Preview

Tonight: Crimps

July 14, 2019

Buffalo’s Mohawk Place is going to rock your socks off tonight with the help of local and out-of-state punk rockers. Headlining are the Salem, Mass synth-punkers, Crimps. This four-piece, who kicked off 2019 with the release of a split with Automatic Shoes, specialize in catchy, no-nonsense punk beats sugarcoated with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed synths. Take that and mix in some lo-fi, sing-a-long harmonies and you’ll be crowd surfing and stage diving in no time. Don’t miss this welcomed breath of fresh air tear it up while you can. Opening tonight are new punks on the block, Piss Phantom. There’s something special, but certainly not pretty, about this Buffalo band and their down-and-dirty, DIY sound that will take you by storm. Expect to hear ear-bleeding material off their just-released EP, Piss Takes Two, that’s a one-two knockout punch of raw guitar riffs and stark-raving-mad vocals. Check them out and tinnitus be damned.[...]

Tonight: And the Kids

July 9, 2019

Northamptonites And the Kids are coming to the 9th Ward at Babeville tonight. The genre-bending indie act is currently on tour to support the release of their third album, When This Life is Over, which came out this past February. While you could definitely call them a pop band, And the Kids has been known to break the rules a bit. When This Life is Over is a testament to their ability to complicate a genre so unfairly pinned down for its simplicity. With powerful, warbling vocals, layered harmonies, glimmering synth, and the occasional string section, And the Kids shine in the buildup on this album. The sound grows and grows until we’re dying to know what’s going to happen next – and we rarely expect what does. Whether it be an alternating tempo, a complete instrumentation change, or a beautifully crafted wall of sound, throughout each song and into[...]

Tonight: The Beths

July 7, 2019

Indie pop New Zealanders The Beths will take the stage at the 9th Wardtonight, bringing L.A.’s Girl Friday along with them. The group is right at the beginning of the North American leg of their gigantic summer tour, which supports the release of their 2018 debut album, Future Me Hates Me. The Beths formed in 2015 in Auckland, New Zealand, where vocalist/songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, and bassist Sinclair studied jazz at the University of Auckland. Drummer Tristan Deck, who amazingly also studied jazz, rounded out the group’s live line-up in 2019. Though the band departed from its constituents’ jazz backgrounds to take on a guitar-driven pop sound, musical education shows itself in the group’s impressively tight debut album. The Beths have worked up their own brand of indie pop for Future Hates Me, pairing playful, infectious melodies with punchy lyrics to deliver ten danceable, relatable, re-playable tracks. The[...]

Tonight: Taking Meds

July 6, 2019

Tonight, some of Western and Central New York’s best pop punk music will be on display tonight as Rochester’s Taking Meds is set to headline at Mohawk Place as part of a tour kickoff that will last over a month. This show, and subsequently larger tour, will be in support of their new record, I Hate Me.  Supporting Taking Meds tonight will be local Buffalo emo-favorites, Ghostpool and Worse Things. This will be a “homecoming” show of sorts for these two, as they’re just getting back from a short run that started earlier this week. Also playing tonight are Rochester’s super-group Carpool, who’s last gig in the Queen City was at Town Ballroom. This super-stacked lineup is sure to be one to impress. You’re not going to want to miss this one. Doors open at 6pm. Tickets are $12. We’ll see you there. In the meantime, listen to Taking Meds[...]

Tonight: Handsome Jack

July 6, 2019

Happy Birthday America, land of the free home of the blues. Keep the celebration going with Buffalo’s own Handsome Jack, as they are poised to set off an explosion of their own this this even at Buffalo Iron Works. If you haven’t felt the ground rumble from Handsome Jack’s brand of boogie-woogie and blues then this is your last chance, at least for a short while. The love child of John Fogherty, Muddy Waters, and The Band head across the pond for a European to support their latest record Everything’s gonna Be Alright. Bring your sparklers, dancing shoes, and good vibes to Iron Works to properly bid this rock trio ‘adieu’. Doors at 8pm with a $12 cover. Get there early to check out First Ward. Written by Kevin Prentice

