An Annual Fundraiser For The Animals Of Utah’s Hogle Zoo, the Zoo Rendezvous was held September 5, 2019.
Tiffini Sorcic
Maura Carabello and Chris Burbank
Jim and Theda Hogle
See more #loveutah content here.
This two-day food & drink event allows participants to sample and sip from a large assortment of SLC’s best restaurants and bars. A portion of proceeds goes to support Utah Foster Care.
Chris, Hendrix and Tiffany Hemsley take a seat and let their bellies rest before moving on to the next tasting.
Jade Earle, Kaylene Affleck, Chef Scotty and Caitlin Nolen make up the food crew of Twigs Bistro.
Andrea Ashdown, Jesse Massey and Will Hagen dig into their samples from Fav Bistro.
King Ihenkoro and Irene Kanga had nothing but great things to say about this years event.
Patrons made their way to each booth as quickly as possible to sample anything and everything that came their way.
June 13-14, 2019, The Gateway, Photos by Talyn Sherer (talynsherer.com) courtesy SLUG magazine.
In its fifth year, attendees enjoy sampling from many area restaurants, wineries, small batch distillers and craft brewers. All proceeds benefitted local non-profits, such as Comunidades Unidas, Race Swami, Tracy Aviary and SB Dance.
Sarah Buchanan and Ashley Moncur
M Star, Ian Greaves, Jen Ortiz
July 10, 2019, Tracy Aviary—Liberty Park, SLC, Photos by Austen Diamond.
As your sons and daughters begin the school year it’s a good time to express your expectations of their behavior and the consequences of their failure to do so. I vividly remember the edict my Dad laid down to me as a teenager. In no uncertain terms he quietly said, “If you ever drink and drive the family car you will not enjoy that privilege for a year. Simple, straightforward, no strings. That was Dad. He always left you with uncomplicated thoughts. In this case his operative words “drink and drive” and “enjoy that privilege.” I’ve never forgotten them.
I took my dad up on his declaration shortly after my seventeenth birthday. When I snuck in the kitchen door at 1 am on a steamy, Cincinnati summer evening in my sweaty, dirty baseball uniform my worst nightmare confronted me. It was my father, ruffled hair and in his pajamas, who immediately engaged me in conversation. He asked, “How did you do tonight?” I told him we won the championship.
I recall the forbidding expression on his face when he tersely asked, “Have you been drinking?”
My knees buckled as I knew my fate before I answered. We were face to face, boxed into small quarters in our kitchen. It was impossible for him not to smell my breath. Like a policeman who sticks his head inside your car to get a whiff of the rarefied air before you’re asked the question, “Had anything to drink tonight?”
I was trapped. Most of all my numbed brain came alive at the thought of his admonition. Remembering the operative words, “drinking and driving,” I knew my world was crashing. There wasn’t one thing I could do. Simply, there was no way out. Yes, I said, with the guys after the big win. My father had quickly discerned this as in those days the Binaca blast wasn’t available to camouflage exotic odors and my slurred words weren’t the product of a brain cramp.
More importantly, both of us knew the consequences; what this breach of his prior edict meant. I quickly figured out that he was testing me. Would I tell the truth or conjure up some cockamamie story to save my butt? I realized that by not telling the truth, trying to BS him, would not only anger him but increase the pain awaiting me.
My father was not a lecturer. His directives were simple. He used a stiletto, not a hammer. His expectations were not unreasonable. So at breakfast the next morning I was not surprised by his clinical approach to our early morning encounter some six hours earlier. “No use of the family car for one year,” was the verdict.
This meant taking the bus and streetcars. It meant hitch hiking to my home which was in a rural suburb about two miles from any public transportation. It represented a significant loss of personal freedom. The bottom line was that it produced for me an early lesson in accountability—owning up to a mistake and facing the consequences.
Whoever said “time flies” wasn’t exaggerating. We have been in Salt Lake for 30 years, publishing the magazine you hold in your hands since the fall of 1989. Almost half our life has been spent in Utah, now one of America’s fastest growing states and economies. Friends have asked us why we went to Utah (For them Utah was a no man’s land of desert sprawl)—a place where you couldn’t get a drink, where we knew no one, that was so distant from our Florida home. And yes, being Catholic—how would we be accepted by a Mormon culture?
