Tears For Fears

Friday, August 13

If someone made music today like Tears for Fears did back in the mid 1980’s they probably wouldn’t break the Billboard top 200. The duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith helped to define electronic pop music with their emotionally dark, romanticized lyrics and the mechanical electronic music that surrounded it. Sounds a lot like the electronic music scene today actually. Today’s pop-tronic duos like Sleigh Bells and the Junior Boys were certainly born out of the rhythm and despair that Tears For Fears invented. The difference is Tears had consecutive number one hits in 1985 with “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” and “Shout” from their album Songs From The Big Chair, which went platinum five times. They might be one of the most influential bands to come out of the 1980’s new wave scene next to the Talking Heads and New Order. In the early 2000’s their song “Mad World” was resurrected and reproduced by singer-songwriter Gary Jules for the movie Donnie Darko. The devastatingly sincere and stripped down version of the song took off and shortly afterward the duo reunited, for the first time since 1989, to record the album Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. They are currently on a North American tour which will bring them to Buffalo on Friday (Aug 13) to play a free show as a part of the Molson Canal Concert Series. Local classic rockers Caitlin & the Jamie Moses Band open the show.

—cory perla

5:30-11pm. Molson Canal Concert Series, Ulrich City Courtyard, 80 Main St., Lockport (www.canalconcerts.com). FREE

Friday, August 13

Black Cat Bash / Bad Luck Art Show

The first Annual Black Cat Bash/Bad Luck Art Show will be held this weekend at Club W, fittingly, on Friday the Thirteenth. Hosted by Allentown’s Faith in Ink Tattoo (67 Elmwood Ave.), the event is co-sponsored by rockabilly/pinup-style clothing store Cats Like Us, Pinstriping by Clint, Pole Play Dance Studio, and Swing Schoolhouse. It’s a cooperative art show between local tattoo artists and other artists as well as a rockabilly show, with music by the Irving Klaws, Devil Springs, the Poor Boys, anad Craig Chazen and a special performance by Eye Candy Burlesque (pictured) to complete your transportation back to the 1950s. Kustom Kulture will be hawking their vintage-style threads as well, so you can be sure to look the part. Doors are at 8pm and this is a 21+ event. Go retro!

—frances boots

8pm. Club W, 199 Delaware Ave. (840-9552 / www.checkoutthew.com). $10 presale at Faith in Ink Tattoo or $13 at the door.

Thursday, August 12 - Saturday, August 14

Continents Under Pressure

Sometimes a worthy project can fall beneath the radar when it doesn’t fit into an easy category. This seems to be the case with Continents Under Pressure, now approaching its final weekend at ALT Theater (August 13-15). Featuring such highly regarded local performing artists as David Butler, Patrick Cameron, David Kane, Tim Newell, and Amy Taravella, we are promised a “dynamic performance combining the arts of dance, live music and traditional theater-craft” that “weaves spoken word, acted scenes and movement, depicting both the cause of conflict between peoples and the devastation that results ... all with an originally scored curtain of music and sound.” The word of mouth is that this is a riveting and moving evening of theater, dance, and music, exploring the human need to “quarrel and destroy.” Continents Under Pressure is presented in conjunction with CEPA Gallery’s Art of War exhibition, ongoing through August 22.

—anthony chase

8pm Thursday-Saturday. Alt Theatre, 255 Great Arrow, 3rd Floor (www.alttheatre.com). $15

Friday, August 13

KISS w/The Academy Is & The Envy

KISS bassist and front-man Gene Simmons once said; “James Bond has a license to kill, rockstars have a license to be outrageous. Rock is about grabbing people’s attention.” Well it’s not hard to grab people’s attention when you have a seven inch tongue. Or when you’re covered in spikes and black paint. Or when your stage show has more explosives than The Hurt Locker. This is what KISS has always been about though. Last year the band released their first album in 11 years, Sonic Boom, which debuted at number two on the Billboard top 200, the highest debut for any KISS album. This year the band released a live version of the album, Sonic Boom Over Europe, complete with classics from their setlist like “Shout It Out Loud” and “Detroit Rock City,” which seems like a perfect fit for a band who likes to put the focus on their fire breathing live performances. They’ll take the stage of Darien Lake on Friday the Thirteenth (appropriately demonic) with unlikely pop-rock openers The Academy Is... whose members were all born in KISS’s post-face-paint era. Fortunately, the paint is back. —cory perla

6:30pm. Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Darien Center. $26.50-$125 at LiveNation.com or 800-745-3000

