Latest Posts

Hospitality

September 24, 2014

On October 1st, Buffalo will welcome Jeff Tweedy (and his son Spencer) to the stage of the Town Ballroom for a performance in support of the frontman’s (of Wilco fame, for the few of you who didn’t know) solo album, Sukierae. Opening support on their fall tour comes from Hospitality, a buzzy avant-pop three-piece from Brooklyn, and buffaBLOG was lucky enough to catch up with the band’s bassist, Brian Betancourt, for a little Q&A a few days before the show. Touching on subjects including Hospitality’s 2014 full-length Trouble and ambidexterity, Brian and the blog hit it off well. A warning: both Brian and the blog have the same initials (BB / bB), so read carefully! buffaBLOG: Your latest album Trouble is decidedly spacious and even dark at times, which is a bit of a stylistic departure from your self-titled. I read that the new sound was intentional, what kind of efforts went into[...]

Keller Williams

September 16, 2014

It’s Friday, September 12th, which means Keller Williams’ show at the Tralf is exactly one week away. I sat down to call him on one of those typical, overcast Buffalo mornings of early fall. You know, where the chill makes it hard to get out of bed, and you realize how much you’re still holding on to summer. It’s his second day at the much warmer Utopiafest in south-central Texas, and he’s getting ready to play a set with Grateful Grass, one of the many side projects in which he currently dabbles. They just released their second of two live albums in August—a fundraising initiative to benefit the REX Foundation, a non-profit started by the Grateful Dead. Appropriately, it’s titled DOS. buffaBLOG: Last time I saw you was at Summer Camp in May with More Than a Little. How’s your summer been? Keller Williams: It’s been super fun. It kind of[...]

Hooray For Earth’s Noel Heroux

August 14, 2014

Upfront, I just have to tell you that I’ve been dying to see Hooray For Earth since Janauary of last year. A Johnny Come Lately to their 2011 debut, True Loves, after somebody on the blog (probably Mike Moretti) flagged them as a band to check out for their “M83 but weird” vibe, their show at the Ninth Ward was high on my list after 2012’s M83 blowout. Formed in 2005 as the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Noel Heroux, Hooray For Earth became a hit with music bloggers thanks to the incredibly solid True Loves, which earned the moniker “cult favorite” and marked the band as one to watch. Unfortunately, fate cruelly intervened to scotch the show. Fast forward to this July and the release of Hooray For Earth’s sophomore effort, Racy. Guitar driven and more in your face than its predecessor, Racy represents something of a departure for Heroux and Hooray[...]

Weatherbox

July 17, 2014

In honor of their show next week at the Waiting Room, we sat down with Weatherbox frontman Brian Warren for an intimate look into his life since the release of their stellar new album, Flies in all Directions. You can catch the band this upcoming Tuesday, July 22 with Dikembe and local support from Brother Keep and Del Paxton. buffaBLOG: You guys are playing in Buffalo on July 22… have you ever played here before? Brian Warren: I have to admit that I don’t recall… you can Google it? We had a drummer from Buffalo. He was in the band from 2009 to 2011, so I think we stayed there on tour. bB: Well, you guys are from San Diego right? Do you think that living there has a lot of effect on your music? BW: Um… There are definitely a handful of my favorite bands that are from San Diego… For[...]

Five Questions with Fat Creeps

July 13, 2014

Local musician John Toohill (JOHNS and Alpha Hopper) will occasionally sit down with touring bands and ask them five questions. For his latest installment, he spoke with Mariam Saleh of Boston’s Fat Creeps, set to play Buffalo tomorrow at Spiral Scratch Records. John Toohill: Hi. Are you awake? Mariam Saleh: Yupp! JT: Great! Question 2 – So I heard your band is named after all the insects the bullies made you eat as kids. Do you still eat bugs and night crawlers for song inspiration or do you just kinda like how they taste now? MS: You can get use to almost anything. That shit grows on you after a while. Stink bugs: not that bad. Not that bad at all JT: So I should just accept my strange childhood traumas and name my band “Alone at Lunch Again” or “Senior Poopy Pants?” MS: Naw, “shit guy.” Title your first release[...]

Miniature Tigers

July 10, 2014

The guys of Miniature Tigers just can’t sit still. Originally from Phoenix, Charlie Brand, the lead singer of the indie-pop outfit, has called home to a number of places- including Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Austin. Safe to say that the band’s musical style changes roughly as much as their home base, and that’s not a bad thing. Their latest album, Cruel Runnings – a confident summer record stuffed with solid synthpop songs that WILL get stuck in your head— paints an entirely different picture than that of their 2008 debut Tell It To The Volcano, but no matter how drastic the stylistic departure may be from album to album, Miniature Tigers always seem to wind up with songs worth grooving to. buffaBLOG was able to get a few questions in just before the band left for an extensive full US tour with The Griswolds. Brand discusses recording in the tropics, going[...]

