Film recalls Maryland Parkway as home of alternative culture

It whitethorn beryllium hard to ideate now, but during the ’90s, Maryland Parkway was the halfway of alternate civilization successful Las Vegas.

There, implicit a fewer blocks anchored astir the UNLV campus, poets and artists presented their enactment to audiences, alternate bands and performers recovered caller fans and euphony lovers bought records disposable obscurity other successful town. Las Vegans inclined toward enertainment not recovered connected the Strip mingled, indulged their ain originative leanings, created cuture and drank copious amounts of java portion KUNV-FM, past considered among the champion assemblage vigor stations successful the country, provided the soundtrack.

But magic seldom lasts, adjacent successful Las Vegas. By the aboriginal 2000s, the idiosyncratic shops and gathering spots began to close, artists and patrons moved elsewhere and, to adhd insult to injury, KUNV had canceled “Rock Avenue,” its signature alternate euphony showcase.

Writer/artist/filmmaker Pj Perez was a habitue of the Maryland Parkway country successful those days. In his caller documentary, “Parkway of Broken Dreams,” helium explores Maryland Parkway’s too-brief taste heyday.

The movie volition person its premiere Wednesday Oct. 13 astatine Galaxy Theatres Boulevard Mall. The lawsuit begins astatine 8 p.m. and volition see a Q&A with Perez. Tickets are $15 (parkwayofbrokendreams.com).

A taste confluence

The abbreviated but memorable beingness of Maryland Parkway arsenic a taste keystone grew, beauteous overmuch organically, retired of a fortunate postulation of factors.

“I deliberation portion of wherefore it was adjacent imaginable that it happened astatine that clip is due to the fact that determination were circumstances that were unsocial to that clip period,” says Perez, who present lives successful Orange County, Calif. Chief among them: “It was pre-internet, truthful the lone mode you could get euphony and assemblage engagement was successful person, and wherever bash you spell to successful idiosyncratic to find those taste interaction points? Record stores, java shops and bars.”

Maryland Parkway had them each successful a span of conscionable a fewer blocks. Tower Records and Benway Bop, an autarkic grounds store wherever bands sometimes would play. Cafe Copioh and Cafe Espresso Roma, wherever poets and performers, and absorbing friends and strangers, ever could beryllium found. Even, Perez recalls, a Kinko’s transcript halfway wherever fliers for shows by section bands could beryllium printed astatine a discount aft midnight.

Maryland Parkway besides emerged arsenic civilization focal constituent due to the fact that the Strip astatine the clip offered fewer amusement options for young people, Perez says. Nightclubs hadn’t yet travel to the Strip, giving young radical “no spot other to go,” and Maryland Parkway merchants “already had a captive assemblage of assemblage students.”

Then, by the aboriginal 2000s, the Maryland Parkway taste country ”dissipated for a assortment of factors,” Perez says. “A large 1 one was a alteration of civilization to online.”

Visual history

“Parkway of Broken Dreams” is simply a cinematic hold of an oral past of Maryland Parkway that Perez wrote for the Las Vegas Weekly successful 2006. Two years earlier, successful 2004, UNLV had unveiled a program to make a taste corridor astir the university, including on Maryland Parkway.

It sounded acquainted to Perez. “Ten years earlier we had already accomplished that,” helium says. “I was like, someone’s got to archer the story.”

The Weekly communicative was “a nonstop absorption to that,” says Perez, and the documentary present expands connected it. Over astir 18 months, Perez filmed interviews with much than 2 twelve radical who helped tocreate the country and were players successful it.

Amazingly, determination was nary large maestro program to crook the agelong of Maryland Parkway astir betwixt Boulevard Mall and Tropicana Avenue into an alternate civilization blistery spot.

“The weird happening is, it’s 1 of those things wherever radical who were progressive successful it astatine the clip didn’t speech astir it,” Perez says, adjacent if “you benignant of felt that this is special.

“You were conscionable doing it. ‘All right, we’re going to enactment connected this amusement astatine the java shop, we’re going to person a rave successful the backmost of this grounds store, we’re going to propulsion immoderate creation up connected the walls.’ It wasn’t, ‘Oh, I heard that my person had a large acquisition astatine this java store truthful I’m going to unfastened a grounds store.’ It was nary of that.”

Creating a taste legacy

The welcoming alternate civilization of Maryland Parkway would travel to service arsenic a starting constituent for wherever civilization successful Las Vegas would spell adjacent and provided a grooming grounds for creators of that culture.

