It was my first-ever trip to The Thirsty Turtle in Victor to
dig some ska band called Some Ska
Band, led by the stingy-brimmed man of the saxophone and poison pen, Charles
Benoit. The place was packed and pleasant as the band rocked steady at a
comfortable gallop and volume. More than a few in the happy-hour crowd left as
new ska fans. How cool. How rude?
I’ve been watching Break of Reality grow from metal-inspired
coffee-shop upstarts to a chamber quartet powerhouse that filled Kodak Hall at Eastman
Theatre Friday night with a noisily enthusiastic crowd. The group’s talent is
rivaled only by its humility and the no-frills kick in the ass it gives
nu-classical music. The sound was mighty big and the drums were a bit muddy (I
preferred when the drummer worked the hand drum as opposed to the full kit), but
overall it was majestic.
Walked over to Montage Music Hall after
that to dig a multi-band punk bill. Trophy Lungs was delivering the
blast-furnace three-chord joy as we made it through the door. The guitarist had
obviously mastered the dead-string bar-chord octave slash, because that’s
pretty much all he did. No matter, it still sounded cool. The Off-Season followed and spent a good amount of the show airborne; the kids gave it right
back. That’s how you wind up with a good show, jack.
Saturday I caught the air-tight slapstick ska
(that’s right, more ska) of 5 Head on the Record
archive stage. The sound was magnificent, with the band’s
charge-up-San-Juan-Hill horn section over the skittery
bop of the rest of the band. Made me wanna jump, jump
like a mack daddy.
This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2014.
