If you’re like me, you hear anything with sleigh bells prior to Christmas Eve and cringe. And jumping the gun before the pumpkins are done rotting isn’t my only peeve. It’s the same goddamn music over and over and over. Not so long ago I used to dig Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song,” Bobby Helms’ […]
Frank De Blase
Posted inMusic
Pinballs gone wrong
Young and sloppy is what I seem to gravitate to these days. Whether it’s watching my niece eat spaghetti or a loud punk band try to hold it together, I likes me a mess. Exhibit A: the Canandaigua kids in Public Aggravation. They, along with The River City Rebels and Brain Failure, played with Dropkick […]
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Moonlight serenade
It’s Wednesday night. It’s chilly and it’s raining. Meanwhile, the Roger Robach Community Center is abuzz and warm, its dance floor flooded with dancing couples. They swing, sway, and spin together with a seasoned elegance that sadly isn’t seen much anymore. Naturally, older folks dig this scene; it’s of their generation. And let’s face it: […]
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Fast and almost tight
Not a weekend warrior to be found in the joint as The Sex Slaves, Ex-Lion Tamer, and Grime Time played the Bug Jar last Thursday night for the faithful. NYC-by-way-of-Israel outfit Ex-Lion Tamer plays disjointed, uncomfortable music that sounded like a fractured interpretation of what perhaps they originally intended it to be. “OK, here’s a […]
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Delta metal
Maybe it’s Eddie. Maybe it’s Alex. Maybe it’s the gyrating schoolteacher in a bikini. Whatever. Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” is probably my favorite music video and consequently one of my favorite songs. One-man band Skull threw in a version of this tune last Friday at Spy Bar, a joint that’s starting to make some […]
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Shhh, we’re in church
The Memorial Art Gallery’s Fountain Court has been transformed into a chapel with the addition of a recently restored 18th-century baroque organ. It sounded as majestic as it looked on its October 8 debut. Paul O’Dette directed early music ensembles Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino (revivalists of the cornetto, the baroque trombone, and the chitarrone — […]
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Alice at 40
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. Even 40 years later. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Arlo Guthrie’s folk classic “Alice’s Restaurant.” The song is a humorous tale based on events that happened in Massachusetts in 1965: A man gets arrested for littering while trying to help out a friend on […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Cover me
Live, original music is a rare bird. If you want to get the kick of catching it you have to dig a little. Live ain’t the problem, original is. The majority of local clubs that book live music rely heavily on cover bands. Rochester has an array of original bands, solo artists, composers, etc., but […]
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The Tyzik twist
Although no one (as far as I know) in the audience at the Eastman Theatre has ever shouted “Freebird,” The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is, in essence, this town’s biggest cover band. Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik is an outstanding composer, musician, and Grammy Award-winning producer. But the majority of the music he conducts was written […]
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The legend of Blüdwülf
Blüdwülf is a metal band full of punks… or a punk band full of metal heads. Frontman Reverend Sinn doesn’t really sing. He bellows. He rants. He spews. He’s a punk. But the precision freight-train thrash of the longhairs behind him shrugs off stock punk shackles. “As long as there’s a teenage boy and a […]
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Stove-piped and shaggy
John Mayall was kind of a tool the last time I met him, but given his legendary status and all I decided to give him a second chance when he returned to Milestones on Saturday, September 10. Mayall’s band, The Bluesbreakers, was mirror-slick and totally in the pocket. It was Bluesbreaker guitarist Buddy Whittington (who […]
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Honky tonk luau
Video killed the radio star but not ZZ Top. ZZ Top was one of the more conventional — or the least new wavish — acts a fledgling Empty V helped launch into superstardom in the early 1980s. The problem, s’far as I’m concerned, was this was at the band’s musical lowest. Drum machines and neon […]
