Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Well, the summer concert season has officially begun with the first Thursday at the Square concert in Buffalo. They kicked it off with Alejandro Escovedo last Thursday.

This week provides more choices in free outdoor concerts in the Erie-Niagara area. Artpark opens it’s Tuesday series with War with Then and Now billed as openers.

Thursday at the Square continues it’s run with Ingrid Michaelson. A. A. Bondy opens.

With only two concerts this week, the choice is pretty clear. If you want familiar, comfort-food music, you’re going to go see War at Artpark. If you’re the type that goes and sees America there every summer, (June 29 this year) and thinks The Boys of Summer is a great local band, then you know who you are.

But if you want to hear something new and embrace something that isn’t being spoon-fed to you by 97 Rock, (or worse, WJYE) then Thursday at the Square is the clear winner. I hadn’t heard of Ingrid Michaelson or A. A. Bondi, but a quick listen online (I’ve put MySpace links in above) has tweaked my curiosity. They’re both worth a trip to see.

Kudos to Buffalo Place for getting “It” and bringing in some new and upcoming talent, rather than just the latest in the milk-it-for-all-it’s-worth touring greatest-hits has-beens.

Incidentally, MySpace may be getting kicked around by Facebook when it comes to popularity in social media, but it’s still the best place to find and hear new music. Every band has a page there. It must be required by law or something. Even when they have other outlets for their online presence, a MySpace page is an integral part of any musicians self-promotion kit.

Please take a moment and say a prayer for my friend Gabrielle Bouliane, who passed away today of biliary tract cancer. She had only a few months from the time of her diagnosis and left us far too soon. Here’s a video of her at a poetry slam, one of her favorite projects, shortly after she had become ill:

I met Gabrielle while I was doing my music podcast. Her interest is film-making and music brought her to many of the same shows I was attending. We were usually right in front of the stage, her with a video camera, me with my still camera. We both were avid fans of Buffalo Celtic-Rock band, Jackdaw, and often were at their shows. Continue Reading…

You said hello to me in the supermarket. It wasn’t just hello, it was more like you were just that close to running up and hugging me.

I hope I didn’t offend you. I circled back around hoping to find you again and apologize for not being able to place you, but it was too late, I didn’t see you again.

Was it a case of mistaken identity? Were you someone I should have known? Now, it’s 4am and I’m posting this on the internet instead of sleeping. I guess I’ll never know who you were…

[dewplayer:http://gritzmacher.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/The-Clash-Lost-In-The-Supermarket.mp3]

I was reading a blog on music, the Twang Nation site, which had an article Hating on the CMAs which pretty much says what I’ve always said about “Country Music.”

I like country music, but what most people call country music isn’t, so I usually don’t admit to liking it.

After again watching the Country Music Association Award ceremony last week I was again left with the feeling that I had sat through an hours-long infomercial. I mean is Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney really the rightful heirs of Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash? Of course they’re not.

But they are the heirs of a a finely tuned trade organization whose job it is to perpetuate brand and maximize profits. Nothing to do with crafting great and memorable work. Swift and Chesney are not Lynn and Cash, they follow in the gilded footsteps of Shania and Garth.

I’ll say it right out, mainstream pop-country is crap. It’s not crap because it sells zillions of units, but because to hit numbers that high the product typically is as brain dead boring. Innovation is risky and costly. Mediocrity and homogeneous product maximizes profit by drafting on an already proven brand.

The best part was at the bottom of the post, where the Related Posts gives links to five similar articles that pretty much say the same thing. Maybe people are waking up and realizing that what they’re being sold isn’t music, it’s a manufactured product with little art or life in it.