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Tonight: David Wax Museum

May 1, 2014

It’s finally May! I mean technically. I know it’s doesn’t actually feel like May as I saw a guy wearing ear muffs this morning. Ear muffs! However, it is May 1st. How are you going to celebrate the flowerious month? How about a show at the 9th Ward in Babeville? David Wax Museum will be taking the stage tonight at the 9th Ward. If you’re not familiar with the duo, think Gaslight Anthem with a dash of Americana and Los Lobos. David Wax and Suz Slezak are the creative and aesthetic core of David Wax Museum. They fuse folk, Americana, and South-Western effortlessly to create a sound that is timeless. Also playing with David Wax Museum this evening will be alt-country’s rising star, Rusty Belle. Doors open at 8pm, $12 at the door.

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[...]

Tonight: Local H

April 28, 2014

Local H, the Zion, Illinois native grunge act, is celebrating twenty four years as a band this year. If you are like me, you have not seen the alternative rock veterans with their new drummer, Ryan Harding. Harding marks the third to sit behind the drum kit. As a 90’s kid, I grew up with Joe Daniels, who appeared on the albums Ham Fisted, As Good As Dead, and Pack Up the Cats. Those albums produced such favorites as “Bound for the Floor,” “High Fiving Motherfucker” and “All the Kids Were Right”. I am also vaguely familiar with Brian St. Clair, but Daniels will always be my favorite “Darren.” After over two decades worth of work, Local H still manages to pique the interest of old fans and new fans a like. If you haven’t heard their cover of Australian sensation Lorde’s “Team,” you’re missing out. Local H has managed to[...]

The Afterbirth Tycoon Releases The Filthy Late Bloom

April 24, 2014

The ground is finally thawing and Buffalo is alive and well. To celebrate our survival of old man winter, several bands released new music this past weekend. The Afterbirth Tycoon is one of the bands which decided to get in on the celebration of spring with the righteously titled Late Bloom. Late Bloom is a 10 song, crusty, whiskey swilling, honky tonk bar brawl of a blues record. You can feel the broken beer bottles whizzing past your head with this one. The record makes you want to go out and do some day drinking out on Allen Street, and get into as many bar brawls as possible. Just make sure you have your bail money on the ready, though, because you have to work tomorrow. Late Bloom marks the first release from the band in nearly ten years. Originally formed in 1998 by Jason Pitcher (guitar/vocals) with a revolving door[...]

Sexist Releases Updated Demos

April 23, 2014

Since Record Store Day, everyone has been talking about Jack White’s new song, “Lazaretto,” the world’s fastest record. Seriously who cares about Jack White? Yes, he’s a genius, and he’s going to be making great records for years to come. Rather, let’s talk about Buffalo’s feminist riot grrrl outfit, Sexist, instead. Sexist not only played at Spiral Scratch for Record Store Day, but the trio also released some much anticipated demos. Now I know I have said in the past that you shouldn’t ever judge a band based on its demos, but after having a few conversations with these girls, I feel it is perfectly acceptable for Sexist Sexist Demo represents the Queen City girls perfectly. It’s chocked full of  fast, aggressive ammunition loaded ADD feminist anthems, from the opening audio clip of the right wing puppet Rush Limbaugh on “Respect” to the closing “I am Woman.” Still, the real[...]

Ancients Of Earth Releases Valley of the Suns LP

April 22, 2014

Ancients Of Earth is a grungy, psychedelic, blues stoner rock band from the Queen City. There isn’t anything like them in Buffalo right now. They are writing nine minute songs and are refusing to apologize for it. Formed in 2011 by Thomas Oliver Daulton (guitar/ vocals), Ryan Tomaka (bass) and Tyler Kurtz (drums), they first started out as a shoegaze outfit, an endeavor that was quickly scrapped. Ancients Of Earth’s first full length, Valley of the Suns, is everything that Queens of the Stone Age should have been after Kyuss disbanded in 1995. Equal parts, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Kyuss and Clutch, Valley of the Suns listens like an open letter. It’s full of sludge, peyote dreams, bareback horse rides through the Mojave desert and goblins, lots and lots of goblins. Don’t worry these are the nice kind of goblins, not the evil, soul engulfing goblins, but the ones who[...]

Tonight: Shilpa Ray

April 17, 2014

If you’re like me, you have a faux real job, such as a server, bartender or a barista. Not to say those aren’t real jobs, but let’s face it, monkeys could do our jobs, and probably with less attitude too. In our ‘desired’ vocations, we don’t get out to see shows all that often, considering a lot of shows fall of Fridays, Saturdays or the random weekdays we happen to work. However, tonight is a different case, Nietzsche’s has put together a show just for us (not really, but it’s nice to think so). Nietzsche’s will be hosting a plethora of talent this evening, most notably harmonium toating Brooklynite, Shilpa Ray, who, sans her Happy Hookers, will be bringing her own brand screaming indie roots rock to Allentown. Also on the bill will the Buffalo’s indie slacker rockers, Difficult Nights, The Coy Wolves and Nietzsche’s regular Pam Swarts. 7 bucks at[...]