Tonight: Pentimento

July 5, 2019

The early 2010’s were a wild time for local music here in Buffalo, New York. It seems as if almost overnight, everyone you knew was in a band, and odds are they were pretty talented. You could spend pretty much every weekend at either Mohawk Place or Waiting Room (RIP) for a mind-blowing musical experience. One of the bands responsible for this cultural explosion was Buffalo’s own Pentimento. Shortly after forming, they quickly gained a following, were at the top of their game, and wore both their hometown, and their hearts on their sleeves as they helped put Buffalo’s emerging scene on the map. After the band had released one split, two EP’s, and two full length releases, it seems they had vanished at a time when they were at their peak, and one of the most beloved acts around. However, after years of waiting, you finally have your chance[...]

Tonight: Potty Mouth

July 2, 2019

Buffalo’s Mohawk Place hosts a bad-ass night of women-lead indie rock acts tonight that will melt your face clean off. Topping the bill is the LA-based pop-rock trio, Potty Mouth. Still riding high off the releases of their sophomore album, SNAFU, and new single “I Wanna,” the band promises a set full of lighthearted and high-powered melodies that will make you throw a fist in the air. Both catchy and in your face, Potty Mouth is irresistible and sure to be added to your heavy rotation after this livewire performance. Providing support is the LA indie rocker, Colleen Green. If there’s one thing you should know about Green it’s that she’s cooler than you. Get over it. She’ll charm you with anti-social bubblegum vocals over crunchy riffs straight from the garage. You don’t want to miss this talented singer-songwriter while she’s in town. Rounding out the night is local alt-rocker, Stress Dolls.[...]

Tonight: Tough Old Bird

June 28, 2019

The sun is starting to make more of a consistent presence as summer begins in Western New York, the time of year we start to remember just how beautiful the area we live in actually is. Blue skies and warmer temps make the perfect companions to good music, and folk locals Tough Old Bird will be bringing just that to Mohawk Place tonight to celebrate the release of their fifth album, The Old Great Lakes. Almost every piece of writing you’ll come across describing Tough Old Bird – a folk group started in Fillmore, NY by brothers Matthew and Nathan Corrigan in 2013 – mentions the word “landscape” at least once or twice. Tough Old Bird takes its surroundings and transforms them into beautifully crafted, traditionally modern folk music, using sophisticated acoustic guitar, harmonica, and hints of accordion and electric guitar to develop not only a dynamic, comforting shroud of[...]

Tonight: The Midnight

June 25, 2019

Tonight Atlanta chillwavers The Midnight brings their epic and hyper evocative synth drenched electronic jams to the Town Ballroom with local support from Armageddon Party. The Midnight is total collaboration featuring Atlanta singer songwriter Tyler Lyle and Danish producer Tim McEwan that results in something like aural virtual reality: hazy, ephemeral synthetic atmospheres that fully immerse the listener in a timeless past while offering a deep, soulful connection via Lyle’s clean, big eyed alto vocals. There’s also some trenchant and meaningful social critique of the gauzy, almost addictive nostalgia they and their audience are swimming in and of the simultaneously connected and disconnected dystopia America is descending into, so that’s nice, and you can dance to it. Opening the show will be local electronic mayhem gurus Armageddon Party. Doors are at 7pm and tickets at the door are $20. America Online by The Midnight

Tonight: Car Seat Headrest

June 25, 2019

Seattle indie rock outfit Car Seat Headrest will stop by Asbury Hall tonight amid their Twin Fantasy 2019 tour with fellow Seattle rockers Naked Giants. The show comes to Buffalo on the back of 2018’s Twin Fantasy, a harrowing, dynamic album with a long and remarkable history of its own. Car Seat Headrest began in Leesburg, Virginia in 2010 as the bedroom solo project of a teenage Will Toledo, a major player in the modern, internet-based DIY scene. Toledo self-produced and self-released his first eight albums, using minimal equipment to record experimental, unrefined indie rock that would quickly gain an online cult following. The cult exploded with 2011’s Twin Fantasy – now titled Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) –, an ambitious and heartfelt concept album about a tumultuous first love, recorded with a laptop microphone, released for free on Bandcamp, and adored by thousands. Car Seat Headrest’s booming presence on[...]

