8/31: Artvoice Pick: Light the Lakes

Seven towns across Chautauqua County will be holding what they hope to be “the largest collective fireworks display in North America”—a spectacle that will be visible from space during Labor Day weekend. The fireworks show will be held Sunday, August 31 at 10pm and will cover a 20-mile stretch along the shores of Lake Chautauqua and Lake Findley. Bemus Point, Findley Lake, Jamestown, Lakewood, Mayville, Chautauqua, Westfield, and Barcelona are the participating towns, all located on the lake. There will be activities held all weekend including live music, winery tours, a countywide yard sale, and even an OHL preseason hockey game between the Erie Otters and the Niagara Ice Dogs. There will be entertainment for all ages and interests, all along the beautiful shores of Lake Chautauqua. For a more comprehensive list of events visit ilovenylakes.com and click on the “Take Off Locations” link.

—justin sondel

10pm. All around Lake Chautauqua. FREE.

8/29: Rock for Food

Come out and party for a good cause at the seventh annual “Rock for Food” event at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery. A plethora of performers will take to two stages, including such local artists as the Scott Celani Band, Mo Porter, Dee Adams, Skyjuice, Korki & Lori, the Fated Grey, Melissa Kate, Rob Falgiano, Lenny Revell, and more. Enjoy drinks served by celebrity bartenders Mary Friona, Jodi Johnston and Matt Pearl from WGRZ Channel 2, Janet Snyder from Kiss 98.5, and Buffalo’s “Wing King” Drew Cerza. Tickets are $7 at the door, but discounts will be given to those who come bearing nonperishable food items. Included in the price of admission will be complimentary appetizers and drink specials. All proceeds benefit the Food Bank of Western New York. Additional information can be found at foodbankwny.org or scottcelani.com/RFF2008.html.

—justin sondel

4pm. Pearl Street Grill & Brewery, 76 Pearl Street (849-0839 / pearlstreetgrill.com). $7, or $5 with donation of non-perishable food item.

8/29: Nick Gordon CD Release

London vs. New York’s Nick Gordon is set to launch his sophomore release on Harvest Sum Records, City Where You Love To Lose Your Mind (see review in Left of the Dial, this issue). This is his second solo release this year, a follow up to last winter’s debut, It’s a Chemical Drag, But It’s Not That Bad. So far, as a solo artist Gordon has been as prolific as he’s been as guitarist for London vs. New York, with whom he’ll start recording a new album this month, a second release for them as well. City Where You Love To Lose Your Mind features an ensemble cast of local musicians as guest stars, and includes a tribute to his London vs. NY bandmate entitled “Stephen Goss is a Good Friend-a Mine.” Gordon may be charting his own path here, but he’s certainly not one to forget his roots. CDs will be on sale for “the very special price of $10 if you’ve got it, or $5 if you don’t.” Gordon will be joined by Shock Cousteau, Matt Frank, Al Larsen and Sleeping Kings of Iona, who’ll play the clean up set at 1am.

—k. o’day

9pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E Mohawk St. (855-3931 / www.mohawkplace.com). $5

8/29 & 8/30: Four Mad Humors Dance Project

Pounds Per Square Inch Performance and the New Alt Performance Group present a staged workshop this weekend, the end result of the Theater’s first summer residency. Four Mad Humours is an “international, inter-disciplinary, real time networked dance work,” the brainchild of choreographer Gerry Trentham, media design artist Jamie O’Neil, and filmmaker Michael Stecky. The project has formed over the past two years and counts 11 collaborators in all. The performances will be presented simultaneously in four different cities: Alt Theater director Amy Taravalla will perform the piece here in Buffalo, Trentham will perform in Toronto. Dancers/choreographers James Morrow and Deborah Dunn will present it in Chicago and Montreal, respectively. Taravella’s piece, with a working title of Ann, is the second in the four solo, four city series. This complicated, collaborative endeavor is probably best explained by the artists themselves, so stick around for the discussion following each night’s performance.

