Thighs of steel on two-inch wheels with striped shorts to seal the deal.

The Down & Derby roller skating dance party has become a downtown staple at the Beauty Bar, but has apparently outgrown its digs in the venue’s backyard. Or maybe there were too many collisions with the trailer. We can only speculate.

Now, our favorite retro roller skating party is coasting into a new location (don’t worry, it’s not Crystal Palace, so leave your mace at home): Rain Nightclub at the Palms will play host to the event next month.

No, seriously!

Vince Masi and Richard Alexander’s Down & Derby roller rink revival will take over the massive nightclub, letting guests slide, glide, boogie down and even make out on wheels. It’s perfect. There’s already a wooden floor in the center of Rain, and the VIP booths can serve as a barrier for rogue skaters who have trouble stopping on a dime.

“The Down & Derby roller skating dance party is one of the hottest new concepts in all the major metropolitan cities,” says N9NE Group vice president Michael Fuller. “When we saw how cool it was downtown, we decided we had to bring it to the Palms to truly make it over-the-top.”

The responsibility for making D&D as retro-fab as possible rests, in part, on your shoulders. You’ll need to bust out the short-shorts (guys, you too) and retro wear for the ’70s roller disco night. The more Afro wigs, the better.

Don’t have a pair of quads to bring to the party? (Note: Rollerblades are such a vibe-killer.) Skates of all sizes will be available for rental at Rain for $5. Admission is $5 in advance, $10 at the door.

Fuller, who’s been a familiar face at the Beauty Bar’s Down & Derby, is already preparing for the party’s Palms launch. “I am personally going out and making some custom skates that light up the faster you go like back in the day,” he says. “I also plan on practicing my backwards slow skating.”

This was one fun event and look forward to more up and coming Down & Derby action at Rain inside Palms Hotel & Caisno

Article from Las Vegas Weekly

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That’s the premise of “The Apple Sisters Variety Show,” a joyous musical comedy revue, written and performed by Kimmy Gatewood, Rebekkah Johnson and Sarah Lowe in the style of an old-time radio broadcast.

“We all share a love for the music of the 1940’s,” said Gatewood, who plays “dumb blonde” Cora Apple, after a recent performance. “There’s such a simplicity to it; it’s fun and it sounds beautiful.”

Gatewood, Johnson, Lowe  create a brand new show every month, tagged to the holidays that we celebrate in the good old U.S. of A. For the “April Fools” installment, the Sisters danced in Easter bonnets, performed slapstick comedy with raw eggs and sang a catchy jingle about the joys of smoking new Julep cigarettes (“freshens you up with every puff”). Like Jack Benny’s “Lucky Strike Program” and other popular shows of the era, “The Apple Sisters Variety Show” is sponsored by a cigarette company, but it’s safe to say that Benny’s announcer never concluded his commercials with a comedic coughing fit.

“The show is both a throwback and a satire,” Thomsen told me. “There are a lot of anachronisms and I think it adds flavor to the retro style.”

One example is Johnson’s tomboyish Candy Apple, whose unseen “husband” is stationed on the South Pacific island of Bora Bora. “I just got a letter from my husband Cheryl,” Candy announced to her confused sisters during the Mail Room segment.

“That’s a funny name for a boy,” answered Lowe, the “pure and innocent” Seedy Apple.

“I’m playing with the fact that they would never talk about being gay in that time period,” Johnson told me. “And my grandfather was actually stationed on Bora Bora, so it’s a bit of an homage.”

Although Gatewood, Johnson, and Lowe have only done three shows since their Valentine’s Day debut at The PIT, The Apple Sisters were conceived nearly three decades ago.

“My mom was a dancer on Broadway, and she and a girlfriend came up with the name when they were on tour back in the ’70s. Now she thinks she should get royalties,” Lowe joked. “We don’t talk anymore.”

Gatewood and Johnson, both improv instructors at The PIT, developed the show and then invited Lowe, fresh off a two-year stint in the Las Vegas production of “Mamma Mia,” to join the act. It was only then that they discovered that Lowe’s DNA is practically over-flowing with showbiz history.

“My mom’s mom and her two sisters had a local radio program here in New York back in the 1930s and ’40s,” Lowe told me. “They were known as The Clark Sisters.”

But as Al Jolson famously said: “Wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”

“My other grandmother, on my father’s side, was Ruby Keeler, who starred in the original movie version of ‘42nd Street’ in 1933,” Lowe added. “When I was a kid, I used to put on shows for her with my cousins. I’d be like, ‘We’re going to Grandma Ruby’s closet and we’re choreographing a show!’ She loved that.”

Lowe may not have known it as a child, but her Grandma Ruby is a musical icon, having tap-danced her way from speakeasies to Broadway and into the arms of Al Jolson, whom she married at the tender age of 18 (and divorced at 29). But she is most fondly remembered as the wide-eyed showgirl in a series of gritty, Depression-era movie musicals choreographed by the legendary Busby Berkeley.

“Her movies would be on in the background when I would visit, but I thought everybody’s grandparents were on TV,” Lowe said.

“Just like our kids will feel,” added Gatewood.

“You mean how my kids will feel,” Johnson joked, cracking up her fellow cast members.

Eventually Lowe figured out who her grandmother actually was. Lowe’s mom Gwen Hillier remembers it well.

“I was in a production of ‘42nd Street’ in Anaheim when Sarah was eight years-old,” she told me over the phone. “They introduced Grandma Ruby as the original Peggy Sawyer and everybody in the theatre stood up and applauded her. It was thrilling. I think that was the first time Sarah realized.”

The good news is “The Apple Sisters Variety Show” more than lives up to its prestigious pedigree. It’s a tight thirty-minutes of close harmony, ingenious choreography and broad comedy; a pitch-perfect recreation of a time when radio was king and singing girl groups like The Andrews Sisters were its queens.

“Sometimes you see musicals that try to be funny, but they’re not,” Johnson said. “But we’re comedians, and it’s fun to do a musical our way.”

“Of course I want to be on Broadway,” Lowe said. “I grew up backstage and that was always my dream.”

“We all dream of that,” Gatewood agreed. “In that sense we’re just like our characters.”

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Nelson is on the Nevada side of the Colorado River about 16 miles north of Cottonwood Cove by water. It is a common misconception that Nelson is on the Nevada side of Lake Mojave[citation needed], but in fact Nelson is upstream by about 16 miles. Nelson is about 25 miles from Boulder City by road. One of the biggest mining booms in state history occurred near here, in the El Dorado Canyon. Gold and silver were discovered here around 1859.

In its heyday, the area established a reputation for being rough and lawless. During the American Civil War, deserters from both the Union and Confederate armies would wander there, hoping that such an isolated location would be the last place military authorities would look for them.

Nelson’s Landing, about five miles west in Eldorado Canyon, is noted for washing into Lake Mohave in 1974 after a strong downpour in the regional mountains sent the runoff down the channels and produced a flash flood. There are five wide channels that run from the local mountains toward the river. The problem is that they all converge into a small outlet where Nelson’s Landing was. The entire landing and village was destroyed and nine people died when the flood came through the wash. The wall of water and debris was reported as about 40 feet (12 meters) high as it reached the river.
Much of the town of Nelson, which was not impacted by the 1974 flood, remains today and is located way up the wash, away from the flood channels. The sparsely populated town consists mainly of privately owned ranch houses, and a river and mining tour business housed in a former Texaco gas station that has been used as a filming location for several feature films, including 3000 Miles to Graceland.

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