Carson calling

The Prison Hill Recreation Area is a perfect place to appreciate classic Northern Nevada beauty

As summer approaches, many of us feel the call of the mountains and forests. While Mount Rose and Lake Tahoe have a renowned beauty and allure, spring is a great time to appreciate the uniqueness of the Northern Nevada landscape—and a trip to Prison Hill Recreation Area in Carson City provides ample opportunity to soak up many of our local environment’s best parts.

Prison Hill spans 2,500 acres and is crisscrossed by trails popular with hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians. It offers excellent views of the Carson Range to the west and the Pine Nut Mountains to the east, along with panoramic views of Carson City.

There are several access points to this expansive open space. On the northern end, just off of East Fifth Street and Carson River Road, a parking area gives access to the North Loop Connector Trail and North Loop Trail. The middle section of the western side has gravel parking off both Koontz Lane and Clearview Drive. Many different trails are accessible from these points. On the eastern side, Silver Saddle Ranch has trails leading up to Prison Hill. On the southern end, off Snyder Avenue, a large staging area provides space for those seeking trails for motorized use.

This scenic area is popular with all kinds of trail users. Miles of maintained hiking trails all throughout the space and are well-used by hikers and trail runners; there are even organized 5k, 10k and half-marathon runs held here in certain seasons. Many of the paths are great for horseback riding, and dogs are allowed on all trails as long as they’re under the owner’s control. If you’re heading to Prison Hill with your ATV or dirt bike, be sure to check the map at Carson.org for “Motorized Use” boundaries.

Surrounding a low mountain ridge, the Prison Hill Recreation Area has trails that offer various levels of difficulty. Some have enticing names like “Escape from Prison Hill” and “Dead Truck Canyon.” Around the fringes, the trails can be wide and relatively flat, providing access to those not looking for a strenuous journey. Heading up to some of the highest points in the area can involve around 1,000 feet of vertical gain on single-track trails that are rocky, sandy and gravelly. Views from the summit are spectacular; it’s a great spot to have a rewarding snack or picnic.

Whether heading out for a challenging allday adventure or a quick and easy after-work jaunt, Prison Hill is a great desert destination. Though it’s accessible year-round, a total lack of tree cover makes this a very hot location during the summer. This nature-focused recreation area lacks developed amenities like bathrooms or picnic tables, instead providing a slice of the wild right on the doorstep of the Silver State capital.

Many native animals call Prison Hill home, including mule deer, coyotes and rattlesnakes. You’re unlikely to come into contact with many animals, as they tend to vacate the area when they hear you coming, but traces of them can be seen all around if you’re looking for them. Dozens of species of birds can be seen throughout the space, including rock wrens singing from towering boulders and ravens catching thermals from ridgetops.

If you find yourself falling in love with this picturesque slice of Nevada’s high desert, do your part to maintain its beauty. Pack out your trash; stay on maintained trails; and don’t pick flowers or take anything (other than trash) home with you. Feeling extra-inspired? Volunteer for trail maintenance with Carson City Department of Parks, Recreation and Open Space (carson.org) or local nonprofit Muscle Powered (musclepowered.org).

Prison Hill Recreation Area offers a breathtaking experience for outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers. With a network of trails spanning dozens of miles, this wild space beckons to be explored time and time again. From awe-inspiring vistas to tranquil foothill paths, Prison Hill offers something for everyone.

AMONG HARDLINERS,

tribute acts can be viewed as interlopers or, god forbid, hobbyists who don’t stand for the same creative principles as “real bands.” Anyone who thinks that probably hasn’t seen the production value that goes into ABBACADABRA.

Billing itself as the “Ultimate ABBA Tribute” and selling out showrooms and stages all over the world, ABBACADABRA got its start in 2004 thanks to executive producer Garry Raffanelli.

“I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I don’t do a whole bunch of things,” said Raffanelli. “But I do have an addiction: I’m addicted to applause.”

A musician from a young age,

YOU’VE

SEEN THEM in barrooms, at backyard barbecues, and on some of the biggest stages in town—but regardless of who’s holding the instruments, you know the music before the band even begins to tune up.

Cover bands or tribute acts are a crucial yet sometimes overlooked part of any town’s music scene, even though many cover musicians are talented performers in their own right. They’re dedicated to their craft for a wide range of motivations—and not all cover acts happen at the same scale.

Cover bands can be lucrative and long-lived acts that draw legions of fans to hear the songs they know and love, or regional touring projects paying homage to long-gone greats, or local jam bands looking for an excuse to get some friends together and share the music that inspires them.

It’s tough to get a sense of just how many of these acts call Reno and the surrounding areas home, but we talked to six local cover bands about their backgrounds, their musical philosophies, and how they make a living (or not) playing hits and paying tribute.

