N-Side Track TV show helps promote bands

After a challenging but successful year that saw plenty of local musical talent and a pilot episode broadcast on the UPN television network, the crew behind N-Side Track is ready to take its show to new heights in the coming months.

The music showcase program was started two years ago by entertainment industry mainstay and northwest Las Vegas resident Manuel Lira. Lira was co-producing the Who's reunion concert at the MGM Grand in 1999 when he realized the local music scene needed something to profile and promote the off-the-Strip, alternative culture.

"I had done a similar show called 'Inside the Ring' in New York and L.A. that had different guests, and someone asked me about it," Lira said. "It was clear that people here loved not only the local nightclubs and entertainment, but also the alternative music scene. I thought it needed a spark, something to help it grow and become established like what we've seen in places like Seattle. The musicians here definitely want and deserve their own scene."

Lira named his show N-Side Track to highlight the behind-the-scenes feel he wanted the episodes to have. The format of the show is shaped around interviews and performances, profiling established acts while showing off up-and-coming local bands and musicians.

"We are getting away from the traditional Las Vegas entertainment show," Lira said. "Not only are we showing these bands that really are doing well away from the Strip, but we'll try to go more behind the scenes. We want to follow a band through different venues and performances and let people see all that they do, if you're a fan or if you're starting a band or if you just want to know what it's like."

Lira quickly acquired a solid group of partners to support his project, including musical director Duane Jordon and media consultant Barbara Dempsey, who share his vision for the show.

"There's not a group in the world who doesn't want to play Vegas," Dempsey said. "I've been here a long time, and when I was young there were plenty of lounges where young musicians got their starts. There aren't those kinds of places anymore, and that's where N-Side Track fits."

Jordon, who composed the show's theme music, said the local music scene is so diverse that the show is bound to become a tool for its growth.

"Vegas is such a melting pot because there are people here from all over, so you get a lot of different flavors of music," he said. "As these musicians meet each other, they come up with new sounds. Seattle was really stuck with the grunge sound, and if you go to Texas, 90 percent of the music there is country. Here you have every genre, and that's going to be a big reason for the continual growth of the music scene."

After researching the local scene further, the show taped its pilot episode at Hooters on West Sahara Avenue in March. The pilot features all up-and-coming artists, with performances from local bands Dizzy, Liquid Skye and the Melancholics. Broadcast Aug. 19 on UPN, N-Side Track's premiere episode was available to 1.2 million households and garnered a .3 viewers share.

"It was really overwhelming, after all we'd gone through and worked for, to see the first show do so well," Lira said. "If that means we had 3,000 viewers, that's great because we had been getting 3,000 hits usually on the Web site, so it means that audience carried over. It was well worth everything we put into it."

Since the pilot, the show has made plenty of moves. It has picked up two new television distributors and is planning to possibly broadcast the show in different languages in 70 countries.

N-Side Track has held several talent audition events at Mars Music and the Guitar Center to find the bands to perform on upcoming episodes. Lira is talking with local Upfront Recording Studios about the studios becoming the venue to tape five to 10 new episodes soon.

And the show has tapped a major figure in the local music scene as its new host -- Shawn Eiferman, singer-songwriter and former leader of the popular band Epstein's Mother.

"The scene here is as strong as the individual wants it to be, because you can go out on any given night and see some good bands," Eiferman said. "I think this show will be a different kind of take on things, breaking out of that cookie-cutter mold by having a variety of acts. And I'm going to try not to be a cookie-cutter host, and hopefully with my musical background we'll keep things pretty interesting."

For more information about N-Side Track, log on at www.n-sidetrack.com or call 585-1717.


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