Rocker Rolls

Wednesday, March 31, 1999 | 9:56 a.m.

For now, Thomas Greenough, who long ago adopted the duel identity of Tommy Rocker, has stepped into yet another alias -- that of irascible country twanger Darryl Green.

Donning a weather-beaten wicker cowboy hat, leering, sneering and flaunting an intolerable redneck demeanor, Mr. Green is begging for barroom butt-kicking. Is John Wayne in the house? How about Clint Eastwood? Is anyone willing to whup this guy back to Cheyenne or Tupelo or wherever he came from?

Green is picking away on a scratched-up Fender guitar and warbling the timeless country parody, "The Rodeo Song."

"Well it's an allemande left and an allemande right, c'mon you (expletive deleted) get the right steps right," Green sings, chiding the crowd.

A woman in the audience wearing an oversized straw hat pulls a cocktail napkin from under a Corona, wads it into a little ball and fires it at Green. It bounces harmlessly off his forehead. He responds with a defiant flip of his left middle finger.

"You (expletive) me off, you (expletive) jerk, you get on my neeeeeerves," Green sings, undaunted, straining to hit the high notes.

More wadded-up paper missiles find their target. The barrage only prompts more one-fingered gestures from this little dude with a big-time attitude.

Th funny thing is, everyone's laughing. And dancing. And singing. For Greenough /Rocker/Green, it's just another night at the office at Tommy Rocker's Cantina & Grill on Industrial Road, just south of Flamingo Road.

Earlier that day, playing his real-life role as musician/business owner, Rocker explains the popularity of his Darryl Green act.

"The song's a little naughty. His whole thing is to goad the audience," Rocker says of his alter ego. "The tradition has continued that people throw things, and for someone who has never been in here and sees that going on, they're stunned. They're thinking, 'What kind of place is this?' "

It's a wacky place. It's a dance place. It's a place to eat, drink and be merry. It's the place to form an impromptu conga line with goofy Jimmy Buffett fans. It's a place to join Rocker on his own stage on an open microphone for a twisted version of "Twist and Shout."

And it's a place where the owner, a Las Vegan for 15 years, holds court every Friday and Saturday from 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

"It's a celebratory-type of place where you can have a birthday party or bachelorette party and get up onstage and sing along," Rocker says. "We're like a private club with a specific niche and we're sort of unpretentious. ... We're not the hippest place in the world."

Above all, it's a locals' place where out-of-towners are always welcome.

Becoming a Rocker

A native of Eugene, Ore., Rocker attended the University of Oregon and earned a law degree in 1976. He refuses to give his actual age, revealing only that he's "over 40," and likely closer to 50. Perpetually tanned and fit -- he ran a marathon in Maui earlier this month -- Rocker still radiates a youthful energy.

"I don't feel my age," he says. "I still feel like a kid in a lot of ways."

When he was much younger, early in his college days, he decided to change his last name from the pedestrian Greenough to Rocker. By then, he was an accomplished guitarist and vocalist who was organizing his own band and needed a "hook" to set himself apart in a town teeming with college rock 'n' roll acts.

"I was fishing off the coast of Oregon once, tuna fishing, and it occured to me that it would be a great name for a guy putting a band together," Rocker says. "What I liked about it was, it's the kind of name that sounds like you've heard it before. Everything about it is familiar. It sounds like what I do, and it reminds you of someone who plays good old rock 'n' roll."

But throughout Rocker's college days, music was merely a job, a means of financing his schooling. He never imagined it would become a career until long after earning his law degree.

"That was how I paid my way through school," Rocker says. "But one year after law school, I was still doing it. Then one year turned into another year and another year, and pretty soon it was my life."

Rocker says he's never felt regrets at not becoming an attorney. He'd rather emulate Robert Cray than Robert Shapiro.

"Looking back, I'm really glad it turned out like it did because I know a lot of unhappy attorneys," Rocker says. "I read somewhere that they have more prospective lawyers in law schools in this country than lawyers in practice. That's not for me."

After a few years of living in Eugene and barnstorming throughout the Pacific Northwest, Rocker and a few friends decided to relocate to Southern California in pursuit of fame and fortune.

Or at least a record deal.

"We were called the 'TuTu Band,' and we were kind of a comedy rock 'n' roll band," Rocker says. "I played mostly trombone in the band, which is funny becaue I'm not much of a trombone player. But we had no problem with being bad, doing lighthearted comedy stuff and getting the audience involved, and that's what turned into my act here."

The TuTu Band became regular performers for the chain of Carlos Murphey's clubs in Southern California. But the record deal never materialized and the band dissolved. Rocker was relocated to the Carlos Murphy's in Las Vegas, where he became the club's featured performer in 1984.

Tommy guns for a following

A well-known hangout populated by UNLV students and nearby service employees, Carlos Murphy's sat on the Maryland Parkway spot now occupied by Moose McGillicuddy's, across from the UNLV campus.

"There weren't a lot of music venues in Las Vegas at the time, so it was a really hot spot," Rocker says. "There wasn't all the competition from the Hard Rock and the House of Blues, so it was a great place for locals to go and meet and listen to music."

