Whether you’re living in Buffalo, have left, or are coming for a visit, you may want to check out what Buffalo Tours offers. Hosting 75 tours in August alone, they explore everything from the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to a Landmark Cruise on Miss Buffalo II. “It’s a nice way to see the city, and with rising gas prices people are deciding to check out what’s here at home,” said Fred Schrock, Buffalo Tours Education Coordinator. “People don’t realize we have some of the best architecture in the world.” Of those most likely to take advantage of these tours, Schrock…
Author: Cassandra
Located on Buffalo’s waterfront at the southern foot of the skyway, Dug’s Dive has an interesting history. Established in the late 1800s by William Douglas, a former slave and a ship’s cook, Dug’s was in the basement of a tenement house Douglas owned. The original rooming house and a saloon featured a club or “dive” at the bottom of a steep, slippery staircase. William Douglas knew how to cook and make people happy, and he was a hospitable man. According to current owner, Tucker Curtain, this is what Dug’s dive is still about today. Curtin wants people to know about…
Back when video games were still in their infancy, developers relied on whichever computer system they were programming for to create any kind of audio for their games. Today’s video games can sound like anything from an orchestra to a jazz band because the audio is pre-recorded and loaded onto a CD, eliminating the need to rely on the limited resources a primitive computer provides. Those limited resources forced programmers to think carefully about what sort of music would play during their games, and there are beautiful compositions hidden in the bleeps and bloops because of this. These songs were…
It’s not often you hear about someone moving from California to Buffalo to pursue a career in music, but Bernice Marie has done just that. A Niagara Falls native, she moved to Palm Springs when she turned 18, but ultimately found herself drawn back to Buffalo’s closer-knit community. Bernice played shows for about a year in California, but felt like she was lost in the shuffle. “LA and Palm Springs are very overrated as far as music. You’re just a small fish in a huge pond there. It turns out that when you leave Buffalo, you come to realize that…
While some bands sound like they’re trying a little too hard to capture a feeling, Ladyhawk has a sound that seems to come as naturally as breathing. Their music sound effortless, even haunting at times — rock with a country vibe in the vein of Neil Young. Their new CD Shots came out in March, and the lead track is called “I don’t always know what you’re saying.” The guitar chugs along beneath the hearty vocals lending a hard-working sound to the song. “STHD” comes up next, and employs a poppier sounding vocal style, like a deeper voiced Hot Hot…
Poetry and science don’t usually mix, but don’t tell Christopher Fritton that. His latest work, My Fingernails Are Fresnel Lenses, is a thoughtful poem about the make-up of memories and how they work through our system. “Most of my work comes from a scientific point of view. So often I take inspiration from recent scientific developments and stuff like that,” Fritton said. “I think that one key thing is that the things that I imply usually sound like metaphors or analogies, but when you look into it they’re not. When I’m talking about your fingernails being lenses it sounds like…
Mayor Byron Brown paid a visit today to Sonwil Distribution Centers, Inc’s future waterfront location. The 300,000 sq. ft. distribution center will be located at Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park and will employ about 215 people when it is expected to open in June. “I am extremely pleased by the commitment of Sandy and Peter Wilson to Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park and the City of Buffalo,” Mayor Brown said. “I am further encouraged that my economic development strategy of accelerating the preparation of shovel ready sites is paying early dividends and establishing a strong foundation for the future prosperity of both…
For almost 10 years, Agent Me has been rocking the local Buffalo music scene. The band’s first record on Good Charamel Records (Robbie Takac’s indie label) is called Consolation Prize. The album is an intelligent blend of contemporary rock and alternative styles that speaks to the angst carried by teenagers and young adults. Consolation Prize opens with “Invincible,” which is an incredibly radio-friendly track. The theme of a relationship gone wrong works well with the moderate tempo, 4/4 beat and minor chords. The next song is called “IT” and wouldn’t sound out of place in a romantic teen-comedy along the…
By Anthony Swinnich Buffalo’s power-pop trio The Juliet Dagger has been a busy band. They went on a month-long tour across the US with Shonen Knife (one of Japan’s biggest current bands), and recorded a new CD. Hi-Ya!, the band’s latest effort, is a light-hearted-but-heavy collection of songs that will do more to make you smile than get your blood pumping. The first track off the album is called “Champion of the Universe.” It begins with a chorus chanting “C-H-A-M… P-I-O-N” over and over. The guitar tones are deep and brooding; the tempo is intense, but lead-singer Erin Roberts’ pleasant…
The Elmwood Village, recently designated as one of the Ten Best Neighborhoods in America by the American Planning Association, is located in the upper West Side of the City of Buffalo. Over the course of this series, our video camera will follow Elmwood Village Association’s Executive Director, Justin Azzarella, through a series of Elmwood Village locations. Each week we’ll focus on one of the four different colored banner districts along Elmwood Avenue. The districts are designated by blue, green, yellow and red banners, from north to south, beginning at Forest Avenue. In our fourth and final installment, we focus on…