The cocktail of talent, ingenuity, and hard work is what first draws listeners to an artist and their music. But it’s that indescribable and illusive quality that solidifies those fans. It’s something you can’t put your finger on. But who says you’ve got to understand every lick, lyric, and beat in the first place? If […]
Music Feature
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Doc Severinsen keeps busy at 88
When he was 7 years old, Carl Severinsen asked his dad for a musical instrument. His father, a violin-playing frontier dentist (hence Carl’s nickname, “Little Doc”), wanted his son to play fiddle. But Carl insisted on a trombone. Just one problem: there were no trombones in Arlington, Oregon’s small-town music store, so they settled on […]
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Fatima Razic builds beauty out of an ugly world
Beautiful music is even more so when born of an ugly world. Singer-songwriter Fatima Razic has a gorgeous voice: It aches, it evokes, it emotes, and it delivers a truck load of goosebumps. It is the sound of the artist crying out from within. There is no casual way to dig this 34-year-old Rochester-based musician. […]
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McKinley James plays beyond his years
The joint was packed and jumping. It was shoulder to shoulder on a hot Rochester night when McKinley James took the Harro East Ballroom stage. The crowd came on like a groundswell. There was nothing standing between James and the nearly 1,000 voracious spectators except for his red guitar. He had missed freshman orientation at […]
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The Sun Ra Arkestra carries on the musician’s legacy
Back in the early 1970’s, the school I attended, Philadelphia College of Art, was in the throes of hippie days. But there was a tradition to honor, a Spring Formal at the august Philadelphia Museum of Art. A dance has to have a band, so PCA made the obvious choice: Philly’s premier avant-garde ensemble, the […]
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Stunt rock
Not everyone sets out to be a rock star. “I always wanted to be a stuntman,” Austin Lake says. “Evel Knievel had his own record. And I thought it was a good publicity stunt to put out your own record. And now I’m hooked on this music thing. I realized I had some stuff I […]
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Dave and Phil Alvin make up for lost time
Dave Alvin’s phone rang. “Your brother’s dead,” the voice said on the other end. “I was in California,” Dave says in the present day, remembering that phone call. “And he was in Spain. It was like 45 minutes to an hour of darkness until I got another phone call saying, ‘He’s in a coma; […]
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Everything galore
The mid-90’s music scene in Rochester was a blur: a whirling cascade of bands and clubs packed with fans, their iPhone-less hands in the air. Back then, a phone call — on a plain phone — cost a quarter. And it seems that the technology developed to promote bands wound up being their undoing. But […]
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In the groove
Even as record stores around the country dropped like flies, The Record Archive has kept it spinning for 40 years The Record Archive is a bonafide icon; a Rochester institution. It’s the go-to store for the hip, the aware, anybody, and everybody. And as multi-faceted as its customers are, so too is the business savvy […]
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Let there be light and music
When Dave Rivello takes the Kilbourn Hall stage to conduct a new multimedia piece in celebration of the International Year of Light, audience members will not suspect that the work was written in the dark of night. “My best hours have always been from 11 p.m. to 4 or 5 a.m.,” says Rivello, professor of […]
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Panic pop
To really test a song’s credibility and worth all you need to do is unplug it. Take away the electricity, the layering, the studio magic, just strip it down to its bones and see if it still breathes. See if it survives the evisceration; if it still sounds good. Then, chances are it’s a good […]
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The Son also rises
A four-day festival celebrates the life and legacy of blues legend Eddie “Son” House The story of bluesman Eddie “Son” House — who once called Rochester home — is that of a 20th-century Moses. House spent years wandering the desert of obscurity, leading others into a promised land of recognition and cultural popularity that he […]
