Cover Story
New energy for a city being reborn
This year’s City Council Democratic primary is a high-stakes contest at a time when the city is evolving, for better or worse. Downtown’s redevelopment is continuing, but big decisions remain about Parcel 5 and a proposed performing arts center there. Some neighborhoods are thriving, while others are struggling. Too many of the city’s residents are…
Queering everything: Marval A. Rex discusses his art
Marval A. Rex is a trans man whose cross-disciplinary, norms-confounding work is currently on view as part of “Peripheral Of: The Periphery” at Flower City Arts Center. For a review of the show, click here. Rex’s work reflects a mind that connects a lot of dots, introducing new constellations from stars that have always been…
Film review: ‘Brigsby Bear’
Everyone has certain pop culture touchstones. There are pieces of ephemera from our formative years that stuck with us as we got older, molding and shaping our overall worldview. For James (played by Kyle Mooney), that touchstone is “Brigsby Bear,” an educational children’s fantasy TV show from the 1980’s. The show followed Brigsby, a magical…
The hate that Trump bred
“Make America white again” signs. “Jews will not replace us” chants. Nazi flags. Torches and Nazi salutes. The predictable horror spawned by Donald Trump finally erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend in the white nationalists’ Unite the Right rally. The reaction of the president? To wag his finger at the resulting violence, which he…
ROCK | Scott H. Biram
In an attempt to distinguish between on-stage crazy and just plain, old, bat-shit nuts, Scott H. Biram has quoted me — me! — for years now. I once said, “We all wanna be entertained, but nobody wants to get stabbed in the head with a screwdriver.” Biram is a one-man-band: part carnival barker, part resurrected…
For Rochester school board: Elliott, LeBron, White
Rochester’s schools are one of the region’s most critical challenges. This city cannot reinvent itself until its students are graduating with the education they need and deserve. Improvements can’t come solely from the schools themselves; the city’s extraordinarily high poverty concentration has affected children and their families in ways that the entire community must address.…
ROCK | Santana
I caught Santana in concert a couple of years ago, and the show was flawless. The crisp, clean sound, the lights, the backing band, and the man himself made me feel like I was at the Grammys. Everything about Carlos Santana’s band was big; in fact, it was double sized with two percussionists, dual guitars,…
SPECIAL EVENT: Best Busker Contest in the South Wedge
On September 7, come down to Rochester’s SOUTH WEDGE for a night of free music on the streets from great local musicians, plus ridiculous deals from neighborhood merchants. From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., local shops will be offering special buys on food, drink, goods, and services. For updates on deals, food trucks, and to…
Old and new collide in Dangerbyrd’s garage rock
If we lived in a perfect world, bands like Dangerbyrd would be the perfect bands. If we lived in an imperfect world, bands like Dangerbyrd would still be the perfect bands. The Rochester-based quartet plays without a shred of phony grandeur or self-imposed elegance. Dangerbyrd is down and dirty and a clever musical synthesis of…
Feedback 8/16
We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources; those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in…
Cheap Drinks: North Winton Village
The North Winton Village neighborhood has seen a resurgence over the last few years, with young professionals migrating to the area in droves. If you’ve driven past The Winfield Grill lately on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and seen the hordes of tipsy 20- and 30-somethings pouring out of there after brunch, you know what…
Album review: ‘Get Up and Go’
Vadim Neselovskyi “Get Up and Go” BluJazz vadimneselovskyi.com Pianist Vadim Neselovskyi was 15 years old when he became the youngest student to be admitted to the Odessa Conservatory. You can hear the classical training and influence in his playing on his wonderful new album, “Get Up and Go.” But Neselovskyi also studied at Berklee College…
Flower City ceramic exhibition confounds the norms
“Peripheral Of: The Periphery” is one of four current exhibitions that showcase the culminating works by the most recent rounds of artists in residence at Flower City Arts Center. On view at the center’s Firehouse Gallery are works by the 2016 ceramics residents, Ryana Lawson, who is from Rochester, and Marval A. Rex, who is…
Album review: ‘Gratified Never Satisfied’
Ted Chubb “Gratified Never Satisfied” Unit Records tedchubb.com In recent years, Ted Chubb has put a lot of energy into educating kids, spreading the joy of jazz in the New York City area. And the trumpeter, who has played with Christian McBride, Wallace Roney, Don Braden, and many others, practices what he preaches. His new…
FESTIVAL | Flour City Brewers Fest
Rochester has craft beer enthusiasts aplenty. For this year’s Flour City Brewers Fest, the organization will bring in 60 breweries, including local companies Rohrbach, Genesee, Swiftwater, Roc Brewing, and Three Heads. Alongside dozens of beers, other vendors will offer various ciders, spirits, and wines, not to mention the always-popular food trucks. Attendees can expect live…
SPECIAL EVENT | Solar Eclipse Show