Psychic Teens

June 24, 2014

If you happened to make it out to buffaBLOG’s Herd Fest this past weekend, you may have heard something about a little band from Philadelphia called Psychic Teens. Now if you were fortunate enough, you actually got to catch their set at Allen Street Hardware, as part of Sugar City’s showcase. And if you missed their set, well, then shame on you. Needless to say, the brotherly love trio (singer/ guitarist Larry Ragone, bassist Joe Decarolis, and drummer Dave Cherasaro) made an impression on Buffalo this past weekend, brandishing their own brand of gothic, art-punk with some post-punk tendencies. As one attendee said, “I just got blasted by Psychic Teens,” while extending his jaw attempting to make his ears pop. “Did you catch them?” he asked me. However before I could answer, partly due to being unable to hear him, he said, “I totally forgot my plugs. They are definitely[...]

Tonight: An Evening With moe.

June 19, 2014

Earlier this week, I put out an article featuring an interview with moe. drummer Vinnie Amico. Tonight, he and the band will be coming to Canalside for a free show at Buffalo’s waterfront venue. To see the part of the interview where he reminisces about his Buffalo roots, and for a preview of moe.’s impending show, check out the article beyond. With their first Buffalo appearance of the year, moe. will be spending an evening at the Harbor, in the city where their humble beginnings as a local bar band first brought them into the public eye. In a conversation I had with Vinnie a few weeks ago, we spent some time talking about Buffalo as the city that fostered both his and moe.’s growth as musicians. They’ve come a long way since playing in those dingy bars littered around the city, so I asked him what kind of meaning[...]

A Time of Music, The Music of Time

June 17, 2014

As far as bands go, there are many comparisons you could hail in speaking between the two. They each frolic on the edge of rock, offering a heavy improvisational approach to their music that transcends the boundary of genre and gives a dynamic sense of adventure to their respective sounds. And just as moe. cut their teeth around the gritty Buffalo bar scene before breaking into regions far and wide, so too did Aqueous, albeit over a decade later. But around here the footprints still feel fresh, and time has a funny way of morphing conceptions, of turning prodigies into legends and making legends seem they always were. Though maybe that’s just my tendency towards romantic analogy when it comes to music. After all, I’m still young, and I can’t say that I was entirely present for either group’s ascension to their current music posts. To start, moe. came up[...]

Joshua Smith of Black Dots

June 10, 2014

You have most likely walked by it a thousand times. You’ve probably totally ignored it, like it was invisible, like a vagrant. If it was a two headed mythological serpent of the future, it would have offered you it’s forbidden fruit. It sits drunkenly on the corner of Grant Street and Lafayette Avenue, like Dylan Thomas over a typewriter, directly across from Sweetness 7 Cafe. I am of course talking of Black Dots record shop. If you have ever wandered into the basement record store, you are familiar with it’s owner Joshua Smith. Smith can usually be found sitting behind the counter with the glow of his laptop dancing across his scruffy face.  Always sporting jeans and an obscure punk T-shirt, Smith will give a gentle nod as you enter the store, and calmly go back to his computer. He has a quiet demeanor, but if you can engage him,[...]

Jake Smith of The White Buffalo

April 29, 2014

Jake Smith stands in the back hallway of The Irving Plaza, the music venue that lives in the East Village of Manhattan. Smith’s band, The White Buffalo, will be playing in a few short hours, along with co-headliner Chuck Ragan, a tour that Smith’s publicist has personally coined, as ‘the manliest tour.’ After one look at Smith, you can see why that title just may stick. “That’s a little strange,” he says of the tour’s coined nickname, “But in a lot of respects, there’s not a lot of bullshit on this tour.” He adds, “we [Ragan and opener Johnny 2 Bags] all write honest songs and try to form them unabashed, and without compromise, we try to write good songs, songs that people can believe in.” When your wife informs you that she has been cheating on you with another man and is leaving, Jake Smith is the kind of[...]

The Tins

April 22, 2014

Hello and welcome to the first in what I hope to become an ongoing series where we check in with various local bands to ask that question that pops into our head from time to time, “what are they up to” these days. It has been a little while since we last heard from The Tins after they initially took Buffalo by storm in 2012. And, judging from this interview and their recent logo contest (submissions due April 25), they are preparing to come back with another string of solid releases. So, what are they up to? What is your band currently working on? Dave: We are currently prepping for our summer release.  We are all very excited! When was the last time you released an album? Adam: Back in 2012, when we released our first full-length, Life’s A Gas What has changed since your last release? Adam: We’re pretty much[...]