"This is a weirdo hangout." That was just one of the many remarks overheard by avid casino-goers during the weekend of Aug. 11-13 as more than fifty purveyors of "punk, broken blues and primitive rawk" took over the Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas for the first annual Las Vegas Shakedown. Indeed, it was quite a sight to see tattooed, pierced and spiky 'n' black-haired rockers in Johnny Thunders and Motorhead t-shirts strolling through the elegant casino dodging respirator-trudging senior citizen high-rollers.

Promoters Ralph Carrera and Tom Ingram succeeded in bringing a "Garage Rock Woodstock" to the people, and for three days the sounds of wailing and feedback-filled guitars and terrifying vocal shrieks leaked out into the casino (and into the ears of many a disgruntled gambler). Attendees looking for between-band-solitude were able to sneak out to the blackjack tables or into a nearby cocktail lounge where a band fronted by a seemingly coked-out chanteuse performed ultra-tacky versions of hits by Boz Scaggs, Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel. Other competition for the festival's bands included shows by Vegas heavyweights Tom Jones, Wayne Newton and, at a local bar, a Journey tribute band.

Los Angeles' wild and hairy raunch rock kings the Fuzztones, led by the ageless Rudi Protrudi, provided much of the opening night excitement with their organ-drenched stomps. The band further confirmed their frightful image while trouncing through the casino all weekend looking like cavemen and later causing grief for a hostess at a buffet who tried to seat them in a section where they would be safely out of the way of vacationing families. The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs added to the aural assault with their L.A. take on proto-punk Motor City madness and vocalist/guitarist Frank Meyer's repeated trips into the audience. In true Vegas style, a fan proposed to his girlfriend during their set. (She said "yes.") The next day, Cheetahs guitarist Art Jackson did even better by marrying his own girlfriend.

A gimmick turned gold, Palo Alto jailbabes the Donnas have derailed so far from their original premise of Ramones-inspired stupidity, that we're just counting the minutes until their longtime fans revolt against them in a full-on brawl at the bike rack after school. Although their cover of Motley Crue's "Too Fast for Love" on last year's Get Skintight album was enough of a nod and wink at the past to show us how cool they really are, they really looked goofy on Saturday night covering Judas Priest's "Living After Midnight," which was filled with the band's usual amount of mall-rock angst and cute, devil hand signals. San Francisco was more appropriately represented by newcomer power-pop sinners the Fevers, who showed off their slapdash arsenal of influences by mixing covers by the Stones, Wreckless Eric and Chuck Berry with their own snot-nosed originals. Meanwhile the polkadot-donning Bobbyteens (who, it was revealed before their show, like to unwind in the pool with a strong game of Marco Polo) came off like a crazed collision of Joan Jett -styled tuff-gurl rock & roll and the ridiculously loveable 1981-era bubblepop of Nikki and the Corvettes/ Josie Cotton.

Columbus, Ohio's New Bomb Turks tried to set the night on fire with a set of high-powered, old-fashioned slam-worthy punk rock, but succeeded on an entirely different level when vocalist Eric Davidson indulged in his Paul Stanley fantasies by bellowing between-song banter along the lines of "How y'all feelin' tonight?" (Four hundred miles away, somewhere in California, Kiss were playing one of their "final" shows.)

Current Sub Pop U.K. sensations the Yo Yos (who looked cool as hell leaning against video poker machines before their set) were indeed sensational, churning out raucous, anthemic Clash-like rave-ups, despite having to deal with abysmal sound problems and female fans coming onstage to rip open their shirts.

The gas-guzzlin' Deliverance rock of Georgia-based Nashville Pussy was one of the most anticipated moments of this wild weekend. Having toned down the titty-wigglin' kitsch value of their live show in recent months, the band has focused more on doing nothing but rock harder than anyone else on the planet, and that they did on this night. New Bassist Tracey Almazon proved she's a perfect successor to departed four-string slinger Corey Parks, despite her absence of overbearing breast implants or the ability to breathe fire.

Seattle's Monkeywrench -- a supergroup featuring Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney, as well as members of Poison 13, Lubricated Goat and Gas Huffer -- were insanely raunchy during their prized deliverance of slop-driven R&B Britstomp. They concluded with a wild ride through the classic Redd Kross lo-fi/no-talent anthem "Notes and Chords Mean Nothing to Me." A garage band credo if there ever was one.

The Shakedown shook down to its final moments late Sunday night with back-to-back sets by a pair of bands that many of the genre's most rabid disciples deem responsible for defining the true spirit of garage rock in all its untamed glory: The Real Kids and the Dictators. Despite releasing one of the best debut discs of all time, Boston's Real Kids, a first-rate pop band in the tradition of the Flamin' Groovies , never amounted to being anything much more than cult heroes after bursting out of the late Seventies Boston punk scene. In recent years, leader John Felice has revived the band and even recorded a batch of new material, but the Vegas crowd was in pure pop heaven as Kids tore through twenty-something-year-old head-bopping classics like "All Kindsa Girls" and "Solid Gold."

When New York's legendary Dictators took the stage just before 1 a.m. on Monday morning, the purpose of the entire weekend became perfectly clear. As vocalist Handsome Dick Manitoba went into a rant about some ridiculous rock-dissing remarks made by members of Rage Against the Machine and asked, "Who will save rock & roll?," it was almost enough to believe that he and the rest of the band were about to do it themselves. A quarter century (!) after its original release, the band's debut album, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy, still holds up as the vital predecessor to punk and garage revivalism that it is, and the band -- although aged and enraged -- pulled off a triumphant performance that had more balls than all the rage-rock stadium tours of this past year combined.

The Las Vegas Shakedown gave bands who play dives and dumps every weekend in their respective hometowns a place to be worshipped by like-minded music lovers, and transformed the Gold Coast into a real rock & roll joint. By the end of the weekend, songs by the Troggs, the Animals and other Sixties garage rock faves were even heard blaring over the casino's P.A., while the elevators themselves resembled the graffitied and beer-soaked interior of CBGB's. The Hard Rock Hotel has got a lot of catching up to do.

JIM FREEK
(August 15, 2000)