Cover Story
Power struggle
Renewables have a bunch of things working both for and against them. Trump’s solar tariff is just one.
VIDEO: Activists push for end of solitary confinement
Activists seeking an end to solitary confinement brought their message to Rochester in a dramatic way over the past few days. They installed a replica of a solitary confinement cell in the South Wedge Mission on Caroline Street so visitors could experience the isolation themselves. The activists are part of the statewide Campaign for Alternatives…
Lilac Festival announces 2018 headliners
It’ll be the fragrant flurry of lilacs in the air — air that’s made electric by live music. Organizers just announced the headliner lineup for the 2018 Lilac Festival. Annually the festival brings in 500,000 people each year to enjoy the music, food, and vendors. And it’s all free. This year, organizers have added a…
Parcel 5 theater plan reboots
At a press conference this afternoon, city officials in effect rebooted plans for a theater and apartment building on Parcel 5, a prime part of the former Midtown Plaza site downtown. The basics of the plan remain the same: A 3000-seat theater, fronting on Main Street, with a 150-unit apartment building at the rear. The…
The F Word: If it’s too loud, you’re not old enough
The F Word. An online column for Frank De Blase to pontificate, ruminate, placate, and salivate. We’ll have reviews and previews, we’ll discuss trends in local and national music scenes, and we’ll try to do it as reverently as possible. Yup. Let’s get started. Going out to see all these shows is taking its toll…
The Monday report
A quick inside look at what’s going on this week, touching on topics from the Lilac Festival to solitary confinement.
Bennett retiring from the RMSC
Kate Bennett, who has been president and CEO of the Rochester Museum and Science Center for the past 21 years, is retiring, the museum announced today. Bennett didn’t set a retirement date but plans to stay “for an unspecified amout of time to ensure a smooth transition” to the next president, RMSC says. During her…
Classical review: RPO’s ‘Bernstein Celebration’
This week, Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic are celebrating the centennial of that first among 20th century American musicians, Leonard Bernstein. This concert wasn’t just a tip of the baton to a revered musician; it was a salute by a lively, communicative conductor to an infinitely talented composer, conductor, and general muse to American…
UR Faculty Senate censured Professor Florian Jaeger
In a vote earlier this week, the University of Rochester’s Faculty Senate formally censured Florian Jaeger, the professor at the center of the university’s sexual harassment scandal. Jaeger is accused of alleged inappropriate sexual behavior in his interactions with former students and colleagues from 2007 to 2013. The allegations led to a lawsuit in federal…
EXHIBIT | Rochester Model Railroad Club
The Rochester Model Railroad Club this weekend will host its annual open house, showcasing ten model trains simultaneously. The club’s display also includes a replica of the 1960’s Lehigh Valley Railroad on 350 feet of track. Thomas the Tank Engine will also make an appearance. On Saturday, model railroad equipment will be available for sale.…
Album review: ‘A Chorus to Carry Us Home’
Endangered Youth “A Chorus to Carry Us Home” Porchinit Tapes porchinit.bandcamp.com After some hellacious radio noise for an opening track, the music commences: Endangered Youth’s release of its entire discography, “A Chorus to Carry Us Home,” is a howling, hardcore harrang with tight, tight, tight segues. I mean, whoever produced this had to have used…
Polizzi’s offers Mediterranean fare at Village Gate
A common misconception when it comes to Mediterranean cuisine in that people assume Mediterranean food is strictly Greek food — hummus and pita, gyro, and the like. The Mediterranean region includes all countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea, including Spain, Italy, France, and Greece. Tom and Debbie Polizzi wanted to represent the cuisine of the…
ART | ‘Plakookee’
“Plakookee” is the name chosen by visiting artists Rachel Debuque and Justin Plakas for their creative collaborations, which playfully combine sculpture, animation, installation, and time-based and photographic imagery. Head to their site, plakookee.com, to preview past works such as the mesmerizing digital sculpture, “Tie-die Blankee,” and “Boxing Bears in Space,” an augmented reality sculpture that…
Album review: ‘Repeater’
King Buffalo “Repeater” Self-released kingbuffalo.bandcamp.com Before you start complaining that this is only a three-song EP, just check the run time on the first cut and title track to King Buffalo’s “Repeater.” It’s almost 14 minutes long. Of course it builds as it gets further into itself, but in this case it’s more of a…