—k. o’day

7pm. ALT Theatre, 255 Great Arrow Ave. (868-6847 / www.alttheatre.com). $15/general; $10/students

8/30: The Hi-Risers

Mick Jagger has described rock-n-roll as “energy and three chords.” Rochester band the Hi-Risers embody Jagger’s observation, and their recent release Once We Get Started (Spinout) is like a blast from the Mersey Beat past. They’ve got a look and sound that’s so authentic to the period you can practically smell the Adorn hairspray in the air—and it’s all delivered with such wry enthusiasm and humor that if you don’t dig it, you must be strictly L7. Standout tunes include clever rockers like “One Note Joe,” complete with a twangy—you guessed it—one note guitar solo. The band—Greg Townson on vocals/guitar, Todd Bradley on vocals/bass, and Jason Smay on drums—has built a solid following over the past decade, transforming every bar and festival they’ve played into a packed, sweaty, high school gymnasium or wild beach party with the very first chord.

—buck quigley

9:30pm Sportsmen’s Tavern, 326 Amherst Street (874-7734 / sportsmenstavern.com)

8/31: American Scholar Day

At the start of a new academic year, on August 31, 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson read a speech to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was entitled “The American Scholar.” Nineteenth-century poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., would later describe it as America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence.” So moved by the piece was architect Frank Lloyd Wright, that he felt the date of its initial delivery should have been made a national holiday. For the past nine years, the Graycliff Conservancy, the group overseeing the restoration of the beautiful, Wright-designed, summer estate of the Darwin D. Martin family, has been saving us eyestrain by staging a reading of the classic essay on the picturesque grounds. Orators include John Conlin, Clarence Picard, and Russell Baker—Editor, Assistant Editor, and Marketing Director of Western New York Heritage Magazine, respectively—as well as Ruth Ellen Bunis of Hospice Buffalo. Tours of the estate are remain ongoing, but this year’s reading will be the last one fronted by noted local historian Conlin. Don’t miss it.

—buck quigley

5:30pm. Graycliff Estate. 6472 Old Lake Shore Road, Derby. (947-9217 / graycliff.bfn.org) Free.

9/2: Buffalo Film Seminars

Aside from one semester in which the films were selected by patrons from the best of previous seasons, the Buffalo Film Seminar has never repeated a film. And while I wouldn’t mind seeing them bend the rule to bring back, say, a Sergio Leone film or two (have you ever tried to watch one of those on television? Yuck), it’s nice to know that Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, of whose UB class the seminar is an outgrowth, have an apparently limitless number of movies that improve when seen on a big screen with other involved film buffs. Open to anyone with the price of a movie ticket, the seminar meets every Tuesday for screening and discussion at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center. This season’s schedule includes Trouble in Paradise (1932) by the sublime Ernst Lubitsch, this Tuesday, September 2; it continues the following Tuesday with the Marx Brothers’ hilarious Duck Soup (1933). For the complete schedule, visit buffalofilmseminars.com.

—m. faust

7pm. Market Arcade Film & Arts Centre, 639 Main Street. $8.50 regular, $6 62 & over, $6.50 students.

9/3: Deke Dickerson and the Eco-Fonics

Born in the late 1960s, Deke Dickerson discovered rockabilly and surf music at a very young age, thanks to his parents’ record collection and their gift of a Fisher Price Record Player. By the time he was a teenager, Dickerson was a walking historian of said genres as well as country, rhythm and blues, and doo-wop. After a few false starts, Dickerson garnered attention as a member of Untamed Youth, a rockabilly garage punk band that was set apart from the others by Dickerson’s guitar virtuosity. With the dissolution of Untamed Youth, Dickerson turned his attention to his own band, Deke Dickerson and the Eco-Fonics, a culmination of all his hillbilly, surf, and rockabilly influences. Recently, Dickerson has been appearing on Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, supplying instrumental passages and trivia to the host. Opening are Mohawk Place mainstays Pete Worden and the Hardtimers.

—eric boucher

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk Street

(855-3931 / mohawkplace.com)

9/3: Mr. Gnome

Born out of Cleveland earlier this decade but virtually homeless in the past few years, Mr. Gnome is finally beginning to attract attention with their un-ironic blend of psychedelia, prog-rock, and dark beats. Possessed by the tribal drumming of Sam Meister and the soulful yet desperate vocals of Nicole Barille, Mr. Gnome brings to mind such pioneering artists as Blonde Redhead, Portishead, and PJ Harvey. However they have a style and sensibility all their own, meshing genres many of their contemporaries have never thought to combine. On their debut full-length, Deliver This Creature, guitar noise competes with the subtle nuances of near silence. creating something beautiful and yet ominous. In recent months, Mr. Gnome has received rave reviews in Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, and Paste, with many more to come. The Mom and Dad Parade and Mallory Mordaunt open the show.

