Musical oasis in the desert

Mahoney's store built as a resource for performers

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It the late 1950's there was only one place for a musician performing in Las Vegas to buy a new set of drum sticks or replacement strings for his guitar.

Mahoney's Professional Music Center and Drum Shop has transformed over the last 50 years but it is still located at 1118 Bonneville Street, and run by the Mahoney family.

Mo Mahoney was a drummer with Louis Armstrong and the Dukes of Dixieland. During a stop in the valley for a few performances Mahoney needed a new set of drum sticks and couldn't find them anywhere in Las Vegas. He thought there was a great need for a music equipment shop in the budding entertainment city and moved his family from New York in 1954.

His son Marty Mahoney, who currently runs the store, now called Studio Music Rentals (SIR), was a year old at the time.

Marty Mahoney has been surrounded by music and musicians his entire life. He grew up in his father's store.

"I was always here," he said. "This was all I knew."

He remembers when Elvis Presley came in the store with Ronnie Tutt, a member of Presley's TCB Band. They bought an 80-inch, $25,000 gong for their show.

"It takes a year to make one. There are 100 different ways to play it. There's a circle in the middle, which is supposed to be warmed up and you're not supposed to hit it directly in the middle. They had a big muscle guy in the show. He hit it in the middle the first time and cracked it," Marty Mahoney said.

After that they played a recording and the big muscle guy pretended to hit the gong.

Siegfried and Roy bought the only other large gong sold at the store. They cracked theirs, too.

Marty Mahoney said when he was about 13 it was his job to clean Tutt's symbols. It was exciting because he'd get to go backstage at the Hilton.

"I wanted to be a star, to play under the big lights," he said.

The store was sold to the national music rental company SIR in 2000 after Mo Mahoney died.

"The big superstores were coming into town," Marty Mahoney said. "We were the last one. I called SIR. They were my first call. I was going to go bankrupt. I owed 300 creditors $700,000."

Marty Mahoney still participates in all the store's daily operations. SIR rents all types of musical equipment including pianos, guitars, drums, horns and many others. They also produce shows, have a recording facility on site, which is used for making jingles mostly, and have a sound-proof rehearsal studio.

The rehearsal studio has been used by Whitney Houston, Shakira, Foreigner and Toni Braxton among many others.

There also is an on-site repair facility that Marty Mahoney said is a "real big help for musicians in town for a few shows."

Besides running the store Marty Mahoney is a drummer with the Marty Mahoney Band. They have performed locally and all over the world.

He started playing trumpet as a kid but said he didn't like that and eventually settled in as a drummer, like his father.

Marty Mahoney remembers his first performances as a teenager in 1960s Las Vegas playing rhythm and blues as an interesting time.

"I started in a club on Bonanza (Road), right next to Benny Binon's house," he said. "When I got a car I played at the Red Garter stripper joint in North Las Vegas."

He has since performed at most of the major hotels on the Strip as well as in New York, Haiti, Brazil, Indiana, New Orleans and Chicago.

Marty Mahoney also played with the house bands at Disneyworld in Orlando and Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., for many years.

In continuing with the family's tradition, he has passed down his love of music. His sons Max, 6, and Mason, 5, formed the Mini Blues Brothers three years ago. They have performed with the Marty Mahoney Band at many local hotels and during Las Vegas' Centennial Celebration on Freemont Street.

"They each get $50 per gig," Marty Mahoney said.

Max said that he spends his money on toys or saves it and Mason is saving up to buy paint ball gear.

Recently they started the Little Beatles with two friends. Max is the drummer and Mason plays bass and guitar. The four auditioned for the new Simon Cowell show "America's Got Talent," which premiered on NBC on June 21.

Right now all the boys want to do is listen to the Beatles.

"They will go to the neighbors and ask the kids if they want to come over and listen to Beatles records," Barbara Mahoney, their mother, said. "The other kids don't know who the Beatles are and don't know what records are."

Marty Mahoney also has influenced his two stepsons Bobby Arthur, 18, and Ryan Arthur, 15, who he began teaching 10 years ago.

"They have the same lifestyle I had," Marty Mahoney said. "They've always been around it (music)."

Bobby is a drummer and he works and practices at SIR. He is currently booked in Tulsa, Okla., with a Dolly Parton impersonator.

Ryan is a student at Las Vegas Academy and plays bass in a local band.

The Marty Mahoney Band appears at Sax Sundays, a free event at Mt. Charleston Hotel that begins at 1 p.m. every Sunday through October. The band will also appear at the hotel's first annual Jazz Festival Friday through Sunday. The three-day jazz festival includes other local artists Larry White and the UNLV Jazz Band. Headliners include the Steven Lee Group, Pete Radd, Drumjungle, Skip Martin of Kool and the Gang and Fattburger.

There also will be wine tasting and a weekend-long exhibition of local artists from Art Encounter featuring works for purchase and a special area for children's entertainment.

For more information, visit www.sirlasvegas.com or www.martymahoney.com.