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
Videography
‘Black Days,’ The Lucky Cheats
January 10th, 2013
Harmonica-blowing blues-rockers the Lucky Cheats lay down hot tracks (check out 2011’s Sugar in the Tank CD) and put on sizzling live shows (as they did opening for the Blasters at Vinyl last month).
Read More »
CD Reviews
Make Way, Discoma, Space Fapping
January 10th, 2013
Rusty Maples, Make Way (Self-released); Backhouse Lily, Discoma (Self-released); 3d6, Space Fapping (Self-released)
Read More »
Cheatgrass, Swamp Wolves, Warbeasts
January 10th, 2013
Jack Johnson fronts a damn-fine rock band called Dude City. So when Johnson emailed to say his 21-year-old cousin, Chandelle, is a badass singer-songwriter and plays her CD-release party at the Bunkhouse Saloon at 9 p.m. Jan. 12, I pay attention and mark my calendar.
Read More »
Soundscraper
New Year’s local music resolutions
January 3rd, 2013
Dear Vegas Music Scene,
I’ve come up with a few New Year’s resolutions on your behalf. Keep the following in mind as you work toward developing into a real live-music destination instead of a stop tacked on between gigs in Oakland, Calif., and Tempe, Ariz..
Read More »
>‘Here With Me,’ The Killers
January 3rd, 2013
They started out a synth-rock band, morphed into a Springsteen tribute act and are now doubling down on a bet that what people really want to hear is subpar Journey power ballads. Moreover, the Killers gambled on bringing out a video for the third single, “Here With Me,” from this year’s tragically bad Battle Born.
Read More »
Jenn O. Cide dons SquidHat
January 3rd, 2013
This year, Las Vegas’ favorite 6-foot-3-inch fire-breathing vixen is coming out with two instructional DVDs courtesy of local punk-rock record label SquidHat Records. Jenn O. Cide, named one of the city’s most intriguing people by Vegas Seven in 2012.
Read More »
A Different Stripe
Pet Tigers leap to local music forefront courtesy of an unusual lead instrument
January 3rd, 2013
Step into a show by Pet Tigers and you enter the realm of the keytar. It’s that ’80s-era keyboard you wear around your neck like a guitar. With the synthpop revival in full swing, Vegas bands such as Big Friendly Corporation and Pet Tigers have reintroduced—and added a gritty edge to—the Miami Vice sound.
Read More »
Born Again (and Again)
5th Wall lets artists reimagine its dimensions with site-specific works
January 3rd, 2013
Upon entering a cool little gallery in Emergency Arts, I anticipate a range of sensations. One thing I do not expect, however, is to feel panic grip my spine when my entrance triggers a motion detector and a whirring, mechanical, three-headed hellhound suddenly springs to life.
Fashioned from Frankensteinian, bargain-bin fright masks and a reverse-engineered, wire-strewn, robotic frame, Shannon Eakins’ “Cerberus” combines nature with technology. If you’re not ready, you’ll flinch (or yelp) when the animatronic chimera activates.
Read More »
Take a Lick
For 40 years, roots-rocker Dan Hicks has kept on ticking and guitar-picking
December 20th, 2012
“Enigmas on Thin Ice.” That was the title Rolling Stone writer Charles Perry used in his 1973 cover story on the breakup of seminal San Francisco folk act Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks. Given that the band—with its refreshing Western-swing/jazz grooves and call-and-response between Hicks and his female backup singers—was reaching new levels of popularity, the title seemed fitting.
Read More »
Heat and Serve
Spoon’s Britt Daniel hopes listeners will gorge on his hot new band, Divine Fits
December 20th, 2012
The genres of indie-rock and synth-pop often converge. But rarely do they meld as seamlessly as they do in Divine Fits. Spoon front man Britt Daniel, Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs front man Dan Boeckner and New Bomb Turks drummer Sam Brown comprise this band, which formed earlier this year. The group released a debut, the moody and melodic A Thing Called Divine Fits, on Merge Records in August to much acclaim.
Read More »