✦Weekender✦ Mazatlán jams | Mojave Mardi Gras | $1 beers | Super sales | Midnight clowns | Oscar party | Rare Italian wine 🍷

FROM NIGHT-OWL markets to tiki tequila parties to unholy church services, here's what made The List this weekend. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍

🏄‍♂️ Friday Feb 28

• Yeah, totally, I'm keenly aware of the rich, layered ironies of a cultural consumer newsletter kicking off an events roundup with a mention of the 24-Hour Economic Blackout to protest, well, [gestures at everything everywhere all over], but think of it in positive terms: Today, triangulate yr protest mojo on supporting local small businesses with cash, and give the megacorp industrial consumption complex a rest. Onward!
• Full disclosure: My awesome and all-powerful wife works for literary center Black Mountain Institute, but rest assured this blurb comes from pure personal curiosity: Stoked to see what's brewed up at Lines of Flight, an alt-lit showcase led by writer and performance artist Madhu H. Kaza. It purports to be less your standard rehearsed carousel of readers and something more generative, spontaneous, and freewheeling, developed out of a series of improvisational workshops. I'll be there! 630p, Summerlin Library
• The affably eccentric Donavon Frankenreiter is a former pro surfer turned itinerant Americana rocker, and his laidback throwback folk jams – always comforting, never cloying – strike a balance between beachy grooves and wistful, open-road balladeering. File under "what the world needs now."
  7p, Area 15
• Mariposa Cocina is getting an early bead on Mardi Gras with a series of shows, parties, and showcases leading up to the Fat Tuesday finale, and tonight is an Afrocentric roof-raiser with live bands and DJs breaking out R&B, hip hop, reggae, steppin sounds, zydeco – you name it, and it's probably stirred into this big pot of musical gumbo. 7p, Mariposa Cocina
• Ooh, this is a good night to run yr soul through an industrial car wash – in a good way – via the rough, revving sawtooth blues of Albert Castiglia, renowned for bringing back big, brawling barroom energy to the musical form. And call me crazy, but do I also detect a strain of fuck-it-all, hair-flinging metal riffery going on? 730p, Sand Dollar Downtown
• The Nerd turns night-owl shopping into a full-on party scene with the debut of Nocturnal Market, where local vendors hawk their wares while you sip, socialize, and maybe bowl a strike or two. Like a farmers market but, you know, with cocktails and arcade games. 8p, The Nerd
• Current events stirring up a cauldron of unspeakable emotions? Same. Dance it out at Darkfloor, featuring DJ AFS and DJ Zaya (also a witch, rad) digging grave-deep to spin darkfloor, goth, and the blackest disco that no earthly glitterball can quench. Also, boilerplate response if your inner monologue instantaneously quelled any flicker of curiosity by pre-emptively muttering, wElL I dOn'T DaNcE aT cLuBs!: Oddfellows is as chill, nonjudgmental, and come-as-you-are as it gets. 10p, Oddfellows

🍕 Hella more weekend here w/ rockabilly pizza riots and whirling Chinese fantasia dancers:

🐶 Dog festival | Sketchy circus | Drum party | Freebies! | Dino playground | Rummage sale | Throat rock

The coolest things to do in Las Vegas this week, ever.

The ListAndrew Kiraly

🦆 Saturday March 1

• This spring cleaning event is for the birds: Bird Preserve Maintenance Day is a volunteer day of trash-picking (fun) and vengeful non-native plant-slashing-and-hacking (more fun) to keep Hendo's winged denizens flying right. Gloves and trash bags provided. 8a, Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve
• Cactus Joe's brings literal good vibrations with their monthly sound bath where crystal bowls hum you into transcendence among the spiky succulents. 930a, Cactus Joe's
• AfroVibe turns the already-funky Voodoo Brewery into a daylight disco inferno with Funk House, where underground disco and house tunes bomp with food trucks and local art. 11a, Voodoo Bar
• Dollar Beer Day turns craft brews into pocket change at Slater's 50/50, where Nevadans can sample $1 pours that rotate hourly. And damn, their beer list looks legit. Now you can finally mark "drink New Holland Dragon's Milk" off your bucket list. All day, Slater's 50/50

