LOUD

I wouldn't have believed a light dimmer could wreak such havoc with a sound system if I hadn't heard the buzzing with my own ears, between songs Friday night at the Epicenter. That the band performing was named Sparkler Dims—well, that's an irony someone in the small but supportive crowd couldn't resist pointing out.

"Oh, that's weird," bassist Louie Thomas noted with a grin after the "dim" connection came to light, but Thomas wasn't smiling for much of the trio's hour-long First Friday set. Annoyed not only by the sonic glitch but also by an amp head that twice vibrated off its perch and came crashing to the floor (once nearly slamming against his back), Thomas took out his frustrations on his instrument, punching the body of his bass several times during the show.

Though the three Sparkler Dims—Thomas, guitarist Aaron Bredlau and drummer Doug De Nada—were visibly disheartened by their sound, the music itself came across loud and clear in the radiator-shop-turned-art-gallery, along the ground floor where they played and throughout a loft providing an overhead vantage point. A core audience numbering around 15—including Bredlau's 9-year-old son, Aaron, getting to see the band for only the second time in an all-ages venue—stuck with the band the entire time, while 50 to 75 more passed through the room, sipping beers as they checked out the tunes, along with the paintings, canvases and other art installations.

The Dims' songs, on this night comprising nine originals and Can cover "Mother Sky," drone leisurely, but purposefully awash in controlled distortion, as if they escaped the late-'80s songbooks of UK psychedelics Spacemen 3, Loop and Sun Dial. The group actually coalesced after Thomas, Bredlau and sometime second guitarist Sean Thompson jammed on Spacemen 3's "Revolution" back in 2004.

With Thompson now in Reno, Sparkler Dims have supplemented their three-man lineup with guest players for the better part of a year. That changed at the Double Down on November 25, when Thomas, Bredlau and De Nada performed as a trio for the first time ever. "We had to figure out what we were going to do," De Nada explained after Friday's show, No. 2 with the three-man configuration. "There's such uncertainty about when [Thompson] is going to come back. Do we stop what we're doing? Or buckle down with the three of us until he either comes back or goes another way?"

Without their second guitarist, the Dims conceded they've lost some of their sparkle, particularly the intense sound waves that result from guitar interplay between Bredlau and Thompson. "You just have so much more stuff when he's here," Thomas said wistfully.

But Bredlau, for one, sounded committed to the trimmer, new-look Sparkler Dims. "Over the last few months we've jelled as a three-piece," he enthused. "We took some time off to write some songs ... and Sean says he'll be back in December, though I'll believe that when I see it. We realize we have to keep moving on without him for now."

At Frigid Friday, where mittens outnumber people 2-to-1, the activity is sluggish in an alley behind the Arts Factory, just north of Charleston, a snowball's throw from Main. Three lonely figures dot the 30 otherwise empty chairs in front of an impromptu stage. Another four revelers huddle in the warmth of a portable space heater. Beer sales, I am told, are slow.

At 7 p.m., a Very Important Person takes the stage and welcomes the, uh, crowd. "This is a really ‘cool' place to be!" he chortles. "Sorry about that." Even bad puns are welcome at this point—rolling your eyes helps keep them from freezing in their sockets.

Members of Killian's Angels trickle onto the stage and grab their instruments. They're dressed more for the Iditarod than First Friday. Guitarist Dolly Coulter hides under a bulky wool coat, scarf and stocking hat. Drummer Nan Fortier's colorful scarf is her only apparent submission to the cold. (She'll later tell me it's hard to hold the drumsticks while wearing mittens.) Ginger Bruner, who plays bass guitar and tuba, sports a leather biker jacket. Lead singer Beth Mullaney manipulates her guitar and mandolin strings while wearing fingerless gloves.

Killian's Angels play around 100 gigs a year, and Mullaney says nearly half are outdoors. And this isn't even the coldest—remember our miserable St. Patrick's Day weather? Besides, she says, cold trumps heat any day.

"I prefer the cold," says Mullaney, who lived and performed in Minnesota before moving to Las Vegas 14 years ago. "At least you feel like you're not going to pass out from exhaustion. We played an outdoor gig in August when I didn't think I was going to make it. The paramedics had to come up and give us ice packs to keep us cool."

On this night, the Angels beat the cold with hand-warmers in their pockets, multiple layers of clothing and three thermoses filled with life-giving fluids—chicken noodle soup, herbal tea and hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps.

They try their best to keep their fans warm with a bouncy set filled with Irish music and pop covers that they've "Killianized." For example, Bruner's tuba provides a solid backbone for Chumbawamba's one hit, which they call "Tuba-thumping." And you haven't lived until you've heard an Irish-reggae reel or a tuba-driven version of The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams."

"We never do cover songs the way people expect," says Mullaney, whose group calls Brendan's at the Orleans their unofficial home. "We tell people our music is ‘Irish and more,' and that's what we give them."

After a pretty straightforward version of Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun," the band jokes about needing sunscreen, and as the crowd in front of the stage grows, a handful of fast-tempo songs gets some fannies shaking, and not just to stay warm. But the biggest victory of the night? Bruner's lips never stick to the tuba.

"The cold makes my fingers feel like I'm playing nails," says Vista IV guitarist and founder Skater J after finishing one of their 30- to 45-minute sets in the brisk air of First Friday.

The band, which has been a regular First Friday presence since December 2002, has, in the past four years, gained a reputation as the hardest-working band of First Friday, performing in almost all types of weather and conditions.

"We've played every First Friday with exception to rain," says J, who refuses to give his real name. "Or when our bassist is in the Ukraine."

J, who has been in many local surf bands and toured with California surf-rock legends The Lively Ones, is joined by drummer Gary Levin and friend Liz Nydick on Fender Rhodes.

The band began its First Friday appearances in front of the Funkhouse before finding its current place, outside of the Gypsy Caravan thrift store on Colorado Avenue and Third Street. There they draw a strange mix of teenage punk rockers, twenty- and thirtysomething hipsters and middle-aged fanatics who groove to the IV's variety of old surf, rock and pop covers and original compositions. (Their own songs will be compiled onto first album Killer Waves, available by the end of the year.)

"A lot of people say we play too long or too loudly," J says. "Surprisingly, though, some people ask us to play weddings, but we turn them down. I only want to play for people who want to see us. "