Buffalo Rising Trend

By Dick Shaner May 2006, Carla MacNeil, violin in hand, and Stephen Stanley walked on stage at a low-key gig at Mitzi's Sister in downtown Toronto. In Carla's own words, the night was a "glad you missed it" affair, but the week of rehearsal leading up to the gig had been enough to get Stanley excited enough to dig into a major change of musical direction. "I knew that I wanted to introduce a violin into the new songs, but I hadn't bargained on finding someone to share lead vocals with." Instantly, the idea of forming a post-Low band was dropped, the new duo was where it was going... Sta...

Pretend, for a moment, that we were to play the word association game. As you know, the one and only rule is that you’re to blurt out the first word that comes to mind as soon as you hear the subject given. Ready? And… “Influential Rock Icon”! Do you have your answer? Good. Now imagine having this person or group suddenly playing for you and 25 others in your living room… It’s quite a striking thought, yes? Such was the case for local musician Michele Buono this past 23rd of September, when she hosted singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh in her home, enthralling a small, ...

Jublith Moore, co-artistic director of Theatre of Yugen in San Francisco, spent a week in-residency at the Buffalo Seminary back in October. She imparted on the students Noh techniques – also known as Japanese musical drama. From their learning experience, the students are pleased to present their fall production – “At the Hawk’s Well” by William Butler Yeats, the first English play to use those techniques. The Theatre of Yugen is 30 years old and is an experimental theatre ensemble dedicated to discovering that which can never be obtained – yugen, an essence so mysterious that...

Whether you’re entertaining a dinner guest or having a sleep over, everyone’s experienced a bad guest - that person who won’t be invited back (unless they’re family and you have no choice). That happened to a man named Moss Hart back in the 1930s. Hart constantly collaborated with famed playwright George S. Kaufman and had just entertained Alexander Woollcott, a famous radio personality from that time period, and had quite a traumatic experience. From that, “The Man Who Came To Dinner” was born. Hart was remarking to Kaufman what a horrid experience it was – Woollcott complai...

Steven Heller is the art director of the NY Times Book Review and has authored dozens of books on graphic design and popular culture. One of his latest books covering international design world: The Design Entrepreneur: Turning Graphic Design Into Goods That Sell features 2 Buffalo based designers: Julian Montague and Richard Kegler. The book surveys "the innovative entrepreneurial options a broad group of contemporary graphic designers have engaged in over the past decade, while also addressing the creative, fabrication an...

Ever since the piano was invented, it has been an instrument to draw crowds to hear those talented enough to wield its keys. As an artist grows in prowess and fame, their crowds get larger, the venues get more spacious, and to be fair, something is lost. What could be more pleasurable, more intimate, than sitting in the same room as a talented musician as his fingers dance along the ivory? You certainly can’t find that at any concert hall – not unless you’re willing to shell out large sums of money for front row seats. What would it have been like to sit in the same room as the compo...

By Shanice Cherry Lyndsey D’Arcangelo’s “The Trouble with Emily Dickinson” is a refreshing novel that tells the tale of a childlike love between two High School girls, JJ and Kendal. As a result of Kendal, a popular cheerleader at Sampson Academy needing help in her Women’s Literature class she meets JJ a not so popular, intelligent writer/poet and basketball player who happens to be a lesbian. The saga begins when an unlikely love begins to flourish and High school social scenes begin to collide as a result Kendal and JJ’s interaction with one another. What makes “The Tro...

Buffalo is among 149 of the coolest cities in the world. Why, you might ask? Well, our fine city is one of 149 cities, from Adelaide to Zürich, to host a Pecha Kucha Night. Pecha what? I thought you'd never ask. Perhaps the founders of Pecha Kucha Night in Tokyo explain it best: Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture, Tokyo), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers and architects to meet, network, and show their work in public. But as we all know, give a mic to a designer (especially an architect) and you'll be trapped for ...

If you have yet to find yourself in the holiday spirit, Alleyway has the cure for the holiday blues. Back for its 26th season is Charles' Dickens A Christmas Carol. Renowned British actor John Smeathers returns to Buffalo to portray Ebenezer Scrooge. Alleyway boasts that this is one of the longest running annual productions in the country and has touched people's hearts for decades during the holiday season, playing to over 100,000 people since its premiere at Alleyway. Directed and adapted by Neal Radice. Even in troubled times, Neal Radice is certain that this show will remind us of the...

You won’t find Monet, Picasso or van Gogh lining the walls of El Museo. Looking into the gallery’s windows at its location on Allen Street, you might however find a sight that is seldom seen in major galleries and studios—you just may find you see your own life reflected on the walls. El Museo specializes in all types of minority art—from Hispanic, African American and Asian to underrepresented groups in the community such as LGBT and elder art. Exhibited artists come not only from Western New York but from across the world. Presenting exhibits that reflect their own experiences,...

