✦Weekender✦ Psychedelic BBQ | Night flap | Striptease smash | Tiny wrasslin' | Gourd almighty | Debonair Dino | Roots rock 🍖
FROM PROTEIN-FORTIFIED jam bands to passion-fruity martini meetups to Rat Pack throwback parties, here's what made The List this weekend. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
🍜 Friday September 5
- Smooth crooner Dave Damiani is a testament to being, well, a canny and ambitious bartender: He got his start manning the bottles at Charlie O's Jazz Club in L.A., taking an immersion course in vocal jazz from the talent rotating through. Now he's a bandleader with the Great American Songbook on the tip of his silver tongue. (Note Saturday shows too) 7:45p and 9p, Vic's Las Vegas
- They say blood is thicker than water, but you know what's thicker than blood? Food, movies, and clothes. Those are some of the unlikely bonds explored in Living Here, an exhibit in which artists from the East and Southeast Asian diasporas consider family through novel channels – think karaoke, instant noodles, and house slippers. 5p, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
- A few weeks ago I met up with my podbroooos at City Cast Las Vegas for happy hour at SoulBelly. I basically, like, devolved into a whirling maw of unrepentant gluttony. In my protein fog, I remember thinking: The only thing missing right now is a psychedelic jam band to give rich sonic expression to my internal meat-drunk state. Delilah's Dead would have certainly fit the bill. 6p, Soulbelly BBQ
- If there's a center to Las Vegas' ever-twirling, perpetually sashaying, perennially vamping, continually bump-and-grinding burlesque scene, it's the Sin City Burlesque Festival, put on by movers-and-shakers-in-multiple-senses Raquel Reed and Aubrey DeLuxe. (Note Saturday show too) 7p, The Space
Also Friday ➤
Tap some spines at the First Friday Half-Off Book Sale at Sahara West Library ✦ Fill yr ears with 100 percent of the '80s with The New Waves at Sand Dollar Lounge ✦ So I guess the spirit of defunct hair-metal rock club Vamp'd has possessed The Bootlegger with a night of Chevy Metal ✦ They're tiny wrestlers, wrestlers for money at The Nerd's MicroMania.
👉 ICYMI, here's a sack o' lascivious (sp?) martinis, sybaritic happy hours, and LOUD Japanese drums:
Andrew Kiraly
🧵 Saturday September 6
- Insert here my standard verbal if-you-haven't-been flog about the splendid Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum. Better yet, today is Free First Saturday, so you can upload all that beauty, gratis. 10a, Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum
- No pressure, but just reminding you that we're getting close to decorative gourd season. I bet you can find some $%#@ing incredible domestic-af wares at the Fall Craft Spectacular. (Through Sunday) 10a, World Market Center
- I will always and forever be team Camper Van Beethoven > Cracker, but if you're gonna catch a band amid the resplendent grime of Fremont Street, might as well make it some textured alt-roots rock. 8p, Fremont Street
- Speaking of fall rituals, P*rnStar Martini Week is like decorative gourd season for your mouth and good judgment. A buncha DTLV bars are busting out slick custom variations of the passion-fruit twist on the martini. (Through Sunday) Various hours, Arts District bars
Also Saturday ➤
Basque in tapas and tipples at Wineaux's Patio Party ✦ It's easy being green at Herbally Grounded's fancy-schmancy Matcha Pop Up ✦ The East Las Vegas Library celebrates Latin lit with books, poetry, and music at Expolibro ✦ The women at this Roller Derby Double Header at West Flamingo Park are wheelers and dealers (of pain).
👿 Sunday September 7
- The thing I like about the Piecing It Together Podcast's screening/discussion events is that they take genre film – horror, suspense, thriller – seriously. The post-flick panel chats featuring filmmakers, creators, and critics is always enlightening – and somewhat daunting, because you leave the theater with a list of, like, 9,719 related films you simply have to see. Tonight they're spooking up a convo about The Conjuring: Last Rites. 6p, Downtown Cinemas
- As a cultural curator, I cannot in good conscience ever recommend the repellent mutant mongrel genre known as hypno-comedy. I can, however, recommend comedy-magic, and fast-fingered, sharp-tongued Eric Eaton is pretty damn good at both parts of it. 7p, Wiseguys
- I wouldn't characterize "Spotlight – The Music of Icons" as a show in which Michelle Johnson merely covers timeless songs, but one in which she channels the original artists – many of whom she's performed with – with her own inimitable verve. 7p, Myron's
Also Sunday ➤
Warrior-posers, come out and play-ay-ay at Downtown Yoga in the Park at Container Park ✦ You're close to climax at the Final P*rnStar Martini Party at Petite Boheme ✦ The Foo Fightaz at The Composers Room are as confident in their tribute chops as they are in IP law.
🙏 Hope you have the raddest weekend. Thanks for your support! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