Saturday, August 14

Dancing Under The Stars

Tommy Radon and his choreography company STORM is hosting their fundraising event Dancing Under the Stars at the Sunset Bay Beach Club in Angola on Saturday (August 14). This day full of dancing will include dance workshops from 3-7:30pm. Experienced instructors from Western New York will be teaching several classes in genres, such as African Dance, Brazilian Dance/Samba, Argentine Tango, Swing, Salsa, and Hip Hop. These classes are for anybody; no dance experience is needed and a partner is not required. Nicholas Picholas from Kiss 98.5 will also DJ the late night party, which will include exclusive professional dance performances from dancers like Matthew Clark from the Clark Academy of Performing Arts, belly dancer Faaria from Oasis Dance Center and salsa dancer Sarita Hooper from Salsa for the Soul. There will also be live singers and gymnastics on the beach. Everyone who attends the party must be 18 and over. The cost to attend the day of workshops is $20 and those interested in both the workshops and the party, which starts at 8pm can buy a day pass for $35. For those who wish to only take part in the party, it will cost $20. Visit www.stormbuffalo.com. Proceeds benefit the Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. —vanessa oswald

Sunset Bay Beach Club, 12911 Iola Drive, Angola (934-9953 / www.sunsetbayusa.com)

Sunday, August 15

Red Tag Rummage Sale

Holy matrimony, beautiful music. That’s Red Tag Rummage Sale. Phil and Lisa Freedenberg are the husband and wife darlings of experimental indie song craft. They sing face to face on stage, allowing the audience to witness the secret transmissions of lovers within their delicate, tuneful songs. It’s pure, honest, glowing intimacy. No filter. With quilt-pattern melody, the duo builds songs slowly, allowing them to breathe and stretch well past the three-minute mark. Instrumental passages act as bridges between song parts, changing time signatures, introducing new incantations shared by the pair. Phil forgoes a guitar pick for intricate finger tapping along the fretboard until it’s a spinning web of sound. The guitar work is balanced by Lisa’s mournful, wailing cello, giving the songs the air of classical beauty. Red Tag Rummage Sale will bring their statues of owls and rings of gold to Sugar City this Sunday (August 15). If these two can’t make you believe in love and music, then maybe you’re dead.

Sharing the bill will be San Francisco native Dina Maccabee, whose breathy, sensitive songs beckon you to enter the coffeehouse with a book of literature in hand, and local lit-folk act I Was the Scarecrow. —gordon cole

6pm. Sugar City, 19 Wadsworth St.

Tuesday, August 17

Foreigner w/Free Henry!

There’s not a jukebox in the world that doesn’t have at least one or two Foreigner albums inside its window. From “Cold As Ice” to “Hot Blooded,” “Urgent” to “Jukebox Hero,” “Waiting For A Girl Like You” to the chart topper “I Want To Know What Love is,” Foreigner has long been cemented in the pantheon of classic rock heavyweights. Like so many of their counterparts from that era, the group has very much been a revolving door, with over twenty member changes in their lifespan. And like 70’s and 80’s mainstays Styx and Kansas, Foreigner is alive and well in the 2000’s with a revamped lineup and multiple live performances. Though Foreigner architect, guitarist, and Grammy award-winning songwriter/producer Mick Jones remains the only original member, he has surrounded himself with a core of seasoned veterans. Even without the signature voice of Lou Gramm, the spirit of Foreigner lives on, bringing elements of blues, rock and pop together in what has made for some of the most recognizable songs of all time. The current lineup released Can’t Slow Down (Rhino) this past October, marking their first studio release since 1994. As part of their ongoing free concert series, ‘Tuesday in the Park,” Artpark brings in Foreigner August 17 with Buffalo-based Free Henry! opening the show. —jon wheelock

6:30pm. Artpark, 450 S. 4th St., Lewiston (754-4375 / www.artpark.net). FREE

Wednesday, August 18

Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade

Traveling with her 1920s Weymann archtop guitar, Miss Tess—along with her band the Bon Ton Parade—is sure to take audiences on a retro-roadtrip on Wednesday (August 18) at the Sportsmen’s Tavern, with melodies that draw inspiration from older styles of music topped off by a dose of Tess’s charming personality. The Brooklyn -based singer and songwriter has been compared to artists such as Jolie Holland, Madeleine Peyroux, Regina Spektor, and Ella Fitzgerald, but she maintains her own style through the release of her five albums, the latest called Darling, oh Darling. Composed with an eclectic array of original music stemming from jazz, swing, blues, and folk roots, Darling, oh Darling is steeped in nostalgia, making use of various instrumentation like country-tinged pedal steel, a three-part horn section, barroom piano, and a lonesome banjo. The tight-knit quartet is made up of Alec Spiegelman on sax & clarinet, Paul Dilley on upright bass, Matt Meyer on drums, and Miss Tess on vocals and guitar. With the up-tempo playful ditties, mournful love songs, and offbeat charmers, it’s a sure bet she’ll land a hit at the Sportsmen’s. Gretchen Schulz and Doug Morgano open the show. Let the Bon Tons roll! —jeffrey heras

7pm. Sportsmen’s Tavern, 326 Amherst St. (874-7734 / sportsmenstavern.net). $5