Tonight: Color Cult

June 22, 2019

It’s time to drink the Kool-Aid, folks, and to throw away all worldly possessions that happen to not be Color Cult’s new single “Invisible Monster.” Right off the bat, the song winks at you from the driver’s seat before taking off at warp speed on a course of punk/new-wave/alt-rock excellence. It begins with the chorus, played at an adrenaline fueled 140 beats/min, and lays out the concept of the song, “You’re my little invisible monster/ I know you’re around every corner/ It’s bringing me down/ I see you’re face in the dark, I feel you lurking around.” If a better tag for the human condition has been coined, please let m know. What makes ‘Invisible Monster’ a genuine triumph of the soul is the fact that the narrator (Russell Leone) of the song recognizes the problem, or monster, and he actively seeks to defeat it. In a world that seems[...]

Today: Death Cab for Cutie

June 16, 2019

Music is art, and it’ll be on full display tonight at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The beloved Death Cab for Cutie is venturing out from the Pacific Northwest to grace the Elmwood Avenue gallery’s grounds in this year’s installment of the long-running Rockin’ at the Knox, which will also feature Tank and the Bangas and Phosphorescent. Considered one of the definitive indie acts of the aughts, Death Cab has gained and maintains a massive following over the 22 years since it started in Bellingham, Washington as frontman Ben Gibbard’s solo project in 1997. The group is well known for its sincere, often melancholy songwriting and catchy melodies, as displayed on the critically acclaimed Transatlanticism (2003) and We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes (2000). They’re currently on tour to support their latest album, Thank You for Today, which was released in August 2018. The show is happening rain or[...]

Tonight: White Reaper

June 16, 2019

Tonight, the Louisville garage-rock wonders White Reaper make their way down to Chip Strip at the Rec Room. This marks their first visit back to The Queen City since 2017, so make sure you see them this time around, because it might be a while before they decide to grace us with their presence again. Sharing the stage with them are Boston-based ethereal rockers, Twen, as well as Buffalo degenerate punkers, SMUG. Doors are at 7pm, tickets are $12. Written by Mike Rakiecki

Tonight: KOPPS’ Y2K End Of The World Dance Party

June 7, 2019

The state of the world got you down? Are all of the trendlines pointing to a big honking anxiety attack? Well get ready to dance away all of your mounting apocalyptic fears away by celebrating and commemorating the last time we all thought the world was going to end, in the one place I want to be when the end comes, the beloved Mohawk, with some tasteful DJ sets from Tom Burtless (Humble Braggers) and Jacob Asher (Ben Bailey of Joywave)  and a special performance by Rochester electro trash disco gods KOPPS. Go back in time to the turn of the millennium with all the hottest 1999-2000 jams and a Y2K costume contest for the sexy party people dressed to impress, so be sure to leave your smartphones at home (just kidding). Doors are at 8:30pm, music starts at 9pm and cover at the door is $12.

Tonight: Sleep

June 6, 2019

For those who believed they would never live long enough to see a band carry on where Black Sabbath left off, fear not. We have Sleep. Emerging from the stoner rock capitol of the world, southern California, Sleep started in the early nineties with their meld of stoner rock and heavy metal. Bass player Al Cisneros tuned down to create hypnotic drone rhythms while guitarist Matt Pike layered in stoner-rock riffs and created Doom-Metal. The band found critical success that lead to battles with record labels who ultimately forced them to lay down their instruments. Again, fear not, for Sleep has woken up. They released their first full length album in almost twenty years in 2018 thanks to Jack White’s record label Third Man Records, and the result most definitely warrants the wait. The Sciences brings Doom Metal back to the forefront of rock ‘n roll, and combined with their[...]