[CELEBRATION] Ballyhoo, the crowd pleasing sausage and cocktail bar on S. Park Ave is celebrating their second anniversary on Sunday, October 9. The night will feature food and drink specials, prizes, games, trivia, a “Secret Ingredient Ultimate Cocktail Competition,” and more. And it’s free, so check it out.
[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] If you’re looking to get down and dirty at a bass heavy party this weekend, Buku has you covered. The young Pittsburgh native combines gnarly dubstep sounds and hard trap beats to create a pretty intricate, grimey sound. He’ll throw down in the more intimate Studio at the Waiting Room on Saturday, October 8 with support from Basha and Bentz, presented by MNM Presents.
[METAL] After 22 years, metalcore band Hatebreed are still in the game. Their latest record is 2016’s The Concrete Confessional is perhaps the band’s most political record to date. “In writing this record, If I didn’t have a topic for the song, I would open a newspaper or turn on the TV,” frontman Jamey Jasta said in a recent interview.
[MUSIC] It’s funny to say that Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox is an original idea. That’s because the band only plays covers, but of course, there’s a twist. The collective, helmed by the viral YouTube star Scott Bradlee remixes Top 40 hits into renditions that sound like they’re from older eras of music. For instance, they might take “Creep” by Radiohead and turn it into a 1920s-esque piano lounge ballad or morph the theme to Family Guy into a ragtime number. From this the band has amassed millions of views on YouTube and become an actual thing.
[CHURCH] The fabric of Buffalo’s original neighborhoods were held together by their churches and schools. And to each, Buffalo’s boom age lent their finest talents by way of architecture and craftsmanship. Buffalo Mass Mob is expanding their mission by bringing attention for the first time to a non-Catholic church, the landmark First Presbyterian Church on Symphony Circle.
[METAL] Combichrist is in a sense a metal band, but not in the way that most metal bands are metal bands.The five-piece group, which hails from Atlanta, Georgia by way of Fredrikstad, Norway looks like a demonized, almost zombified metal band, but the only other thing they have in common with your typical metal band is live drumming. In fact, they have a couple of live drummers, while the rest of the musical composition is made up of mostly techno or trance style synthesizers and frontman Andy LaPlegua’s harsh vocals, which make for a pretty unique live music experience.
[ART] Opening on Friday, October 7 is Split Fountain, an exhibition by artist Nicole Cooke. Presented by ShopCraft, an artisan collective that focuses on handmade crafts and works by “eco-conscious” artisans, the show will feature Cooke’s printed letterpress work, which was created on a vintage press at the Western New York Book Arts Center. The term “split fountain” refers to a printmaking technique which involves using two colors of ink on the press at once.
[FOLK] Sometimes, just one truly excellent record is all that’s needed to keep you on the map forever. Which isn’t to imply that folk duo Aztec Two Step (Rex Fowler and Neil Shulman) has only made one excellent record—they’ve released 16, give or take.
[BLUES] Though pop culture will always remember Muldaur for her hit, “Midnight at the Oasis,” (covered, rather excellently, by Brand New Heavies), she’s a fixture on the folk and country-blues circuits since the early 1960s Greenwich Village heyday. Her earliest recordings were with the Even Dozen Jug Band and its offshoot, Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band, which she followed up with a pair of highly regarded albums credited to the duo she formed with her husband, Geoff Muldaur.
[TRIBUTE] If seeing Dweezil and company at Canalside this summer didn’t satisfy your Zappa craving, Project/Object is here for you. The name of the tribute band, which will play the Tralf Music Hall on Sunday, October 9, is taken from a Zappa concept that relates recurring themes in his music to his larger body of work—a way of referring to conceptual threads that unify his extensive catalog.
[COMEDY] Steven Wright’s deadpan delivery is legendary for it’s deadpanness. His delivery is so deadpan at times it’s almost as if he’s not even speaking but merely thinking out loud. If minimalism is a style in comedy, then he invented and perfected it—often reducing his bits down to a few words.
[COMEDY] Jon Lovitz fell kind of ass backwards into stand up comedy. Unlike many comedians, Lovitz began in TV and movies and only moved to stand up later in life. He’s, of course, known best for his time on Saturday Night Live, but his TV and movie career has been long and storied, with roles in Three Amigos, A League of Their Own, and as a cartoon character in The Critic. Lovitz comes to Helium Comedy Club on Thursday, October 6 through Saturday October 8 for five shows.
[ART] The turn of the leaves always signifies to us that the collective brain of Buffalo is ready to set its thoughts and imaginations upon the human beautiful once again, and look no further than the monthly First Friday explosion of fresh openings, events, and long hours at city galleries. Though heavily concentrated in Allentown, First Fridays are observed throughout the city, offering many options for the walkabout of your choosing.
[FOLK] The first thing to know about this show is who the players are: The Canal Street String Band comprises three of the region’s finest roots music musicians, who we will identify by name and the instruments with which they are most often associated, knowing that leaves no place for who plays jaw harp, dobro, cow bones, and whatever else presents itself: Dave Ruch on guitar and mandolin, Jim Whitford on standup bass, and Phil Banaszak on fiddle. Everybody sings.
[EXPERIMENTAL] Anklepants exists at once to make his audience feel uncomfortable, but also to quickly alleviate that discomfort. He does this by donning a mask with a low-hanging, mechanical dong as the nose, but once you’ve accepted that his nose-dong will be donging around in front of you all night, you’ll find yourself dancing and moving along to his bizarre yet groovy performance.
Can we stop the bleeding?
Subjective info would suggest “No.”
It is a fact now that all of the predictions about the dire consequences of inaction regarding human made climate change have come home to roost. The rest of the way is mostly downhill. So get ready for a bumpy last roller coaster ride till the end of the line. Gulp.
Here is the dire news: