Wednesday, June 9, 1999 | 6:06 a.m.
First published on Dec. 20, 1998.
The lounge borders on the farcical. Appointed in mid-80s primaries and pastels, it's more rugrat than hepcat. Fake palm trees (inexplicably bearing fake fruit) and fiberglass rock encroachments promote a festive claustrophobia. A nine-monitor TV wall plays Jimmy Buffet videos. The bartender works underneath a gaudy, cartoonish statue of a Julep-sipping alligator.
This doesn't look like a place to get cocktails. It looks like the last birthday party you had with a clown and balloons.
Yet Harrah's Hotel and Casino cannot be faulted for the d... cor of the La Playa lounge. Tempting as it may be to get sauced and trash the joint, Harrah's deserves a measure of respect for even hanging on to the idea of a proper lounge-one with a stage big enough to accommodate a band. Big enough to fit Vargas.
"On the Las Vegas Strip, baby, that's where ya at!" he announces, taking the stage just after 9pm on a Monday night-time approximate after football. Art Vargas-he drops the first name when he performs-is decked out in a black suit, his pants held up by (it is revealed later) red suspenders bearing the amiable countenance of Kris Kringle. His hair is swept into a hipster's pompadour, and he wears his white shirt open at the collar, no tie.
He's the embodiment of the Vegas lounge aesthetic without opening his mouth. Vargas snatches the microphone and rolls it in his right hand, grinning. He takes a breath and ...
DON'T FORGET THE MOTOR CITY
"In Detroit, even the AM radio stations were great," says the 33-year old entertainer, sipping a tall cup of Sumatra at a westside Starbucks. "Rhythm and blues, jazz, blues-it was real hard to find a country station, which was another good thing about growing up there."
Vargas has been singing, dancing and carrying on most of his life. "My parents were still pretty young when I was a kid; they were teenagers when they got married. Most of my aunts and uncles were young, too-in their late teens, early twenties. So, any time I went to Grandma's house"-he smiles-"there was usually a party happening. Lots of music and dancing. I guess that sunk in."
By age 16, Vargas was modeling, acting and "trying to find excuses to sing"-talent shows, ladies night at the Knights of Columbus hall. His repertoire ran the gamut from Fats Domino to Sinatra. It felt like second nature to Vargas, and he made up his mind to become an entertainer.
"I was singing in clubs, doing radio voiceovers, commercial work, modeling. I was a little hustler, man! Every time I worked I would meet the people, get the phone numbers and they would call me for little jobs. Then, in 1987, a friend of mine asked me if I'd ever been to Vegas."
COME FLY WITH ME
"...Let's fly, let's fly away / If you can use, some exotic booze / There's a bar in far Bombay..."
Vargas is working the small but serviceable La Playa stage vigorously but cautiously; less than three minutes into his set, it's obvious that he's holding back. He claps, he shakes, he kicks, steps in rhythm-but given half the chance, it's certain he would vault off the stage to dance on the tables. He holds the mike outward when holding a high note or howling affirmations at the band, so as not to overwhelm the room. He is ebullient, but never over-the-top - exactly what you would expect in a Vegas lounge.
In theory, that is. Lately, the very concept of lounge entertainment has been taking a spiritual beating. A Vegas lounge scene swept Los Angeles a few years ago, but no such animal has been spotted in these parts for a good two decades. For proof, look at Doug Liman's "Swingers", a Los Angeles-to-Vegas road movie that has drawn more Frankie-Come-Latelies to Sin City than any target marketing could ever dream.
Late in the Vegas segment of the film, a "tiki lounge" is introduced, presumably inside the Stardust Hotel and Casino, where the action takes place (or perhaps inside Binion's Horseshoe, where they actually filmed the interior scenes). The two main characters sweep into the dark, cozy room with an oak bar, paper lanterns and, presumably, a stage where a small jazz combo could play when Louis Prima tapes were not. They pick up two "babies," finish their drinks and split.
You could search the entire valley for that lounge, strutting until the soles fall off your burnished-leather Docs and never find it. In its place, you'll find a number of rooms that look like they could be lounges, filled with men watching football on a giant-screen television. You'll find rooms called "lounges" that do not feature staged entertainment, or a stage for that matter.
