The Fifth Annual Local Music Issue

By CityLife contributors and staff

Revolution Girl Style Now: Las Vegas' punk-rock grrrls have no doubts about their place in the scene

By Jarret Keene

"Punk was a new music, a new social critique, but most of all it was a new kind of free speech. It inaugurated a moment -- a long moment, which still persists -- when suddenly countless odd voices, voices no reasonable person could have expected to hear in public, were being heard all over the place: sometimes as monstrous shouts in the marketplace, sometimes as whispers from an alleyway."



--Greil Marcus



Ranters & Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92.

Examining Greil Marcus' statement through the lens of gender makes it clear which artists shouted (men) and which ones whispered (women). Joe Strummer's Clash clanged the alarm to the tune of thousands of articles and millions of record sales, while women punkers like X-ray Spex's Polly Styrene -- no less interesting than Strummer -- made only a hushed dent on the critical and commercial front. Indeed, the odd, lasting and definitive voices Marcus celebrates mostly originated from men, creating an alternative, but no less chauvinistic, boys club.

Punk began as a subversive movement within popular music, and like most subversive movements, it was co-opted and watered down for the masses. The hardcore stuff still flourished, of course. And for a while, women seemed to secure a place in the new wave movement, which included bands like Blondie and Human League -- that is, until Boy George eclipsed them all, his friendly female impersonation making women's contribution to popular music altogether unnecessary. (Interestingly, bands like Blondie succeeded at offering blank, emotionless caricatures of ice-cold bitches and at making Deborah Harry a mass sexual fantasy.) In punk's ebb and new wave's flow, nothing had really changed in terms of gender equity. The band was still comprised of men; groupies were still women.

Fifteen years after punk officially died, a teenager calling herself Jenn O. Cide began interning at a Las Vegas music venue called the Huntridge Theatre. Her ambition was to help run the soundboard, but for two years she mostly did promotional work, putting up fliers all over Maryland Parkway, getting the word out about upcoming shows. Finally in 1994, at age 15, the opportunity came for her to oversee the stage monitors. At the same time, she and two other women musicians formed what many believe to be the first and only all-girl punk band in Las Vegas at the time, Jenn's Cancer.

Because of Jenn's experience working in the scene, her band had no problems securing gigs. Ten years ago, Las Vegas was a smaller town; the scene was smaller and in many ways more supportive. Furthermore, expectations weren't as high.

"The yardstick for success," notes Jenn, "was how many tapes you could sell on consignment at [defunct music store] Benway Bop. If you sold 300, you were a rock star."

Jenn's Cancer sold plenty of tapes, but there were a couple of minuses involved in daring to break the local music gender line. First, though she never encountered the riot grrrl backlash, Jenn was in fact a little pressured to take herself more seriously and offer more of a feminist message. Second, being the only all-girl punkers in town meant the band had to endure the "novelty" tag. Like a true pioneer, Jenn continues to embrace it.

"Ten years ago," she says, "we were a novelty act. And by no means were we musically groundbreaking. But we had fun and we played our asses off and we really pushed to promote our shows, and people respected that. Now the novelty is gone, and there are more women in the scene than ever. As a result, I think the scene gives women more respect. I think it's awesome."

Most of Jenn's female compatriots agree with this assessment. Roxie, bassist for the Loud Pipes, has been rocking Las Vegas for nearly six years. She moved here from Death Valley to form what she characterizes as "a bad punk-rock band, the first band everyone goes through." Roxie doesn't believe gender to be an issue for her.

"I never have really thought about it," she says. "Or I've never paid attention to it. I guess it's come up a few times, but I don't worry about it. I worry more about the music, the songs. And I don't think my band cares about my gender. If I was the singer, it might be different. I'm a rhythm player, so I'm in the back with [Loud Pipes drummer] Gilbert. I stick with the kick drum."

Today those women who find themselves front and center don't seem overly concerned about gender either. Born in Las Vegas, Jenine Cali, 24, used to hang out at the Huntridge in middle school and rarely saw female-fronted bands come through town. She started out playing drums for an alt-rock band at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1997, but she quickly grew dissatisfied and longed to write her own material. Picking up the bass was the next step. But after college she switched to guitar, took over the microphone and founded her current band, the Day After, an established post-punk act here in Las Vegas.

