greenie

Depends on what you mean by "hip-hop." If you're talking about what you'll hear on mainstream radio or MTV, then you'll get that at pretty much every club in town. If you're talking about the tracks you'll hear on independent hip-hop radio stations and in primarily-black urban nightclubs, the heavy bangers that only occasionally crack nationwide top-40, then Poetry (formerly OPM) is the place to go on the Strip. If you're talking about old-school hip-hop/funk/soul, then Sundays at Tabu and Wednesdays at Tao (lounge) are where you want to be. And if you're talking about modern underground and "true-school" hip-hop, you won't find it on the Strip.

Revolution is no longer open regularly on Sundays... but every Monday night is 100% house music for their weekly Cirque party. Wed-Sat they feature a mix of pretty much everything, which as they night wears on becomes primarily house. Not sure if the Strip is ready for a major club to have a main room that is regularly house music on a Friday or Saturday. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see it happen, but the plain truth is that at the moment the hip-hop/top-40 crowd is a much bigger money-maker in Vegas. 3400 @ Jet Mondays and BE Wednesdays are solid steps iin the right direction, but their successes are largely (arguably primarily) due to local support, many of them industry workers. And unfortunately 3400 is still regulated to a side room, while only on rare occasions does BE open the entire upper level on Wed. Most unfortunate of all is that these are the only two marquee house events for prime-time (10a-4a) clubs. Until we see 3400 move in to the main room, BE getting packed on Wednesdays and another marquee event come along, I think a regular main room Fri/Sat will remain a dream for quite a while. In the meantime, when when I'm stuck in the main rooms of Jet/Pure/Tao (usually with friends who are afraid of house music) it's at least some consolation that house tracks are beginning to creep in amidst the popular hip-hop tracks...

"Ambiguous?"

There's plenty of other threads in this very forum on clubs and music in this town, check through them and then ask specific questions.

Bottle minimums on NYE are ridiculously high, often double what they are the rest of the year. And every place is PACKED, PACKED, PACKED. Area around your table? PACKED. Unless you sleep on a mattress stuffed with green, my recommendation is to spend the evening outside on center-Strip. It's closed to traffic and because a massive, insane street party, fireworks and all. Then for your clubbing fix hit up an afterhours starting around 2.

On average expect to pay $350-$450 per bottle at most major Vegas clubs. Top spots on busy nights typically have minimums of 1 bottle per 3 people. If your group of 4 means 1 guy and 3 gals, you can probably get away with 1 bottle. Otherwise with 4 people you'll either need to go for 2 bottles or convince the host you'll give him a great tip to let you slide with 1 bottle. Depending on the club and the night and what you're looking for, this is where an independent host can really help out. Guaranteeing your reservation, negotiating the best deal and helping to make sure you don't get the worst table in the place are worth the fees that a quality host will charge. If you go with making a table reservation on your own make sure to confirm, re-confirm, have your club host's full name and mobile number, and arrive at the club early.

Well this has been nothing if not entertaining.

There's no "cheating" as nobody is claiming this mix to be a live DJ set... Ludachrist is made up of two people, Knick and Dr. Boardman, and they openly state that Bangest is a studio production. When they play live together, they set up a few laptops running Ableton and a small collection of MIDI gear. In a live, club setting they are mixing everything on-the-fly. This really shouldn't be compared to what Z-Trip and DJ P did with Uneasy Listening, as that was 100% vinyl, no effectors or warping software to help with beat or pitch matching... but at the same time, Uneasy Listening was similarly a planned studio project and not a live recording...

House events at the Icehouse have (again) stopped. Revolution Lounge is now 100% house on Sun-Mon-Tue nights. Here's a modified list... Tue: Revolution Lounge Wed: Body English then Seamless Thur: VooDoo then Empire Fri: The Downtown Lounge then Jet or Barcode then Drai's or Empire Sat: Jet then Drai's or Empire Sun: Revolution Lounge then Drai's Mon: 3400 @ Jet There other spots you can hit for some of those nights (e.g. the terrace Pure) but this is what I'd recommend for the house heads.

With Halloween on a Wednesday this year you might be out of luck, aside from a few private events. All the big events, like the annual Fetish & Fantasy Ball are the weekend before.

Check out any of the dozen or so other threads that address this topic...

So... in other threads you were asking people for a ton of advice and opinions, but aren't willing to spend a few minutes to contribute anything about your experiences over the weekend?

Doesn't matter the weekend, Fridays and Saturdays are always banging at the top clubs in Vegas. As for special events and parties, with the exception of mega-holidays like Labor Day, it's very rare for clubs to announce promotions and special guests more than a week or two out. Skim through the forum here and look for threads that have a lot of replies with subject lines like "recommendations" and "where to go." There's a TON of information and opinions here. If you have more specific questions then please respond to one of those threads... otherwise no point in everyone saying the same things over and over and over and over again...

There are quite a few places in Vegas to satisfy your house jones. There are a TON of threads in this forum about house music, just use the "search" function to search within this part of the site... here's a few threads that can start you off http://bbs.clubplanet.com/las-vegas/329483-house-music-stronger-than-ever-vegas.html http://bbs.clubplanet.com/las-vegas/327727-finding-house-music-avoiding-hip-hop.html

No offense to Tony as the guy's been doing some serious work for 15+ years... but come on, enough with the trash talk about DJs that use digital equipment. Your boy Tony isn't exactly a stranger to laptops and CDJs either.

How about some stories/opinions of your recent weekend?

The only massive opening within the past year is LAX. Light is closed until NYE, so if you were happy with your rotation then perhaps swap LAX for Light on Saturday. Otherwise you may want also want to check out Tryst (thurs/fri/sat), Jet (fri/sat) or Body english (fri/sat) on this trip, along with Tao and Pure they're as hot as can be... Hardly groundbreaking advice, I'm pretty much telling you what you'd hear pretty much anywhere. Like most others on this board, would be happy to share more info and advice but you gotta ask some more specific questions and/or express likes and dislikes.