You may luck into one of the "party" bands-Love Shack, Venus, the Boogie Knights, Azz Izz, Lon Bronson's R&B Revue, Kristine W. and the Sting-all entertaining, but they couldn't be considered classic lounge acts by any reckoning. More likely, you'll find a woman in a sequined blouse kicking out the jams on "The Greatest Love of All" or something from Billy Joel's despairing oeuvre, accompanied by a bored-looking man - husband? - sluicing out preprogrammed jive on a recent-model digital sequencer.
It's only inoffensive if you ignore it, something that is blissfully easy to do. Vargas doesn't work that way. He draws fire from the old school-the Sin City ideal that was mocked by the rock establishment while he was growing up, but is now being validated by the feckless dithering of today's pop crop.
Absurd? You don't have to be a musicologist to realize that Bobby Darin put more into his performance than the appropriately dubbed Wallflowers put into theirs. Ann-Margaret was, is, and always will be sexier, racier, and just plain cooler than Gwen Stefani. And even half-dead Frank Sinatra could kick the living crap out of Noel Gallagher, while Nancy stomped on the bloodied remains of Liam.
Vargas respects this. He understands that performance, even understated performance, is rooted in mayhem. Take the burn, control it, direct it, and the next thing you know you are a rocket. You are flying.
YOU ARE HERE
In June 1987, Vargas auditioned for a spot in John Stewart's "Legends In Concert," the venerable celebrity tribute show at the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino. Back then, the show paid homage to the dead-Liberace, Judy Garland, Buddy Holly, Nat King Cole and Elvis the Eternal. (It serves up ghastly representations of Madonna, Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson and other overexposed living icons today, though Elvis remains the showstopper.)
Vargas took a "why not?" attitude toward the audition. He was only in town for the weekend.
"At that time, the show was still at its best," says Vargas. "I fell in love with it-the dancers, the singers. My kinda thing."
When he stopped by Stewart's office-meet the people, get the numbers-the producer asked him to try for the part of Bobby Darin. He auditioned with "Splish Splash" and "Mack The Knife" and was offered a job less than two days later. Vargas returned to Detroit, packed up his traps and returned to Las Vegas, his new home. He performed with the "Legends" cast continuously until February 1993, when ennui and dissatisfaction with the direction management was taking prompted him to go solo.
"I put my own band together, and started this battle." He twinkles as he adds, "The lounge battle."
Vargas's first post-"Legends" gig was in Tahoe, sponsored by a former "Legends" staffer who liked the entertainer's work. Vargas put a band together and gamely started fighting the good fight.
Sometimes the gigs are there, sometimes the well runs low, but he never stops plugging away. He makes a good living-owns his home, has enough to "buy new suits when I need 'em" and maintain his "ghetto ride," an '83 Pontiac Grand Prix. ("They don't make 'em like they used to, man," he says, grinning.)
"You know, it's up and down. There are weeks where I'm not working so much, others when I'm working solid. And the hotel budgets fluctuate-some of them pay more, other ones say 'take it or leave it.'" He credits his agent, Steve Beyer, with keeping the gigs coming steady. "I've dealt with a few of the 'no clue, no class' wannabe agents in town. I'm lucky to have hooked up with Steve-he respects and appreciates what I do, actually gives a damn."
Besides Harrah's, Vargas has gigs lined up at New York-New York's Empire Bar (one of his favorites), at the Monte Carlo, at Caesars Palace. He is becoming a bona fide lounge star, a brand of entertainer Las Vegas hasn't seen in some years. Why there aren't a dozen more performers like Vargas working the Strip is hard to fathom. It can be supposed that they're out there somewhere, looking for a doorway similar to the one Vargas stepped through a decade ago-the portal to the savage heart of hypnotica, baby.
THERE WILL BE SOME CHANGES MADE
"Yeah!" shouts Vargas. He uses the word as punctuation, to end a sentence or to announce the end of a particularly hot solo. There's a lot of yeah going around at the La Playa this evening.
It doesn't hurt that Vargas's band is a consummate bunch of professionals and lounge lizards, drawn from the top of the deck by the bandleader himself. Tonight, Vargas is fortified by bassist John Hypes, pianist Bill Zappia, guitarist Tom Duncan, saxophonist Gary Hypes and Joe Malone on drums.
