Edgar Reyes looks into the crowd of rabid dancers in front of his turntables and begins to nod his head in beat with the groovy sounds coming from his records.
At almost four years old, Reyes’ house-music party night—Thursday night’s Soul Kitchen at the Red Room (3101 W. Sahara Ave.)—has, in many ways, come to define the essence of the Vegas electronic music scene: unpredictable and lively.
“The crowds have actually doubled since we started,” says Reyes. “But we still have people coming who were around when the event first started.”
With crowds of 80 to 100 people showing up for the weekday sanctuary, Soul Kitchen has survived the hard times of Vegas’ electronic music scene to become an institution in a scene presumed dead in the late ’90s.
“House music is in a resurgence,” says Vegas electronic-music monolith Matthew Tuttle, aka DJ Shoe, who has been spinning variants of electronic music for more than 16 years. “Soul Kitchen and Home [Reyes’ other house night, Saturdays at Barcode (5150 Spring Mountain Road)] are specifically for house music.”
Tuttle adds that the rise in Vegas’ popular—but expensive—club culture has helped fuel the resurgence. “A lot of people are DJing now,” he says. “The city has more DJs than it ever has in its history. But Soul Kitchen and Home are doing something more [accessible] for fans of electronic music, and are giving DJs a chance to express themselves.”
Beyond the success of Soul Kitchen, other electronic-music nights are flourishing outside the clubs, giving rise to what many see as a next phase for the local scene. Bass Binge, a drum-and-bass night, runs monthly at Pounders Bar and Grill (330 W. Sahara Ave.), while weekly events like Home and Reson8, a multi-themed Friday electro night at the Ice House Lounge (650 S. Main St.), continue to pop up around town regularly. “[Electronic dance music] is a lot more accepted now than it had been before,” Reyes says. “The scene is growing.”
Also breaking ground in Vegas’ electronic scene is Future Sound, a weekly radio show airing midnight Saturdays to 4 a.m. Sunday mornings on KUNV 91.5-FM. The program, conceived by local experimental and electronic enthusiast Chad Martinez and DJ friend Johnny Vibe, has helped fill a void left when Tuttle’s previous show, KUNV’s popular, long-running Dimensional Dance, got cancelled in 2003. “It’s definitely a good thing to have electronic music back on the air,” Martinez says.
Even with the house-nights explosion and the rising popularity of Future Sound, Martinez, Tuttle and Reyes agree they’d like to see more variety within the electronic-music community, along with more live performances by local and touring electronic groups.
“I’d like to see the scene become more diversified,” Martinez says. “I’d like to see groups like The Orb come to town, and I’d like to see an IDM [intelligent dance music] night somewhere. The scene has room to grow.”
Back at Soul Kitchen, the crowds continue to shake and move to Reyes’ beats and tunes. He’s been spinning for almost an hour and hasn’t broken a sweat. He throws on some jazzy house, taking the energy down one beat, but the crowd doesn’t even think of letting up. “People come to Soul Kitchen because it’s the only place they can get good, no-bullshit house music.” Reyes says. “In the future, the scene can only get bigger and better.”