Everyone’s been talking about the rare solar eclipse that will sweep across North America on Monday, August 21. If you can’t travel to an area of the US where you can witness it live, head over to the Rochester Museum and Science Center (657 East Avenue) to get the most out of the astronomical phenomenon.…
ART | ‘Plastics: Our Weakness’
It’s so much easier to use a plastic fork and toss it than it is to labor over the kitchen sink. Flower City Arts Center artist-in-residence Arleen Thaler, a photojournalism graduate student at Empire State College, highlights this shortcoming in her show, “Plastics: Our Weakness.” The exhibit is a photographic exploration of the plasticware that…
SPECIAL EVENT | Rochester Twilight Criterium
Tens of thousands of people will head downtown this weekend to watch hundreds of racers speed through the city by bicycle and, new this year, by foot. The Rochester Twilight Criterium will have a few other new features as well, including a beer garden that takes over the interior of the course — which stretches…
THEATER | ‘Agnes of God’
When a newborn infant is found dead in novitiate Roman Catholic nun Agnes’s room, the local court appoints a psychiatrist, Dr. Martha Livingstone, to assess whether or not Agnes is capable to stand trial. Agnes insists she has no memory of the birth of the child, and claims it to be the result of a…
ART | ‘Drawing in the Dark’
When a lot of people draw or think about drawing, they tend to focus on what the finished piece will be, rather than on the actual process of what they’re doing. In an effort to get people to think differently about drawing, Rochester artist Ray Ray Mitrano is hosting a weekend of interactive art workshops…
BLUEGRASS | Billy Strings
Under the apt moniker Billy Strings, 24-year-old William Apostol plays the kind of bluegrass you are meant to move to at music clubs. On his six-song EP from 2016, Strings gives listeners uptempo, locomotive rhythms and soulful country vocals that resonate with Southern flair and urgency. The lively “Slow Train” is anything but pokey, and…
People of color much worse off here, report says
African Americans and Latinx in the nine-county Greater Rochester area are more than three times as likely to be poor as whites are. The median household income for African Americans is less than half that of whites, and the statistic is only slightly better for Latinx. Whites are more than twice as likely to own…
BLUES | Mercedes Escobar
Guatemalan singer-songwriter Mercedes Escobar is considered a “blues pilgrim” in her country, as well as one of its most promising talents. When Escobar was young, she was introduced to legends like Son House and Jimi Hendrix, and while exploring other facets of music with her guitar and voice, she has stayed true to the blues.…
City moving on energy program
A year or so from now, City of Rochester residents and small businesses could have easy access to 100 percent renewable energy at a price lower than their current rates. Mayor Lovely Warren is preparing legislation stating the city’s intent to pursue community choice aggregation. Under a CCA arrangement, which state law allows, the city…
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL | Nikki Hill
I’ve been diggin’ Nikki Hill since I first laid ears on her. With her blast furnace tirade full of ghosts, like Etta and Eartha and Tina, Nikki Hill embodies and defines vintage rock ‘n’ roll done right. Her voice shifts from a roar to coquettish purr and back again. Her attack is hammered home even…
The city should do an ‘arts impact’ study
City Council’s big, ornate Chambers in City Hall was packed last week with people concerned about the future of the key downtown piece of real estate known as Parcel 5. Mayor Lovely Warren has chosen a combination of a new theater for the Rochester Broadway Theatre League and an apartment building created by Morgan Communities.…
ROCK | Ann Wilson
Tunes like “Barracuda” and “Magic Man” established Heart as one of the industry’s biggest acts in the 1970’s while simultaneously establishing Ann Wilson as one of its best singers. Wilson could go from a whisper to a scream and helped define what a rock vocalist should sound like. Ann and her guitarist sister Nancy Wilson’s…
Rochester responds to Charlottesville
A 20-year-old white supremacist named James Alex Fields Jr. rammed a car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others. Rochester community members swiftly responded to the tragedy with solidarity gatherings held on both Saturday and Sunday nights in Washington Square Park. Saturday’s vigil…
Film review: ‘Step’
A welcome antidote to the horrors we’re witnessing in the news, Amanda Lipitz’s documentary, “Step,” is a spirited crowd-pleaser that will thankfully leave you feeling just a little bit better about the world. But before it lifts us up, “Step” sets the stage with some sobering scenes of turmoil, opening with footage of the protests…
Film review: ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’
Feeling very much like a throwback to action-comedies of the 1980’s and 90’s, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” arrives in theaters as the last of the summer season’s big, mindless entertainments. The movie falls squarely in the long tradition of buddy flicks, pairing two characters who are polar opposites and forcing them to begrudgingly work together to…
Film review: ‘Staying Vertical’
A depressive’s version of a black comedy, “Staying Vertical” offers up a fascinatingly ambiguous story with enough shocking moments to make Director Alain Guiraudie’s last film, the sex-drenched thriller “Stranger by the Lake,” look tame by comparison. It’s the defiantly weird tale of Leo (Damien Bonnard), an aimless screenwriter scouting locations in rural France and…