METAL | Dirkschneider
Udo Dirkschneider, the former lead singer of German metal band Accept — you know, “Balls to the Wall” — rocks. He rocked back in the day, and he will continue to rock going forward, despite embarking on his current farewell tour to play Accept songs one last time before closing the book. The 65-year-old Dirkschneider…
ART | ‘Blanket Statement’
Julia Kwon, an artist based in the Washington, D.C. area, creates sculptural work that combines traditional Korean patchwork and hybrid textiles with constructed figures wrapped within and burdened by an abundance of the cloth. The work is both a tribute to her cultural background and acknowledgement of the concepts of women’s work and isolation from…
METAL | Anthrax
As one of the Big Four — along with Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth — New York City’s Anthrax is truly a trailblazing metal phenomenon. The band started out as more of a speed metal outfit, like on its debut album, “Fistful of Metal” (which features our own Dan Lilker on bass), before delving into uncharted,…
FILM | Women’s History Month Film Series
The Susan B. Anthony Institute this month celebrates Women’s History Month with a collection of six films directed by women about women who fight back against oppression. The series is co-presented by The Little Theatre, the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Nazareth College, and The College at Brockport’s Women and…
CLASSICAL | Misuzu Tanaka
Pianist Misuzu Tanaka performed at Rochester Institute of Technology last year with clarinetist Maksim Shtrykov; this weekend, Tanaka returns to RIT for a solo recital. The program is outstanding: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 and “Rondo a capriccio” (“Rage Over a Lost Penny”); Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme of Corelli”; Bach’s “Italian Concerto”; and Leos Janácek’s…
Theater review: ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ at Geva
There’s a great responsibility and gravity that comes along with staging (and reviewing) a show like “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The Holocaust wasn’t even a hundred years ago, but feels at once farther and closer, in many ways. While connections have been made between that era and the current political climate, many Holocaust survivors…
CLASSICAL | Leonard Bernstein Celebration
In the 1970’s, magazine ads for a glamorous furrier posed the question, “What becomes a legend most?” I’m sure Ward Stare asked himself the same question when he decided to have the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra join the worldwide celebrations for the 100th birthday of a true legend, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990). How to sum up such…
The push for bail reform continues
Activists in a statewide effort to reform New York’s criminal justice system held a town hall event in Rochester last night. At last night’s event, at the David Gantt Community Center, about 100 people turned out to hear speakers detail the problems caused by the current bail system. #FREEnewyork is focusing particularly on reforms to…
COUNTRY | Chip Taylor
Chip Taylor has had a successful music career spanning more than 60 years, including a 2016 induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Originally from Yonkers, New York, Taylor is most noted for writing “Angel of the Morning” and “Wild Thing,” a song popularized by the English rock band The Troggs. After giving up music for…
Urban Action 2/28
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Attacking solitary confinement Local criminal-justice activists will host an exhibit and rally over the next few days to build support for the HALT Solitary Confinement in New York Act. At the first event,…
ROCK | OroborO
OroborO is a four-piece experimental rock band from Amherst, Massachusetts, offering a nonpareil blend of metal, emo, and psychedelia. In May 2016, OroborO began releasing demos, and its most recent album, “Laughing Death,” was released in January. The album flirts with deranged musical and lyrical concepts, beginning with the album title itself and ending with a…
Feedback 2/28
Send comments to themail@rochester-citynews.com or post them with articles on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com. We edit selections for publication, and we don’t publish comments sent to other media. The shootings in Parkland Thursday night, I watched the CNN Town Hall about the Florida school shootings. All of the discussion was about gun control, which I support,…
CLASSICAL | Crimson Note Heritage Concert
