It was standing room only at the Little Theatre Friday night.
The place was shoe-horned full of latte lappers and blues boppers there to show
loyalty to Rochester blues royalty: Delta blues picker, Fred Vine; the
hardest working bassist in town, Brian Williams; and harmonicat,
Rockin’ Red. The trio wove in and out
of original wails and nice reads on stuff by cats like Jimmy Reed (if you like shufflin’ guitar you needn’t go any further than Jimmy
Reed). It would have easily been a dance party if it weren’t for all the damn
chairs. The band was lightly plugged in and all the way electric.
With other scenes to be made, Roger Kuhn and I left with the
blues in our ears and in our heads. Next stop: Skylark Lounge for a positively
boss show with The Temptaters and The Televisionaries. The Temptaters
are young — “X” on your hands young — but dug in to a library of influences
that caught me flat. The set was loud, frenetic, and full of hairpin time
signatures. The band’s energy mixed with the Skylark steam heat brought to mind
the days when bands like Television blew the doors off joints like CBGBs and Scorgies. The Temptaters are
clearly influenced — whether they know it or not — by The Sonics and The Count
Bishops, which they augment with a dynamic severity. Raw, rare, and well done.
The Televisonaries followed hanging
a collective 30 on the stage, with some wickedly aggressive surf and a vocal
interlude by three classically styled beauties who took a bite out Wanda Jackson’s
“Fujiyama Mama.” What a mob, what a crowd, what a scene, what a show.
We ended the night at the Dinosaur with the smell of smoked
meat and the gospel-blues-classic rock jam of Teagan and The Tweedsshakin’ the bandstand. They wowed me extreme with a
spiritual a capella send-up
and had the dance floor in a boil. Overall, not a bad night. What did you do?
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2015.