"I've always been one of the guys," Cali says. "So the worst thing I can say about fronting a band is that a lot of people don't like female singers; they just don't like them. And honestly, I find myself listening to more male-fronted bands, like Face to Face, Sunny Day Real Estate and Radiohead."

But can any band really expect a warm reception from the denizens of a place like the Cooler Lounge?

"People are friendly to me," says Cali, "but if they're guys, then sometimes they're drunk and trying to pick up on me. They don't take me seriously. They'll say something like, 'Hey, you're better than I thought you'd be.'"

Cali's biggest frustration? The comparisons drawn between her band and any female singer -- Gwen Stefani, being the worst example. "That's the one thing I don't like," she says. It's an odd comparison, especially since: 1) the Day After absolutely forsakes ska; and 2) you're more likely to find Cali sporting a pair of jeans than a midriff-exposing shirt and mini-skirt.

Of course, Vegas being Vegas, dressing up or looking sexy is something women in the local scene have never shied away from -- though they have different rationales for why they look so, well, attractive.

"I wear whatever I happen to be wearing that day," explains Roxie. "My wardrobe is based on the weather. I'm fully clothed during the winter and half-naked in the summer."

When asked if there's a noticeable spike in male attendees during the Loud Pipes' summer shows, Roxie laughs and replies: "There are a lot of little girls with little boys at our shows."

Amy Carrelli, now the bassist for Jupiter Shifter, had a different experience when she formed what was arguably Las Vegas' most high-profile woman-fronted punk band, the Pull-Outs, who broke up in May. A fixture for many years in the arts and music scene, Carrelli found it difficult to negotiate the image of guttersnipe glitz with an emphasis on good songwriting, especially when it came to dealing with the media.

"At the time, I didn't know why CityLife was interested in writing an article last year," Carrelli says, alluding to our September article on the Pull-Outs. "But now I see that the band members had a different agenda from the start. There's a difference between being contrived and inspired, and I felt I had a different focus than what was written about us. I wanted to jam out, leave the stage and let the music speak for itself.

"I love the Cramps and the way they look, but they're musicians -- first and foremost they rock. We were sick of talking about the outfits instead of the songs. I'm an intellectual, and I like to think I'm subversive. But there was nothing written about the music in that CityLife article or the articles that followed. Write that we suck, but at least write about the music."

Carrelli feels that sex appeal is a two-edged sword. She admits that the Pull-Outs' signature style attracted an audience early on. However, style soon overshadowed substance.

"Whenever I read about us in the papers, fishnets were always mentioned. I mean, fishnets? Who cares? What about the music? And then there were the nasty comments -- that we were only able to play gigs because our boyfriends played in bands. What's sad is that our boyfriends supported us and were there for us when we needed them, and for people to look at it as a negative thing is awful."

But Carrelli isn't completely jaded by her experience with the Pull-Outs. She's joined a new punk-edged trio Jupiter Shifter, and still finds inspiration in her fellow grrrls.

"Roxie is a prime example," says Carrelli. "She's a total badass. She goes out in jeans, a tank top, pigtails and a trucker's hat, and she's sexy as hell. She's proof that women don't need to sell out. If you want to look sexy, fine, but you better be able to back it up."

Of course, it's a lot easier to talk about what makes Roxie ideal than it is to actually adhere to her principles. "It's confusing," acknowledges Carrelli. "You want to look good, but you also want to rock. It's hard to focus on both."

Cute in the Face is a new and upcoming all-women group struggling to make a name for itself. In the wake of the Pull-Outs' demise, CITF will have to navigate the tricky minefield of the scene's gender issues alone.

"We don't dress up," asserts guitarist Misty Romine. "We'll never dress up."

"If guys show up to see slutty girls," chimes in bassist Heather Sjolie, "fuck 'em."

"A lot of people come to our shows because we're girls," Romine continues. "If they enjoy our music, then that's great."

Romine goes on to say that despite the fact that the scene is indeed a boys club, most boys have been welcoming and respectful.

"It's easy to get in [the scene], but it's hard to survive," she laments.

Drummer/vocalist Rachel Weiss, who's moving to Chicago in July, says the larger problem with Vegas is that there's a limited audience for alternative music, making it difficult for bands -- regardless of gender makeup -- to grow and prosper. However, while the scene may be small, it's also intense.