—eric boucher

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk Street

(855-3931 / mohawkplace.com).

Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber

This is not your father’s Arkestra. Whatever celestial kinship the members of Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber may feel with the late great cosmonaut Sun Ra, this 13-member outfit’s music is decidedly earthbound, tethered by funk and blues and hard rock and clubland jazz—by guitars that punch and scream, by organs that spiral heavenward and then crash to the ground, by voices that shout and croon, brass that squints and flows and dissects everything. The ensemble first assembled with the notion of creating a Bitches Brew for the new century, inspired by Miles Davis’ mashup of electric and acoustic improvisation tangling with modern studio manipulations. Burnt Sugar’s musicians are top shelf, and make use of Butch Morris’ avant conduction system to compose their performances on the spot. They claim the result channels influences from Hendrix to Holiday, Steve Reich to Brian Eno, Parliament to Wu Tang. Whatever. This self-described “multiracial jam army” is unlike anything you’ve heard before.

—geoff kelly

9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl Street (bigorbitgallery.org/soundlab). $10, $8 Hallwalls members, students, seniors.

Who Goes Where When Hillary Goes to State?

City Hall News has flow_chart that tracks who might replace who, from Hillary’s Senate seat on down (click to expand or follow the link—it’s an awkward shape):

It’s Robert Rich Sr. All High Stadium

These new signs properly label the structure. We’ve been reading recent stories in the Buffalo News about sportswriter Tom Borrelli’s terrible fall last week at the old All High Stadium. He’s currently battling life-threatening injuries... (more)

CWM Fined for Violations

This week Chemical Waste Management was fined $175,000 by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for violating its permits and the state’s hazardous waste laws. I don’t have much to say about that, except it doesn’t seem to me like too much money... (more)

Musical Chairs

The AP reports that Hillary Clinton met with Barack Obama in Chicago yesterday, adding fuel to speculation that she might be Obama’s choice for secretary of state. If that happens, it has long been rumored that Brian Higgins would be appointed to her Senate seat... (more)

Paint the Town

Late last night, at the tail end of one of the few weeks in the past year in which we did not publish anything snarky about anybody, someone threw two gallons of paint on our front doors. Seems a waste; we hadn’t even earned it. Nonetheless, we were cleaning up all morning... (more)

Old Editions Book Shop

AV videographer Matt Quinn tours Old Editions, an often overlooked treasure at the corner of Oak and Huron Streets downtown: show enclosure (video/x-flv; 21.29 MB)

This Is Not Today’s News

But it would be nice if it were. Via the Data Stream, by way of Jon Winet.

This Just In…

Always in the vanguard, researchers of the University at Buffalo’s Center of Human Capital have reached a bold conclusion, according to a statement disseminated this afternoon: Although no official determination has been made about whether New York State or the U... (more)

Silver Lining: Edwards Remains a Good Guy

Marshawn Lynch Amid the anguished finger-pointing, plaintive wailing and resigned head-shaking sweeping the region following the Buffalo Bills’ third straight defeat, Season Ticket would like to apportion a minute sliver of credit. Quarterback Trent Edwards, by most quantitative and qualitative standards, failed miserably at New England on Sunday (not coincidentally, this was also his third consecutive regressive outing)... (more)

Mazzariello’s Ristorante & Martini Bar

  Photo taken by Rose Mattrey From Antipasti to Primi to Secondi, Mazzariello’s (114 Bloomfield Ave, Lancaster, 206.0561) has conquered the map of Italian cooking. Your palate will be exposed to an array of spices, herbs, and ingredients indigenous to Northern & Southern Italy... (more)

Post Election Bits & Bytes

Election ‘08 is now in the history books - so I figured it’s time to take a look backward, and a look forward at some relevant headlines. Hacking Democracy First, we’ll take a look at one of the best kept secrets of the campaign season, from both sides, care of a Newsweek article published just today... (more)

BNMC Open Meeting Tonight

Tonight at 6pm in the auditorium of the downtown library, everyone is invited to attend a public hearing on the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus—North End Projects. Among the projects planned are a 300,000 square foot Medical Office Building to be owned and operated by Ciminelli Development Company, Inc... (more)

That Pigeon Won’t Fly

Steve Pigeon Here’s another example, this one two years old, of the way Steve Pigeon’s political committees are alleged to steer money to candidates illegally. On September 15, 2006, the Pigeon-controlled PAC Citizens for Fiscal Integrity paid “RUR Strategy Group” $9,000 in consulting fees, according to CFI’s campaign finance disclosure forms... (more)