The players' backgrounds are as rich and varied as Vargas's. Malone has pounded the skins for everyone from prog-jazz band Ghalib Ghallab-itself a lounge fixture-to experimental thrash-polka outfit Tippy Elvis. (Vargas chuckles when told of Malone's Tippy ancestry; this information will undoubtedly be used.) "Who can guess what Tom does?" Vargas quizzes the Harrah's crowd, after slick versions of "Mack The Knife," "Just A Gigolo" and "Fly Me To The Moon." "Anyone? C'mon."
The guitarist pivots on his left foot, grinning. It's all part of the schtick. Vargas is justifiably proud of his stage banter-never once does he resort to "hey, how are you folks doing tonight?" or "let's hear this side of the room sing it," or any other lounge-act clich... s tired enough to induce coma. His repartee is fresh, witty, original and classic. This is how it was done before DAT replaced live players; live banter, the living soul of the Strip.
"He's a proctologist!" Vargas howls. "Nah, he's a nurse. Now appearing at Valley Hospital, putting heads back together."
This is convenient for Vargas, who spends the better part of his set blowing them apart. Anyone who dares to leave Vargas's set in his line of sight gets needled mercilessly, like the woman who walks out during "There'll Be Some Changes Made."
"That's right, sister!" he yelps, then fires the lyric straight at her. "Nobody wants you when you're old and grey / GO GET SOME CHANGES MADE!" The audience falls apart even before he slaps on the addendum: "And tell 'em Vargas sent ya!"
This kind of schmoozing has made for some brilliant, wholly unexpected theater. Sometimes, the band is blessed with the appearance of "Tourette's Man," an antisocial fan who shouts "YEAH!" and "THAT'S RIGHT!" at unexpected intervals, returning immediately to a near-somnambulist state. And one memorable night, Vargas goaded a man who was making calls on a cellular phone: "Hey, take a message for me, willya?"
After the set, the man upstaged him. "Here, I took a message for you," he said, handing the bandleader a folded piece of paper.
Vargas thanked him, opened the page and read the message: fuck you.
"We're gonna hold a seance," Vargas announces as the band wraps up the Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell." "We're calling up the spirit of Bugsy Siegel. Free martinis, baby, tonight only."
One can only imagine how Vargas would handle a drunken, zombie Bugsy Siegel. One thing is certain: he would handle him.
MY OLD SCHOOL
"My performance is getting better all the time. I just keep learning. Just being a performer in Vegas is a great education. You never know what kind of crowd you're going to get. You've got slot machines going all around you and people sitting right in front of you, counting coupons and trying to figure out where they're going to get their free key chain and slot pull.
"People are almost seduced into getting into my act. I get up there with my guys and we just start playing. We open with a be-bop jazz or swing tune, go into some high-energy swing, then into some blues or hard R&B. And I notice that after a few songs, people will start getting into it. I don't wanna lay any bullshit on 'em right away, like most acts-"Hey, didja win anything? Alriiiight!" I just go up and do my thing, and people can get into when they're ready.
"I've surprised myself just by doing it-by being thrown into the pit and having to fend for myself amongst people who are trying to bring you down. Entertainment directors who are so corporate-minded that they have no clue what entertainment is, or what it means to people. Some of the lounges I've played in have been shut down and filled with slot machines! People come to Las Vegas expecting the Entertainment Capital, and it's hard to find sometimes."
HUSH, LITTLE BABY
"They kick butt on this one," chimes a brunette "baby" to her boyfriend, a leather-clad Gen X'r whose demeanor has brightened considerably over the past hour. It's hard to say when his mood turned; perhaps during the funky version of the love theme from The Godfather, "Speak Softly Love." How can you possibly be depressed through a funky version of the Godfather love theme?
The butt-kicking number in question is George Gershwin's "Summertime," retooled as a percolating R&B number. The band slides through it as if on rollerblades.
Vargas is shaking his hips like a madman, ready to take off. One more song and he just might; unfortunately, this is the last song of the set. He introduces the band as they swing into the break, saving Joe for last.
"And Joe Malone...hey, somebody told me you were in Tippy Elvis. Tippy Elvis on drums, ladies and gents."
And with that, the set ends. The band steps forward to meet the applause and cheers, and Vargas-may the immortal Frank love him-unloads his only clich... of the night.
It's an old one, used by Sin City performers since Bugsy did his thing. Vargas makes it sound fresh. And after a set like this one, he's earned it. Even Sinatra would agree.
"Thanks a lot," he says genuinely, waving to the appreciative crowd. "We'll be here all week."
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