By Ian Carlino:

This Friday, Grant Street is taking another step toward becoming a "can't miss" destination in Buffalo.

The opening of "Art on Grant" in the Grant Street Gallery will showcase numerous artists and craftsmen from around Buffalo, with a special focus on the intimate, unique qualities of their handcrafted pieces. The gallery reminds owner and organizer Prish Moran of a time when not everything was mass-produced in a faraway country. "It really gives every artist the ability to show their work -- old-world crafts that people are forgetting about, everything

He walked into the coffee shop, unassuming in a hoodie, and a baseball hat--both blue. I flagged him over to my out-of-the-way table, and we shook hands and sat down. To the rest of the patrons--and to almost anyone in Buffalo--we were just a couple of friends at a table. By the end of our discussion I hoped everyone would take a little more notice when they saw his name attached to one of his many activities in the city. He's not a celebrity, or a pro athlete, or even a politician. He got a new job last month, though, and that sparked a lot of questions and discussion online when it was reported

By: Sandra Starks

June 6th starts the 14th season of the ever-popular Sunday in the Cemetery tours at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

New on this year's tours is the viewing of The Shepherdess, created by Mary DeWitt Smith, a Gratitude Garden near the mausoleums and tributes to Albert J. Myer and Ebenezer Walden (which include carvings of the duo from the Carvings for a Cause project).

Forest Lawn is a place where citizens come to relax, exercise, investigate and celebrate life. A tour will successfully take you and yours on an entertaining and history-filled

For any of you heading to The Bash this Friday, there is a business integral to the event that has recently gone through the wringer in order to reopen its doors. Normally this is the time of year that Rob Geist, owner of Uncle Sam's Army Navy Outfitters is thinking about just one thing - providing the best authentic military uniforms for people heading to The Bash.

Unfortunately there have been some snags in business operations due to building revamping issues that have made it very hard for Rob to even conduct business. As he puts it, "We basically have been working on upgrades to

By: Simon Husted

Jazz enthusiasts will be reunited with their favorite classic guitar hits Thursday at the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. And if you're not a jazz enthusiast now, listening to the Six String Circus play on stage may force you to become one.

Readers familiar with the Mardi Gras Jam competition this past February may already know who the Six String Circus is. The band of 10 jazz guitar players from Hutchinson Technical High School received a spring into local stardom after beating 14 other high school bands in the Battle of the Bands competition

Nine top international guitarists representing eight nations are in town, participating in the JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition at Kleinhans Music Hall.

On June 3rd and 4th, the public is invited to meet many of these gifted artists from the United States, Thailand, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Serbia and Cuba during the Guitar Days community event. Here, semifinalists who have not advanced in the competition will share their

With tableaus as stunning and detailed as the one above, it is easy to define Art Alive as art itself. The annual event, held by Albright-Knox Art Gallery, features volunteer "artists" ranging in age from pre-kindergarten through senior citizen, modeling - through form, art supplies and ingenuity -one of the gallery's featured works. What is almost always a steamy summer day is certainly one of the most enjoyable events of the season. The level of creativity displayed each year is increasingly inspiring, and with Buffalo's lack of buskers,

The summer is certainly heating up with music - there's yet another great waterfront festival heading our way in early August. This one is all about the blues... it's called Buffalo Blues n' BBQ Festival. Could there be a better destination for a blues festival than LaSalle Park? There's an interesting background to how this festival got its legs too. It turns out that event promoter, Nicholas Kin, hosted a bunch of festivals in Buffalo over a decade ago. Unfortunately Nicholas was diagnosed with cancer and at the age of 21 he battled the illness and

We're less than three weeks from Rockin' at the Knox so we're continuing our previews of the upcoming show.  As you likely know, this year's card includes The National and Rufus Wainwright, two bookings that have generated mostly positive responses. 

We'll

On Monday, author Terry Angel Mason will make an appearance at Spot Coffee for a book signing/lecture/discussion. Mason is an award-winning, internationally recognized author and civil rights activist who champions equal rights for same-gender loving people. His breakthrough book, "Love Won't Let Me Be Silent" propelled him to world-wide recognition, and is said to have provided inspiration for gay men and women, encouraging them to stand up for their

By: Tony Wilson


Attention shoegazers! Hey, if you took a moment to look up from the laces then consider yourself in luck! Why? Well, because fuzz pop all stars The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are coming to town this week.