Margaret Mary and I liked what we had seen when we visited Park City a year earlier. The mountains, lakes and rolling hills were so different than our life on Florida’s east coast, specifically Boca Raton. The West was a whole different lifestyle. When we scouted the airport newsstands and in downtown Salt Lake there were no local magazines. Subsequently, we sent copies of our Florida magazine to major retailers and advertising agencies soliciting their opinion on whether this kind of publication would fly in Salt Lake City.
And here we are, 30 years later. It turns out people liked what we delivered, we found ways to get a cocktail and there was no “Mormon issue.” Church personnel visited us in the beginning and a year later, they were praising what we had done. They asked us about our publishing philosophy and we told them our purpose was to showcase Utah and its people from St. George in the south, Zion Park and Moab, to the magnificent Wasatch Mountains of Park City and the solace of Bear Lake and Logan in the north.
But maybe the most meaningful thing we have accomplished over the past three decades have been the friendships we will always remember. Since day one, the Salt Lake community has been wonderful to us, inviting us into their homes and clubs, making thoughtful suggestions to improve our magazine, supporting us with advertising and events. These relationships embody what my old Notre Dame roommate wrote on a card I recently received: “Friendship represents counting on one another to understand our moods, put up with our feelings, encourage our dreams, share our problems, brighten our outlook, and just be there when needed. Friendship is truly one of life’s great gifts, adding beauty and richness to our lives, and promise to the future.”
As we tiptoe into our 31st year publishing this magazine, I can’t help but feel that kind of sentiment for all those who have helped make this magazine a success—from friends to advertisers to staff and supporters. We could not have done it without you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Here’s to 30 More!
Subscribers can see more. Sign up and you’ll be included in our membership program and get access to exclusive deals, premium content and more. Get the magazine, get the deals, get the best of life in Utah!
Park City’s Largest Outdoor Dinner Party. An annual summer event presented by the Park City Area Restaurant Association. Featuring the Grand Table on Main Street, live music and outstanding food and drink in the beautiful outdoors in the heart of Park City.
June 22, 2019, Historic Main Street, Park City, Photos by Chandler Ries.
With the warmth of the day slipping away with the setting of the sun, Red Butte was packed with an unusually young crowd sporting backward baseball caps, beardless faces and the faint odor of unwashed undergrads. Red Butte’s Executive Director Gregory Lee offered his last sponsor rundown in advance of Tash Sultana’s and the Teskey Brothers performance and thanked us all for attending the season’s final show, as is tradition.
The Teskey Brothers took stage and immediately started grooving on a shuffle tune called “Man of the Universe.” Drums, bass, two hollow-body guitars, a trumpet and a trombone accompanied lead singer Josh Teskey’s savory vocals. Sam Teskey, one of the band’s guitarists, showed off his chops with a few screaming solos that woke the crowd up a bit. The band laid into slow, sultry songs one after another, each with a different bluesy flavor.
The Teskey Brothers sounded great and the crowd concurred. Spectators crowded the barrier in front of the stage, swaying and jumping with the songs. Josh Teskey dominated the set with his soulful singing, but I thought the heavy, instrumental brass sections with furious guitar riffing were actually The Teskey Brothers’ strongest moments. The band finished with a slow ballad called “Hold Me,” and Josh got the crowd clapping, singing and swaying along for the closing bars of the set.
The event’s main event, Tash Sultana,is a solo performer who packed the stage with a collection of musical doodads. Synths, guitar pedals, a trumpet, a drum machine and a healthy selection of percussion instruments filled two tables which had been brought out. For décor, neon lights, a massive stack of stage lights, and a collection of five extra tall digital screens blazed to life. With a guitar lick already reverberating in the air, Tash jumped onto the stage from the darkness and started working magic. Tash was at one moment, kneeling and fiddling with guitar pedals—at the next, running across the front of the stage while shredding a fearsome guitar solo. All the while, the digital screens blasted our eyes with trippy patterns and hi-res musically responsive LED creations.
Weed is always in the air at outdoor concerts, but I’ve never smelled as much at Red Butte as at this show Tash Sultana’s concert. Plumes of smoke rivaled the fog machines for output during the first half of the concert. Tash offered helpful suggestions to encourage the toking crowd: “If you’re going to smoke a joint, smoke it now,” before breaking into the emotional waves of “Can’t Buy Happiness.” Tash, continued to turn up the heat with stoner-friendly visuals and long spiraling musical solos constructed especially for vision-questing minds.
