CONCERT REVIEW: Bonzai Fest, Walk the Moon, Eve 6, The Gaslight Anthem, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring
I got to 94.1 The Zone’s annual Bonzai Fest Saturday at the Highland Bowl just in time to catch the back half of the set by Walk The Moon. It was a little on the poppier side of life than I tend to dance on, but was catchy nonetheless. That band was followed by Eve…
NEWS BLOG: Malgieri and Ansbrow join the Rochester school district. Wow!
Among the more interesting news over the weekend was the D&C’s report that two heavy-hitters – Patty Malgieri and William Ansbrow – have accepted top administration positions in the Rochester school district. Malgieri, who is leaving a job at Hillside, will become Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s chief of staff. Before joining Hillside, Malgieri served as Rochester’s…
“Wall/Therapy” update: Finished murals, new murals, and what those bears aren’t doing
**NOTE: City’s original story on “Wall/Therapy” can be found here. Our previous update can be found here.** As the week wraps up, many murals for this year’s “Wall/Therapy” project are finished, some are getting closer to completion, and the artists who have stayed in town are beginning new ones. Manhattan-based twin How & Nosm departed…
CD REVIEW: Brooklyn Jazz Underground “A Portrait of Brooklyn”
It’s no secret that some of the most vital artists in the contemporary jazz world can be found residing in Brooklyn. That’s why “A Portrait of Brooklyn” is an appropriate title for an excellent new album from Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. The CD is full of great tracks showcasing the diverse writing and playing styles…
CD REVIEW: Manuel Valera “New Cuban Express”
There is a particularly transcendent moment at the beginning of “Upward,” the third track on Manuel Valera’s excellent new album. An urgent Latin beat is established when suddenly a swirl of notes come spiraling up out of nowhere with a wondrous sound, as if to say: Fasten your seat belts, this album is now taking…
EDUCATION: School board ok’s closing School 16-but only temporarily
The Rochester school board voted 6 to 0 last night (with board member Cynthia Elliott absent) to close School 16 in the 19th Ward, but only for repairs. It will re-open after repairs are completed. In the interim, kindergarten through eighth-grade classes will be housed at Freddie Thomas High School in northeast Rochester, beginning this…
ACTIVISM: Protest occurs with little conflict
Last night’s rally and march to protest the Rochester Police Department occurred mostly without incident. Protestors marched from Washington Square Park to City Hall, then to the Liberty Pole. At City Hall, one protestor was writing on the building’s steps in chalk when police took him in to custody. Ultimately, he was released without being…
NEWS BLOG: Would armed civilians have stopped the Aurora carnage? Cop says no
Predictably, in the days following the Aurora, Colorado, tragedy, some gun enthusiasts have argued that if several theatergoers had been carrying concealed weapons that night, they could have limited the number of people killed and wounded. We heard the same suggestions after the Gabby Giffords shooting and after the Virginia Tech shooting. It was good…
Activists’ rally today will protest RPD action
A group of activists have organized a rally for this afternoon to protest, among other things, the police response to a march over the weekend. The rally starts at 5 p.m. at Washington Square Park and will be followed by a march to City Hall. In a press release, organizers say they applied for a…
“So You Think You Can Dance” 2012: Top 16 Performances & Results
This week’s opening routine was like something out of a Charlie Chaplin nightmare. The girls and guys were indistinguishable from one another, each clad in a loose fitting suit, bowler cap, and mustache. The routine was filled with lots of nice smaller moments – the guys lifting the girls on develepe and at least one…
VIDEO GAMES: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron new trailer
Always wanted to build your own Transformer, then duke it out with your friends? Check out the new trailer for “Transformers: Fall of Cybertron,” which shows off the creation mode, and several other new features for the game, including multiplayer maps. “Transformers: Fall of Cybertron” launches August 21 for PC, XBOX 360, and PlayStation 3.