"Almost everyone I know is in a band," says Romine. Incoming drummer Katheryne Kupisch counters: "But every woman I know is married and/or pregnant."

Currently, the only pressures affecting CITF are who to play shows with. Typically, similar sounding bands are put together on bills, a difficult task when there are so few women involved in the scene.

"It's worse on the technical side of things," says Jenn O. Cide, who has worked for years as a sound engineer. "It's still a rarity for women to do sound for a show. Guys walk in and think you're a groupie or selling snacks. In 12 years behind the soundboard, I've seen five bands that had women engineers. Things are getting better, but they're still bad."

Overly compensating is another factor that affects women in the scene. According to Jenn, women end up having to act tougher, meaner and dirtier in order to avoid being treated like a "chick."

"We have to overdo it a bit," she confesses. "The music industry is really the last bastion of chauvinism."

Until things get better, Las Vegas' punk-rock grrrls will soldier on, forming bands, playing gigs, breaking up and then doing it all over again. They may not be ready for a sold-out show at the House of Blues, but they're getting there.

"At the rehearsal studio the other day, I saw some girls carrying in drums," says Carrelli. "We heard them practice Blondie covers -- which I'm not into at all -- but I was so happy to see some girls carrying in some actual drums that belonged to them and not their boyfriends."

Jarret Keene is CityLife's A&E editor. He can be reached at 702-871-6780 ext. 347 or keene@lvpress.com.

The man behind the band: CityLife chats with the producer of Las Vegas' top metalcore export Curl Up and Die

By Jarret Keene

Throat-shredding vocals. Uptempo doom-rock riffing. Manic, slaughterhouse drums. It's not for everyone. But if you're weary of played-out singer/songwriters, cheesy electronic gurgling and yet another positive-minded group of hip-hoppers, then maybe you should explore the airless realm of metalcore, where metal drops the Satanism and instead fuses with the more literate post-punk ideology of hardcore.

Such a fusion can easily result in disaster, especially when the worst elements of the respective genres are combined. But at the forefront of the new aggressive music are two bands. First, Curl Up and Die -- vocalist Mike Minnick, guitarist Matt Fuchs, bassist Gustavo Mendoza, drummer Jesse Fitts -- arguably Las Vegas' only real music-industry success story.

A song like "Your Idea of Fascism and Global Intervention Makes Me Puke" appears as violently as it disappears. CUAD is the sonic equivalent of a 50-mm machine gun. It's the mirror to our nation's infinite bloodlust. It's a lot of things, really, but more significantly, it's the antidote to toxic bullshit like "Have You Forgotten?" in the way it remembers the dead, where they've fallen and why they can't speak for themselves. Indeed, CUAD's idea of protest music makes me proud to be a Las Vegan.

And then there's the more established New England-based Converge, powered by guitarist Kurt Ballou, whose innovative playing makes every song uniquely powerful, especially on the band's last album, Jane Doe (Equal Vision, 2001). His production on that album in particular has made him a highly sought after producer in the aggressive music scene. Recruited by CUAD, Ballou is now responsible for the younger band's devastating sound. This year, he produced two thematically linked EPs for CUAD. The first, We May Be Through With the Past ... (Status), was released in April, and the second, ... But the Past Is Not Through With Us (Revelation), is due late this summer.

CityLife had the opportunity to talk with Ballou about his role in helping Minnick & Co. reach the vanguard of aggressive music.

CityLife: What did you think of CUAD the first time you heard the band?

Kurt Ballou: I thought they were a talented young band trying to create some innovative aggressive music. What I look for in a project is talented musicians who are good people and good songwriters, as well as a situation where I can collaborate with the artists in the creative process. CUAD met these requirements and then some.

As for [CUAD] resembling Converge, we knew going into it that those comparisons would be made. First of all, CUAD plays the same genre of music as Converge. But they also record with the same person in the same studio and, since they have to fly to record, on the same equipment as Converge. But knowing them as people, I highly doubt that they have set out to sound like Converge.

CL: Unfortunately We're Not Robots blew me away the first time I heard it. "Nightmarish" and "existential" are the words I use to characterize Robots. While you were making Robots, did you realize at any point that you were making a work of art rather than just another "metalcore" record?

