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Williams Shift – “The Heads And The Bodies”

January 23, 2015

Being a music blog living on the internet, we get lots of tips on up-and-coming bands all over the world, upwards of 150-200 a day. This week, we got a hot tip on a rising band out of Philadelphia that just so happens to have the drummer of one of our favorite Rochester-based acts, Stephen Roessner of Pleistocene. Led by Matthew Stone (Saxon Shore, Soporus), Williams Shift released its first single off of the trio’s forthcoming full-length, We Were Wonderers, titled “The Heads And The Bodies.” With a March 24th release date via Burnt Toast Vinyls (who have an impressive list of past collaborations including mewithoutYou, Sufjan Stevens, and Unwed Sailor.) “The Head And The Bodies” is quite the tease for what the upcoming release consists of. The song is a shoe-gaze packed three minute song about having your head cryonically frozen. Yes really.

Newish Star Shares New Single, “Magnetic Personality”

January 22, 2015

It’s rare that the buffaBLOG office comes to an absolute consensus. Our most recent agreement came when we all were blown away by last December’s Newish Star performance at Duke’s as part of our annual holiday showcase/party.  With that being said, we were delighted late yesterday when we received word that Newish Star released its new single, “Magnetic Personality,” off of a forthcoming full-length, set to be released “soon.” “Magnetic Personality” is a catchy 90’s pop-punk spliced Archers of Loaf-esque diddy about having a persona that people flock to. It also reinforces what everyone knows, north means up, south means down. Duh. Newish Star has a gift for putting together a song that makes you want to listen to it over and over again, even if it’s just over a minute.

Ad Astra Debuts First Single

January 14, 2015

Buffalo-based electro-pop trio, Ad Astra, debuted the project’s first track this past week, to which we were very excited to post about. With past works in the band’s resume including buffaBLOG favorites, Ignorant Owl and FOTISPORN, Ad Astra already sounded promising. The band’s first single, “Pretty Pictures,” features producers Thomas L. Hunt and Wyle Lukow delivering a futuristic synth song with just over a minute and a half growing introduction capped off with Amanda Terranoli’s dreamily gentle LIGHTS-like voclas. With obvious comparisons to Purity Ring,  chilled out Crystal Castles, and even Phantogram, Ad Astra is definitely a band that should be on your radar in 2015. Perhaps they can start playing live with gigs with Passion in Constellation? Listen to “Pretty Pictures” below.

Just Announced: Diarrhea Planet

January 13, 2015

If you were one of the roughly 250 people to go to Diarrhea Planet last fall at Mohawk Place, then you were one of the lucky ones to witness undoubtedly one of the best performances in Buffalo in all of 2014. This afternoon, after hearing mumblings on the street for months, it was finally confirmed that Diarrhea Planet would be coming back to Mohawk Place on Monday, March 30th. Between Cursive, Torche, and Diarrhea Planet all at Mohawk in March alone, we might be crashing upstairs for the month. Does anyone wanna go halfs on a practice space? Tickets go on sale this Friday at noon at Ticketmaster.

Just Announced: Heavy Rotation – Lonely Hearts Dance

January 13, 2015

We must admit, we love a good dance party. Luckily the fine folks over at Hardware are giving us the opportunity to throw our own next month. On Friday, February 13th, buffaBLOG will be curating the front and back room of the Allentown bar supplying Buffalo with all the hits and hot jams your after 40 hour work week has been craving. The lineup consists of local hip-hop producer, Cove, mashup extraordinaire Teenwolf, electronic visual artist, Projex, and front room regular, Camaican Sensation. All in all, this is a great opportunity to show off all those dance moves you’ve been practicing while snowed in this winter. Get there around 10pm and the doors are $5. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/10776103″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Just Announced: The Get Up Kids

January 9, 2015

Wow, ususally Friday afternoons are pretty boring in the blogosphere. We can thank After Dark Entertainment to jolting us out of our swivel chairs accompanied by a “Holy Shit!” Just about ten minutes ago, After Dark announced emo staples, The Get Up Kids, will be playing the Waiting Room on Wednesday, March 25th with up-and-coming indiemo act, PUP. Tickets go on sale January 15th on ticketfly.com for $18 advance/$22 day of, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if this sells out well in advance. You won’t want to miss this one. Nothing else cooler can happen on a Wednesday night.

Chastity Belt – “Time To Go”

January 9, 2015

There was a dark time in my life where I lived in Iowa. Moving from Buffalo to basically the middle of nowhere, knowing absolutely zero people in the state, I was adventurous and looking forward to the next phase of my life. Since I knew absolutely zero people in Iowa, I tended to hang out by myself a lot. I beat Grand Theft Auto V twice, went on a lot of walks,  and tried basically every restaurant in the city limits. What is really up with Papa Murphy’s? That is the most backwards restaurant I ever encountered. I called ahead to order a pizza, showed up and they gave me a raw pizza. I thought it was a prank. IT WAS THE SAME PRICE AS A REGULAR PIZZA AND I HAD TO COOK IT! Back on track, during this time I felt removed from anything in the music scene, jealously[...]

