Feature
The Crash
Seventy years ago, as a nation struggled with an unprecedented challenge, a transcendent star died on Mount Potosi. What does the story of Carole Lombard say to us today?
January 19th, 2012
A fireball burst from the mountainside into the night sky on the southwest edge of the Las Vegas Valley. A plane had crashed. It was a Friday night, Jan. 16, 1942, and the city was still a small enclave of sawdust joints on Fremont Street and a couple of new hotel-casinos on what would eventually be the Strip. Read more »
Places
The Total Package
Surrender
December 22nd, 2011
Of course, any nightclub can be made to look enticing in those glamorous press photos you see on the websites—empty of any actual patrons, free of bottle-service clutter and shot long before any drunken bachelorette has ever swung from the proffered poles. Surrender, by contrast, is a beautiful canvas that actually gets better with the addition of beautiful people. Read more »
Back in the Day …
Las Vegas Nightlife Timeline
The Early History (1978-2001)
December 22nd, 2011
1978: Jubilation, a restaurant and club owned by Paul Anka, opens; County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani is its first female bartender. 1988: Jubilation is renamed the Shark Club after basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian’s nickname and becomes a hangout for mobster Tony “The Ant” Spilotro (he also enjoyed Botany’s at Flamingo and Maryland). Cover charge is $5 to $10, a first for Las Vegas. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Raver
Brian Paco Alvarez
December 22nd, 2011
Despite his scholarly looks, curator, urban historian and blogger Brian Paco Alvarez was more than likely genetically predisposed to dance thanks to his parents’ party days at El Jardin and the Landmark. In 1998 the Las Vegas native lived to be nocturnal and oozed club-kid aesthetic. Dressed in beads, rhinestones, huge pants, lamé shirts, crazy headgear and goggles, this raving Liberace took it to another level every time he went out. Here is his reminiscence. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Utopian
David Cohen
December 22nd, 2011
David Cohen grew up to the sound of club music. In Miami, he cultivated a love of breakbeats; in New York and in Europe, he fell for hip-hip and techno. Cohen had an ownership stake in Club Utopia (founded by Gino LoPinto and the late Aaron Britt; Cohen bought in following Britt’s untimely death in 1997), the epochal venue whose arrival in 1996 heralded the beginning of Las Vegas’ club boom. It earned him more than cash and recognition; it put him next to the speakers for some of the best DJs, rappers and electronic music acts in the world. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Producer
Chad Craig
December 22nd, 2011
If you’ve been to a Halloween party in Vegas in the past few years, Chad Craig and AWOL Productions may have had something to do with the décor. Or perhaps you’ve attended Devil’s Night, which has been running for 14 years. But Craig and AWOL are more than just Halloween. The underground rave scene of the late 1990s flourished thanks to Craig and an old warehouse down by the train tracks—better known to legions of UFO pants-wearing teens as the Cande Factore. Weekly events exposed the under-21 set to the scene filled with Peace, Love, Unity and, most of all, Respect for the events and one another. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Bluesman
Terry O’Halloran
December 22nd, 2011
“I’m a gambler, so I’ve always enjoyed coming to Vegas,” says Terry O’Halloran. “But I’m also a big music fan, and whenever I’d ask a cab driver where the good reggae and blues was, they’d say, “I dunno.” Inspired, the Omaha, Neb.-based businessman opened Fremont Street Reggae & Blues in 1993. For a moment, it was Las Vegas’ hottest music venue, and not just for blues and reggae fans; you were just as likely to see Warren Zevon or Tripping Daisy on one of its two stages as you were Pato Banton or Doyle Bramhall. But the financial and operational hardships faced by Fremont Street clubs today were insurmountable obstacles 15 years ago, and Reggae & Blues succumbed to them in 1996. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Cocktailer
Kellee Antalek
December 22nd, 2011
Today Kellee Antalek is a biosync practitioner, reiki master, a multi-disciplined massage therapist, actress and model. But in the late ’90s she was a VIP cocktail hostess at Club Utopia, where she served drinks to the likes of Slash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Utopia was just incredible,” she says. “It was kind of a secret underground home, where everybody knew everybody.” In fact, Antalek remembers her time at Utopia so fondly that even her weirdest nights on the job have become happy memories. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The Boss
Michael Morton
December 22nd, 2011
N9NE group co-founder and La Cave Wine & Food Hideaway owner Michael Morton was destined for a career in the service industry. After all, his father, Arnie, opened Morton’s of Chicago in 1978, and his brother, Peter, co-founded the Hard Rock Café chain and, later, the Hard Rock Hotel. Desperate to make his own mark, Michael quit his job at his father’s restaurant in the late 1980s and opened a restaurant and lounge called Voodoo on the outskirts of Chicago. By 1992, he sold Voodoo and launched Drink Chicago in a century-old warehouse that was once a police station. In so doing Morton joined the nightlife players in the city’s hub—and it wasn’t long before he wanted more. Read more »
Back in the Day …
The DJ
Robert Oleysyck
December 22nd, 2011
Robert Oleysyck had been DJing for only about a year and a half when he moved from Memphis, Tenn., to Las Vegas in 1991. He turned 21 that same year, and was hired on the spot when he applied for a job at the Palladium. Read more »
