Few people can lay claim to being a meme before the term reached widespread usage. After all, what did a meme in 1990 even look like? The answer is Macaulay Culkin. As a nine-year-old boy, he effectively conquered the world when the unusual yet heartwarming holiday film “Home Alone” reached major global commercial success. There […]
Patrick Hosken
Patrick is CITY's arts and culture reporter. He was formerly the music editor at MTV News and a producer at Buffalo Toronto Public Media.
Posted inMusic
REVIEW | ‘Happy Dreamy’ by Painless Painless
The Rochester band channels decades of indie rock on two laid-back EPs.
Posted inMusic
REVIEW | ‘Flight Manifest’ by Einstein’s Dreams
‘Environmental indie-folk’ gets imbued with the power of flight.
Posted inMusic
Laraaji transforms Asbury First church into an ambient wonderland
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as the saying occasionally attributed to visionary artist Brian Eno goes. But what about a performance that centers the venue itself almost as much as the sounds? That’s half the fun of the concert series called Ambient Church. The shows blend live audio with highly ornate lighting […]
Posted inCulture
As sober-friendly and non-alcoholic options expand, a new kind of Third Place emerges
If bootleggers famously cooked up speakeasy hooch in tubs, where might non-alcoholic cocktails be mixed a century later? Shelley Elkovich and her husband, Jeff, found a former vanilla extract factory on Rochester’s northwest side this year for their business, For Bitter For Worse. It helps that the building has possible ties to Prohibition-era booze. “It […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Rochester Community Players celebrates 100 years of local theater
Eight hundred words couldn’t possibly do justice to 100 years of history. That’s why the full tale of the Rochester Community Players — the oldest community theater group in the city (and the second-oldest in New York State) — rests partly in the hands of Karen Olson. Olson, a past RCP board president who now […]
Posted inCulture
Apples may get all the glory, but cabbage remains foundational to New York agriculture
Betsy Brightly’s daughter plays college basketball alongside some team members from Spain. The foreign students don’t like coleslaw — or they thought they didn’t. Then Betsy made them a homemade batch. “They love it,” Brightly said. “I have to make them bowls of it for the holidays because they don’t go back to Spain.” It […]
Posted inMusic
REVIEW | ‘Movement’ by Wren Cove
Cello, guitar and tape loops mingle on experimental duo Wren Cove’s new album.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Review | ‘Sancocho’ at Geva Theatre
Like the Puerto Rican dish itself, Christin Eve Cato’s savory family tale is tempered by love and survival.
Posted inMusic
Review | ‘Half-Staff Blues’ by Peter Peter Hughes
Former Mountain Goats bassist Peter Hughes channels global panic on a magnetic new solo release.
Posted inMusic
The inaugural Soundtrax Film Music Festival unites two of Rochester’s artistic pillars
When Mark Watters arrived in Rochester in 2017, he clocked the festivals right away. He’d relocated after a decades-long career in Los Angeles scoring films, television programs and video games for Disney and MGM. A new job called to him: leading the Eastman School of Music’s Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media. To […]
Posted inCulture
9 notable Rochester natives reflect on what their hometown gave them
Before she became a fixture on hit sitcoms “Mom” and “Dharma & Greg,” actress Mimi Kennedy got her start on stage with the Rochester Community Players. The group’s former home on South Clinton Avenue (now Swillburger/The Playhouse) remains a landmark. Unsurprisingly, when Kennedy looks back on her hometown, she remembers its architecture: the Art Deco […]