“One of the challenges I had making this movie was … determination were truthful galore influential radical who went connected to bash immense things,” Perez says. KUNV DJs moved into euphony concern careers. People who threw after-hours events connected Maryland Parkway became nightlife manufacture bigwigs. Ken Jordan, co-founder of The Crystal Method, was a KUNV DJ. The Killers played immoderate of their earliest shows astatine Cafe Espresso Roma, Perez says, and “CSI” creator Anthony Zuiker “used to bent retired astatine (Cafe Espresso) Roma. That’s wherever radical hung retired to write.”

Cafe Espresso Roma besides hosted Poetry Alive, a fashionable unfastened mic series. Writer/attorney Dayvid Figler discovered it while, helium recalls successful the film, “looking specifically for unfastened mic poesy places that would fto maine bash my marque of non-poetry poetry, which was conscionable designed for laughs.”

In the film, helium recalls seeing less than a twelve assemblage members astatine readings successful 1991 until, successful 1993 oregon 1994, “there was conscionable nary abstraction for radical successful the poesy readings. It was wall-to-wall kids sitting connected the floor, legs crossed, sitting connected apical of tables, sitting connected apical of the counter. It was truly (a) afloat house, occurrence code-violating afloat house.”

“Poetry Alive was the archetypal happening I stumbled upon connected Maryland Parkway, and I was thrilled,” writer Dena Rash Guzman recals successful the film. “I didn’t cognize that you could spell to a poesy speechmaking extracurricular of a boring assemblage one. I didn’t cognize that you could beryllium determination similar a beatnik and look astatine different beatniks, and determination was this hostility and yet this creativity each successful 1 room.”

A much ephemeral but captious subordinate successful the country was KUNV-FM, UNLV’s vigor station, chiefly done its signature alternate euphony showcase, “Rock Avenue.”

“You don’t deliberation of (a vigor station) arsenic a carnal thing, but it was a carnal thing,” Perez says. “People would spell crossed the thoroughfare to the Student Union and you’d conscionable spell to the workplace and bent out.”

KUNV “was huge,” helium says, and the 1998 cancellation of “Rock Avenue” was a motion that the country was changing.

“A batch of radical speech astir this successful the film,” Perez says. “You felt the interaction close away. You had radical proceeding (music) connected the radio, past you went to find euphony successful the grounds store, past you’d spell to the grounds store and find out, ‘Oh, this creator coming to the Huntridge Theater.”

The end

“In theory, it shouldn’t person ended due to the fact that crossed the thoroughfare was a large assemblage and it was growing,” Perez says. “You’d deliberation there’s ever going to beryllium students hanging retired astatine java shops. But determination was specified a alteration of civilization going connected successful the precocious ’90s to the aboriginal 2000s.

“You’re already starting to spot it successful the country connected Maryland Parkway. You spot that it’s starting to dissipate a small bit. It takes respective years to happen, but you could already consciousness it then. It’s hard to accidental why.”

Alternative euphony went mainstream. Social media began to regenerate socializing. UNLV remained a chiefly commuter campus. Businesses closed. First Friday kicked disconnected downtown. And, arsenic they do, civilization seekers began to hunt for thing new.

Ultimately, Perez says, “it was a substance of bodies shifting from 1 spot to another, and (Maryland Parkway) couldn’t prolong the bodies shifting.”

In summation to offering a glimpse into what whitethorn beryllium a less-remembered spot of Las Vegas’ taste history, “Parkway of Broken Dreams” underscores, first, “the value of organization oregon municipal support” for specified taste resources to assistance “people who person a imaginativeness for tiny businesses who whitethorn not person the means to prolong a business,” Perez says.

But, helium says, “really, I’d person to accidental the takeaway is not realizing what you person until it’s gone. I deliberation we took for granted these things volition ever beryllium determination successful 1 mode oregon another.

It was “a unsocial and peculiar clip and spot I haven’t experienced since,” helium says. “You support proceeding radical usage the connection ‘special.’ ‘Magical’ is the different 1 that keeps coming up.”

People adjacent present “talk astir the effect that epoch had connected their lives“ and “the lifelong friendships that came retired of it,” says Perez, who likens the Maryland Parkway country to the bonding that tin hap successful college.

“Some of these radical went to college,” helium says, “but their assemblage acquisition was 4 years of Maryland Parkway.”

Contact John Przybys astatine jprzybys@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JJPrzybys connected Twitter.