I stumbled from Water Street Music Hall last Thursday night with a renewed faith in this jerk-water burg after seeing rock ‘n’ roll legends The Cramps with local garage darlings The Priests. The night turned out to be everything I’d hoped: loud and lewd, with wild behavior centered around songs of lust, death, sexual fetish, […]
Frank De Blase
Posted inNews & Opinion
Safe clubs, safe crowds
City Newspaper wasn’t at the recent meeting between public officials and concerned nightclub owners. And most nightclub owners we followed up with wouldn’t speak on the record. Even the one elected official we’ve spoken with about the meeting preferred anonymity. But the elected official said the “big issue” tackled at the meeting was the […]
Posted inMusic
Agitating beauty
You know, the quieter Chris Whitley speaks and the softer he plays, the louder he seems. I’ve seen Whitley a number of times. He is mesmerizing. Shyly yet intently perched at the edge of the crowd, behind the throb of a lone kick-drum, he drags guttural tones from a rusty Dobro tuned so abstractly it […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Dreamland Faces
It could be any sunny Saturday morning. Amidst the produce and the milling melting pot of the Public Market, you stroll along haggling with merchants, minding your own affair, when you find yourself drawn to the north corner of the market. At first it’s merely the sound of the accordion and the warm scent […]
Posted inMusic
I kissed Ruth Brown
It was with an odd feeling of sorrow that I discovered the Black Dahlia murder had finally been solved. I always found an odd comfort in her death’s horrific black-and-white savagery, and in the fact that some things are unsolvable. This doesn’t make me a bad person, does it? Maybe she won’t haunt me so […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
News Briefs 5.14.03
Our expert couldn’t tell the difference Plenty of Rochester’s indigenous exports have put the Flower City on the big map. Bursting with Rochester pride, I love to see hometown products hit the market. I’ve got a few ideas of my own, too. How about Zweigle’s White Hot — the other whitening toothpaste? Or Genesee Cream […]
Posted inMusic
How sweet it is
From the raunchy wail of his slide guitar to his gutsy, truck full-o’-sugary-gravel voice, George Thorogood is a musical icon, a man who embodies the enduring link between the blues and rock ‘n’ roll. And his new album, Ride ‘Til I Die, is standard-issue Thorogood — simple, straight-ahead, rockin’ blues. “Technically, I learned the […]
Posted inMusic
The Bop Shop bop
Recently, a woman strolled into the Bop Shop in search of some jumpblues. Owner Tom Kohn and his staff were on the case with the speed and enthusiasm of a NASCAR pit crew. “We were like, ‘Jump blues? You need Tiny Bradshaw, Louis Jordan. You need Gene Phillips, Todd Rhodes,’” Kohn recalls. The individual […]
Posted inMusic
Slap and twang
Slap and twang. You can say both. You can do both. And if your love lies in American roots music, you dig hearing both. Slap and twang. Two organic tones and approaches essential to rock music’s expressive sound. Where lyrics fall short in painting an accurate mood, the less-specific grunts and wails from an […]
Posted inMusic
Boob scotch
Went and warmed my bones in Miami right in the middle of The Winter Music Conference — essentially the same gay-disco beat pounding everywhere amidst the pink neon, Cuban sandwiches, and palm trees like a broken record for three days. Attendees were a bunch of bleary-eyed kids jabbering jittery German through clenched teeth. I opted […]
Posted inMusic
A conversation with Wammo
The solo Spanker on his new record, rock ‘n’ roll, and how a certain rock star ripped him off. Dig Wammo. He’s one subversive, pot-smoking, beat poet, trouble-makin’ S.O.B. He’s a rocker, a roller. Wammo is a man for our time. From the arguments he starts with strangers in bars, to the poetry he slams, […]
Posted inMusic
Blast furnace fever
Blast furnace fever New York City’s The Slackers are my favorite ska band. They rock steady without succumbing to the acne-pocked skate-punk homogenization so many ska bands adopt in feeble attempts to get laid. Their packed Milestones show was energetic, with a positive, palpable energy. It was a night full of music, including openers Amy […]