If there's anything like Rehab somewhere else on this planet, not only have I never seen it but I've never heard anyone mention it nor have I read anything about it. Maybe the occasional one-off beach party event, but when it comes to a weekly pool event there truly is only one Rehab. Now, that's not to say that Rehab is any better than the amazing morning-into-afternoon parties found at Space in Miami or Ibiza. Or that the crowd is more beautiful than the best day imaginable at a Nikki Beach. Rehab is just... different. It's a very different kind of party than you'll find in Ibiza or Miami (or wherever). Rehab is MUCH less focused on the music, more heavily focused on drinking, much more heavily focused on socializing, and significantly more focused on physical appearance. For most days at Rehab, I'd say 80% or more of the people there wouldn't be able to tell you the name of a single DJ that played. As it is a lot of people don't even notice when the music changes from hip-hop/rock/mash-up to house (and back again). Big holidays are different at Rehab, so you've got a lot more people well aware of the DJs and the music, but it's still a different scene. Whereas the crowds partying at 1pm in Miami/IB are the same folks that have been going since midnight (and looking/smelling like it, and nobody cares), a LOT of the folks at Rehab were in bed by 2-3am so that they could hit the gym and get that pump-and-glow rocking. And spend another hour after that primping up for Rehab. Good news is that there are still plenty of people that know how to do it right and will party at Drai's/Empire/Seamless/etc until 8:30ish, grab some breakfast and head straight to Rehab. And the best part is that those folks usually make up about 1/4 of the crowd you'll find on the Space terrace during WMC. I always love how many Rehab regulars I see past noon out on the terrace. Have an AWESOME time!

Dubfire would definitely be the one you saw. He's always had the darker progressive sound of the pair, and for the past year he's been incorporating a lot more electro-fueled tracks. Still on the more progressive side of things, though. I've seen him a couple of times this year (WMC and Denver) and his sets have been SICK. Hard to run into the "snotty" crowd in Vegas, particularly over LDW. That kind of crowd can't keep up and is usually spent and passed out by the time Rehab rolls around! The Rehab scene is DEFINITELY about showing off what you got, and how you can work it. No party like it anywhere in the world. And MDW/LDW Rehabs are simply insane. Tao Beach will be overflowing with gorgeous people as well. Whatever we all may think of Oakie there's no denying that he's still a heavy-hitter that always creates demand. Combine that with the 3-day weekend and the intimacy of Tao Beach... wow. Come 7-8pm, it's going to be AMAZING up there. If you don't mind putting out the money and effort, consider hitting up Rehab early for the social scene, duck out around 2pm and head to Tao Beach.

And you're the perfect example of all of my points... it all depends on personal opinion and desires. Comparatively, Tiesto has been through Colorado 3 times this year. Sharam twice. Meanwhile Morillo has never played here. So for me, Eric represents the DJ I'd love to see the most over LDW in Vegas. As for Rehab, house DJs there have always resulted in major disappointment for me. The sets are very short, I've never been happy with the sound, and the majority of the crowd puts music pretty low on their priority list of what they want out of Rehab. Which is why for house lovers I'd strongly recommend Sunday Sunset Sessions at Tao Beach over Rehab. Nobody's right or wrong here, just sharing opinions and experiences.

Once again I will repeat that in this forum we're talking about PRICES IN LAS VEGAS. Doesn't matter what it costs to see which DJs anywhere else. Fact is that costs in Vegas are set in the same way as they are set everywhere: based on what the market is willing to spend. But so long as we're flying off topic... I worked in the industry for 7 years in Boston. Smaller venues always charged more when booking the same DJs as the bigger ones. That's largely because when playing outside of their residencies, many major DJs set their minimum fees independently of venue size. Never been to Sullivan Room but I've been to Cielo. A number of times. By far my favorite spot in NY and I'll agree, that's one of the most intimate places I've been to anywhere in the world. But I won't agree that it's it's some kind of magically affordable place. My expenses there have been just as high as they are for any club in Vegas. Perhaps because I'm an outsider. I once had pre-sale in hand for Nick Warren ($25-30, I think), but even arriving early and solo, it was made clear to me by the door that an extra $50 would be required for entry. Not saying that the same thing won't happen at Drai's or any other spot this weekend. If you don't arrive to the venues VERY early, good luck to anyone getting in to Rehab, Jet, Tao, Drai's or any other spot without spending more than what you were already charged for presale. Funny that you've mentioned WMC a few times now. And you think price gouging in Vegas is bad? Haha.

Don't look at me, I can't stand listening to the Hobbit spin either...

Oakenfold along with Chris Garcia and DigitalBoy

My advice, skip Rehab entirely and do Sunset Sessions at Tao Beach instead.

Festivals with multiple headliners are almost always cheaper than club dates with a single headliner. And a single headliner at a mega-clubs will always be cheaper than the same headliner at an intimate club. Especially an intimate club in Vegas. On a holiday weekend. Whether or not Dubfire at Drai's is worth $75 is in the eye of the beholder. I greatly prefer an intimate club to a mega-club, even if it's a big drop in sound quality. I also prefer afterhours to primetime. IMO it's ridiculous to pay $75 for Tiesto at Jet, especially since he'll play for 2 hours at most and his set will basically be his latest CD set. Fortunately Faarsheed will be on hand to blow the crowd away, just like he did the last time he opened (and closed) for Tiesto. What's truly ridiculous is bitching about cost of mega-headliners in Vegas. Really want to save money? Go catch Tiesto when he's in a place like Utah on a Tuesday for $17 per ticket.