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  • Cheech and Chong bring the smoke to The Riv (2013)

    Since 1971, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong have cornered the market on using intelligent often absurd humor to throw more than a few incisive jabs at America’s just as absurd War on Drugs. What began as comedy aimed at those…

  • Cheap Trick at Seneca Niagara (2012)

    During Cheap Trick’s set inside the Seneca Niagara Events Center on Saturday night, guitarist Rick Nielsen took a moment to acknowledge a woman who had traveled all the way from Japan to see the band storm the casino stage. I’m…

  • An Interview with Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante (2011)

    The critical community has had nearly 30 years to chew over the impact of 1980s thrash metal, and, for some reason, New York City’s own Anthrax still appears to be the black sheep of the herd. Sure, die-hard fans of…

  • Candlebox at Town Ballroom (2012)

    When looking back on the 90s “grunge” movement, a number of artists and images squander little time entering into one’s consciousness.  You begin with Seattle’s version of “The Big 4” in Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, and…

  • Buckcherry and Fuel at Gratwick Park (2012)

    It’s fitting that I saw the Sunset Strip-inspired musical, “Rock of Ages,” just a few days before catching Buckcherry’s set at North Tonawanda’s Gratwick Park, because the debauchery and hedonistic lust for life’s most squalid pleasures measured about the same…

  • Bush, Hollywood Undead, and Puddle of Mudd (2011)

    94.1 The Zone’s Bonzai 2011 went off without a hitch on Sunday at the Monroe County Fairgrounds, as seven bands converged on Henrietta, NY to give music lovers an all-day serving of rock in the sun.  I’m often skeptical of…

  • Bobby Vinton serenades Seneca Niagara (2013)

    While he didn’t send my fianceé and I a bottle of champagne like the one he gave Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco in Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas,” Bobby Vinton’s recent love letter to Western New York inside the Seneca Niagara Events…

  • The Outlaws and Blackhawk heat up The Bear’s Den

    On yet another evening when snow and vindictive sub-zero temperatures made their way into Western New York, Southern rock pioneers The Outlaws proceeded to make the polar vortex their bitch by bringing The Bear’s Den inside Seneca Niagara Casino to…

  • Black Label Society at the Rapids Theatre (2012)

    The Western New York chapter of the Black Label Society came together last Sunday night as Zakk Wylde and Co. brought their righteous flavor of Southern-fried sludge metal to Niagara Falls, NY.  As expected, the riffs were muscular, the beards…

  • An Interview with “Titan of the Telecaster” Bill Kirchen (2013)

    For a guy who was christened “The Titan of the Telecaster” by Guitar Player magazine, psycho-folk legend Bill Kirchen speaks with a salt-of-the-earth drawl that suggests he’s just another artist blessed to be doing something he loves for a living.…