There are not a lot of real artists these days but Vincent Gallo certainly deserves a place among the few.

The Buffalo-born and bred filmmaker/actor/musician/writer/painter has proven himself a modern renaissance man. Gallo has gone from being part of New York City’s burgeoning hip-hop and high art clash in the early 1980s, where he painted graffiti and played in a band with Jean Michel Basquiat, to being heralded as one of the leading lights of independent film and an acclaimed figure in underground music. Along the path, he’s been something of a supermodel splashed across billboards and magazines, raced motorcycles, cleaned up 9/11 wreckage, offered his “seeds” for sale on the Internet and always steadfastly held on to his beliefs and ideals, no matter how unnerving and incongruent they might appear: a staunch conservative living a bohemian life, Gallo idolizes Richard Nixon and controversial left-wing Italian filmmaker/writer/artist Pier Paolo Pasolini with equal passion.

As real artists go, Gallo is one of the even smaller group that the Queen City can claim, whether he himself likes it or not. Gallo and his art have had an interesting relationship with Buffalo. He’s been known to rip his hometown in the press. One particular exchange with a Western New York-based caller during a Howard Stern appearance was particularly amusing. He has attributed much of his seeming bile to a tough childhood and his feeling like a misfit growing up.

Still, he remains a local boy made good, and the fact that he will forever be tied to Buffalo is beyond his control.

His musical aesthetic was undoubtedly solidified—if not largely formed—by hours spent at Elmwood Avenue’s Play It Again Sams, poring over records and playing in local bands like the Plastics, Zephyr and Bernie Kugel’s the Good.

And his most notable work to date remains the film Buffalo ’66, shot on a relative shoestring budget here during a bitter cold stretch of 1997. Deemed by an unenlightened local populace to be a nihilistic, bitter slap in the face to the region for its depiction, it—for better or worse—truthfully resonates much of the harsh, one-horse realities of Western New York. Ultimately, Buffalo ’66’s grim aspects belie the kindness and warmth in its love story, and the fortified and undying spirit at the heart of Gallo’s protagonist, Billy, is Buffalo personified.

Critics largely applauded and, 10 years on, the film’s cult status is locked in, with a new crop of DIY filmmakers continuing to find much to take from it.

Gallo’s latest work—which brings him back to Buffalo—is performing as a part of the improvisational music ensemble RRIICCEE, leading the way alongside former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson, with musicians Rebecca Casabian and Nikolas Haas. The group’s raisons d’être is to exist as genre-free, in-the-moment organism that creates a composition within a live performance setting. It’s certainly not jamming, though, as Gallo told the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

“A jam is a disorganized version of the most ordinary cliche habits—that’s the furthest thing from what we’re doing,” he said.

Jamming or no, this Tuesday’s appearance by RRIICCEE, one among a very limited string of dates, offers a rare chance to see the artist at work—a real artist, at that.

Welcome home, Vincent. Buffalo is proud to have you back. Even if just for a moment.

Vincent Gallo and RRIICCEE perform at Soundlab this Tuesday, December 11 at 8pm.