BEST PLACE TO HEAR LIVE MARIACHI MUSIC 2007 | Garcia's Las Avenidas | La Vida | Phoenix
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BEST PLACE TO HEAR LIVE MARIACHI MUSIC

Garcia's Las Avenidas

Timur Guseynov
Mariachis at a Mexican food restaurant? Typical, right? The crooners at Garcia's Las Avenidas are anything but. Walk into this old-school Mexican restaurant on a Saturday night and you will hear the bittersweet harmonies of a live mariachi band wafting through the building. Starting at 6 p.m., the band makes the rounds, serenading tables that make requests. The family-owned restaurant serves some of the best Mexican food in town with a friendly, casual atmosphere. Pick your favorite dish — no matter what it is, you'll be satisfied — and enjoy the sweet sounds. Just like the food, the band is always amazing. Their perfectly tuned violins, guitars, viheula, and guitarrón pair with the beautifully harmonized voices to belt romantic Spanish lyrics of love and loss. Despite our best efforts to keep cool, we've definitely felt our skin prickle with chills on a number of occasions. And while it's possible to enjoy them from afar, it's definitely worth it to flag them to your table. They don't just churn and burn the tunes, it's an up-close, impassioned serenade. The repertoire is vast and we've never seen a request turned down. Whether it's the classic heartbreaker "El Son de la Negra" or the gringo favorite "La Bamba," there's no need to worry about repetition — we've never heard the same song twice. With the killer mariachi music, authentic food, stellar service and cozy atmosphere, you'll be ay-ay-aying before you know it.

BEST LATIN DJ

DJ Big Latin

To paraphrase the moniker of the great James Brown, Andy Herrera (a.k.a. Big Latin) is the hardest-working DJ in the Valley's Latin music scene. When he isn't busy handling promotions for locally owned label Nastyboy Records or bringing big name acts like DJ Kane to town, the stout spinster has spent the past five years working the wheels of steel at dope danceterias all around the PHX. Every Thursday, you can find Herrera over at Henry Jack's Place in Avondale dropping hip-hop and reggaeton, while on Fridays, he's working the turntables at Macayo's on Central, spinning Latin and hip-hop. To top it off, the Hispanic mixmaster serves up plenty of merengue, bachata, and reggaeton at Fuego Bar & Grill in Tolleson. Don't believe our hype? Peep Big Latin's MySpace page for proof of his work ethic, as well as pics of him posing with Def Jam impresario Russell Simmons and even Governor Janet Napolitano (we hear the guv's a big reggaeton fan).

BEST REGGAETON NIGHT

Friday Nights at Henry Jack's Place

Daddy Yankee gets some serious play on Friday nights at Henry Jack's Place, as does Don Omar, Pitbull, N.O.R.E., and Hector El Father. No, playa-hater, we ain't firing off a list of Latin Lotharios who've been hooking up at this Avondale nightspot. It's a rockin' rundown of the superstar reggaeton artists whose hits are getting spun on the turntables of resident DJ 2Swift. While the weekly dance fiesta usually starts off with the spinster warming up a throng of twentysomething barrio boys and babes with a combination of cumbias and old-school hip-hop, it only whets their appetites for a main course of reggaeton, as 2Swift slings up two straight hours of the popular Puerto Rican-born hybrid of reggae and dancehall with Latin hip-hop, from midnight until the joint closes. Occasionally, he's joined on the decks by fellow reggaeton mixmasters Luis Boy and DJ Ray, who help work the packed crowd into a frenetic fervor as they shake their moneymakers to jams like Ivy Queen's "Libertad" until last call.

BEST GAY LATIN DANCE NIGHT

Fridays at Paco Paco Club Premiere

Though the dilapidated exterior of Paco Paco makes it look as if it's fit for demolition, inside is a fiery Latin disco-dive that lures in P-Town peeps from across the GLBT spectrum every Friday because of its hot beats, stiff drinks, and unpretentious atmosphere. Bare-chested boys, luscious lesbians, transgender types, and other members of the swishy set reign supreme on a dance floor drenched in multicolored lights while DJ spins circuit music, as well as high-energy Latin house, electro, trance, cumbias, and other dance hits en español. Drag artist Sandra performs her fabbo lip-synched renditions of pop hits, and both ladies and trannies can get in free before 11 p.m. So don't bother waiting in line to get into that other gay Latin joint, when you can always work the scene at Paco Paco.

