Love of music fuels career dream for DJ Seany Mac

It's possible that longtime patrons of the Lobby Bar at Green Valley Ranch Resort will be struck by the odd notion that they've seen DJ Seany Mac in some other context.

And they may be right.

DJ Seany Mac is the nom de turntable of Sean Cohens who -- and you've got to love the Vegas synchronicity -- not all that long ago was just another guy from Henderson who'd often stop by the bar in search of weekend fun.

Cohens, 29, moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas when he was 11.

"My mother worked for the airlines and she got a chance to transfer," he says. "We were kind of in the height of the gang thing in L.A., so she got us out here."

While growing up, he'd listen to the music his parents played -- '70s and '80s funk, for instance -- and by junior high was making mixtapes of songs he'd hear on the radio.

"I'd wait for a favorite song -- you'd wait and wait and wait and wait -- to come on, and you'd record it off the radio," he says. "I made a ton of those back in the day."

Cohens says he was always a fan of music, because he realized early on that "it touches every person across the planet. Everyone has some sort of relationship with music."

Soon, Cohens began playing music at parties.

"I was the guy who had the big CD folder," he says. "I'd just flip through the CDs and play your favorite song, stop it, take out a CD and put a new one in."

He got pretty good at mixing music, and by the time he graduated from Green Valley High School in 2000, Cohens had decided to pursue a career as a DJ.

For the past eight years, Cohens has been working full-time jobs while DJing whenever and wherever he can. Toward that end, he loves his regular gig at the Lobby Bar.

"When I was 21 or 22, living on the southeast side of town, that was the only local nightlife we had," he says.

"I always thought, 'One day I want to come back here as a DJ' and, sure enough, it's my turn."

There, he adds, "what I try to provide is the same music, the same feel, as if you were in a major nightclub on the Las Vegas Strip."

In the meantime, Cohens continues to work toward his goal of someday becoming a full-time DJ -- or, as he describes it, "to have my dream job and get paid for doing what I love."

DJ Seany Mac appears from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays in the Lobby Bar at Green Valley Ranch Resort, 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, Henderson.