• Slather on some SPF 70 if you plan on flashing for beads at this sun-soaked Mojave Mardi Gras Float Parade in the charming rurals of Goodsprings. Heat up with legit Cajun and Creole dishes, cool down with a couple of Pat O's head-whipping hurricanes. 12p, Pioneer Saloon
• If you wanna get your finger on the pulse of Vegas' underground/punk/alt/anti-academic lit scene, Shwa Laytart is your beloved revolutionary samizdat hero. Co-owner of hopefully-reopened-soon Avantpop Books, purveyor of Doomed Poetry, and all-around subversive arts impresario, he's put together a roster of rebellious readers firing up an evening of flamethrower words at An Evening of Dangerous Literature, which includes Andrew Romanelli, Brooke Arita-Zamora, Polly Superstar, and Rodney J. Lee. 5p, Recycled Propaganda
• This March Wine Dinner at Ferraro's ain't cheap at $250 a person, but, no lie, you'll be notching a core culinary memory here. This rare dinner pairs San Leonardo's storied Bordeaux-style wines (with San Leonardo's head winemaker Marchese Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga overseeing the pours himself) with a decadent but delicate multi-course feast by Chef Mimmo. 6p, Ferraro's Ristorante
• Some of my best local live music memories are from The Usual Place, the indie hot spot where I've caught everything from hypnotic shoegaze to savage stoner rock – all within devil-horns distance of the bands, one of my favorite things about catching shows at smaller venues. Tonight they're celebrating their fifth anniversary with a free party rife with DJs, food, drinks, and bands, including horny blasters the BPR Brass Brand. 7p, The Usual Place

▼ Saturday cont'd

• Michael Bublé's brass man Jumaane Smith breaks out on his own with a high-energy romp through blues, funk, and New Orleans second-line swagger. Pretty rare treat to catch the Grammy magnet bringing his trumpet pyrotechnics to an intimate stage. 8p, Myron's
• It would be easy to write off '80s Station as just another era tribute act, but it would also be mistaken. Bandleading duo Matt Gucu and Tiffany Fredianelli are longtime Vegas musicians who've been in like (439x\int \frac{1}{(x^2 + 1)^2} , dx) local bands, so suffice it to say there's hella heart, chops, and sweat beneath the flowerpot hats and beehive wigs. Plus I mean wow Fremont Street on Saturday awash in raw humanity, right? 5p, Fremont Street Experience
• Did I also mention that Matt and Tiffany are indefatigably enterprising? Same idea as above, but it's '90s Station. 8p, Santa Fe Station
• Not sure what a Tiki Riot is, but I'm inferring it involves rum, mayhem, and loudness. 9p, Red Dwarf

⛪ Sunday March 2

• The Punk Rock Museum is turning this Free Locals Day into a DIY boot camp, with 'zine-making workshops courtesy of Co-Zi LV, needlecraft lessons from the Las Vegas Battle Jackets Sewing Club, plus L7's Jennifer Finch spinning thrashers in the bar. 10a, The Punk Rock Museum
• It's gonna be perfect weather for getting a strong dose of the great outdoors while celebrating Indigenous culture at the Red Rock Canyon Winter Gathering, where Nuwu and inter-tribal allies convene for a day of song, dance, art, and storytelling. 1030a, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area
• I'm a happily long-lapsed Catholic with not the faintest revenant urge to engage in religious ritual, but I'll make an exception for The Holy Church of Bezos. 11a, Recycled Propaganda
• The Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum knows growing plants is an art – which is why they've tapped organic gardening doyen JoJami Tyler to lead Botanical Alchemy, a learning session that intriguingly blends a guided museum tour with in-depth gardening tips, all themed around the four seasons. Bring your stumpiest green-thumb questions for the Q&A afterwards. 1p, Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum
• Strap on that Depends Ultra-Absorbent Frontal Buffalo Bib™ for the big saucy flap that is Wing Wars, a round-robin taste-off where you sample local wingmasters' signature sauces and rubs to determine top rooster. Some heavy contenders here, from Johnny Mac's to Evel Pie to Atomic Wings. 2p, Hofbrauhaus
• Variety's Oscar Viewing Party turns Hollywood's annual orgy of self-congratulation into a charity event with actual heart. Settle into Brenden's luxury recliners and judge bad celebrity fashion on the big screen while going ham on popcorn and candy (concessions voucher included in the ticket price), all while helping kids, which makes you objectively better than half the celebrities you'll be watching. 3p, Brenden Theaters at the Palms
• Todo Bien Tiki Tequileria marks its first trip around the sun with DJs spinning tropical beats while you sip their anniversary special out of collectible Mai Tai glasses. One year in the tiki biz means they've survived the rum shortage, the lime crisis, and 7,918-and-counting patrons asking "What's in a Zombie?" 8p, UnCommons
• If you're gonna stay out late on a Sunday, it might as well be with a roving troupe of ludic terrorists drenched in Mehron greasepaint, aka the 1230 Clowns, amirite? 1159p, Vegas Theatre Company

🙏 Hope you have the raddest weekend. Thanks for your support! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