BEST VA-QUEER-O BAR

Club Zarape

Don't try ordering an apple-tini here. It's a gay bar, but not that kind. No fancy drinks, electronica or twinky go-go boys. At Club Zarape, the standard swill is a can of Tecate beer with a lime wedge and salt packet on top. The place, which looks like the piñata aisle at Food City with all the colored paper and Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, fills up on the weekends with norteño-style vaqueros who look like they are more ready to rope a steer than each other. But these men, and some leather-booted women, are here to dance the night away to salsa and rock en español and, of course, norteño, vaquero cowboy music. Big belt buckle to big belt buckle. Gaycowboycentral.com even lists the joint. Put on your boots and spurs and don't be surprised if you run into your tio or tata making the dance-floor rounds with a caballero named Miguel.

BEST VA-QUEER-A BAR

Cash Inn

It's not necessarily a cholo bar, but it may as well be with all the tank tops, spiky crew cuts and sagging-pantalones vaqueros at this joint. The Cash Inn is one of the best va-queer-o/a friendly bars in town. It's country, but to be cool, you don't have to be. While some girls who like girls can be spotted two-stepping in a little Saba's Western wear, others come dressed in their finest GAP or Buffalo Exchange haberdashery. The DJ spins a fun mix of Top 40, old school and country. The amazing thing is that the music is loud, but you can still carry on a conversation on and off the dance floor. No bar in the world has managed to accomplish that feat until now. The gals at the bar always make sure your designated driver gets extra cherries in his/her Diet Coke. And when all is said and done, if you aren't getting extra cherries at a fab lezzie hang-out . . . well, you know. But do Cash Inn on this one.

BEST LATIN DANCE CLUB

Sky Lounge

While the perpetual chaos of light-rail construction has snarled downtown Phoenix, you'll definitely want to brave the bulldozers and barricades choking Copper Square to get a heaping helping of Hispanic hotness and Latin luxury at the Sky Lounge.

This bilevel beat emporium is like a Baskin-Robbins of Latin dance music, with multiple flavors of sweet and sultry sounds blasting from both floors nearly every night of the week. Thursdays feature DJ Tsunami spinning the latest in Latin-laced hip-hop, pop, and dance. If you're more in the mood to shake your rump on Fridays, there's a dope doubleheader of salsa, merengue, and bachata on the ground floor, with pop and rock en español upstairs, as well as buxom, bikini-wearing go-go dancers throughout the joint.

Weekends bring reggaeton, R&B, and hip-hop on Saturdays, while Sundays offer DJs Kyko and Daffy. Be sure to bring some water, because you're sure to sweat up a storm.

BEST NEW LATIN NIGHTSPOT

Rain Club & Lounge

Everything about Rain is cool. Whether it's the front door surrounded in electric-blue lighting, a pair of cerulean-colored bubble columns near the dance floor, monsoon-themed video projections on the walls, or a couple of twisted metal dance cages that shoot jets of fog every 15 minutes, this new Scottsdale nightspot in the Papago Plaza showers us with swank. In fact, the place seems like a complete departure in both style and substance from the former CBNC that used to occupy its space, and has been a hit with Hispanic hipsters on the weekends. While R&B dominates on Thursdays and the hip-hop flows on Friday night, Saturdays belong to the Latino crowd as turntablist DJ Duran will spin plenty of hits en español on the ones and twos, including cumbias, reggaeton, merengue, bachata, and salsa, while hundreds of barrio babes and boys who make up a majority of the crowd shake their rumps. The club has also presented a number of concerts by blockbuster Latino musicians, including Ely Guerra and Motel y Lu. So if you're rocking the bilingual vibe here in P-Town, your forecast might call for a little Rain.

BEST MEXICAN NIGHTCLUB

Club Tropicana

This upscale nightclub caters to a mostly Latino/a clientele, but everyone's welcome. Formerly the Rockin' Horse Saloon, Club Tropicana is a complete departure from the biker/cowboy vibe of RHS. The music is mostly a mash-up of salsa and merengue, whether the tunes are coming from a live band like the Pan Americana Salsa & Merengue Orchestra, or DJs like Pooya, Roberto, and Shy. The club's busiest nights are Fridays and Saturdays, when lines wind down the street and the parking lot is packed with low-riders and caballeros. Newbies may be nervous about going in, but the atmosphere is friendly — someone is probably going to ask you to dance, and if you don't know how to dance, someone will probably teach you.

BEST MARGARITA

Cadillac pint

Benjamin Leatherman
This ain't no Hyundai, baby. The Cadillac is a monstrous witch's brew that rivals a properly constructed Long Island iced tea for pure liver-pummeling power. It's also — quite shockingly — as good as or better than anything we've come across in the countless Mexican cantinas we've frequented over the years. And it's made by... the British? Except when it comes to giving up property — India, Northern Ireland — the English are a generous lot, and the barkeeps at this venerable Brit pub don't skimp on the Grand Marnier or the tequila (it's house, but you can upgrade for a pound or two). But beware: Combine the British munificence with the thing's sublime taste and you might end up kissin' some concrete by last call.

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