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 a promoter’s ability to orchestrate an outdoor festival with the fluidity necessary to avoid a … Continue reading Bush, Hollywood Undead, and Puddle of Mudd (2011)
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 Center was a success on all counts. He arrived on stage at 8:05 p.m. to … Continue reading Bobby Vinton serenades Seneca Niagara (2013)
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 a boil with cordiality and infernal guitar interplay. Despite singer/guitarist Henry Paul and drummer Monte … Continue reading The Outlaws and Blackhawk heat up The Bear’s Den
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 were grimy, and the individual genius of Wylde asserted itself as one of the most … Continue reading Black Label Society at the Rapids Theatre (2012)
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. Rather than embracing the vacuity and barefaced narcissism of 2013’s reality television generation, he maintains … Continue reading An Interview with “Titan of the Telecaster” Bill Kirchen (2013)
According to its description on last.fm, Canadian alt-rock outfit Big Wreck is “a neo-progressive hard rock band of the late 1990s.” While many artists are quick to distance themselves from the “progressive” paradigm in 2013, Ian Thornley and Co. have not only embraced it, but also devised a way to channel their musical exploration into … Continue reading Big Wreck blows the Town Ballroom wide open (2013)
On any given Tuesday throughout the summer, the imperial backdrop of the Niagara Gorge is converted into a musical agora of sorts for Western New Yorkers hungry to summon a taste of what their lives were like in the days prior to children and cholesterol. They descend upon the Artpark compound in a flash, braving … Continue reading Bad Co. shows Artpark how its done (2013)
Author/psychedelic aesthete Ken Kesey once described the effects of LSD as “an orgasm behind the eyeballs” and anyone who attended last night’s Sully Erna concert at the Riviera Theatre may have had a similar experience. Unlike other shows you’ll attend this summer, “The Avalon Tour” is formulated to penetrate every ounce of your mind, body … Continue reading Sully Erna’s Avalon soars at The Riv (2011)
If you found yourself at the Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf on Thursday night to see hip hop masters Arrested Development in action, you were also able to get a healthy glimpse of how diverse Buffalo really is. People of all ages, races, and shoe sizes came out on a gorgeous Western New York evening … Continue reading Arrested Development brings intelligent hip hop to Canalside (2012)
If Tuesday nights at Artpark is the place where baby boomers go to reminisce about the days of old, the vibe at Buffalo’s Canalside on Thursdays is more akin to an afterschool play date for infantile millennials who can’t stomach the fact that it’s been more than three hours since they last took a selfie … Continue reading Arkells, Robert DeLong, and Milo Greene at Canalside (2015)
Music N' Other Drugs 