There's a new print shop on Tonawanda Street in Buffalo, and they're doing some very cool artwork. Pedal Printing's Isaac Menge and Eric "Biff" Bifaro have opened shop at 547 Tonawanda Street, and the posters are rolling out. In business for just over a year, they have a current list of clients that include local businesses like Campus Wheel Works and Righteous Babe Records, as well as Vegan Treats Bakery in Pennsylvania. The also do a lot of work for national touring hard rock and punk bands, such as

The economic crunch will soon be taking its toll on some things you may not expect. Yearly events like Shakespeare in Delaware Park that are partially funded by Erie County are having their budgets slashed in the interest of spreading the budget as far as it will go. Currently, their summer productions are facing a 53 percent reduction in the funding that they receive from the county. That significant slash is one that may cut them too deep to be able to perform next year. Though they have a letter you can send to the co...

When gas was 31 cents a gallon, Frank A. Sedita was Mayor and OJ Simpson was just beginning his career here, Laura Pedersen was just a kid. Since then, Pedersen has become a millionaire on the American Stock Exchange, a journalist with The New York Times and a best-selling author. Her latest work, Buffalo Gal, is a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud memoir of growing up in the snowy, industrial city of Buffalo during the 1960's and 1970's. In Buffalo Gal, Pedersen shares stories that ring all too familiar in 2008: stories of cold winters, conserving and cost cutting in a ti...

Christian Baldini, Music Director & Conductor of the UB Symphony Orchestra for the State University of New York at Buffalo is one more treasure we can add to our list of attributes. The Argentinian with Italian and Lebanese parentage, much like the music he puts forth, is a study in classics melded with passion, and his leadership of the UB orchestra and ensemble are a boon to UB and Buffalo as a whole. Just back from guest conducting Britten's opera "The Rape of Lucretia" for the Aldeburgh Festival in England, Baldini is ready to conduct UB's Symphony Orchestra this Sunday at 8PM, for a...

Trimming the Blue Hairs, written by Cristin Frank, is an all-ages story that's likely to touch your heart and make you laugh out loud. Set in the Greater Buffalo area, Trimming the Blue Hairs shows the transformation of a hot-shot hair stylist into a visitor in the homes of the elderly, to do their hair. At 25, Ella Boyce goes from selfish and absent minded, to sensitive and sweet. What starts as just doing the hair of her neighbor, turns into a new career and lifestyle. As her new life unravels, so does her romance with Quinn, an admirable character with a big ...

Experimental film is a genre unlike any other. Don’t go expecting for a happy ending. Don’t go always expecting to even understand what you've seen. It takes an open mind, a love of filmmaking, the art of critiquing, and the ability to reflect to really get into the vision of the experimental filmmaker. The hardest part about delving into such a genre is that it isn’t always easy to find experimental films. It isn’t as though you can walk into the local Blockbuster and find a rare experimental film. Thankfully, for the experimental film buff and those looking to explore the fringes...

The collective announces its upcoming production of the hard-hitting blue-collar drama, Drop Hammer by Emanuel Fried, November 13th through December 14th. Set in a working class bar on Buffalo’s East Side in the late 1950s, DROP HAMMER speaks unflinching to issues that have plagued working people and their Unions for far too long – corruption, blacklists, red-baiting, the flight of industry to non-Union areas, and much, much more. DROP HAMMER offers a vibrant look back on Buffalo’s working class history with many lessons that are all too relevant to Unions and working peop...

The Buffalo Arts Studio is located in the Tri-Main Center. It has over thirty artists in residence and as a non-for-profit studio its aim is just to give those artists an affordable studio space for public exposure, exhibitions, art classes, mural programs, and public art. Once a year, the studio holds its Artists Exhibit and Sale. If you’re looking for some cheap art, this is the place to do it. Buffalo Spree even dubbed it the best place to do so in 2007. With works ranging from $200-$500, every kind of artistry will be represented. From ceramics and paintings, to photography and sculp...

Zilly Rosen of Zillycakes is having too much fun, and she spreads it around like sweet, sweet icing. "I'm a Chicago-born Democrat," Zilly stated. "So I came down hard for Obama. I decided to throw my creative energy into the mix," she said of the impetus to build her sweet tribute--a portrait of Obama, made entirely of cupcakes. "Whether he had won or lost," she added, "this was a campaign that changed the world." It started with Zilly's church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, because they hav...

Once upon a time, Gary Sperrazza owned a shop on Elmwood Avenue known as Apollo Records. Sperrazza displayed his wares in row upon row of black bins, rimmed with day-glo pink marker. Anyone who looked into the windows could almost see everything at once, while the beat beckoned them in. If a patron cared to, Sperrazza would educate them on every type of music they could imagine, and he was frequently responsible for putting the oddest genre combinations together. "I had a total cross-cultural thing going. When a DJ would come in from the other side of town, I'd cue up what we were play...