Every now and then, I’ll be at a happening event, a slick soiree, or in the middle of nowhere for that matter, and I’ll run into Rochester’s painting, guitar-slingin’ philosophizing bon vivant, El Destructo. We’ll exchange pleasantries, laugh at each other’s off-color humor, and discuss the current goings-on. We think we’re so smart. One such […]
Frank De Blase
Posted inMusic
But seriously, folks
Barret Hanson’s music roots run deep. He learned the piano at an early age and found himself gravitating to the family phonograph. He began collecting 78s at the age of 12 and by 1957 was DJing for high-school sock hops. Graduating with a major in classical music from UCLA, he wrote his thesis on the […]
Posted inMusic
Mexican bar mitzvah
Dave Alvin gave everything he had and everything we wanted at his Montage show a couple of weeks back. The sound was incredible — fairly loud but distinct enough to pack a punch. The band played with such whisper-to-a-scream dynamics that it continuously brought the SRO crowd to their feet and to their knees. Blasters […]
Posted inMusic
‘Canary in a Coalmine’
Nobody — and I mean nobody — sounds lonelier than John Hammond when his voice cracks. It’s heartbreaking. Hammond played the lonesome blues a few weeks back at the High Falls Festival Site as the clouds and sun both fought for a seat along with roughly 500 souls. At one point the stripped-down sound […]
Posted inMusic
Passion and survival
Somewhere tonight a man straps on a guitar to face the world. Somewhere tonight a man is pouring his all out upon the stage. Somewhere tonight this man sings the blues. His music speaks for those without a voice or for those who simply haven’t found one yet — the unheralded, unsung everyday heroes just […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Dream ride
I suppose the longstanding American love affair with automobiles can be attributed to the freedom and stylistic beauty they represent — or used to represent anyway. With the majority of cars rolling off the assembly line today looking like enameled suppositories, you find yourself looking back to a simpler time (I don’t know, maybe pre-1970) […]
Posted inMusic
Wrong is the new right
The Aerosmith-Cheap Trick bill at Darien Lake three weeks ago drew one of the ugliest crowds I’ve seen in a while. Apparently, all the good-looking folks couldn’t afford the $40 to $85 tickets. Cheap Trick’s all right, they just seem a little weird. They are true pop-rock masters, but definitely their own biggest fans. […]
Posted inMusic
All that jazz: RIJF in review
With the third annual Rochester International Jazz Festival fresh in our minds, let’s state the obvious: this is not just a jazz festival; this is the best thing to happen in Rochester in decades. It took an outsider, producer John Nugent, to see the potential of a city with rich musical resources and a […]
Posted inMusic
Duke Robillard does what he does…
For whatever reason you find yourself in a nightclub — nursing a beer, drowning a broken heart, looking for love, or to actually hear the band — you’re bound to learn something. See Duke Robillard finesse and strangle notes out of his guitar and you’ve just had a lesson in the blues. Watching him play […]
Posted inMusic
‘Lipstick Sunset’
The Real McKenzies seemed a little more focused on drinking than playing their show a few weeks back at The Club at Water Street. The B.C. band was positively wild and sounded like a party threatening to boil over. A mohawked, kilted cat bounding around the stage while playing the bagpipes is really something to […]
Posted inMusic
Angels or Popeye
It seemed like Nancy Sinatra‘sboots were made for just kinda standing there on the Montage’s groovy, new, and improved stage. She launched the early show with the sexy cool she’s known for with a super-sensual rendition of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” but that was it. The show was a yawn fest […]
Posted inMusic
Old punks never die
“Punk rock should be and has always been, to me, about stirring things up,” says D.O.A. founder and frontman Joey Shithead Keithley. “The same way rock ‘n’ roll was when it started up in the mid ’50s. It was about being a troublemaker and changing things and being a rebel.” The man still burns. […]