Still Diggin’: Still Searchin’ for the ‘Holy Grail’

April 15, 2014

When I broke up with my ex girlfriend, Stephanie, it was a long time coming.  We just weren’t connecting. She was going through a transformation of sorts. She was trying to become this feminist stripper in the form of an incarnation of Frida Kahlo. I mean she had the unibrow thing going on, but everything else was a mess. We were sitting at her kitchen table in her cramped one bedroom apartment. You could tell that it was once a boarding house, by the way all of the doorways were too narrow to move anything wider than a drop leaf table through. And how the bathroom was ten yards from the bedroom.She started crying, and asked me to leave. I hesitated. “Just go!” she yelled. Now when a Stephanie is in an emotional state and tells you to leave, you do it, and if you don’t, well thats how you[...]

Like A Parrot Debut “Awkward Arm”

April 8, 2014

I just want to dance! Maybe it’s because it’s Tuesday or maybe it’s because Like a Parrot has just released the brand new track, “Awkward Arm.” Consisting of Aaron Bonus and Justin Gammella, Like a Parrot have been making music together for the past year, creating their own brand of indie dance-pop in the vein of Walter Meego. Gammella commented on their recording habits; “We are always writing new music. Our goal was to write 50 songs this year, while still working other jobs. Our next goal is to write at least 100 songs in a year when we are doing nothing but music.” In the past year, they have recorded with the likes of Bianca Dyrland of ARIA, with future collaborations set to include Dan Erickson and The Spin Wires. The name Like a Parrot is a tongue in cheek jab at the industry. “ In briefings we get[...]

Know Your Opener: Cheap Girls

April 8, 2014

Lester Bangs once wrote, “nothing ever quite dies, it just comes back in a different form.” Now Mr. Bangs could have been talking about a slew of things, however most likely he was speaking of music. Cheap Girls fits right into the quote by the late rock critic. The Lansing, Michigan natives’ sound is reminiscent of late 80’s alternative rock, a time when bands like Husker Du, The Replacements, Uncle Tupelo, and REM ruled the college radio air waves. After seven years and three studio albums – Find me a Drink Home (2008), My Roaring 20’s (2009) and Giant Orange (2012, the first album to be produced by Against Me’s Laura Jane Grace) – people are finally taking notice of the band. Currently on tour with Brooklyn’s The Hold Steady, Cheap Girls are on the verge of dropping their fourth studio album, Famous Graves, due out May 14th. “The phrase started taking[...]

Tonight: Screaming Females

April 6, 2014

There’s something ironic about having a band like New Jersey’s Screaming Females playing at Buffalo Iron Works. Something just doesn’t sit right with me. A band who has worked with the likes of Steve Albini playing at a venue that sells four dollar Pabst Blue Ribbons. Not that they have any say in a venue’s drink prices. It just doesn’t seem right is all. The Screaming Females scream Old Milwaukee and rot gut whiskey. They scream dirt, grime, and hepatitis. When you hear vocalist/ guitarist Marissa Paternoster belt out verses lines like, “I’m on a mission to smash the mirror/ Get myself off the scale,” you imagine it being in a dive bar in the deep swallows of the city. A place where you’d imagine to find an overdosed Iggy Pop, circa 1972, not in a bar in the cobblestone district with six dollar draft beers. I hope you made[...]

buffaBLOG 4th Birthday Party Artist Spotlight: Harmonica Lewinski

March 25, 2014

As much as we here at buffaBLOG love to write about bands from the Queen City; every once in a while we do take time out of our hectic schedules from dropping obscure references, and shotgunning PBR’s to talk about bands from Rochester. Today is one of those days, and Harmonica Lewinski is one of those bands. Chocked full of fuzz, distortion, ghostly guitar riffs, and echoed vocals, Lewinski’s latest release, Twerk Jerky, is a must have for any garage band enthusiast. They manage to channel Link Wray and the Sonics with true garage-punk elements. Afterall, how can you not love a band with members who go by handles like Captain Trash, Wild Hanes Stains Richards, Hooter McTooter, The Musical Linn Linn, Harold “Docks” (raw dawg n’ it) Jenkins, and Dirty Sanchez? Then again what would you expect from a band who met “in the basement of a gay club, in Rochester, NY[...]