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Column 35: Ranking the Beats of Bond

November 13, 2015

James Bond is inarguably one of the most famous characters in the history of cinema. And while each entry into the well-known franchise has given us a new tale in the classic spy series, it’s also provided us with a new definitive pop theme. It’s interesting to look at the change over the years as the themes not only reflect the changes in the series but the evolution of pop music. From Louis Armstrong to Madonna, Paul McCartney to Sheryl Crow, and A-ha to Sam Smith, singer of Bond’s most recent theme from Spectre, the series themes almost read as interesting timeline of pop culture itself. But which theme is the absolute best? 5. “A View to Kill” – Duran Duran (1985) Over the years, there have been many attempts to create a more modern or original Bond theme, one less classical and more in fitting with the times, and of all those[...]

Sound Devices: Why wZa Loves His Custom Roland MV-8800

November 4, 2015

Editor’s note: Each week, Cory Perla of The Public asks a local musician to tell us why they love their favorite piece of gear. wZa is hip-hop producer and member of the Buffalo-based hip-hop groups Radarada and Death Picnic. His solo debut full length, AzN CHiKz, comes out this winter. “I love this piece of equipment because it is very versatile and has it’s own unique sound. Not a lot of other beatmakers I know use one as their main piece of gear, so it helps separate my sound from other producer’s sound. It’s also great because it works perfectly for live performance with the bands I play in — Radarada and Death Picnic. It’s great in the studio or my bedroom when I’m making my own beats. I also love it because it has my own design to it, so when I play it, I feel pretty cool.” – wZa

Column 34: Shaun of the Dead‘s Harmonious Relationship with Pop Music

October 29, 2015

Annnnd we’re back. After a long hiatus, we’ve returned with the latest installment of Screened Plays, the place where cinema and pop music collide. And just in time for Halloween, our good friends at North Park Theatre are showing one of my all-time favorite comedies: Shaun of the Dead. While many directors (Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Martin Scorsese) have a famously close relationship with pop music, I would argue perhaps no filmmaker has ever had quite as harmonious a relationship as Edgar Wright. Even going back to his early days with Spaced, his comedies looked different, moved different, and definitely sounded different from anything else on television. This is because Wright’s approach to filmmaking much more unique than that of most comedy directors. While many comedy films rest on the strength of either their writing or lead stars, Wright’s comedies are notably more visual. Perhaps the greatest weapon in his comedic arsenal is[...]

An Exclusive with Quiet Fire Media

September 8, 2015

Edward Easton — ultimate founder of Columbia Records — did not establish the foundations of his extensive success through jean jackets and an inability to say no to people. It was a careful ear and his unprecedented ambition to support what he believed in. Cash and Dylan did alright, eh? Easton’s success aside, his ability to harness talent immensely translated his belief in a particular artist to their seemingly boundless success. Take this time to familiarize yourself with Quiet Fire Media — a media platform born in the local and Baltimore areas owned and operated by Head North’s Brent Martone & Ben Leiber, Baltimore’s Rachel Cooper, and Emily Tantuccio. The backbone behind QFM’s mission involves a focus to work with artists in an effort to trampoline them towards a higher platform and, in its short tenure, the group has already done such, from Connecticut’s A Will Away of Triple Crown Records, Baltimore-based singer/songwriter WATERMEDOWN of Equal Vision Records[...]

M.A.G.S.

September 1, 2015

M.A.G.S. is the main project of Elliott Douglas, the multi-faceted Buffalo musician who has been a member of, by his count, about 14 different bands in the area over the years. Somehow distantly related to Jimi Hendrix, through marriage or something like that (you can hear his story about his relative in the interview halfway through the session), Douglas effortlessly fronts the his three piece band with creative little guitar riffs and vocal belts that sometimes come out in focused and graceful yells. Bassist Andy Wesner and drummer Adam Lilley complete the trio that create a sound that could fool you into thinking they had something crazy, like four members in their group. However, as this handy buffaBLOG session will show you, they only need themselves to “rock out,” no matter the venue. Even if it’s outside of a warehouse at dusk on a hot summer night. Oh, and it’s[...]

