Where the Bands Are: This Week in Live Music and Concert News
Billy Sheehan comes home for the Musicians of Buffalo Christmas, Sugar Nova’s Wonder Bliss Tour, Miwi La Lupa, and more
Some enticing holiday shows, super cool hybrids of dance music and progressive alternative, and even a little of that indelible and soulful New Orleans sound. Let’s get to it…
Junior Jerry Jam presents Holiday Shakedown Street with Scarlet Begonias
Sunday December 10, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. at Asbury Hall, Babeville, $10/Kids free
The Junior Jerry Jam folks - Stu and Judy Weinstein and friends - are getting into the holiday spirit with this family-friendly matinee throw-down featuring twin sets of jubilant GD music from Buffalo’s Scarlet Begonias, all to benefit Buffalo String Works in their ongoing service to the city’s immigrant and refugee community. All of which begs the question - are you kind?
Musicians of Buffalo (MOB) Christmas Rocks
Friday December 8, 8 p.m. at Asbury Hall, Babeville, $30/$40
Every year for the past decade, bassist supreme Billy Sheehan has been heading back home for the holidays and getting together with his friends Jessie Galante, Bobby Lebel and assorted guests, for a show blending rock classics and holiday favorites. This year, the band has expanded to a 13-piece rock orchestra. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Robby Takac’s Music is Art.
JoAnn’s Classical Christmas
Friday December 8, 10:30 am and Saturday, December 9 7:30 pm at Kleinhans Music Hall, $12 - $67
Curated by JoAnn Falletta, this annual event features the holiday classics you’d expect, as well as timeless pieces by Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Mendelsshon, Respighi and Handel. Of particular note this year is the presence of mezzo-soprano Karen Saxon, a long-serving music educator in the Buffalo Public School system, a renowned choir conductor, and a seasoned Minister of Music at several area Baptist churches, most recently, the First Shiloh Baptist Church in Buffalo.
The Wonder Bliss Tour: Sugar Nova (feat Luke Miller of Lotus), Future Joy, U-Lock
Saturday December 9, 8 p.m. at Nietzsche’s, $15
Sugar Nova, a duo featuring Luke Miller of Lotus and singer Rachel Eisenstat of Raven Jane., has broken new ground by marrying the jubilant rush of electronic dance music to the edgy experimentalism of alternative music. Smart, soulful, and always deeply melodic, the duo’s sound somehow straddles the realms of contemporary pop and vintage soul, funk and disco. Expect the silly and the sublime in equal measure at this very cool, forward-looking Nietzsche’s booking, which also features sets by Denver’s Future Joy and Buffalo punk-tronica artist U-Lock.
Miwi La Lupa and James Hatem
Saturday December 9 at 9 p.m., at Duende @ Silo City, Free
A bill featuring some forward-looking singer-songwriter fare, with Buffalo-born, Eastern School of Music-trained multi-instrumentalist Miwi La Lupa - whose credits include work with Lou Reed, The Impressions, Bill Frisell, Conor Oberst, Spoon, Red Baraat, Fela!A Broadway Musical, David Byrne/St. Vincent, Gillian Welch/David Rawlings, ButchMorris and the Nublu Orchestra, Charlie Hunter, Mike Gordon, Macklemore,Jonathan Wilson, El-P, Jim James, and Suzanne Vega - and Nashville-based soulful, roots-y troubadour James Hatem.
Also worth your time, attention and money…
Keller Williams, Saturday, December 9 at 8 p.m., Buffalo Iron Works, $25/$30; Pink Talking Fish, Wednesday, December 13 at 8 p.m.m, Buffalo Iron Works, $20/$25; The Skiffle Minstrels, Friday, December 8 at 6 p.m., under at Silo City, free: Live at The Fillmore - The Original Allman Brothers Band Tribute, Thursday, December 7 at 7 p.m., the Sportsmen’s Tavern, $25; The Mountain Goats with Stephen Steinbrink, Thursday, December 7 at 8 p.m., the Town Ballroom, $45; The Big Easy in Buffalo Presents Tab Benoit and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Tuesday, December 12 at 8 p.m., the Town Ballroom, $35.
The M.O.B. - Musicians of Buffalo performance was outstanding and our client, Alex Cousins played on stage, too. It was a blast! Music is Art was the beneficiary of a portion of the proceeds.
Tom