KB: From the beginning, I made an effort to produce something that was art. CUAD's previous releases were "just another metalcore record," and I felt as though the band needed something more distinct to allow it to grow. The session actually started at about midnight in a dreary old enormous boiler room in between three giant furnaces, a coal chamber and a river of rust. At that point, we knew we were going to be doing something new and different. Only time will tell if Robots is a landmark release for hardcore. But it's certainly an important part of my progression as a producer and CUAD's progression as a band.

CL: CUAD was my gateway drug to Converge. I tracked down Converge's Jane Doe specifically after hearing your production on Robots. I thought, "If this guy can make this good a record, I bet he plays some serious fucking guitar." Indeed, Jane Doe is so different that I'm curious to know how you look at other aggressive music. How do records like Robots and Doe fit into such routinized, regulated genres?

KB: As with most musical genres, the artists that don't allow themselves to be constrained by their predecessors are always the best and most memorable artists. Bands like Slayer, Death, At the Gates, Godflesh and Entombed will always be remembered as cream-of-the-crop metal bands, because they pushed their art. I'd like to think that Converge and CUAD fit into the "leaders" category of bands -- not because they set out to be leaders, but because they set out not to be followers.

CL: There are a shitload of apocalyptic sci-fi and comic-book concepts in CUAD's music. Why do these ideas seem to dominate so much of the best of today's -- and yesterday's ("Iron Man," "Planet Caravan") -- aggressive music? Do smart musicians just happen to read a lot more than, I don't know, bands like Korn?

KB: Two reasons: 1) Lasers and supermonsters are just plain cool; 2) Aggressive music, sci-fi and comic books all attract cynical people in need of some sort of escapism. These things are an outlet for these people.

CL: Does it matter that CUAD comes out of Las Vegas?

KB: It's significant to them. And that makes it important to me. Vegas is a strange place due to the fact that, aside from UNLV, there is no industry there other than gambling. Almost all employment is either directly related to gambling, or is infrastructure for those employed by casinos. But Vegas could never exist as an independent entity. Additionally, no one seems to be actually from Vegas. They're just living there. And that makes it a place very different from the rest of the country. So CUAD's background as human beings is much different than the rest of the country. And I think it's great to have such diversity.

CL: When you're in the studio with CUAD, do you feel like you're shaping something that's in a raw state and needs to be refined? How much do you contribute to the arrangements?

KB: They send me practice tapes, and I start making suggestions a couple of months before recording. I try not to get in the way too much, but invariably there's always a riff or two per record that doesn't work or an arrangement that needs tweaking. I'd say there's half-a-dozen song-structure related things on Robots that I had a hand in.

CL: I want Mike Minnick to read more Nietzsche, but I think he'd rather read The Incredible Hulk. Is it wrong for music critics to expect musicians to read more and be more (lyrically) articulate?

KB: It's never wrong to have an opinion. But if you are looking for a band to do something to please you, you are misguided. The band should do what it likes and you should listen to what you like. If those things happen to be in line with each other, then great. If not, oh well. Find something else to listen to.

CL: The last time I saw CUAD, Gulf War II was underway and the harsh music really resonated. Is it unfair to put that much meaning into what CUAD does?

KB: I doubt CUAD has used the war to give itself a sense of purpose, but if you examine history, there is almost always an explosion of creativity during war times and during Republican presidencies -- which often occur simultaneously.

CL: Do you make fun of CUAD for playing such geeky instruments and gear?

KB: You mean Matt [Fuchs'] Fernandez guitar? That's the only piece I've ever made fun of. He doesn't play it much anymore, though.

Curl Up and Die is currently on a U.S. tour with Darkest Hour. For more info on the band, check out www.revelationrecords.com.



Jarret Keene is CityLife's A&E editor. He can be reached at 702-871-6780 ext. 347 or keene@lvpress.com.

Hammer time: Las Vegas' underground all-ages venue is where the young go to get ugly

By Jarret Keene

Hammer Films was a British studio that specialized in horror. Shot in full, bold, bloody Technicolor, Hammer movies earned critics' scorn for their relentless "butchery." In one of the studio's earliest forays, The Curse of Frankenstein, Peter Cushing probes an eyeball for freshness, saws open a skull and removes glass shards from a glistening brain -- and that's before he's even sewn together his monster! Indeed, from 1957 to 1976, Hammer's reign of terror included cult masterpieces like Die! Die! My Darling!, which influenced a slew of "splatter" films.