Farm Rock feat. Well Kept Things

August 31, 2015

Popular opinion has confirmed that all cool and hippest creative efforts are born out of a city setting as all talented, accomplished individuals are garrison to that particular community. Viciously false — come on, you’re better than that and have every capability to deny any such abstraction. Allow for me to introduce you to semi-fresh indie/punk outfit, Well Kept Things, composed of members who have cultivated themselves straight down the 219 in the Springville/Delevan area(s). I was fortunate enough to make a trip to the area this past week to sit down and chat with two of the band’s founding members, Cullen Dedrick and Charlie Rumfola. While there, I was given a tour of Rumfola’s full-functioning crop farm, where I got a lick at this year’s carrot batch, as well as a first person glance at Dedrick’s goat colony, including a goat playground (I’m not joking). The experience was genuinely[...]

Dance With the Girl You Brought to the Party

August 24, 2015

Virginia Beach’s Turnover, whom just gigged Waiting Room roughly a week and a half ago with a tour package including The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Pianos Become The Teeth, and Take One Car, constructed their native identity on a platform of pop punk — originally releasing a self titled EP subsequently followed by the band’s first full length record, Magnolia via Run For Cover records. Over the last handful of years, the band has been able to transfigure their once pop punk connotation, inducing circle pits and please-don’t-step-on-my-tuner stage dives into one of indie, which still undoubtedly involves the listener/audience with plenty of room for a head nods with their 2015 full length record, Peripheral Vision. Peripheral Vision,  a record that intrigues me to the thought of launching myself down a flight of stairs, only to gather myself optimistically to climb the[...]

Planet Three

August 18, 2015

Planet Three is a band best described by drummer Nathan Zak in a craftily worded Facebook message to us: “From a farm laden land known as Marilla, three musicians lived less than a mile from each other for nearly a decade until they formed the lizard rock outfit dubbed Planet Three. With guidance from their local witch doctors, the three were able to conjure up a potion of tasty riffs, proggy changes, and a shoegaze atmosphere. Their ever-expanding sound along with their stage show is a theatrical, over-the-top glam party hosted by the ghost of Marc Bolan. Although their future is unclear to them, presently they are searching for more genres to work into their own formula.” We shot this edition of buffaBLOG sessions in Nate’s basement out in Marilla. Thanks to Shauna Presto, Andrea LoPiccolo, Jason Paton, Charles Tyrie, and Joe Cardina for working on this one. Special thanks[...]

We Salute You, Jay Zubricky

August 17, 2015

In my dog days of boyhood, I shared the warmth of the summer months with pure bread Polish grandparents who proudly prepared authentic dinners on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I despise Polish cuisine, therefor stubbornly maintaining a diet of strictly saltine crackers. Routinely I would make innumerable trips to a kitchen cabinet, which above hung a sign that I childishly absorbed as humorous only later to realize that, when stripped of it’s hilarity, presents a notion of sincere truth. I’m paraphrasing here, but I believe it squawked something to the matter of, “Behind Every Man Stands a Woman Kicking Him in the Ass” — subsequently leading to a giggle, a nibble, a giggle, a nibble… Now, in my early twenties, I reflect upon this sign with a realization that no matter how distinctly-talented any particular individual may internally believe themselves to be, there exists an essential, completely necessary call for guidance. For leadership independent[...]

Frame and Mantle

August 4, 2015

We have a new project for you, and it’s called buffaBLOG Sessions. The aim of this project is to take up-and-coming artists, whether they’re Buffalo born and raised or just passing through the area, and feature them in intimate locations around the city. Each bi-weekly session will feature one of these bands performing two songs, with a more-than-casual interview cut into the middle. Our first band is Frame and Mantle. They’re out of Erie, PA and recorded with us right before their show last month at Mohawk Place, a show that kicked off their first tour (10 stops all over the Northeast). We recorded it upstairs in a warehouse on Rhode Island Street (special thanks to Joe Cardina SR. for the location). Check out tunes from Frame and Mantle here and watch their buffaBLOG Sessions clip below.

