that had you bopping your head and humming for hours after their performance.
Saturday's highlights were more spread-out. An intimate daytime gig at the Double Down, an off-site bar, was carried on the backs of The Flakes, who played with sweat in their eyes, fans in their faces and beer in their stomachs. Back at the festival later that evening, the raunchy electricity of the Bobby Teens led nicely into the refreshingly earnest frat-rock sounds of Denver's own Orangutones.
Wearing matching letter sweaters - bright orange with a white, embroidered "O" - the sextet brought us back to a simpler time and made us crave a sock-hop. Instead we got Muck & the Mires, who didn't move me as much as Barrence Whitfield, the soul singer following them. He's a character, but he's got the voice to match his attitude.
The Monks, perhaps the weekend's most anticipated act, were solid musically but didn't make a convert out of me. The music, stammered and at times random, didn't strike a chord like that of the Downliners Sect, who laid down a harmonica- soaked set of garage rock intensity that exceeded expectations.
The A-Bones followed, and while they were fun and wild and dirty, they still had a hard time following the Downliners Sect.
Sunday's action was best when Fortune & Maltese was on stage. It was messy and dirty, sweaty and harmonic. They had such impressive energy that it even put Hasil Adkins, an adventurous one-man garage band, to shame.
A weekend like this, one that focuses so heavily on rock's roots and that is so relevant to where rock 'n' roll is today, should cleanse the soul of any true music fan. Rock is anything but dead. It's cyclical, yes, and better at recycling than this desert hub of indulgence and excess.
The weekend was no Elvis sighting - it was the real thing.
Rock and Roll PING! email Weegee to get on/off this list (or grab it yourself to PING the rest)
I did run into your friend Rob. I didn't see his band at the official show but I did see their Thursday performance at the Double Down Saloon.
I had an early flight to catch on Monday and the schedule was running behind time around 2am.
sounds fun.
White stripes are kewl
More pictures may be online in the coming days.
What's more, I don't recall hearing any of the performers slamming the President or presuring the over-21 crowd to vote.
Wonder if The Blacks from Arizona will be there...?
So? Were they badass, or what? Did you have a good time out there???
I liked their fuzztoned set although I could do with hearing one of their couple of albums they had for sale.
Side note, the Elite and some other Ft. Worth garage bands played Ft. Worth Texas as a fund raiser for a food bank today.
Don't know how the shows were and I didn't learn of them until noon.
I said hi/hey to Rob numerous times during the weekend as did a female friend of mine.
Heck I had a friend I've known since 1977 drive in to the show and surprise me for my birthday.
Here's a lovely shot of the 5-6-7-8's.
You may notice that only 4 of the 5 monks were there. The drummer had a lung removed so he has an excused absence. I hope that he has a healthy recovery.
PING out of possible Veteran interest. These are U.S. Cold Warriors who were stationed in Germany during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
They turned their time in the military into a career as musicians (with about a 5 year run including an album on Polydor that is still influential decades later). When asked who their favorite bills were, they replied it was playing with Jimi Hendrix and Bill Haley (in that order).
All you could want to know (in short order) here at their official website: http://www.the-monks.com/
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