Sunday, June 10, 2018

Wild Evel and the Trashbones, the Laissez Fairs, Los Yayaz at the Bunkhouse, Saturday June 9, 2018

Garage shows are not very common in Las Vegas, so when an esteemed Austrian garage combo came to town, I wanted to check it out! With the added bonus of 60's-styled group from Salt Lake City, of all places, this was a show to see!

SLC's Los Yayaz opened the show with a set of wild garage rock'n'roll in the style of West Coasters like the Untold Fables and the Gravediggers V. Raw'n'ragged (in a good way) covers of classics like "The Hustler", "I Can Tell", "I'm a Man" and a hyper-speed take on "Goo Goo Muck" mixed with numbers like "Cry Baby" and "The Shadow" (sounding similar to the Gravediggers' "Spooky"). The line-up was somewhat unusual with guitar, bass, drums, vocals and puppeteer! The puppet master had a variety of puppets for different songs - male, female, skeleton and even a Lux Interior look-alike! Certainly a change of pace that captured the crowd's attention! Deg them a lot!

Locals the Laissez Fairs were up next, providing a soundtrack of heavy pop-psych from John and Cromm Fallon, Joe Lawless and Aaron Archer. The band has been gigging and recording a lot lately and their sound has evolved into a harder-edged, although still with plenty of jangly pop and psych tendencies. 

Austria's Wild Evel and the Trashbones are a theatrical garage combo with a big dose of Screaming Lord Sutch and a hip guitar-bass-drums-keyboard backing band. The sound was loud'n'ferocious and the frontman was a non-stop, dancin' wildman who constantly interacted with the audience, ran through the crowd, danced on the bar and lots more. The rhythm section was super hot'n'tight, the guitar was filled with fuzz and the keys really added to the sound with its 60's tones mixed with enough effects to keep it varied and somewhat trippy. With the help of the Darts' guitarist, Michelle, they hosted a Limbo Dance contest as they played a variation on Link Wray's "Comanche", which, unfortunately, most of the crowd did not understand, other than the well-deserved winner (sorry I didn't get a good photo of her). The guitarist took lead vocals on one number (and broke his guitar on another), they performed an instrumental so that Evel could change his jacket off stage (only his jacket - not sure what the point of that was) and they blasted through a lengthy set of tunes like "Diggin' My Grave", "Where You Gonna Go", "Telling Lies", "I'm an Ape Man", "Ain't It Hard", "Outlaw", a cover from the Satelliters (a German garage team) and, appropriately, "Vegas on Fire". The band loosened up as the set went on and became more animated, as well. Silly, good times!

Thanks again to the Bunkhouse and DIrty Rock'n'Roll Dance Party for hosting this cool garage-themed night. From the amount of people that showed up, I think there is a call for garage rock'n'roll in Vegas! Let's get more bands happening out here!