Northern Spies Debut Material

January 6, 2015

If you can’t tell by now, this week is going to be a catch up week for all of the super cool stuff that has come out during the end of the year whirlwind. Today’s “Oh man I should have posted about this three weeks ago” song comes from Rochester’s Northern Spies. Formerly performing under the name Blankets, the quartet hasn’t been around for very long, only forming as a band in spring of 2014. In mid-December, Northern Spies got around to sharing their debut three song EP titled Nothing But Static. The just over twelve minute EP is full of soft-spoken hesitant indie rock with power pop hooks that make it stay in your head and never leave. Check out “No Time To Lose,” and stick around for the other two songs.

Space Cubs Releases New Single

January 5, 2015

One of the dilemmas I come across while writing for this blog is to what to categorize each artist in our internal database. For example, Space Cubs was raised in Buffalo, but now calls the backwoods of the south her home. Should I still categorize her “Buffalo” or should this be “New Music?” Should anyone who has ever lived in Buffalo always be considered Buffalo? Regardless, former Buffalo-based spacey electronica songstress, Space Cubs, the performing/writing moniker of Suzanne Lee Bonaficio, released a new single titled “The Eye.” Normally we are on top of these things, but with the year end round-ups, personal responsibilities, and all-around burning out of contributing to a blog, we missed it. “The Eye,” much like others in Space Cubs’ repertoire, is a new age climber topped soothing vocals. What’s different about “The Eye” is that the vocals are a little more R&B tinged, almost like a[...]

Tonight: Kharlos

January 3, 2015

For a while, Kharlos was a pretty tight lipped secret. After the intense word-of-mouth from their first show, we were very curious about their sound which was being described as “awesome” and “sick.” The band is not really into the social media game, preferring the music to speak for itself. Regardless of their internet presence, Kharlos is composed of the guitarists/singer from defunct (?) grunge-act, Merchants (Ben Maries and Steve Gordon), along with Space Wolves/The Hamiltones drummer, Chris Scamurra. Fans of Diarrhea Planet, Wavves, and Bass Drum of Death should consider themselves Kharlos fans. Also on the bill is Poindexter, a band that could have easily been on Kung-Fu in the late 90’s, and rock and roll vets, The Good. Doors are at 8pm with a $5 cover. Did I mention this is at Mohawk Place? It’s at Mohawk Place.

Lesionread Drops “Art All Day” Video

December 30, 2014

Other than end of year lists, staff picks, and best of’s, the holidays are a pretty quiet time for buffaBLOG, so Lesionread’s new video “Art All Day”(which dropped last week) might as well have been gift-wrapped. This time we find the avant-electronica wiz doing what he does best– embracing the weird and keeping it fresh. The new track highlights the post-college starving artist days with a literal, danceable, and relatively humorous approach. His presentation is flavorful; the well-edited video watches like something you might catch on an episode of Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job!, featuring various cameos from other local musicians. Can you spot them amongst the controlled chaos?

Day 11: 1809 Studios

December 24, 2014

Day 11 of our 12 Days of Christmas comes to us from Macedon-based recording studio, 1809 Studios. If you haven’t had a chance to check out their sessions and space, I really suggest you do. It’s a top notch studio in a converted 19th century ale house that we’ve been admiring from a distance. Anyways, the fellas over at 1809 Studios gave us a Christmas present of their own, a spirited version of “Click Click Click,” arranged by Dave Drago with visuals by Jon Lewis. One more day til Christmas ya’ll.

Day 8: Mink

December 21, 2014

I don’t know what we would do without this Steak and Cake sampler. It has been a God-send  in a Christmas music season where we are usually our inbox is full of on-the-fly covers and originals of yuletide staples. This year, not so much. Luckily the many musicians who came together on this project are all legit. Day 8 of our series comes from Mink with “bells will be ringing” which is a cover of the 1960 Charles Brown classic. Thanks wikipedia. Mink shares this cover with another band that Buffalo loves, Bon Jovi. Throw some hot cocoa in a mug and listen below.  

Day 7: Supergoner

December 20, 2014

When in doubt while searching for Christmas songs to post about during our annual 12 Days of Christmas post, you can count on Steak and Cake Records’ Christmas Meltdown 2 compilation. Today’s holiday themed song comes from local indie rock quartet, Supergoner, with their song “the most wonderful of time the year (feat Skosh).”  Supergoner makes probably one of the sappiest holiday songs actually enjoyable and manages to lose the cheesiness of the song. Stick around til the end for the Chirstmas horns.

Day 5: Billy Martin

December 18, 2014

Besides the slowly leaking Steak and Cake Christmas compilation, Buffalo is about to be lapped by Rochester’s scene in regards to holiday themed releases. Perhaps they are more in the holiday spirit. Is there something in the garbage plates? The latest comes from Rochester-based multi-instrumentalist Billy Martin, who also plays  guitar in the band we’ve been hearing a lot about, No Glitter (featuring past members of Sports, Revengineers, and Like Wolves). Martin was able to find time to hole himself in the home-studio to put an indie-rock spin on everyone’s favorite high-pitched Christmas tune by Alvin and the Chipmunks, “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late).” Check it out below.