Geoff Carter
Senior Writer
Contact: Email
Geoff Carter has been writing about Las Vegas since 1994, when he joined the staff of Scope, the alternative magazine that would later become the Las Vegas Weekly. He wrote for virtually every publication with “Vegas” in its name—including Vegas.com, the Las Vegas Sun and the self-published Geoff Carter Lives in Las Vegas and is Awesome —until 2002, when he took a ten-year “weekend” trip to Seattle. He returned to Vegas in May 2012 to become one of Vegas Seven’s senior writers and to be the editor of DTLV, the authoritative, yet mellifluous voice of downtown Las Vegas. His work has also appeared on MSN.com, in Time Out’s 1000 Songs to Change Your Life and in the Seattle Times. And he won an award once, but he gave it to his dad.
Recent Articles
A Carnival of Sights
Yeah, yeah, there’s music and pretty people. But check out those EDC art installations!
June 19th, 2013
I don’t like festival shows. To my thinking, music is best contained in clubs, midsize venues—the metaphorical knife fight in a phone booth. And while I like house, techno and even a bit of dubstep, I prefer to listen to it in my home, where my dancing won’t hurt anyone. And yet, I’m going back to the Electric Daisy Carnival this year. I’m doing it partially for the women—young, striking, dressed like Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC—but mostly for the art.
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Seven Questions for Pasquale Rotella, EDC Founder
The founder of Electric Daisy Carnival on being a fan, keeping the party safe and minor injuries sustained while break dancing
June 18th, 2013
Pasquale Rotella is many things: Most famously, the 38-year-old is the founder of Insomniac, the company that stages the Electric Daisy Carnival. He also happens to be the fiance of Holly Madison and the father of a newborn daughter, Rainbow Aurora. But Rotella is, above all, a fan. He truly loves electronic dance music—the sounds, the scene, the communal exuberance—and that lifelong fandom drives him to make each EDC bigger, better and bouncier than the one before.
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Concert Review: Wayne Hancock
LVCS, June 15
June 18th, 2013
Every time I stop believing that Wayne “The Train” Hancock is not a reincarnated Hank Williams—when I feel comfortable saying, “Maybe every honky-tonk throwback artist sings about driving lonesome highways in a reedy twang”—Hancock reaffirms my earlier beliefs with a set of killer road songs and a few stories about the last time he was arrested.
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Turning Gold Into ... Gold
Renovations at the Gold Spike ditch the gaming, keep the vibe
June 12th, 2013
If I had a nickel for everyone who asks me what I think the Downtown Project’s ultimate goals are and how they’ll pan out over time, I wouldn’t have to do this for a living.
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Tour Buzz: She & Him, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against The Machine and 80s Music
June 10th, 2013
MELLOW AGED: Richard Cheese and Lounge Against The Machine is playing at Sunset Station’s Club Madrid on June 14 ($34-$56). The last time I saw this musical comic—whose born name is Mark Jonathan Davis, which sounds even less realistic than “Richard Cheese”—I was at Venus, the short-lived tiki bar and ultra-lounge at the Venetian. Remember that place? Marc Campbell, the lead singer for the Nails—the new-wave band that did “88 Songs About 44 Women”—ran the place.
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A Downtown Tale of Law, Order and License Plates
A rise in the number of warrant checks has some lawyers curious
June 5th, 2013
In Las Vegas’ criminal justice system, the people are represented by two groups. One is the lawyers, who say that the Metropolitan Police Department has stepped up its procedure of running the license plates of cars stopped at traffic lights to look for outstanding warrants, particularly in the Downtown area. The other group is Metro itself.
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Tour Buzz: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Ryan Bingham and MGMT
June 3rd, 2013
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, there were alternative rock groups we referred to, not unkindly, as “really good bar bands”—usually roots-rock outfits like the Del Fuegos or power-pop outfits such as The Smithereens. Generally, they were non-showy bands that had some songwriting depth and could play a solid club set. Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, who play Mandalay Bay Beach on June 8 ($40), is such a band. Their music might not change the course of your life, but for as long as the Nocturnals are onstage at Mandalay, you’ll feel good about living it … particularly if you have a beer in your hand. That’s a vital component of the really good bar-band experience.
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Life is Beautiful Lineup Announced
June 3rd, 2013
LIB is the only festival I’ve heard of with a Chef Panel, and it includes some real heavyweights, including Honey Salt’s Kim Canteenwalla, Incanto’s Chris Cosentino and The Charleston’s Jet Tila. That’s the culinary equivalent of getting The Killers, Portugal The Man and Passion Pit on the same bill. And by the way, LIB has done that, too.
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Tour Buzz: Matt & Kim, the Psychedelic Furs and the Flaming Lips
May 30th, 2013
LET’S GO, INDEED: I confess: All I really know of Matt & Kim, who play poolside at the Cosmopolitan on May 30 ($20), is their first big hit “Daylight.” But recently, during a pool party, a co-worker casually said that Matt & Kim is his favorite band, hands-down. That’s a strong statement—not even I can say that of any one band—and it precipitated a serious, two-eared listening session on Spotify. And the result? Yeah, I can see it. Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino’s dance pop is at once immediately catchy and convoluted; it’s like the sound an alien civilization might make if it were to dig up old Bobby Brown records a thousand years from now. And we can enjoy it right now. My co-worker is a smart guy.
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Tour Buzz: Billy Idol, Fleetwood Mac, Pitbull and Ke$ha
May 20th, 2013
I heard once that Billy Idol, who’s playing the Pearl on May 25 ($49-$89), actually lived in Las Vegas for a time during the 1980s. I can’t find substantiation of this anywhere, save for the cut-up KOMP sticker that’s stuck to his guitar in the video for “White Wedding” (ROCKS LAS VEGAS), a name-check in “Eyes Without a Face” (Steal a car and go to Las Vegas/oh, the gigolo pool), and an album whose name might have been inspired by UNLV’s student newspaper (Rebel Yell).
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