Raffanelli has made a career out of music and entertainment—performing, producing acts and building custom pianos for some of the world’s biggest stars through his brand, Slam Grand Pianos. Raffanelli performed for decades as part of the musical duo Gary and Sandy with vocalist Sandy Selby, touring nationally before landing in the casino showroom and lounge scene of Reno and Las Vegas in 1976.

Raffanelli was eventually approached by the entertainment director of Harrah’s Reno to come up with an act. Raffanelli said that he gave the director three other ideas, and when pressed for a fourth, he invented a plan for an ABBA tribute act there and then.

“On the way to the meeting, in my car, my Saturn … when I open up the glove compartment, there’s (an ABBA) Gold cassette,” Raffanelli said. “And I go, ‘God, I love ABBA.’ So I popped that thing in, and I’m listening to ABBA on the way to the meeting.

… And I said, ‘As long as it doesn’t leave this room, I’m putting together an ABBA show.’”

The enthusiastic response prompted him to spend the next year and a half musically dissecting ABBA’s greatest hits by ear and hand-picking musicians to not only accurately perform their music, but replicate—and sometimes spoof—the personalities of the Swedish supergroup in their heyday.

“We do the show pretending to be the players,” Raffanelli said. “If you know about ABBA, the two guys were married to the two girls, and then they divorced—and they weren’t really pleasant divorces. So we play the show as if they’re divorced, but we ran into some financial deals and now we’ve got to play together again. So there’s that edge, and there’s a little bit of name-calling, and I think that makes the show very funny. That’s what makes our show different.”

ABBACADABRA continues to tour nationally and internationally, even though the lineup has changed over the years, with Raffanelli managing the group while performing onstage himself. Even with the cast assuming the roles of the original members of ABBA, the legalities of performing have never inhibited the live show or the recordings they make and sell. (Although the show’s logo is spelled “Adbacadbra” in a stylized manner to avoid trademark similarities.)

To Raffanelli, tribute acts— ABBACADABRA in particular—can be successful from a business standpoint because of the economics of packing big rooms and the natural appeal to audience nostalgia.

“We can sell out the show for a fraction of the cost of bringing in the real act,” he said. “These acts, you can’t see anymore, so the tribute acts are taking up that slack for a much more reasonable price.”

To Raffanelli, the consummate showman, it’s not enough to simply put on the costumes and sing the songs. He said the highest praise he receives is when he feels he’s given his audience the same feeling he got when he saw ABBA live in 1979.

“People walk out going, ‘Thank you; I got to see ABBA live,’” he said.

Find out more at www.adbacadabra.com.

When It Comes

TO paying tribute to great artists, sometimes it’s about more than just the music.

“The Pink Floyd ‘costume’ is the light show, the laser show,” said Vince Gates, bassist and band leader of Pink Floyd tribute act The Floyd, based in Carson City. “That’s the look of Pink Floyd. So it’s very important.”

Gates joined The Floyd in 2010 when it was known as Eclipse: A Tribute to Pink Floyd, around the same time he took ownership of music store Play Your Own Music in Carson City. Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour had always been a huge inspiration to Gates and his guitar playing, and when the members of Eclipse asked him to take over as their bass player, he jumped at the chance.

“It was really low stakes and easy back then,” Gates said. “We were just playing clubs. We didn’t have two trucks full of lighting trusses showing up two days before. We weren’t selling 1,000 tickets.”

The Floyd is now a comprehensive musical experience with a set list that spans the group’s different eras and more than 4,000 lighting cues, all timed manually by the band’s lighting director, Ed Collins. Gates, along with bandmates Rob Lawrence, Jeff Laakso, Curt Mitchell and Dean Rossi, pride themselves on putting on a stadium-worthy show that sells out venues across the West Coast.

“There’s a real sense of emotional connection, I think, with the musicians in the band, or you can feel the emotional connection to the music,” Gates said. “It’s a really good show. Obviously, the lights are spectacular. The sound is spectacular. And the level of musicianship is top-notch.”

Gates plays in a few other tribute bands and original acts around the area and finds playing cover music—especially Pink Floyd’s music— to be an interesting technical challenge. While he recognizes the artistic value and personal reward of playing original music, accurately re-creating the nuance of a famous performance is just as, if not more so, challenging when playing live.

“There’s kind of a negative connotation to playing cover music, and I totally get it,” Gates said. “But the thing is, there’s art and entertainment, and there’s a line somewhere. I totally understand that we’re all standing on the shoulders of giants, and that we, you know, haven’t really contributed anything artistically, per se. But people really enjoy seeing it, and hearing it, and being a part of it.” one called Gwen in Doubt.’ So they know we exist, and it was pretty cool, because Gwen was saying how much she liked the name and stuff, so she thought it was clever.”

