Ruckus Rob is a Las Vegas Local music scene legend! He currently plays with The Nines, The Vermin, Jupiter Shifter and probably 12 other bands too. He shares a few of his favorite Vegas moments with us…

This town, our town so fabulous, has turned me into what I am today: an aging punk rock monster! The fact that I am allowed to get away with half the things I do amazes me sometimes!
I have been playing in some kind of band here since 1994. There aren’t too many places I haven’t played. Everything from the Double Down to desert shows, elementary school career days, house parties, casinos, clubs, backyards, hair salons…if you can give me a plug or a generator, I can play there!. I’ve had members of the Vago’s Motercycle club hold knives to my throat. I have played Strip Clubs and had the “house Mom” (the person who helps the girls get ready) dress me in the sluttiest dress a man has ever taken off while playing bass upside down on a strippers pole.
Then there was the desert show at Lossee Road where my devillock was set on file by the crowd shooting bottle rockets at me. At a show at an elementary school an eight year old asked me why my band was called The Nines. I explained that “when you put on a suit and hat it’s called dressing to the nines”. To which she replied, “You guys should be called The Fours”. I played an extremely boring battle of the bands with The Vermin and figured I would eat a bunch of pills, get drunk as hell, rip up a bible and play a great set. I later found out that the owner of the bar was a devout Christian (strange combo I think). He proceeded to pick up every holy piece of paper from the dance floor, burned them and have a priest bless the bar. Another great moment was seeing Michael from The Makers crawl into the ceiling of the Wet Stop. He brought down the entire thing including the lighting rig. It looked like a war zone! There was a cross dresser in the scene a few years back. He was supposedly the son of a prominate lawyer in town. He “hooked up” with the bass player of a band from Mexico called Synod. I later told him that “es no chica, es hombre”. The look on his face was priceless.

Not all my memories have been nutfests. I have experienced some of the most beautiful melodies ever played here in this town, often in the last place you would expect it. I saw Camper Van Beethoven play at the Record Exchange. I saw the Cocatau Twins play at Caesar’s Palace. I heard Brian Wilson perform the entire “Smile” Album. . Another time I crawled through the air conditioning duct at Ham Hall so I could see the Ramones. I saw X at the reservoir just outside Red Rock.

Now, back to the nutfest. I remember steeling the security guards car and parking it across the street because we could not get into the Love and Rockets show. Ill never forget all the punks crossing the line at the Test Sight (not me hippies!) to protest Nukes. And then protesting then Congressmen Steve Miller when he banned punk shows from Vegas because his daughter came home with a F$#k S*@t Piss (one of my old bands) t-shirt on. I remember getting my nipple pierced at the first piercing shop in town, The Hair Zoo. They pierced me with an earring gun. What a disaster that was. They joy I felt buying my first Misfits 45 at the Record Exchange. At the time all my friends worked at Tower (the old one on Maryland) and they would give me bags to fill up with records. I remember kissing my first blue haired girl at Bob Baskin park. There was the time with the Vermin where we mooned the audience at the Palms (bet we never play there again). Another time the Vermin played the House of Blues opening for The Reverend Horton Heat. We got kicked out for steeling three bottles of whisky. Watching Dirk Vermin become the greatest tattoo artists I have ever seen! Receiving a new bass from all my friends after some crazy b*$ch smashed mine at the Double Down(thanks again Vegas!)

These are all the moments that have changed my life in one way or another. What does all this mean? What is the moral of this story? Well, there ain’t one! Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? These jackasses aren’t even paying me! They have never even interviewed any of my bands. That’s ok, I am doing it because I love Las Vegas. If you don’t. You can go eat a bag of d*$ks!