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Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v7n26 (06/26/2008) » Section: See You There


Exile on Allen Street (June 28)

Artvoice teams up with Channel 7 to raise money for Variety Club and Children’s Hospital with the help of a couple dozen local bands who’ve selected two songs each from the voluminous catalog of the World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band, the Rolling Stones. If you think you know these tracks because they’ve been burned into your subconscious through years of classic rock radio, be prepared to hear them reinterpreted. Jagger and Richards (the Glimmer Twins) don’t always get the songwriting kudos they deserve—then again, maybe it’s easy to take their music for granted, since it’s been a big part of pop culture for 45 years and counting. Highlights are sure to include the folky Liz Abott Band taking a run at the early Richards tune “Connection,” AV publisher Jamie Moses and his band delivering “Dead Flowers,” and Robby Takac’s side-project Amungus having a go at “Beast of Burden.” Add to this sensory feast some mind-blowing images courtesy of world-renowned big rock show video guy Jeff Garbaz. For a complete list of bands and songs to be covered, visit Artvoice.com/rollingstones.



Rocky Horror Weekend (June 27 & 28)

It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right…what do you mean, you don’t know how to do the “Time Warp?” Perhaps you’re too young to have participated in the ultimate interactive movie experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or perhaps your [ahem] pelvic thrust has just gotten a little rusty since the tradition faded away at the turn of the century, after nearly two decades as a regular midnight feature at local theaters. Dig out your fishnet stockings and bustiers, because RHPS is making a return visit this weekend at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center as a benefit in support of programs of the Arts Council in Buffalo & Erie County, and as part of Buffalo Homecoming Weekend. There will be midnight screenings on both Friday and Saturday, along with a special early show on Saturday at 10am hosted by Bruce Jackson and Dianne Christian, who will give a pre-screening discussion, for those of you who can’t stay up late anymore. Friday night’s program begins at 9pm with a special Rocky Horror VIP party in the Arts Council Community Artists Gallery space adjacent to the theater at 700 Main Street. Friday night’s party tickets are $20 and include hors d’oeuvres and beverages as well as movie admission, audience participation package and, should you need them, “Time Warp” dance lessons. Saturday’s events are $10 in advance and $12 at performance time. Call 856.7520 for advance tickets.



The Life of Reilly (June 30)

These days, David Granville works on community development matters for the City of Buffalo, but in the early 1990s he happily toiled in the world of theater. Among his jobs was a stint as assistant to Charles Nelson Reilly when the popular comic actor was directing a production of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow at Shea’s, starring Metropolitan Opera star Roberta Peters. It was an experience Granville still treasures. In the year or so before his death in 2007, Reilly toured in The Life of Reilly, a one-man autobiographical show he co-wrote with Paul Linke. On Monday, Granville is presenting the motion picture made of one of the very last performances of that show. Reilly was a Tony-winning Broadway actor, drama teacher, and respected director as well as the comedic celebrity who enlivened television games shows. In his show, he gracefully and wittily recounted adventures in a life that was marked by elements of “American Gothic” and youthful heartbreak, including an institutionalized father, a bigoted mother, and the isolating anxiety of being young and gay in the early 1940s. Granville calls this a “pay-what-you-can preview” of the forthcoming DVD of the movie, so the admission price is contingent on a person’s budget and impulse.



Green Jello (July 3)

It’s been 15 years since Buffalo’s own rock-n-roll puppet show has performed at home, but next Thursday, July 3, Green Jello oozes into town for a show at Club Infinity. Back in 1993 when the Jello tour rolled through Buffalo, the band was flying high on the success of their hit song and video, “The Three Little Pigs.” Over the years, most of the members from that incarnation of the band moved on to various other careers (and some of us, myself, Joe Cannizzaro, and Michael “Rootin” Bloomquist have even moved back to Buffalo) but the original founding member, Bill Manspeaker, never gave up on the band. Through the years he kept things going in L.A. with a new line-up, playing shows and creating a huge underground music and arts community. Manspeaker has always had a great gift for making the impossible possible, so it came as no surprise when he called to tell me that Green Jello was hitting the road again this summer on a 72-day tour of the U.S. Interest in the band has never been higher, and there is talk of some tour dates in Europe and South America later in the year. Bill has talked with lots of new fans who recall their parents playing their Green Jello CDs and videos, and the kids have been waiting for their chance to witness the spectacle for themselves. All of the favorite foam characters will be there when Jello hits the stage: The Cow God, Shitman, Marshall Staxx, The Skajaquada (a giant snow monster named for Buffalo’s expressway) and of course the three pigs and their nemesis, the big bad wolf, will all be on hand to create the mayhem and magic of a Green Jello extravaganza.





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