Tash put on an audio/visual experience live I’ve never experienced before, this was easily the best production of the season. Huge wandering patterns and colors cascaded across the LED array as Tash ran every which way across the stage, soloing on guitar, horn, and percussion alike. The set ended with an explosive cover of “The Jungle” which featured a five-minute guitar interlude before climaxing in furious shredding. The incessant cheering of the crowd was enough to convince Tash to play an encore, and with a couple heartfelt acoustic songs, Tash sent us all home with smiles on our faces and knowledge of a Red Butte Season done well.
See all of our music coverage here.
More natural, more nurturing, more from-the-earth—when it comes to green decor, that’s what’s taking root in many of today’s most freshly styled spaces.
Elyse armchair, $899, Crate & Barrel, Murray
Mercury glass Ranata lamp, $598, Root’d, Park City
Green beaded mirror, $1,754, Ward & Child—The Garden Store, SLC
Varese Parrot and Palm and Emerald pillows, $160 and $175 each, Glass House, SLC
Clearly the rain clouds the sky were unsuccessful in their attempts to dissuade concert-goers from the highly anticipated Modest Mouse concert at Red Butte last Friday. The venue was packed! While the opener, NOMADR, seemed to struggle a little, Modest Mouse had not trouble scaring off the chill of the night, getting the crowd up and dancing. Despite cold weather, a slow start, Modest Mouse’s explosive appearance at Red Butte is something I think all of us who were there will remember with warmth in our hearts.
The final Red Butte Show of the season will be Tash Sultana on Monday, Sept. 23, 2019.
Read our preview here.
NOMADR, a band I don’t think most of us knew, opened up the night with hip hop beats, light rapping, and more than a few curse words. The band’s style was just a bit too relaxed for the crowd’s taste, I honestly thought it was still the house music playing until I looked up and saw them on the stage. I’m pretty sure the conversations going on throughout the venue were about as loud as the music. NOMADR gave it a solid effort, cheering themselves on, and calling out “Salt Lake City” in just about every song. Unfortunately, the crowd remained unimpressed. The band’s final two songs both descended into discordant chaos, and I was left with a bitter taste as I sat watching Modest Mouse’s crew set up.
The Mouse emerged in a purple haze of stage fog and dank smoke clouds from the crowd (Mark your Concert Bingo). The band opened with a heavy, loud rendition of “Poison the Well.” With two percussionists, a drummer, two guitarists, a bassist, and two keyboardists who occasionally swapped to horns and violin, Modest Mouse was equipped to party. And party they did.
Between songs, as lead singer Isaac Brock shared some drunken ramblings while the crowd was busy getting lit. Smoke plumes could be spotted all across the venue, and quickly dwindling racks of beer were next to just about every group. When the band played “Dashboard,” everything came together in explosive style, and everyone in the crowd started grooving.
The night did not go off without a few hitches, however. As the show went on, Isaac Brock seemed to get progressively more loaded, at some point sharing a 5-minute tirade which I honestly could hardly understand over the slur in his words. At another time, the sound guys must have screwed up, because the whole band’s sound cut out for a few seconds and we were all left watching the band rock out without making any noise.
Things got a little folksy when Modest Mouse pulled out the banjos, but for the most part the band stuck to heavy, drugged up renditions of their hits, like “Ocean Breaths Salty” and “Dramamine.” As a Modest Mouse fan, this was exactly what I’d come for. The simple, but heavy and well-coordinated riffs and the superfluous vocals which bounce all over the place sounded just like the band’s recordings. With a few extra solos thrown in, and a bit more percussion in the mix, Modest Mouse put on a show I won’t soon forget.
About an hour into their set, Modest Mouse mysteriously evacuated the stage without a word. After a surprisingly long break, the band came back and played a handful more songs. During their last few songs, Brock was having a hard time keeping up, even calling out, “I have no idea where in the song we are,” just before that song ended. Oddly enough, Brock’s intoxication did not make the band’s music any worse, and the crowd was eating it all up with cheers the whole time.
Music wise, Modest Mouse played very well. Overall, their show was a bit of a train wreck, but it was entertaining and interesting to watch. Isaac Brock’s belligerent intoxication led to some awkward, as well as some hilarious exchanges, but overall didn’t hamper the ban the house music signaled the end of the show. With the cold of the night seeping into our bones, I think most of us were glad the night ended without an encore.
See all of our music coverage here.