Rocker also discovered a gold mine -- black gold, to be precise -- in Alaska, hitting the road for 16 weeks each year and socking away his considerable earnings.

The grand plan was to open his own business, similar to Carlos Murphy's, where he would be boss, owner and featured performer.

"That was toward the end of the oil pipeline days and it was extraordinary up there," Rocker says. "The economy was really booming and I got paid fairly well. I was playing seven nights a week until 3 a.m., slogging through the mountains, dodging moose through snowstorms, the whole Alaska thing.

"I know I'm sounding like an old man -- I walked through blizzards to get to school! -- but that's how it was."

The arduous schedule was worth it. Rocker saved enough money to open the first Tommy Rocker's on the corner of Decatur and Spring Mountain in 1989. The club's approach is mirrored by Rocker's current establishment; he offers a 24-hour menu and performs on weekend nights, with an open microphone available for any amateur entertainer unafraid of public embarassment.

Benefitting from a hard-core following, the first Tommy Rocker's was a swift success.

"That was when UNLV won the national (basketball) championship and the town was going crazy," Rocker says. "A lot of people followed us over from Carlos Murphy's."

Rocker soon experienced an unforeseen problem: The voluminous clientele nearly made the club burst at the seams.

"It was too small of a building and we decided early on that we'd eventually be moving to a bigger place," Rocker says. "It was a good problem to have, but it opened up some new challenges."

It was at the original Tommy Rocker's that Rocker met his future wife, Donna DeSjardins, who worked as a bartender and helped manage the club.

"We both had been dumped by our respective significant others," Rocker says. "We kind of commiserated with each other."

The couple has been married for seven years.

"It was a year before I'd go out with him," Donna Rocker (yes, she took the name) says. "After all, he was my boss. I resisted for a while."

The Rockers decided to build a new club on Industrial Road, tucked amid the Rio, Caesars Palace, Mirage, Treasure Island, MGM Grand and soon-to-be-erected megaresorts such as the Monte Carlo, New York-New York, Bellagio and Mandalay Bay.

"People said we were crazy for moving here," Rocker says. "The ramp coming down (off Flamingo and onto Industrial Road) wasn't there, and it was easy to miss the place."

Staring its primary competition in the face, the new Tommy Rocker's opened in October 1995.

New horizons

Tommy Rocker's has continued to prosper at its current locale, again benefiting from a local following of service industry employees and some shrewd planning.

After attending a Buffett show in 1989, just before opening the first Tommy Rocker's, Rocker decided to give the club a colorful beach appearance and informal feel. His musical set was already laden with Buffett staples such as "Come Monday," and "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

Soon, the unrelenting "Parrot heads," Buffett's feverish fans, flocked to the business. The Las Vegas Parrot Head Club meets monthly at Tommy Rocker's, and each May, members of Western-region clubs convene at the club to swap stories and memorabilia -- and to form conga lines and dance to "I Don't Know."

"The May convention is getting huge," Rocker says. "Last year it was almost too big."

Rocker says he's learned plenty about operating a bustling business in his 10 years as a club owner.

"I'd only worked in the restaurant business collaterally, as an entertainer, and I'd never realized how hard it is to control costs and all of the other things that are involved," he says. "It took us a while to get a handle on the relationship with gaming, having machines, and the responsibility of serving alcohol and running an efficient businesss.

"We're good at it, but not great. We're not like an Applebee's, but we're good."

Good enough to have been approved for licensing by the Henderson Planning Commission to open a restaurant on the corner of Eastern Avenue and Maryland Parkway in July. The Black Mountain Grill will be a departure from Tommy Rocker's, offering a more upscale menu and a stately, subdued Southwest motif.

Rocker is considering offering light jazz during Sunday brunch, but live music will be a secondary attraction. Unlike the current club, there won't be sweaty patrons in Hawaiian shirts shouting out "I Saw Her Standing There" while patrons mull over the wine list.

"Oh, it'll be a lot different, not like Tommy Rocker's," Rocker says. "When I went before the Henderson Planning Commission, I was Mr. Thomas Greenough. I was, 'Yes sir, no sir. Forget about that Tommy Rocker guy. He's not here tonight.' "

Rocker of ages

Rocker says he'll continue performing regularly "as long as I can get away with it." Although he typically performs with his Fender, a computerized drum machine and any number of inebriated co-pilots, he knows how to keep a crowd moving.

His weekly play list and musical tastes include nary a dud.

"My favorite song would have to be 'Brown-Eyed Girl,' " he says. "I would never get tired of playing that song. Everybody loves it, it's a classic, it's a happy song, a love song. You can't beat it."

As a barometer used to measure a crowd's enthusiasm, he dusts off AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long."

"When I used to play in different places, if I were to ever play that song and people didn't respond or dance, I knew I was in deep trouble," Rocker says, laughing. "That's the watershed. If people didn't dance to that it was, 'Good night!' "

But he never misses his mark. Every Friday and Saturday, in the shadow of billion-dollar casinos with dance clubs funded by an endless river of corporate cash, Tommy Rocker is one man in one cozy building who always keeps his crowd smiling.

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