Friday, May 23, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.
Spencer Patterson covers music for the Sun. His music notes column appears Fridays. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-2309.
For the DJ tandem known as Deep Dish, environment is everything.
The two men tailor their nightclub sets to their venue, their audience and the mood of the city in which they're performing.
So just how does Deep Dish approach a town as unique as Las Vegas, with its unusual blend of locals and tourists?
"We have a little following there, so some of the locals usually show up, but most people at our shows there are tourists," 32-year-old Sharam Tayebi said in a phone interview from his Washington, D.C., home.
"So we play a less-serious set when we play in Vegas. It's a fun city so we try to reflect that in the stuff that we play. There's no point to get all serious in a city that's known for its happiness."
Tonight, Tayebi and musical partner Ali "Dubfire" Shirazinia return to Vegas to spin another of their acclaimed late-night dance sets, this time at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Doors open at 11 p.m. Tickets are $40.
When it might end is anybody's guess.
"We play 'til whenever they close the curtain down," Tayebi said. "We like to play long sets, because we have so much music to offer. In some cities we play eight-, 10-hour sets. If they're still going for it, we'll play for as long as they allow us."
Together since 1993, the two Iranian-born American citizens are not only world-renowned DJs, but have also produced and remixed dance tracks by artists from Michael Jackson to Madonna.
Last year the pair garnered their first Grammy Award in the Best Remixed Recording category for their mix of Dido's single, "Thank You." Later this year, P-Diddy's first dance album will include a Deep Dish collaboration.
Deep Dish also earned rave reviews at last month's Coachella Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., which featured a popular all-dance tent throughout its two-day schedule. Tayebi said the event should continue to bring a higher profile to their form of music.
"It's the beauty of a festival like that," he said. "It introduces different genres to different people. You might be there for Red Hot Chili Peppers and all of a sudden you end up listening to Deep Dish. It's really good for music, for opening the boundaries."
If you enjoy tonight's Deep Dish show, there's a chance you might be able to hear it -- or a close approximation thereof -- sometime soon. The pair are preparing to release their second contribution to the celebrated Global Underground dance mix CD series, "Global Underground 025: Toronto."
The set, which will be available in both two- and four-disc formats, was inspired by a particularly hot show in Toronto last December. In 2001 Deep Dish released a similar package tagged to a performance in Moscow.
"(Toronto) was such a fantastic night that we tried to keep the CDs as close to the night as possible," Tayebi said.
"A lot of the records that you play normally in a nightclub environment, they don't necessarily translate well into a listening environment, to CD. There are certain tracks that did translate well and we put them in there, and then we bridged the gap with other stuff that we'd been playing."
And just where does Deep Dish find all of its material?
"We're always listening to stuff," Tayebi said. "We have a vast collection of our own material, our three records labels' material and also stuff that we buy from record stores or we get in the mail.
"Just listening to the stuff we get in the mail is a full-time job, so we spend a lot of our time on airplanes or at home or whatever just listening to all the new stuff coming in. We're in a position to be able to pick the cream of the crop, according to our own taste."
Quick hits
A look at a few of the shows scheduled to hit Southern Nevada in the next week:
The Smoothie King at 8502 W. Lake Mead Blvd. will host its second Lift Ticket Benefit Concert of the year in its parking lot Saturday night at 6.
Local bands Extension 106, Chemical X, Inner Earth, New Movement, Time Spent Burning and Slow to Surface are scheduled to perform. Admission is $5, with proceeds going to benefit the Shade Tree Shelter for women.
Local rock band the Happy Campers celebrate the release of their new self-titled disc with a show at the Huntridge Theatre on Saturday night at 7. Also on the bill: 7 Ft. Midget, HB Surround Sound and September Star. Tickets are $7.
If you're not passed out after Deep Dish's set tonight, the dance party continues with a DJ stint by the Crystal Method Sunday night at 10:30 p.m. at Curve at the Aladdin. Admission is $20, $10 for men with local IDs and free for women with local IDs.
Two Las Vegas natives -- Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan -- live in Los Angeles these days. Their latest mix album, last year's "Community Service," featured remixes of tracks by Rage Against the Machine, Garbage and P.O.D.
On Tuesday, Winger frontman Kip Winger performs a free, acoustic set at the Palms' Palapa Lounge beginning at 10 p.m. The show is part of the venue's weekly "Acoustic Asylum" series.
On sale
Tickets for three House of Blues concerts go on sale Friday at noon: Tracy Chapman on June 24 ($25 to $45), Third Eye Blind on June 25 ($25 to $35) and Little Feat on July 3 ($20 to $30).
Tickets are on sale now for three other upcoming House of Blues shows: CKY on May 21 ($12), the All-American Rejects on June 14 ($12) and Nancy Sinatra on July 16 ($25 to $35).
Tickets for all House of Blues events can be purchased at the venue's box office, at TicketMaster outlets, by phone at 632-7600 or 474-4000 or online at hob.com or ticketmaster.com.
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