Police response challenged
A group of protestors say police used aggressive physical force and “chemical weapons” to break up a march, even though, they say, the officers hadn’t asked anyone to disperse. | Saturday, an informal group of protestors held an anti-capitalism march through much of the Park Avenue area and the east side of downtown. | Police…
Urban Action 7/25
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) The Center for Disability Rights hosts “Know Your Rights, Access the ADA,” at 3 p.m. on Thursday, July 26. Brandon Sawyer, an attorney with the Olinsky Law Group, will talk about the American…
Accepting violence
In the wake of the Aurora massacre, President Obama and Mitt Romney have offered platitudes, not courage and leadership. It would be hard to find a more graphic illustration of parental fear than the AP photograph of a father screaming out in anguish as he searched for his son after the Aurora, Colorado, carnage. The…
Rochester’s rap scallions
You eat your vegetables to get your iron. And you should dig comedy-rap duo Garden Fresh to get your irony. C’mon, it’s good for you. Garden Fresh’s lyrics alone are clever, milk-through-your-nose, pee-your-pants-funny, but this Rochester twosome’s music is also powerful, catchy, and completely legit. This group isn’t a joke. (Well, maybe it is. But…
Smitten by enigmas
It was a dark and stormy night… Well, actually, it was cool and dry when I strolled into a brick wall of heated anticipation and trepidation at Skylark Lounge over yonder on Union Street. The good, the bad, and the ugly had assembled on this otherwise uneventful Thursday evening for the first appearance of Unknown…
EDUCATION: New music instruction program for city youth
A group of local music and government institutions are collaborating to create RocMusic, a program that will provide tuition-free music instruction to city school students. The pilot program will offer 20 students ages 5 to 8 general music appreciation, and 20 9- to 18-year-olds instruction in string instruments. The program, which starts in the fall,…
Once again, the bat flies in the night
As the comic books of childhood and adolescence turn into the graphic novels that all sorts of adults now take very seriously, so the films they inspire grow increasingly sophisticated and complex…or sometimes, just more pretentious. Unlike the “Spider-Man” series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy aims at a certain level of maturity in style and subject…
Where the wild things were
There’s a whole lot of poverty, dirt, and truly questionable parenting up on that screen, but 2012 festival darling “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is hardly one of those gritty, neo-realist downers. Instead, it’s a modern fable and an environmental parable, a wondrous, evocative piece of folk art with flaws at once glaring yet easily…
Feedback 7/25
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. Comments of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in print. We don’t publish comments sent to other media. The draft…
The piano Olympics
While the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London will be held on Friday, July 27, something like a piano version of the Olympics will have its opening recital a day later at Kilbourn Hall in the Eastman School of Music. Starting on Saturday, July 28, 20 classical pianists from eight countries, all…
Taverna for the green
Rochester has waited a long time for a Greek restaurant. That’s not to say that we don’t have excellent restaurants that are Greek-ish — broadly Mediterranean places that offer Greek food alongside other dishes that are more Middle Eastern in origin, like falafel or tabouli or pita bread, for that matter.
Disturbing the universe
Though we rant and rail against it — or refuse to acknowledge it until forced — humans must learn that change is the only constant. The best and wisest way to deal with it is to adapt. This is the echoed-through-the-ages sentiment that introduces “Transformation/Revelation: The Art of Change,” the current exhibit in the Memorial…
On Monroe, courtesy backfires
Data compiled recently by the Brighton Police Department reaffirmed a well-known problem: there are a lot of car crashes on Monroe Avenue between I-590 and Clover Street. In 2011, there were approximately 100 collisions along that section of Monroe. Officials say the problem stems from the third eastbound lane, which starts at the I-590 interchange…
Report nearly ready on police oversight
A committee investigating the police oversight system in Rochester is preparing to present its recommendations, says City Council member Adam McFadden. The 15-member committee has been meeting since last year to help reform a system that critics say lacks objectivity and transparency and takes too long to get results. The committee is co-chaired by McFadden…
Test scores:worse than you think
The abysmal performance of city students on state exams taken last April didn’t surprise anyone. That alone makes a statement. But Superintendent Bolgen Vargas says higher state standards are at least partly to blame for the lower scores. The recently released scores in English language arts and math for grades 3 to 8 showed that…
Harsh reality awaits community
City schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas says the condition of School 16 on Post Avenue is so bad that students and staff should move to Freddie Thomas High School this coming year. And he won’t promise that School 16 will reopen. Ever. “We have an emergency in that school,” he says. The problems with the building…
