Jarret Keene
Contributing Editor, Music
Contact: Email
For 27 years, nothing happened to him. Finally, he earned a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University and, bored of Chaucer, moved to Las Vegas to chronicle the city’s underground music scene. He has written for every kind of media (Spin, BBC Radio, Godzilla fanzines) and has written and edited every kind of book (A Boy’s Guide to Arson, Las Vegas Noir). His primitive nuclear doom metal band Dead Neon terrorizes local dive bars.
Recent Articles
Soundscraper
Killswitches and Battlecrosses
June 18th, 2013
I’m writing this in a poolside cabana at night, and it’s still 100 degrees. Pity the poor EDC-ers who can’t always enjoy air-conditioned venues to keep their angel wings from melting. Meantime, you and I, fellow Soundscrapers, have cool shows to hit.
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Death Fests, Local Ragers and Voodoo Organs
June 11th, 2013
My ears are still ringing from Doom in June, a 12-hour doom-metal festival at Cheyenne Saloon. Since I’m a soldier of rock ’n’ roll, though, I’ll be returning to the very same venue June 13-15 for Las Vegas Deathfest V.
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Concert Review: Kobra and the Lotus
LVCS, June 7
June 10th, 2013
Despite her band’s galloping thrash rhythms, Canadian iron maiden Kobra Paige had always struck me as pop and indebted to Evanescence’s Amy Lee. My confusion stemmed from the polish of Las Vegas-based producer Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne, In This Moment) who tends to airbrush sonic warts. As a result, the Churko-touched songs on Lotus’s self-titled Universal Records debut sound like a bid for mainstream attention.
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Catpocalypse Meow
Artist Jesse Smigel blends feline sci-fi, laser tag and dystopian themes
June 5th, 2013
It’s not every day that you step into a gallery during normal hours to find the artist, bearded and bandana-skulled, painstakingly remounting his show with a carpenter’s Leatherman Wave multi-tool and paint-splattered stepladder.
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Tigers, Cobras and Foxes
June 5th, 2013
The week’s best underground rock shows are crowded on June 7. That night, at 10 p.m., local punk bands the Dirty Panties, the Quitters, the Seriouslys, Tiger Sex and Gigantic gather at Double Down Saloon. All these groups have a loose, garage-y bent that should make them tons of fun to watch.
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Music
CD Reviews: Bounty Hunter Brothers, Falling in Reverse and Escape the Fate
June 4th, 2013
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Concert Review: Demon Lung
Cheyenne Saloon, June 1
June 3rd, 2013
At Doom in June III, metalheads stayed for the dozen-plus doom bands from around the country. But they came to see Las Vegas-based Demon Lung (or should have), now with extra beefiness courtesy of new rhythm guitarist Brent Lynch.
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Soundscraper
Sending Vegas’ Dirty Panties to Japan
May 29th, 2013
Local label SquidHat Records is harnessing the crowd-funding power of Indiegogo to put homegrown all-girl punk band The Dirty Panties on a plane to the Land of the Rising Sun.
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Gang Activity
How a Seattle insurance agent turned a motorcycle club into a rock band
May 29th, 2013
Like a good neighbor, Brent Amaker processes claims in his State Farm office in West Seattle. Working in the insurance industry isn’t the most glamorous way for a musician to pay the bills—especially when by night he leads an art-rocked old-school country band called The Rodeo, which sounds like Johnny Cash trapped in the violent universe of a ’70s spaghetti western movie soundtrack.
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Bowling for Bands
May 21st, 2013
Punk Rock Bowling is back again, and the musical lineup looks superb. There’s plenty of classic testosterone-fueled punk on hand (Agnostic Front, The Damned, D.R.I.), sure. But there’s also more diverse, quirkier fare this time around.
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