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See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of events to watch out for the week, including our editor's pick: Green Jelly, performing at Club Diablo on Sunday, the 11th.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out our new and improved events calendar on-line for complete event listings, a location guide to find your way about the city, restaurant reviews, and more.

Green Jelly

Sunday, April 11

Buffalo’s own favorite foam headed freaks are making their way back home! Green Jelly will perform their wildly outrageous rock show this Sunday (April 11) at Club Diablo. This show was supposed to happen last Halloween, but unforeseen circumstances forced the band to postpone their tour until spring. Their US tour began last month and won’t wind up until August on the Warped Tour. They are supporting their new CD “Musick To Insult Your Intelligence By.” These recordings were made some years ago with the band that recorded “Cereal Killer” and “333”, and was to be their third release. The line up has changed since then, except for Bill Manspeaker. But then again there have been over 250 band members who have come and gone, and sometimes returned, since 1981. This current line up includes Buffalo native Tony Ferro who has returned on drums. Tony was one of the early members of Green Jello. He played on the very first Jello recordings that became the “Let It Be” record. Of course, all of the Jelly Puppets and characters will be joining the humans on stage...the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, Marshall Staxx, Pinata Head and many more! This show also serves another purpose for Manspeaker. It is also his wedding reception. Earlier on Sunday, he and his beautiful girl, Brenna, will tie the knot at Niagara Falls. Performing the ceremony will be his uncle, Minister Big Wheelie of Big Wheelie and the Hubcaps! We’ll have to wait and see if he wears his Elvis suit. You see, showmanship runs in the family! Opening the 7pm show at Club Diablo will be Black Summer Suicide, Angry Soil and Kandid Theory.

—rose mattrey

7pm. Club Diablo, 517 Washington St. (842-0666 / www.clubdiablo.com).

Friday, April 9

Infringement Fest Social

Time to gear up for Infringe Buffalo 2010: Eleven Days of Art Under the Radar with Quest for Friends, Jupiter Jefferson, Spider Goat, Robots Are Thieves, Guest Speaker, Lara Buckley, and more. The bash starts at 10pm on Friday (April 9) at Nietzsche’s. This year’s Infringement Festival will take place July 22 through August 1, 2010. Start the buzz about another season of mischief in Allentown. A planning meeting is also scheduled this week, on Monday (April 12), 6:30pm, also at the Nietz. Visit www.infringebuffalo.com.

10pm. Nietzsche's, 248 Allen St. (886-8539 / nietzsches.com).

Friday, April 9

Sleigh Bells

Undoubtedly one of the biggest breakout bands of the year, dance rock duo Sleigh Bells stops in at Mohawk Place this Friday. They turned a lot of heads at this year’s CMJ Music Marathon, and the success is continuing to snowball with exposure from the likes of Pitchfork and The New Yorker. They’re on the bill for Coachella this summer, and are releasing their debut album, Treats, this May on Mom + Pop Music in special partnership with M.I.A.’s label N.E.E.T. Not bad for a band that has zero releases to their name and a handfull of self-produced EP’s. Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, Sleigh Bells is made up of guitarist/songwriter/beat-maker Derek Miller and singer Alexis Krauss, who was recruited by Miller when she ate at the restaurant where he was working as a server. Miller, a former member of Florida hardcore band Poison the Well, and Krauss, a school teacher who spent time in the band RubyBlue, dropped their hardcore and teenpop schticks respectively and teamed up to produce abrasive, hectic, and explosively danceable tunes. Miller lays down grainy, lo-fi beats, pops them into his I-Pod, and lets sonic hell break loose. The blown-out, distorted power chords of Miller’s guitar coupled with the sassy hipster front of Krauss makes for a fun but nonetheless volatile rave that flourishes in the live setting. Volume is a big deal here, and in a venue like Mohawk Place, they’re sure to blow the roof off. Buffalo’s Shock & Awe DJs open the show.

—jon wheelock

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St. (855-3931 / myspace.com/mohawkplace)

Friday, April 9

Timber Timbre

On Friday (April 9), Timber Timbre will bring some spooky blues-folk down from Canada to perform at the Ninth Ward at Babeville. Timber Timbre is the stage name of singer/songwriter Taylor Kirk, who creates music that sounds a lot older than it is, something like a face in an old sepia photograph. There’s also more than a touch of morbid fascination. The reaper, graves, scales, and general death make appearances in much of Timber Timbre’s songs, like a ghost band in a cemetery complete with eerie organ and echoed vocals, as typified by the track “Trouble Comes Knocking” taken from the band’s self-titled third album. Timber Timbre has received many accolades from critics, finding it’s way to the top of many Best Of lists for 2009, including a nomination for the Polaris Music Prize and praise from Eye Weekly, which considered the album “the spookiest disc of the year.” The song “Lay Down in the Tall Grass” was also shortlisted for Socan Echo’s songwriting prize. Friday’s show starts at 7pm. Wear a black veil to this one. Timber Timbre is leading the funeral procession straight to your grave.

peter vullo

7pm (doors). Ninth Ward at Babeville, 341 Delaware Ave. (852-3835 / babevillebuffalo.org). $10 advance / $12 day of show at Tickets.com (888-223-6000) and Babeville box office.

