“We’re a modern take on a
classic-rock band,” says Adam Arling, guitarist and founding
member of the Last Vegas, a young Chicago-based group raised on a
diet of Cheap Trick, early Aerosmith, and the Stooges.
“There’s not much like this in Chicago, but it’s
always good to stick out, I guess.”
What’s the significance of the
band’s name? “Before our first show, we figured we
ought to have a name,” Arling explains. “A friend said,
‘Last Vegas—it sounds like something you’d hear
on MTV,’ so we used it.”
After a getting a good start in Normal, Ill.,
the group made the big move to Chicago in 2001. They recorded a CD,
toured incessantly, and were seemingly on their way to rock &
roll stardom — but soon the bass player, who also happened to
be the lead vocalist, quit the band.
Arling recalls, “Me and the other
guitarist split the vocals, and we toured for about five or six
months like that, and it worked all right.”
After the next studio recording was complete,
though, the guys realized that something was missing. “The music sounded awesome, but we set
a high bar for ourselves,” Arling explains, “so we put
the recording on ice for a month and auditioned singers.” The rest is the stuff of a rock & roll fairy
tale: The band met a lead singer, named Chad Cherry, who just happened
to be looking for a group he could mesh with. “After hearing his voice, we knew he
was perfect,” says Arling. “The lead singer is an
important visual position, and it’s how people get that human
connection — by hearing the voice.”
Cherry cut vocal tracks for the already
recorded CD, and Seal the Deal was sent to Get Hip Records in the fall of
2005. The official CD-release party is being held March 10 in
Chicago, at the prestigious Double Door, but the band will have
copies by this weekend. Then the Last Vegas is off on a six- to
seven-month tour of the United States and parts of Europe. Arling is hopeful that the band’s good
fortune will continue. “We’ve really jelled as a band
lately. Rock & roll is not a scientific thing. You need that
element of luck,” he says. “You hop on that wave and
get it going.”
The Last Vegas rocks Viele’s Planet
(126 E. Jefferson St., 217-544-0598) 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday, March
3. The Wires, featuring former Last Vegas keyboardist Rory Davis,
open. On Friday, March 3,
percussionist Craig Russo inaugurates his Latin Jazz Project in the
venerable confines of Norb Andy’s Tabarin (518 Capitol Ave.,
217-523-7777), 9 p.m.-midnight. Russo has studied Latin rhythms in
Cuba and other locales, and he applies the mesmerizing beats to
jazz tunes with a flair that’s rarely heard in this area.
Russo taps respected but not widely known musicians to bring forth
his interpretation of “Latin jazz”; this week,
the group features Carlos Vega, of southern Florida, on flute
and saxophone, and locals Chris Nolte on bass and Sean Parsons on
piano. This weekend, once
again, the Hilton Springfield (700 E. Adams St., 217-789-1530)
abounds in excellent live music, with Americana bands in the
Underground City Tavern and jazz (of course) at Jazz Central
Station. Arthur Dodge, an alumnus of the vibrant Lawrence, Kansas,
music scene, rolls into the UCT on Friday, and our old
southern-Illinois friends the Woodbox Gang, still tottering on the
verge of genius, as I noted some time ago, plays on Saturday.
Thirty floors up, St. Louis’ Erin Bode fills the Friday-night
slot with the original compositions and jazz standards that have
brought her comparisons to Eva Cassidy and Norah Jones. The
wacky-in-a-good-way Jazz Orgy, from Wisconsin, sounds off on
Saturday. Local legends the
Oohs are preparing to release a new all-original CD, Llamalamp, in a few
weeks on their own Oohszone Layer label. For a sample of the new
songs, visit www.myspace.com/theoohs, then head to the
group’s official Web site, www.theoohs.com, to order the CD
and receive an exclusive limited-edition bonus CD-R in the bargain.
In other band news, Scott Mundstock, last seen as a member of
Postwar Fords, replaces original Ooh Jim Engel, who parted amicably
with the group to pursue other interests. See the Oohs live at the
Forty-Niner Bye-Bye (518 Bruns Lane, 217-787-4937), 9 p.m.-1 a.m.
Saturday, March 4.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2006.
