I was born on Maryland Parkway, I went to school on Maryland Parkway, and I worked for years on Maryland Parkway,” Ronn Benway, one-time owner of Benway Bop! record shop, briefed an attentive Bunkhouse Saloon audience Monday. “I think someday, I’ll probably die on Maryland Parkway.”
Perhaps, but the 41-year-old former Vegas inhabitant who calls the road home these days (literally—he doesn’t rent or own anywhere) looked healthy and fit during the appearance by his one-man musical project Morgansorange that opened the night’s festivities. One part brash acoustic rock and one part mischievous spoken repartee, Benway’s set charmed, amused and dizzied a crowd filled with longtime friends and acquaintances.
“I saw Journey at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts in 1982, bought a T-shirt and got stoned for, like, the second time in my life,” he reminisced after someone called for a cover of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Later, he proclaimed: “A $6.50 burger is a burger to be afraid of,” riffing on Wendy’s Baconator upon spying the heavy-duty sandwich on an above-bar TV screen.
Engaging as Benway’s visit might have been, it was the reappearance of another group of ex-locals on the same bill that drew the unusually large non-weekend crowd to the Downtown bar: art-punks Flaspar, who moved to Portland in 2005 and hadn’t played Las Vegas since. Fronted by second singer Rebecca Carlisle-Healey, the new-look five-piece went on shortly after 12:30 a.m., bringing a throng of onlookers that included Killers bassist Mark Stoermer and ex-Flaspar frontman Keil Corcoran—the night’s between-set DJ—to their feet in anticipation.
What followed musically was met with a mix of ebullience and disappointment, dependent on each individual’s keenness for experimentalism. Even as Corcoran bounced euphorically amid a small pack of revelers, one media member who had been a proponent of the band’s early synth-driven chops walked out a third of the way into the noisy 45-minute performance.
Still, though Flaspar’s sound has been markedly reshaped to gird the quintet for Portland’s competitive rock underground, the propulsive rhythms of its Vegas incarnation remain intact and recognizable. Except that now, they support Carlisle-Healey’s howling vocals, which, along with her theatrical presence, earned deserved comparisons to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O.
Flaspar (above) and Benway: Welcome back, your dreams ere your ticket out.
Though sentimentalists might have been tempted to crown the homecomers kings of the Bunkhouse castle, in truth that headdress ought be awarded to the Screaming Females, a scorching trio from New Jersey whose bluesy brand of punk—specifically diminutive leader Marissa Paternoster’s see-it-to-believe-it guitar mastery and deliciously abrasive oral assault—blew out more than a few unsuspecting eardrums.
Benway, whom Flaspar guitarist Cody Brant described as “a father figure” to the Vegas scene back in the day, earned the night’s nod as court jester, pausing briefly to shake the hand of a drunken stranger who approached the stage midway through Morgansorange’s performance.
“I’d like to thank my mom for bringing me into this world, and I’d like to thank that guy for taking me out of it,” Benway deadpanned. “We’re goin’ drinkin’ tonight, and I have a feeling we just might die. As long as it happens on Maryland Parkway, it’ll be all right with me.”