Column 33: Asif Kapadia’s Amy Brings an Artist’s Work to Life

July 16, 2015

When the news came of the death of Amy Winehouse on July 23rd, 2012, it should have come as a shock, but sadly, it felt expected. The young soul singer’s life had long been the subject for tabloid headlines, her well-known addictions and downward spiral a punchline for late-night comedians. So for any film to try and tell the real story of one of the most iconic artists of this generation is a delicate proposition. Thankfully the story of Amy Winehouse is in the hands of London-born filmmaker Asif Kapadia, the man responsible for the acclaimed bio-doc, Senna. One of the startling things about Amy is the sheer amount of home video footage, with contributions from friends and family, almost every period of Winehouse’s life is documented. What this allows is a more intimate look at who the late musician actually was as a person. Early footage of Amy and[...]

Column 32: Brian Wilson’s Survival and Love & Mercy

July 1, 2015

Simply put, Love & Mercy,  Bill Pohlad’s loving tribute to the genius and struggles of Brian Wilson, is an effecting film and a rousing victory. Featuring two different actors in the role and chronicling the former Beach Boys mastermind’s life at two crucial junctures in his life: – his creative apex and fall during the mid and late 60’s (Paul Dano) and his lowest point in the 80’s (John Cusack) in the thrall of scumbag and now discredited doctor Eugene Landy – Love & Mercy is also a film about tremendous heroism. Not just Wilson’s artistic heroism after he stopped touring with the Beach Boys to stay home to create masterpieces and battle mental health issues, but also the heroism of Brian’s future wife Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) who’d eventually save him from Landy, and get him back out into the world where he is now. In terms of cinematic virtue, Love[...]

Column 31: It Follows, Unfriended, and Fresh Take on Horror Music

May 13, 2015

While the summer movie season has just begun with the box office wrecking ball of The Avengers, I thought it was worth taking one last look back at the spring. Spring is often the dump season, where studios get rid of whatever excess cargo they deemed not prestigious enough for awards season or not bankable enough for the upcoming summer. This spring, however, featured some surprise success in what is one of film’s most frequently uninspired genres, horror. Over the last couple months, movie goers were treated to the release of two brilliant micro-budget horror films, which not only found clever ways to rethink the supernatural slasher genre, but to also rethink the music of the genre. Let’s start with It Follows, a film built in the vein of 80’s John Carpenter horror films along with the nostalgic beauty and quiet melancholy of The Virgin Suicides. The film’s central conceit –[...]

Column 30: Rick Masi’s On the Level: A Love Letter to Buffalo and the Sounds of the City

April 24, 2015

Tomorrow at the Amherst Theatre, will be the grand cinematic debut of one of Buffalo’s most exciting new voices, Rick Masi. His first feature-length film, On the Level, is a thrilling neo-noir about a teenage boy investigating the death of his brother and those he meets on the quest for answers. Masi’s  independently-funded feature debut was conceived as a love letter to the city he calls home and is chalk full of local talent. The film also rather excitingly features a whole soundtrack produced by some of Buffalo’s most talented up-and-coming artists. Earlier this week, I sat down with the film maker and some of the film’s featured artists to talk about the project. buffaBLOG: So tell me about On the Level? Rick Masi: Well, its a neo-noir drama about a teenager named CJ and his journey to find his brother’s killer. As he starts pealing away the layers, he realizes[...]

Column 29: The Influence and Legacy of The Breakfast Club

April 3, 2015

As the 1970s came to a close, pop music found itself at a crossroads, Power rock bands like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin had ruled the back end of the decade, inspiring a generation of cartoon-ish imitators that would produce the Hair Metal of the 80s. But meanwhile, the start of a new movement was bubbling under the end of the late 70s, a generation was growing up on the angst and melancholy romanticism of bands like Joy Division and The Cure. This new sound would set the template for what would become the New Wave music of the 80s. This new musical movement would come to envelop and define the youth culture of the era. It should perhaps then be no surprise that young audiences were rejecting the simplistic archetypes and false emotion of the bubblegum high school movies of the time. This was until John Hughes. Drawing upon inspiration[...]