Curiosities around the record bins at Zia

I ran into Pat DiNizio at Zia Record Exchange. I'm not there every Tuesday to know that he is; a weekly routine on his night off from "Confessions of a Rock Star" at the Riviera.

Record stores still feel like a second home to some of us, and the Smithereens frontman is among those who can't give them up for iTunes. After debating whether to buy the BBC movie bio "Lennon Naked" (he eventually passed) and seeing his excitement over a CD of "Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color" -- "It's the only album Sinatra didn't sing on. I have it on vinyl somewhere" -- I knew this would be a great column.

But the bigger surprise awaited.

When DiNizio returned to the store last week, he dragged along Andy Choy, the Riviera's president and CEO. The significance of this runs much deeper than seeing someone wearing a suit in Zia.

Entertainers understand. It's become far more rare for a casino to hire and support them, instead of simply renting them space and wishing them well. Such a relationship is even more old-school than the DVD of "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" DiNizio snatches from the shelf. "One of the greatest ever made," he proclaims.

"I'd always been a (Smithereens) fan," Choy says, and when he saw the band last summer, "they sounded just as good now as the last time I saw them, like in '99." He told DiNizio, "This is going to sound absolutely nuts, but do you have an interest in doing a residency out here in Vegas?"

"Not nuts to me," DiNizio says. "I was looking at these little black-box theaters out in New York. People were just kind of schmoozing me to get me to rent their space."

The casino industry is more about imitation than innovation. But we have seen things happen when music fans get to a decision-making level. Toby Keith has Caesars Entertainment Corp. executive Don Marrandino to thank for his now-national chain of restaurants.

Choy makes it sound like a no-brainer. "We needed something different, right? We needed something that was going to drive the market as opposed to follow. We thought this was a great opportunity to differentiate. The thing people keep saying after they see Pat's show is that it's real."

Choy stands at a bemused distance -- "You need a shopping cart," he quips -- as DiNizio waxes over the vinyl. He knows to check Jethro Tull's "Stand Up" to see if the art inside still pops up. He's amazed to find a Tull bootleg, too: "I have this bootleg! I can't believe it made it in here. Maybe it's my copy."

Choy may not share the excitement over a $2 LP of a Jan and Dean live album. "Nobody seems to want this stuff," DiNizio says sadly.

But, like we said, he's here.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.