It remains to be seen how the year-and-two-month-old Hammer House will influence Las Vegas. Suffice to say it's an underground all-ages venue that offers something rare in this day and age, something the British film company -- from which the Hammer House takes its name -- offered many years ago: a little danger.

The club's operators, "Stu" and "Larry," understand this, which explains why they urged me to drop this story.

The Hammer House doesn't have a phone number or a website. To find it, you must enter the underground. Easy enough if you've been to as many hardcore shows as I have. My contact was Roxie, bassist for the Loud Pipes, who were playing at the club that night. She said all I needed to do was show up and everything would be cool.

But everything wasn't.

"So you're the guy from the fucking paper," says Stu, a tall, skinny, bespectacled teen with a crewcut. "I don't know what you're gonna write about. There's nothing here except a few bands."

I explain I'm writing a story about the Hammer House for CityLife.

"We don't read CityLife," he says. "We've never heard of CityLife. We don't care about CityLife."

Before I can tell Stu to shove it, Larry, his long hair in a ponytail, steps in and explains the surliness.

"We don't want any attention," he says. "We want to keep it underground."

I respect this, so I hash out a deal. I can't tell you, dear reader, where to find the place. You'll have to enter the underground and stumble across it like everyone else.

I can provide you with some details, though. The Hammer House is a shack in the middle of nowhere: no stage, no lights, no sound system -- bands must provide their own gear. On its plywood walls, someone has spray-painted: "HAMMER HOUSE NO SMOKING NO DRINKING." The rules are enforced. When Roxie arrives to unload her gear and lights up, Stu tells her to do it in the street.

"We've had enough of the fucking cigarette-butt garden," he says.

Aside from the straight-edge aspects of the place, it's genuinely down and dirty. Outside the gate, I ask Roxie what draws her band to play here. "There's something so rock 'n' roll about being surrounded by broke-down cars," she says, in between drags. "It makes me feel at home."

White kids in black T-shirts start wandering in at 6 p.m. Thirty minutes later, there are 50 kids and the first band is underway. Death metal and hardcore is what you get, the down-tuned, super-loud guitars sounding like helicopter blades chopping at the air.

Over the din, Larry tells me: "We started booking shows last year. There are around 20 diehard kids, and they always bring friends."

"I like the hardcore shows," says Stu. "No fucking [KXTE 107.5-FM] bros out here drinking."

I'm hesitant to step inside the shack. The energy is fierce. Sweaty kids collide, smashing into and scaling the walls as Down for the Count destroys their eardrums. Their hardcore "breakdowns," a combination of karate and epilepsy, are particularly hard to watch. The kids do this without regard for whoever's standing beside them.

"It looks violent, but it's really not," Stu assures me.

I saw these same kids at a Curl Up and Die show days earlier and they were out of control. One of them walks by me now, hanging back and clearly avoiding the mosh pit, a beauty of a shiner adorning his face. He was lucky. I pitied the kids at the CUAD skate park show who were getting their necks crushed by some asshole who repeatedly dove into them from the top of a 12-foot skate ramp.

There are just as many girls as guys in the underground.

"That's the cool thing about the scene," says Roxie. "It's pretty much equal in terms of guys and girls."

The girls watch as the guys pummel each other, but they never risk stepping inside the pit. When I ask one girl why she's here, she doesn't answer. Instead, she smiles and points to the kids going apeshit.

Not surprisingly, most of these kids are from the suburbs and have embraced a genre that will never be co-opted by the mainstream or, more importantly, embraced by their parents. Aside from the illiterate Snoop-Doggerel of gangsta rap, this is the ugliest, harshest music on the planet.

Like the other "metalcore" bands on tonight's bill, the Loud Pipes play at a ridiculously high volume. But there's more garage than grind in what they do. So why are they playing tonight?

"I don't know," says Roxie, munching on some Elfin crackers before taking the non-stage. "For some reason, these kids embrace us."

Well, about half of them do. The rest hang back, waiting for a more guttural-sounding act to take over. But for those who dare engage the Loud Pipes, it's almost more dangerous than any mosh circle, especially since frontman Brian swings his microphone like it's a weapon after every shriek. At their best, the Loud Pipes produce a unique brand of biker-blues-speed-rock, with the twin-leads of guitarists Jesse and Pit slicing like samurai swords. The raunchy blues licks come thicker than a hunk of fatback; Gilbert, the drummer, doesn't beat the drums so much as torment them; and Roxie is a pretty, pouting, low-end puncher.

