Latest Posts

Tonight: Melt-Banana

May 16, 2015

Japan, it would appear, went off the deep end into wackiness sometime in the 80s; since the 90s, its capitalism-meets-schizophrenia, rampant-consumerist culture has had a disaffected release in Melt-Banana. The Tokyo-based four-piece mixes punk and pop and noise into an wall of WTF cerebral madness, both chaotic and precise, with energetic, melodically barked vocals that sounds like the soundtrack to an epilepsy inducing Japanese commercial for fish lightbulbs or something. Backed by a prominent, grindcore-leaning rhythm section, and guitar that often slips into circuit-bent, sound-effect territory, Yasuko Onuki’s lyrics are a hyperactive word salad, delivered with undeniable fervor. I was a fan for years before I even realized they were in English; even though it was catchy enough to sing along with, I’d just be shouting stuff like “punch kick punch!” like I had too much candy while playing Street Fighter Turbo at the neon game works. The band is crazy[...]

crontab -u john Releases GIRLS EP

June 4, 2014

Not really sure who crontab -u john is, other than that it’s a producer who just relocated to Buffalo from the small island-nation of Canada, but I am super high on his recently released Girls EP. Perhaps knowing that I’m wildly desensitized to boring regular indie rock and can only get off on weird shit and hard-as-fuck gangster rap anymore, a fellow buffaBLOGGER sent me a link to the Bandcamp page. A tinny and claustrophobic cluster of angsty tracks, Girls sounds like what would happen if David Byrne and The Birthday Party got tricked into boarding a time machine in 1981, but it turned out it wasn’t actually a time machine, it was actually just the hard drive from a shitty mid-00s laptop, oh, and the Butthole Surfers and Fucked Up were in there too, but instead of instruments they were playing circuits. So, in the end, it sort of[...]

Tonight: Party at the Polish Library

May 10, 2014

Over the last couple years, a weird thing’s happened in the Buffalo music scene: a ton of mid-level rock music clubs closed. With the departure of long-time staples like Mohawk Place, Soundlab, The Vault, and even, like, that place that used to be Blue Monk, most area bands and promoters have been forced to shoot for either opening slots at bigger downtown halls, or organize house parties at one of the myriad, illegal basements. This kinda sucked on one hand, but on the other, it forced local music to adjust, and move beyond its arguable state of atrophy; things kinda had to change. So bands broke up and re-organized in better forms, and new, oddball venues started getting a lot of traction. One place that’s picked up a bunch of otherwise homeless show ideas is the Polish Library (612 Fillmore Ave) – a weird but welcoming East Side locale with[...]

Tonight: Hot Date

May 3, 2014

If getting your brain guts all twisted up is something you’re into tonight, we’d like to suggest checking out Hot Date at Dreamland. Seeking to free the upright bass from the strict role of accompaniment, this NYC duo uses the instrument as a centerpiece to weave convoluted sonic textures. Sometimes minimal and straight-forward, then at turns glitchy and dark, Hot Date delve into some seriously thought-provoking, and often startling, sonic terrain. Performances by Wild Gone Girls, Kyle Butler, and Buffalo’s under-recognized anti-classical cellist T.J. Borden (with Ravi Padmanahba) round out a night of audio/visual noise and exploration. Bring a hot date, but bring one of those orange ladies that don’t seem to have many brain guts; see how well THAT goes.