Sunday, April 10

I Was The Scarecrow

I Was The Scarecrow, the musical mask of singer/songwriter (and Artvoice intern) Peter Vullo, mixes the eloquent with the ugly, pretty girls and hard drugs, death, dogs and rag dolls. Each song is filled with intimate flashes of memory, like scenes from the cutting room floor of an old love story, some beautiful, some harsh, but always handled with honesty. The sound recalls the starkness of a Buffalo side street at night, the haunted dust of Nebraska-era Springsteen, the dark poetic lullabies of Leonard Cohen, and the sleazy swagger of Lou Reed. The project began in 2007 as a bedroom experiment that resulted in countless home recordings, many live performances, and eventually led to analog recordings at a legitimate recording studio. I Was the Scarecrow will appear in a local showcase of sorts at Nobody’s Art Center on Saturday (April 10), joined by Glass Hero, the Bloodthirsty Vegans, and the Royal We.

—alan victor

9pm. Nobody's Art Center (corner of Elmwood & Forest).

Saturday & Sunday, April 10 & 11

Bill Forsyth

To read that the reclusive Scottish filmmaker Bill Forsyth will be appearing at the Eastman House in Rochester this weekend was only slightly less astonishing than hearing that J. D. Salinger would be signing books at Talking Leaves. Forsyth was the writer and director of the 1983 movie that is a favorite of many people (including Al Gore), Local Hero, starring UB graduate Peter Riegert as a Texas oil company executive sent to Scotland to buy out a village where his company wants to sink a well. He figures he can strike a deal in a day or two, but as he falls in love with the place he fails to notice that the locals are the ones working him. Forsyth will introduce that film on Saturday. On Sunday he hosts a screening of his criminally unknown film Housekeeping (1987), adapted from the Marilynne Robinson novel of the same name. Forsyth’s appearance is in conjunction with an Eastman House retrospective of his films, which also include Gregory’s Girl, its 1999 sequel, Comfort and Joy, Breaking In and Being Human. Most are not available on DVD. My 1999 interview with Forsyth is at blogs.artvoice.com/film.

—m. faust

7pm Saturday & Sunday. George Eastman House Dryden Theatre, 900 East Ave., Rochester (dryden.eastmanhouse.org / 585-271-3361).

Tuesday, April 13

Will Johnson & Anders Parker

Two underground titans of song, for one night—and on one couch! It’s a Texas-Vermont connection as Denton/Austin man Will Johnson and Burlington-based Anders Parker team up to criss-cross the country for a tour that puts them in the living rooms, lofts and sometimes even kitchens of fans’ homes for intimate acoustic sets. This is kind of the perfect fit for artists like Johnson and Parker because while these are two guys who write songs that sound great on stages, plugged in through big PAs, in many cases their music is even better in a small space with just voice and acoustic guitar. Parker fronted psych-folk-country outfit Varnaline and the tripped out Spaceland prior to his solo years, along with a celebrated pairing with Jay Farrar (Son Volt/Uncle Tupelo) as Gob Iron. Johnson—a renaissance man—leads the revered bands Centro-matic and South San Gabriel, made a 2009 record with Jason Molina (Magnolia Electric Company), plays drums with the indie supergroup Monsters of Folk, and is steadily growing in reputation as a painter, particularly for his series of baseball player portraits delivered through his unique folk-art style. The hosts for this special concert—Marty Boratin and Susan Tanner—are essentially WNY’s first couple of live music. A night at their home is the rare chance to see where your favorite musicians like to go after the shows.

—donny kutzbach

Tickets and more information are available at undertowtickets.com.

Tuesday, April 13

Surfer Blood

Springtime in Buffalo might not cause many residents to jump on their surf boards and try to catch a wave on the Niagara River, but sunny alternative rock band, Surfer Blood might encourage some to take the plunge. The band will make their way up the east coast for a stop at Soundlab on Tuesday (April 13). Although they hail from West Palm Beach, Florida, the band doesn’t actually surf... but that doesn’t stop them from making their fuzzy and shimmering surf-rock inspired songs about love and heartbreak. Their debut album, Astro Coast (Kanine Records) was released in January and has garnered them lots of attention and some critical acclaim. Their first single, “Swim,” made it pretty high up on Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks of 2009. Astro Coast may be an indie guitar-rock album but the band seems to pull inspiration from some diverse sources. The bongos and vocal harmonies on their track “Take It Easy” recall the Beach Boys and they borrowed the title of their song “Twin Peaks, from the David Lynch TV series. And although their album might sound something like Weezer circa 1994, it comes off as a little more serious (the band was formerly known as Jabroni Sandwich, but they seem to have grown up with their sound). Land locked surf rockers Turbo Fruits from Nashville, Tennessee open the show. Forget the Niagara River and West Palm Beach, just crowd surf.

—cory perla

9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (bigorbitgallery.org/soundlab). $10.