It's an inspiring show, one that gives me hope for the future of the local music scene. If the underground is alive and well, that means the kids are all right and have something better to do than shoot up and/or shoot up their schools.

It's 9 p.m., and unlike the kids, I've got a curfew. "That was fun," I say to Larry on my way out, as the last band sets up its equipment.

"It always is," he says.

The Loud Pipes' next all-ages show is June 28 at 5 p.m. at the Huntridge with the Arcade Heroes, the Blood Junkies, Damnation, the Dirty Babies and the Vague. For more info, check www.theloudpipes.com.



Jarret Keene is CityLife's A&E editor. He can be reached at 702-871-6780 ext. 347 or keene@lvpress.com.

It takes a Village: Levelheaded optimism defines new local alternative label

By Meredith McGhan

Starting a business is hard. Starting a business in the arts during an economic downturn in a culturally deprived city is, some would say, impossible.

However, Marco Brizuela is willing to attempt to defy the odds. Brizuela is confident that his burgeoning record label, Village Industries, has more than a fighting chance of surviving to put out its unique sound.

The label's mission is to give unique artists an alternative to the alternatives. Brizuela's own band, The Bleachers, released its six-song EP, pale 1, on the label in 2002. The Bleachers -- Brizuela and singer/guitarist Joe Maloney -- are a mix of unplugged and ambient, with vocals by Maloney that sound eerily like Elliot Smith or a less polished Nick Drake, two artists Brizuela cites as main influences.

Producing the EP was, as Brizuela puts it, "simple, because we're still learning the recording equipment." Still, on the tech side, the sound is crisp and melodic, with a little bit of noise that sounds a bit jarring at times but keeps things interesting.

"I like that I don't have to worry about a producer liking it," says Brizuela, a CityLife contributor. "You want to try to capture the sound in your head, and labels always step in asking for change and you're stuck under contract. So with ourselves and other artists, we want to cultivate creativity."

Village Industries' next production will focus on local punk artist Orange Sheila.

"We feel just as strongly about Sheila's music as our own," Brizuela says. "She does what she wants. We want to encourage that, draw it out. We don't want to pigeonhole her."

Orange Sheila's EP will debut in September. The Bleachers would like to have a full-length release by then as well. And Brizuela has a third artist in mind to add to his roster, but he's not saying who yet.

Despite their busy plans, a sense of patience and commitment to creativity pervades Village Industries -- unlike with a lot of labels and other creative endeavors that are haunted by an air of frenetic succeed-at-all-costs desperation.

"I like to take my time rather than rushing and doing things in a halfassed way," Brizuela says. "I don't want to just put Village Industries on a disk as a pretend label. I really want it to mean something. I want to put out at least five releases every year, if not more. We want a continual presence out there."

What struggles are ahead for the Bleachers?

"It's tough to find venues," Brizuela says. "The bottom line is money. There's a dedicated pool of those interested in local artists, but Vegas is not big enough or structured well enough in that sense. L.A. has lots of different small places, but here there is just pressure to make money.

"There used to be this place called Fat Daddy's on Las Vegas Boulevard. They had the look of a thriving venue -- bigger than a coffeehouse, but they had no operating money. People are always gauging their effort vs. the return. Like the House of Blues, being in a casino, they're covering their operating costs. Other places that depend on bands either shut down or get more selective. There are lots of house party shows because there's nowhere to play now."

Despite the dearth of venues, Brizuela remains optimistic.

"Whether it's a great venue or artist, or a friendly label, [success] starts somewhere. When there's a consistent level of quality, things start happening. Vegas is a tough town. Five years ago, though, it wasn't as good as it is now. In the '80s Vegas became more family-friendly. Kids born here then are now the ones creating culture, and youth rules culture. The more youth, the more that culture grows."

This optimism is tempered with realism, though, which is essential in any startup endeavor.

"I don't know if it will be profitable, but as long as I know going into it not to expect money back right away, we'll have a label."

Village Industries is open to hearing new artists. Unsolicited demos can be sent to Village Industries, P.O. Box 27132, Las Vegas, NV 89126.

Meredith McGhan is CityLife's calendar editor and a staff writer. She can be reached at 702-871-6780 ext. 309 or mcghan@lvpress.com.