Drop the needle and dig on Maybird and enjoy the trip. This relatively new Rochester outfit is a carefully constructed wash of singer-songwriter insight and pop-psychedelia. It’s the sound of the beautiful and the weird sharing a slow dance — or a joint, perhaps. It’s romantic and it’s epic. Consequently, Maybird sounds like a band […]
Local Music
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The Heroic Enthusiasts
Born barely one year ago, Rochester’s The Heroic Enthusiasts fall between genre cracks, it’s rock ‘n’ roll twilight. The band — James Tabbi, guitar, Tom Ferrara, guitar, Jesse Herrera, bass, and Cruk Fua, drums — is more about the antithetical than the quintessential. The songs are melodious meanderings full of a loosely harnessed energy and […]
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Funknut
Funknut is already the big band it will never be. Don’t get me wrong; the Funknut sound is big and soulful, nestled somewhere between Curtis and Sly and a persistent jazzy jam. This is the cry of a trio that can’t even get past trio as far as keeping permanent guns in its ranks. When […]
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The A/V club: Rochester musician-artists
It’s short-sighted to think of an artist confined to a single medium. Yes, in most cases, a creator shines in one area. But it is interesting to view — or hear — an artist apply the traits of one medium to another. The term “artist” is typically reserved for those who work in the visual […]
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Fowls
You say the words “math rock” and eyes often glaze over. It’s as if by definition you have to compute something or contribute to some higher understanding in lieu of simple listening enjoyment. But what happens when the components in the equation are melodic or angelic or narcotic? What happens when two core components are […]
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The Manhattan Project
Rochester-based electronic sensation The Manhattan Project is more of an experience than a band, a re-defining of gravity. The duo — Shawn Drogan (drums and electronics) and Charlie Lindner (keyboards and synth) — creates a swirling, pulsating electronic universe without losing sight of the humans that dig it, or the humans behind it. The Manhattan […]
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Heatseeker
Let’s clear up a bit of confusion. In the hallowed halls of all things rock ‘n’ roll, big often gets confused with loud. Any band can be loud; just turn the sucker up. Plug in and peel out. The reality is that the bands we love aren’t just loud, they’re big. Rochester’s Heatseeker is big. […]
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Blue Falcon
John Viviani certainly knows his way around a fingerboard. You’ll blow out your eyeballs trying to get a bead on his fleet digits as the music expands your ears and mind. The Rochester guitarist is better known and responsible for the sophisticated drive behind the funked-up, jazzified jump of the now-disbanded Filthy Funk. Viviani led […]
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The Beautiful Ending
Lisa Canarvis is a study in passion and intensity. Whether you get caught in her piercing gaze or walloped by the siren call of her lilting voice, Canarvis is riveting. But beneath the cool burn is the undeniably palpable excitement of her new project, The Beautiful Ending. Known for her vocal work in the local […]
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MUSIC FEATURE: Cold Sweat
There’s plenty of presentation and protocol in this live-music racket that threatens to upend the whole affair. There are plenty of bands that don’t put the music first, concentrating instead on the biz, buzz, and baubles. Then there’s a quartet like Rochester’s Cold Sweat, a straight-up, straight-ahead blues band. Sure, there are detours into Latin […]
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Concert Review: Wavves, Skirts, Dumb Angel at Water Street
It’s an interesting thing to review a show like the Wavves concert that took place at Water Street last Friday night.There are some shows that feel passive enough that being a quiet observer, lingering on the outskirts of the crowd, feels barely outside the norm. At these shows, the focus tends to be the music […]
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Concert Review: The Bygone Few, JD McPherson
I know it’s lazy to describe a band’s sound with another band — bands as adjectives, I call it — but sometimes it’s a good kick start in the right direction. So when I tell you the new Rochester band The Bygone Few sounds like a Misfit Concrete Blonde, you’ll understand why…and hopefully accept my […]
