Take that, coasties! On Monday, E! ran down the country's 20 Hippest Hotspots—or at least the ones in New York City, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Among those interviewed were Jake Saady of Light, Robert Frey of Pure Management and Jacquelynn D. Powers of Vegas magazine. Caesars' Shadow Bar got a special mention, and Mandalay Bay's Mix came in at No. 18. The Hard Rock's Body English took 13th place, Light at Bellagio garnered seventh, and the Palms' Rain Nightclub showed at third. And the No. 1 hot spot out of the two largest cities in the United States, and the world's top party destination is ... drum roll, please ... Pure at Caesars. The club and adjacent Pussycat Dolls Lounge knocked out last year's champ, Manhattan's Bungalow 8, an ultra-expensive knockoff of the infamous cottages behind the Beverly Hills Hotel.
For us, the news comes as little surprise. What was shocking was the failure to mention the views from Mix's restrooms with their glass walls overlooking the Strip.
The one thing that's always annoyed us at the Weekly about Sunday's Rehab blowout at the Hard Rock is the refusal of the staff to let us in wearing our normal weekend morning outfit of flip-flops, toothbrush and nothing else. But now it doesn't matter, because we're able to enjoy the best of Rehab from the privacy of our home with the launch of the new website at www.rehablv.com. It's an interactive version of the popular print ad. Click on the tubby guy in the pilot's cap, hear a belch and get the drink menu (along with a frightening, swinging Tim of Jeff Beacher's Madhouse). Click on the cute blonde—no, the other one—and pull up a choice of five songs for your surfing pleasure. Run your hand, er, cursor over the mermaid and access the photo gallery.
Best of all, click on Rehab promoter Jack Lafleur to make his head turn and hear him go, "Hmmm." It links you to a massage/Simon Says game, but we honestly have more fun making Jack turn and hum in rhythm to Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith's "Summertime."
Helping to fill the holes left by John Huntington's and Damian Sanders' departure from Club Seven will be famed Santa Monica DJ stryker :::, two-year resident and music supervisor at the Circle Bar—and yes, that's how he spells his name. His sets are a progressive hodge-podge of everything under the aural rainbow. He's also responsible for bringing in MC battles and scratchers in LA, and one can only hope he'll do the same here for all our budding Eminems and Canibuses. Stryker :::'s first set will be Thursday, July 14, and every Thursday following.
With dreams of a Pax Vegasana dancing in their heads, Marc Jay of Ice and Neil Moffitt of Godskitchen have created a pilot for a new show called Club TV, an insider's look into the expanding electronic music scene in the U.S., with Ice naturally at the center.
The first episode features interviews with DJ giants Tiesto, Armin van Buuren and Ali "Dubfire" Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi of duo Deep Dish, and Vegas' very own Michael Fuller. It's being shopped overseas to MTV Dance in Europe—no word on whether Ed Williams will make an appearance.