The Rochester Alumnae Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will host its annual Crimson Note Heritage Concert on Sunday, with a program featuring works by Scott Joplin (the King of Ragtime), French composers Philippe Gaubert and César Franck, and Gospel icon Richard Smallwood as well as a special arrangement of an African-American spiritual. Hochstein…
Downtown’s rebirth may be at risk
Rochester’s downtown revitalization, after years of planning, and stops and starts, is finally becoming a reality. Main Street is undergoing a remarkable transformation, from a stark, vacant-looking corridor to a much more attractive place to work and live. Many of the city’s most venerable historic buildings have been repurposed into a mix of housing, light…
SPECIAL EVENT | RCB’s ‘Masquerade: The Crystal Ball’
Dress to the nines, don a mask, and put on your dancing shoes: Rochester City Ballet’s The Good Pointe Society this Saturday will present “Masquerade: The Crystal Ball,” a dance party set amid ARTISANworks’ massive collection of art. The event features live music from The Bob Greco Band plus wine, beer, and hors d’oeuvres. All…
Activists: Thurston Road problems show the need for a housing court
The ceiling in John Lindsey’s bathroom collapsed several weeks ago and hasn’t yet been repaired. One floor below and on the other side of the 19th Ward apartment building, Mary Brown has thick mold growing in her bathroom, and the water is backing up in her bathtub and sink – a common problem around the…
JAZZ | Herb Smith Freedom Trio
EDITOR’S NOTE: This concert has been postponed until Friday, March 9. Same time, location, and price. The words “Freedom Trio” can mean many things, but in the case of the Herb Smith Freedom Trio, one sure thing is freedom from the predictable. When Smith, a superb trumpeter, records his upcoming album live at The Penthouse,…
HARDCORE | Pissing Match
While heavy music is certainly no stranger to bands with bizarre themes (see: the Ned Flanders-themed death metal band Okilly Dokilly), urine is still something of a left-field choice. Buffalo hardcore upstarts Pissing Match describe itself as “urine-soaked hardcore” and its most recent 7-inch, “Crossing Streams,” gleefully parodies the classic Warzone “Don’t Forget the Struggle,…
SPECIAL EVENT | ‘The Magic of Adam Trent’
Illusionist Adam Trent first rose to prominence, fittingly, as part of the popular Broadway show “The Illusionists.” He has since toured the United States with the show, made numerous national television appearances, and starred in his own TV series, “The Road Trick.” Trent this week brings his engaging brand of magic to the Auditorium Theatre.…
Multibird is the word
Seth Faergolzia is a whimsical wrangler of beautiful chaos. He is essentially genre-less and hard to categorize. Even he is beguiled by his open-minded, multi-pronged attack. The leader of 23 Psaegz, a loop painter (recording vocal loops while painting at the same time), a solo artist, and a disciple of the profoundly odd, Faergolzia added…
Students and parents cry, Trump wants more guns
Sensible restrictions work. They work in Australia, and they have worked here. And they don’t infringe on responsible gun owners’ rights.
The 5th Annual Lubies
Oscar night’s arrival this Sunday means that it’s finally time for everyone’s real favorite movie celebration: the annual Lubie Awards, CITY’s Oscar alternative highlighting some of the year’s best — but sadly overlooked — films and performances.
Film review: ‘Annihilation’
Director Alex Garland follows up “Ex Machina” — his excellent, Oscar-winning examination of man and machine — with another challenging sci-fi mind-bender. Based on a trilogy of novels by Jeff VanderMeer (though veering significantly from that source material), “Annihilation” follows the members of an expedition team sent to explore a mysterious, reality-warping zone known as…
Film review: ‘Game Night’
Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star in the hilarious action-comedy “Game Night,” as sweetly devoted, charmingly competitive married couple Max and Annie. The pair delight in hosting game nights for their friends (Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, and Kylie Bunbury), inviting the couples over for a light-hearted evening of wine and a few rounds…
Concert review: ‘Mozart at The Lyric Theatre’
Several of Rochester’s leading cultural institutions — New York State Ballet, Rochester Oratorio Society, and The Lyric Theatre co-Opera-tive — converged Friday night at the Lyric Theatre to present a concert tribute to composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The performance utilized the dancers to depict the onstage action, while the orchestra, vocal soloists, and chorus provided…