The Brooklyn-based power poppers bring their brand of lovelorn haze-infused indie crunch to the Tralf for a show on Saturday, June 5th. Having already run the gauntlet of touring behind their self-titled LP and an EP released last September, the hipsters extraordinaire come riding

Kicking off tonight, the second annual Unite Music Festival is igniting Buffalo's electronic music scene with an unprecedented array of stellar, internationally acclaimed DJs spinning at 20 clubs throughout the weekend.  For anybody who knows anything about electronic music, you know that this is really big for Buffalo. As the electronic scene has been growing in recent years, you might say that this is the culmination of a growing fan base along with seasoned promoters and a solid club base - enough to attract music fans from all over the region.

Performing headlining DJs are:
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A response to The Buffalo News' Review of May 27th's Shen Yun performance
By: Cathy Skora*

I am puzzled how the reviewer of Shen Yun Dance Company for the Buffalo News' Gusto on Friday May 28, 2010 missed the entire point and theme of this performance. The evening was rich with Chinese dance, music, and culture. The dancers were flawless and without exception obviously superbly trained in dance and theater. The choreography was an interesting array of organic patterns, using multi

By: Mackenzie Lambert

If there was ever an appropriate venue for the Django Reinhardt Centennial Celebration held on May 27th, it would be the Tralf. It provides a satisfying aura as one might have expected from Le Hot Club de France in the 1930's. This event would be lost in a bigger, impersonal venue like HSBC Arena or Shea's.

Headliner Stephane Wrembel & the Django Experiment and Buffalo's own Babik performed in honor of 100 years of Django

There are a few stories or subjects that we can always expect to generate a large number of comments here on Buffalo Rising. It's just a fact. Posts about pizza, city parking (lots, meters, free zones and ticketing policies), building to the curb and whether or not Whole Foods or Trader Joe's should (or ever will) come to Buffalo seem to get people really excited.

Another popular subject that always inspires debate are the annual

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Amy Christman:

Rat, the fifth novel of London-born Fernanda Eberstadt (The Furies, 2003) is a modern-day fairy tale in which our hero moves through a world where unseen forces are at work. She must weigh the pros and cons of two very different worlds: the world of the far-away rich father who holds the promise of a stable, comfortable life, and the wild freedom of the life she ultimately flees.
 
This gritty novel holds cross-over appeal for both adults and Young Adults. It is a memorable story told

Eclectic and fun, both funk and fusion, tomorrow night's cd release party featuring one of the area's most unique acts will be a great way to usher in the holiday weekend.

Family FUNKtion and the Sitar Jams is made up of three brothers who cite influences as diverse as Ravi Shankar, Phish and Miles Davis. Inspired by both the rock and roll of their youth and their Eastern roots, the Padmanabha brothers bring their multi-cultural perspective to each song, each performance. Tomorrow's show celebrates the release of their latest

What would the Elmwood Village be without a pub crawl? That's what Jeff Empric from Roaming Buffaloes Outdoor Adventure Club wondered before he set off to design one. On June 19th, from 9pm to 4am (gotta love Buffalo's early morning closing hour) a slew of bars will welcome pub crawlers into their establishments to do what pub crawlers do best... drink. The event is being sponsored by Labatt Blue, and is one of many events that Roaming Buffaloes is organizing in the city this summer.

Seeing that this is Elmwood's only official pub crawl, it

I cannot group Chris Hausbeck into a specific artist category--except that he's my favorite kind. He isn't starving, pretentious or hip. Rather, he has soot under his nails, a blue collar background and came to our meeting in a thrifted Wegmans tee. Chris and I first met earlier this month at Artists & Models where he built a wind mill shaped machine interpreting the fable, The Wallenda Disagreement. I was attracted to his tenacity, and ability to scale a fifteen foot, six-inch wide ladder! Every

By: Fashion Maniacs

It is certainly safe to say that Buffalo's fashion culture has been gaining speed lately. Being conveniently situated between two fashion meccas, New York City and Toronto, the City of Light is certainly growing in its own fashion culture. One of the major forces perpetuating the rise of interest in fashion in Buffalo is Erin Habes, a current lecturer of Fashion Show Production at Buffalo State College and buyer for Krudmart. With the direction of five local fashion shows under her belt, Miss Habes is indeed making