Feb 1st, weekend update

So, last night I went to check out the other Zowie Bowie gig, their main hang, at Red Rock. They call this their "hip-hop" show. The music is really a mix of rock, R&B, disco, and hip-hop. This is the new "disco scene," I suppose.

Place was jammed, and it's a meat market, a fertility rite, so to speak, LOL, lotta "grinding" goin' on (including a lot of incipient "girls gone wild" stuff). Maybe I can get the Extenze franchise for that room...

;)

Chris and Marley are the nicest people, though, and they put on a great, high energy show. Fun to see this, even if I did feel old and out of place. The big band swing thing they do is more to my liking, but this is nice, very professionally done, and shows the other side of their stylistic range: t-shirt-torn-denim bling, bling, if you will.

They get a stage full of audience members up out of the crowd to enthusiastically and uninhibitedly bump and grind.

Good people. Don't forget, the big band thing is Sunday evenings at 6 pm at Green Valley Ranch Ovation Showroom. It is first-class.
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TIM PRATT AT THE FONTANA BAR

Dave Richardson hipped me to this. Early set (6-9 pm) Bellagio Fontana Bar, Sun-Thurs. I'm gonna go check this out after the Superbowl game. Given that we're dark tomorrow night, you might wanna go hang with these cats for an earlier gig. I understand that Boy Katindig, Donald Philips, and Karen Jones are in this band. Bet it's excellent.

ALSO TOMORROW NIGHT...

Cordle-Scott Band at The House of Blues. Bad Boy guitarist Dean Reichert on guitar. 9 pm. Free show.

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"IS THAT ALL THERE IS?"

A few days ago Cheryl and I were talking on the phone, and she was saying how she was wishing she knew how to put images to a favorite Dan Fogelberg tune she was listening to on her iPod at her apartment in Walnut Creek. So, I ran with the idea. Speaks to our current economic disaster.


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TIM PRATT GIG AT BELLAGIO

You really oughta get by and check this group out. In a word, "elegant." The bass player, Donald Philips, is Rochon quality, seriously. Very nice book, in a "smooth jazz" and restrained yet snappy funk mode. Fine performers, all of them. The new lead singer (she's with the "Legends" show) was doing her first night with the band. She is very good.

Above, bandleader Tim Pratt (the drummer).

One comment, an abiding lament of mine. Dudes, black absorbs light. Light colors reflect it back into the camera lense, where the focal sensor then has an easier time of it. Y'all look like you're all either headed for or just returning from a funeral. Morever, I take color pictures. Wear some color.

They have a fine light grid in the Fontana Bar, but the FOH cat was obviously not workin' it. Sometimes I'd look back over at where the board is, and the dude was not even there; he just had the grid slowly and randomly changing, with almost no white spots. Arrrgghhh...

Below, nice decoration behind the check-in area at Bellagio. Chinese New Year and all that.

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