Neon Reverb

The underground music scene of Las Vegas has come together this weekend to showcase a great cross section of artists who might otherwise have not toured through this city or remained locally underdiscovered. With a bit of research in the weekly city magazine I found that there happend to be a number of bars and nightclubs who put on nightly music lineups. Must be honest, it has been quite a few years I have had any desire to investigate the indie band showcases, especially in an era of self promotion via such internet tools like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and a host of other less recognized mediums of sites which allow bands to post their music and bio information on the webpage. After some further research of Neon Reverb I decided to head down to the Beauty Bar to watch a number of acts perform. For some reason, the synthesizer has made a resurgence in a number of bands, a hybrid of the Killers/Muse vibe with dreamy lead vocals, retro 80's dance beats, moody bass lines, and an aluminum shell to generate that self conscious distance so prevalent in art pop.

The Beauty Bar looks like a hair salon, all the booths double as the back bar area where all the bottles of alcohol have been setup in a loose assembly with the upmost effort of random precision. After grabbing a drink I went outside to a backyard picnic area, listeners hung out in loose pockets, talking amongst themselves, others probably friends who were more intent, more passionate, singing along with the lead singer who did his best to become more motivated, twisting, jumping, then rolling around on the stage, while slyly looking over his shoulder to see if anyone really cared about his antics. A group of twenty continued shouting and screaming motivating the band to increase their tempo driving into a lathered frenzy of ear piercing distortion and manical bashing of the drums, the drummer looked intent on turning his drum set into pile of wooden rubbish. Damn, this band is loud, forgot how painful listening to music in club can be, had to go to the back of outdoor area to lessen the fierce overwhelming sonic assualt, but if its too loud, you are too old, guess that is the case now. It took a few beers to get past the earache until nothing but a dull thud remained. I stood near the audio mixer he did not seem too concerned with the distortion, in fact the band complained between songs that it was not loud enough.

People watching became the routine for the night, started up a couple of discussions with a few photographers covering the event. gone are the days of paper based rock and roll magazines, they exist, but these photographers covered this event for various music websites, blogs, and various Vegas nightlife guides. At times, it appeared that the number of people snapping pictures and rolling video outnumbered the fans in the audience. This did not have a noticable effect on the bands who in total looked excited to be playing their material in front of more than their friends and family, I could sense the personal satisfaction resonanting out of the speakers, whether punk rock or hip hop, the pursuit of showmanship poured out into the Beauty Bar, song by song, band by band, it got me excited about music again and about hanging out in public, attempting to socialize once more, even though I am some old geezer now, others find a weird sort of wisdom in the experiences of my life and they offer me some insight in negotiating life in an era of uncertainity, no one seems concerned, only more motivated to express what is on their mind, might be love or the pain of seeking employment. This is just the kind of message everyone needs, otherwise we'll be sailing down a sea of alcoholic abuse, drug binge consumption,
and an unfathomable depression. We already went down that well in the early 90's of self destruction with a bit of art to show for it, but also a generation who refutes praise, support, and brotherhood. I count myself among them, yet to hang out with a new crowd gave me a sort of revival, now if I can keep the drinking down to minimum there is a chance of getting some real work done, back out into the field.