‘I like the silly things’: New concert club opens in downtown Las Vegas

Namaste and … Cannibal Corpse? Rolls off the tongue like honey and battery acid, doesn’t it?

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in late March, and Martin Boynton is spitballing a new idea for his new venue: death metal yoga.

Hear him out.

At first blush, the idea of pairing a physical exercise posited on mindfulness with blast beats and guttural vocals suggestive of an orc attempting to pass a kidney stone may sound a little far-fetched.

And, indeed, Boynton just thought of the concept off the top of his head as an example of the anything’s-possible ethos of the room where he’s standing, just-opened concert club Sinwave.

“We’ve got endless ideas,” Boynton notes, “and I know people in town have endless ideas and want to see their silly things come to fruition — and I like the silly things. Come at me with something that no one else will do. We really want to hear people’s ideas and want to entertain them if it sounds interesting and fun.”

A multipurpose venue

“Interesting” and “fun” — those are two telling, operative words that Boynton frequently employs when distilling the essence of what Sinwave is all about, what the place means to him and his partners, among them Blake Attebury, owner of the nearby Sinister Salon.

At its core, Sinwave (1412 S. Main St.) is a 300-capacity concert club in the downtown Arts District that’s already hosted a sold-out show by Texas deathcore quartet Upon a Burning Body and whose event calendar is growing real full, real fast with acts ranging from hip-hop (Shaggy 2 Dope, May 18; MC Chris, June 14) to crossover thrash (D.R.I., May 26) to Latin metal (Ill Nino, June 11) to post-hardcore (I Set My Friends on Fire, April 21) to numerous goth nights.

“It’s filling a major void in the area,” says Patrick “Pulsar” Trout, a longtime Vegas concert promoter who’s already booked several shows at Sinwave. “There are venues that are willing to host heavier bands on occasion, but having a room that is tailor-made for those genres is an absolute game-changer.”

Boynton, a lifelong musician whose metal band Short Fuse has been going for over 20 years strong, also wants Sinwave to be a multipurpose venue where fellow creatives can display art, host a dance or go-go class, maybe DJ one night, just explore whatever idea they might have, no matter how far out it may be.

“We’re all musicians, we’re all artists and we’re building things that we just want to see for ourselves,” he explains. “It’s just having a home where me and my friends can put our creativity and invite inspiration from the community and have us all inspire each other, really.”

For musicians, by musicians

Dressed head to toe in black, Boyton is almost indivisible from the similarly colored walls that surround him — though they won’t be barren for long.

“This is still a shell of what it’s going to be when there’s art everywhere, there’s projectors, and we start sprucing it up a lot more,” he notes. “But it feels good. It doesn’t feel corporate. It feels like a friendly, more underground kind of vibe.”

Boyton is leading us on a tour of the two-room venue, which opens to a bar and cozy hang spot with a large black couch. Through a doorway is the performance hall, outfitted with a large stage and an adjacent green room.

For a smaller venue like Sinwave, having a lounge area for bands to relax before and after shows can be a rarity.

Boynton would know: He’s spent plenty of time on the road with Short Fuse over the past two decades.

“My friend was saying, ‘Man, how happy are we as a band to just have somewhere to sit backstage, even if it’s boxes,’ ” Boynton recalls of a conversation with one of his bandmates. “We’ve toured for a while, so I know what I’ve liked and what I disliked.”

‘I want community’

A Bay Area transplant and former web developer, Boynton moved to Vegas a few years back, inspired to do so by a buddy who had relocated to town, as well as Boynton’s girlfriend, whom he met here.

Sinwave is Boynton’s first business, and Attebury found the spot last spring — it was formerly Tatyana vintage clothing boutique.

Construction started in October on the venue, its name a play on “sine wave,” an acoustically pure tone in sonic terms. (Boynton initially wanted to call the place The Slutty Frog but was talked out of it. He’d settle for a drink on the club’s cocktail menu bearing the name instead.)

Sinwave will be open seven days a week, with Boynton noting that there could be karaoke and movie nights, among other themed events, to round out the club’s show schedule.

As for that death metal yoga?

Who knows.

The only thing certain about this business is that it won’t be business as usual.

“I never thought I’d own a business before,” Boynton acknowledges. “I don’t think like a businessman. I just think about what I want.

“I want community,” he continues, “and I want cool (stuff) to happen.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram.