Gilbert Gottfried
Thursday 9/17: 8pm / Friday 9/18: 7:30pm & 10pm / Saturday 9/19: 7:30pm & 10pm Helium Comedy Club, 30 Mississippi St. (853-1211 / heliumcomedy.com) $20-$33
In 1987, Gilbert Gottfried made his debut appearance on Howard Stern’s radio program. Although it went unspoken, the host and his guest had somewhat overlapping lives. Both men were in their early 30s and clinging to the fringes of show business. Both were Jewish nerds who had come to age as outsiders in rough patches of New York and the East village in a predominantly back area of Long Island; Gottfriend in pre-chic Brooklyn and the East Village of burning tenements and open-air heroin bazaars. He found escape and salvation through the junky pop culture of monster movies, super heroes, rock n roll, and comedy. Gottfried has been in the comedy scene for more than 40 years and has more than a hundred acting credits to his name. He was a Saturday Night Live cast member for a single season in 1980-91 before he cultivated his signature neurotically shrill delivery and began balancing mainstream fare with often extremely raunchy stand-up. His version of the Aristocrats joke, as immortalized in the 2005 documentary “The Aristocrats,” is one of the most detailed and graphic around, and his provocative nature has made him a popular, controversial performer on Comedy Central and Friars’ Club Roasts. He’s going be at Helium Comedy Club this Thursday, Friday and Saturday so don’t miss your chance to see a comedian legend.
> Peter McCallister
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Peter Rowan
8pm Iron Works, 49 Illinios St. (200-1893 / buffaloironworks.com) $25
The father of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe once said that bluegrass has brought more people together, and made more friends, than any music in the world. On Friday, the city of good neighbors will make new friends as bluegrass musician and composer Peter Rowan takes the stage at Iron Works (9/18 @8pm). Rowan, a Grammy Award winner and six-time Grammy Award nominee, is a singer-songwriter with a career spanning more than five decades. At the age of 17, he performed with Monroe until his early 20s, when he branched out on his own in Nashville, Tenn., as a solo musician. “I was 17 when Bill Monroe was on tour,” Rowan Says. “A friend recommended me to him and we played a big show in Boston. Monroe then invited me to be a part of his Bluegrass Boys, and for me it was the greatest. I played with him until I was 22 or 23, then I stayed in Nashville for some years. Monroe once said to me, ‘If you can lay my music, you can lay any kind of music.’” Rowan has since released two acclaimed solo albums, The First Whipporwill and Bluegrass Boy, as well as High Lonesome Cowboy, a recording of traditional and old-time mountain music. His latest release Quartet, has kept him busy on an impressive international tour. Don’t miss out when he rolls on through this weekend.
> Jeffrey Czum
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Buffablog Presents: Taking Back Saturday
10pm Milkie’s, 522 Elmwood Ave. (buffablog.com) $5
It’s time to dust off your high school Vagrant Records messenger bag and that threadbare, slim-fit Get Up Kids shirt, because buffaBLOG is bringing you back to the “it” genre of the early 2000s. We’re talking about emo of course, a genre populated by impassioned and sensitive punks who wear their hearts on their sleeve. For one night only (every few months), buffaBLOG presents Taking Back Saturday, a night dedicated to a time where checkered Chucks and thick black eyeliner were more than just a phase. Each event in the series will feature former and current players in the Buffalo NY emo scene. This time around, guest DJs include Jeffrey Czum (Cute is What We Aim For), Anthony Musior (Mandy K), and Nick Sessanna (In Motion). The night starts at 10pm and is only $5. Poseurs are allowed.
> Ronald Walczyk
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Built to Spill
7pm Town Ballroom, 681 S. Main St. (852-3900 / townballroom.com) $22-$25
It’s suspiciously easy to overlook the existential side of Boise, Idaho’s Built To Spill, a seasoned but frequently rotating ensemble centered on avuncular frontman Doug Martsch. There are brighter enticements to the band’s amiably fractured rock: Martsch’s arresting guitar solos, the songs’ devil-may-care structural assembly, the whole package’s never-duplicated ability to channel Neil Young, the Pixies, and the Butthole Surfers, sometimes within the same phrase. Nevertheless, there’s always been a surprisingly dark coffeehouse-philosopher vibe underneath all the winning quirks – it’s even implicit in the band’s name. Untethered Moon, the band’s eighth studio album lays those questing tendencies as bare as any before it. Picking up the moody threads of its predecessor, 2009’s There Is No Enemy, the record focuses sharply on the various kinds of cosmic disquiet that come with, as ‘Living Zoo” puts it, “being human / being an animal, too.” The first act tackles notions of civic unrest, immortality through art and the perishability of memory; all of this before culminating, in “Some Other Song,” with a note of touching vulnerability: ‘I don’t know how to not fall apart / Please tell me how to never fall apart.” The album will definitely please any fan of the group’s previous releases and it will be sure to welcome new listeners as well. Don’t miss Built To Spill when they come to Town Ballroom this Monday evening (9/21 @7pm).
> Jeffrey Czum
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Alabama Shakes
7pm Artpark, 450 South 4th St., Lewiston (754-4375 / artpark.net) $35-$45
Back in 2011, when Alabama Shakes played what was to become their debut single, “Hold On,” in a small record shop for the Live From The Shoals recording series, it was singer/guitarist Brittany Howard’s combustible energy that stood out. Barefoot and wearing glasses, she exploded around the two-minute mark as her bandmates nod their heads approvingly. Fast-forward four years and Alabama Shakes’ has a No. 1 album on the Billboard “Top 200.” They’ve performed at some of this summer’s biggest music festivals and on Tuesday (9/22 @8pm), the band will be kicking things off at Artpark. Howard’s emergence as one of the most memorable front woman in recent rock-and-roll history seems all but written in the scrolls. “We played with Prince a few months ago,” she says. “That was amazing. He just called and asked if we would stop by and do a show.” Not too bad for a four-piece band from the tiny town of Athens, Alabama. In early reviews, critics noted that the Alabama Shakes borrowed heavily from ‘50s and ‘60s-era rhythm and blues to project a purist sensibility and pay homage to a sound that had been forgotten. Howard elaborates: “An important part of being in a band is the rhythm section. If you go back and listen to the best rhythm sections, you’re going to find the Meters and the JBs and all of these studio players.” When artists revisit sounds from a different era – whether it’s Pharrell Williams or Leon Bridges – sonic nods are almost a necessity because “everybody is paying homage to everybody.” Don’t miss your chance to see Alabama Shakes give a wild performance next week.
> Jeffrey Czum
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Godflesh
7pm The Tralf Music Hall, 622 Main St. (852-2860 / tralfmusichall.com) $26-$30
With the formation of Godflesh in 1988, members Justin Broadrick and G.C. Green of the UK group launched a genre. Their sludgy, bass heavy industrial, perhaps best showcased on their 1989 debut album, Streetcleaner, went on to influence countless industrial and post-rock acts. The band, who initially disbanded in 2002, got back together to tour several years ago, finally made their way over to the United States, and recently released their first new music last year with their release, A World Lit Only by Fire. “It’s getting straight back to the core of what it was all about,” says Broadrick. “I think having a break from Godflesh has probably even inspired it more... When you make records over the years, you change as people, you change as musicians, you progress, you develop and you take other styles on. But I think, having a break from it and to come back it to it, it seems that we’ve gone straight back into what the essence of it was originally, and that’s why it feels good.” Broadrick and Green will be bringing Godflesh to The Tralf this Tuesday night (9/22 @8pm).
> Jeffrey Czum
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