Gates and his bandmates are content with finding musical fulfillment in putting on the best homage, sonically and visually, to one of their favorite bands—and none of the thousands of people who attend their shows seem to mind.

Learn more about The Floyd at www. thefloydband.com.

Originally, from Auburn, Calif., Mclean came to Reno in the early 2000s. She started her music career in the area with a Top 40 cover act called Steel Breeze. Throughout her career, members of the audience would tell her that she sounded and even looked like Stefani, whom Mclean lists as a big musical influence. In 2003, she came up with the band name and approached the members of Steel Breeze about leaning into the idea of covering both No Doubt and Stefani’s solo catalog.

“When I would sing Gwen, it almost like fit like a glove,” Mclean said. “Like, it just became very natural to me in the way she moved, and we kind of have some styles in common and like the same things. … I do my best when I’m up there; I want to do the best I can, because I think she deserves it.”

Gwen in Doubt’s set list covers a full twohour performance, and she and bandmates Tommy Mclean, Kevin Strawn, Dan Bauer and John Dabaghian have taken the act to venues around California and Nevada. Mclean said she tends to get out on the road more in tribute bands than in her other projects, playing events like the Contra Costa County Fair and even opening for Terri Nunn of the band Berlin. The reaction she gets from the audience is one of the things she most enjoys when she’s “Gwen.”

“It’s fun to be a rock star sometimes,” she said. “You see someone out in the crowd, and they exude this really cool energy, and I want to exude that good energy to them and recognize them. So I kind of sometimes try to go the extra mile so people feel that they’re involved, too.”

Mclean is realistic about her persona, saying she would never “go to Walmart or something as Gwen.” Mclean stresses that she’s paying homage to Stefani instead of impersonating her, and the real utility of her tribute act is to supplement her income as a working musician who writes and records her own original work as well.

EVEN WITHOUT A HUGE STAGE production or cast, smaller tribute acts can still find full-time work with the right look and sound. Such is the case of Reno’s Tamara Mclean, otherwise known as Tammy Tam Tam when performing with one of her many bands, duos and trios. When fronting her No Doubt tribute band Gwen in Doubt, she assumes the titular persona of Gwen Stefani.

“They actually did an interview with No Doubt, and the girl asked the question, ‘Do you know any funny tribute band names?’” Mclean said. “And then the drummer, Adrian (Young), said, ‘There’s

“I just came out with a new song on April 7, called ‘Love Doesn’t Have 2 Hurt’ … and my inspiration for that song was to stop domestic violence,” Mclean said. “I love singing other people’s songs, but when you get to sing your originals, and people are getting up and dancing to them, and they are downloading them and loving what you do, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ It’s a wonderful feeling.” continued on next page performing as Elvis is a steady gig, but it’s also about embodying a great artist who left his millions of adoring fans too soon.

For more information, visit tammytamtam.com.

“Elvis did his Aloha From Hawaii concert, which was broadcast around the world to a billion people by satellite,” Reno said. “It had never been done before. … He was just like one of the guys who happened to look really good and can make people feel happy.”

Of course, Reno remembers exactly where he was when he heard Elvis had died—driving a van in Long Beach, Calif., on the morning of Aug. 16, 1977. But to Reno and his fans, he never really died. He says as much when he signs autographs: “Keeping the King Alive” Learn more at www.johnnyrenoaselvis.com.

In The Wide Spectrum

of tribute and cover acts, there is a market for the real deal—or at least as close as one can get. Enter Johnny Reno, but you might recognize him as simply “The King.”

“Thank you, thank you very much,” said Reno.

Reno follows one of the most enduring tribute-act traditions as an Elvis impersonator—or, as he calls himself, a tribute artist—not only singing Elvis’ songs, but mimicking the King’s mannerisms and personality. As opposed to the caricature that some performers create, Reno said he works hard to pay tribute to Elvis’ real life and background.

“One of the kind of unwritten rules of thumb is don’t imitate other imitators; go straight to the source … (or else) you kind of come across as cartoonish, and I find that to be disrespectful. ” Reno said. “You know, watch the videos; listen to how he talks; listen to how he sings the songs. So I would play the music, and I would go back and try to emulate that as well.” take an interest.

“Growing up in Mississippi, when I was really young, Elvis was around, and I’d hear his songs on the radio,” Reno said. “And there were little connections, like Elvis’ mother’s name was Gladys, and my grandmother’s name was Gladys. I’m not the long-lost brother or anything, but I did like peanut butter-banana sandwiches.”

Reno landed in Vegas in the 1980s and got the idea to be a tribute artist when exposed to that city’s love for the King. He relocated to Reno in 1987 for business purposes and chose the stage name “Johnny Reno” because it “rolled off the tongue.” He spent a few years refining his act, finding the appropriate leather jumpsuits and, of course, marrying couples as an ordained minister.

— Johnny Reno Elvis Tribute Artist