SeaBar’s Social Calendar

SeaBar will host live jazz and sushi nights starting Friday, November 21st at 8 p.m. (5235 Main Street, Wmsvl, 204.5283). A Cave Springs Riesling Tasting Event will take place at SeaBar’s suburban location on Wednesday, November 9th at 7 p.m... (more)

Dr. Riyaz Hassanali: The effect Smoking has on your Skin

Cosmetic surgeon Dr. Riyaz Hassanali sat down with Buffalo actress and television host Lorraine O'Donnell for the first in our series of interviews with area medical experts. Today's subject is the effects of smoking on your skin and appearance. Dr. Hassanali, of Williamsville (626-1593) is a well respected cosmetic surgeon who works internationally, as well as locally. This is the first of six segments from Dr...

Twilight

Movie trailer for Twilight, in theaters November 21. Read M. Faust's review of the film here.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Movie trailer for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, in theaters now. Click here to read George Sax's review of the film.

Avi Takes Artvoice Shopping for the holidays @ Lexington food Co-op

I met up with Avi of Obviously Avi Catering to learn about classic ways to spruce up some great thanksgiving dishes and some more contemporary ideas for this years holiday season.. Also check out the Co-op this weekend Saturday the 22nd to sample some of the fresh turkeys that u can pick up for your family!

TRAIN DAY! @ the Buffalo Historical Society

I met with Peter Burakowski from the Buffalo Histroical Society to check out their fantastic train exhibit.. Now I have to be honest I was kinda embarrassed to tell Peter that I Hadn't been to the museum since I was about six years old... But the place looks great and has a lot going on for the holiday season. Check out this clip then head on down to the Buffalo Historical Society!

Mass Appeal: Elmwood Fashion Event

On Friday night the Elmwood Village Association packed the Lafayette Presbyterian Church with a sold out "Mass Appeal: An Elmwood Fashion Event." The atmosphere was electric in the brightly lit church as models strutted down the catwalk to lively deejay beats.

Buffalo Contemporay Dance

This weekend we stopped at Alt Theatre, 255 Great Arrow, to check Buffalo Contemporary Dance's 10th Anniversary performance. The little black box theatre in the Great Arrow Industrial Center is exceptionally intimate and provides a that up close experience you won't get at larger venues. Dancers and choreographers Amy Taravella and Leslie Wexler put together a lovely set of dance pieces with a variety of musical styles and an enthusiastic group of dancers...

Old Editions Book Shop

I had a chance to check out the Old Editions Book Shop & Café at 74 East Huron Street, Buffalo.... WOW i was blown away at how any cool things they had on display there....Not just the thousands of books on everything from local authors to rare leather-bounds, but hundreds of maps, prints and other artwork. If you havent been down to the corner of Oak and Huron to check it out i suggest you do!

Off Stage: Conversations with Anthony Chase

This week, Artvoice and TAB present Part II of the interview with Road Less Traveled founder, Scott Behrand. This is the second installment of "Off Stage", a series of conversations with the Buffalo theatre community and AV Theatre Editor Anthony Chase.

Happy Go Lucky

Movie trailer for Happy Go Lucky, in theaters now. Read M. Faust's review of the film here.

Quantum of Solace

Movie trailer for Quantum of Solace, in theaters November 14th. Read George Sax's review of the film here.

Flash Party at Essex St.

The annual Flash Party-Griffis Sculpture Park fundraiser at the Essex St. art complex was the raucous gathering of music and art it's always been. With live music by the Ifs, plenty of art and free beer what else would you expect?

Lakeview Effect at Nietzsche's

When Lakeview Effect crowded into the front bar at Nietzsche's with their keyboards, drums, two guitars, bass and percussion, there wasn't much room left. Nevertheless, people space to jam in and groove to the interesting and often unpredictable tunes. Some even found room to dance.

Flatbed at Allen St. Hardware

We'd been trying to film something at the Hardware Cafe for sometime but everything always came out way too dark. Finally, last Friday, Nov. 7, we just brought in some lights and managed to get footage of Flatbed and their homegrown American sound.

Obama's Night

On November 4th, history was in the making; but as we know, history needs to be recorded by someone. ArtvoiceTv.com video crews roamed the election night streets of the city.