First, let me come clean. When someone says the words "jam band," I inwardly roll my eyes and insert a finger down throat. Gag me. I have no desire to listen to another half-hour of the same riff over and over again, with a few minor...

Much in the way hair metal briefly blinded us with Aqua Net and eclipsed heavy metal, New Wave in its androgynous fervor shanghai'd the spotlight from a period and style of music that never really got classified. Sure, it's all rock 'n' roll in...

The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival has announced two of the headliners for its 2010 edition:

[ ROCK/JAZZ ]
Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival: Jeff Beck Thursday, June 17. Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, Gibbs Street....

The Cult's show Saturday at the Armory had me torqued with nervous anticipation. This was a band I loved -- yet a few red flags had me a little nervous. Ticket sales were slow initially. and the band was not doing any press. No photographers...

Cellist Helen Money is a rock musician who plays a classical instrument. I asked her before the show to describe her sound. "Dark, kinda raw, and melodic. I have a hard time describing myself," she told me.
If I were her, I would be hard...

Tranquilatwist tranquilatwisted the dressed-up-to-get-messed-up crowd for the Devil's Night Fetish Masquerade at Water Street Music Hall Friday. Singer Karlie Cary Lanni seduced and we succumbed as she wailed bitter and sweet beneath a pillbox...

Good jazz often hits me like a cool blast of eucalyptus: it gets the flow flowing, the go going, and the going gone. Drummer Harris Eisenstadt and Canada Day served up a slinky, sultry groove in the Bop Shop Atrium last night. It was just the...

It was a picture-perfect scene at Abilene Bar and Lounge Sunday night: five or six chairs inched up close to the performers in a circle, with some eerie candlelight, a packed house, and some gritty, straight-up folk coming from the stage. Real...

Arrived at the Main Street Armory Friday night as Aussie duo An Horse pumped out a big sound a la Sleater-Kinney. Cage The Elephant followed with a frenetic strain of Kentucky-fried indie rock set to a kind of accelerated funk groove. Singer...

Emmylou Harris' name was written in the big letters on the marquee, but it was Buddy Miller's show Wednesday night at The Auditorium Theatre. It isn't just the fact that I root for the underdog, spin the B-side, constantly look below the radar,...

Pushing a mix of cuts off the new "Crash Love" CD and older stuff, AFI rocked Water Street Music Hall Friday night with a full-throttle set and a lightshow that would give the planetarium penis envy.
Singer Davey Havok has changed since I saw...

I spent the entirety of the Loveful Heights show Friday night at Starry Nites with my jaw dropped, eyes glued, in awe. These two ladies have an aura about them. They possess a striking confidence and a beauty that is few and far between....

Playing straight-up, straight-ahead, straightened-out garage rock, Phoenix quartet The Love Me Nots knocked out a super-catchy set to a modest but super enthusiastic crowd Thursday night at the Bug Jar. The two-guy, two-gal line-up was tight...

There are few musicians who can reach back into their repertoire 60 years to find the right tune. But, about two-thirds of the way through his wonderful concert with at the Eastman School of Music's filled-to-capacity Kilbourn Hall Monday...

It's not easy being the foreplay act for a headliner with fans that have been waiting for many, many years. Even harder is walking out on that great big stage with just you and an acoustic guitar. I imagine a lot of thought goes into the set...

The original bill for the Boulder Coffee show Thursday night took a few turns throughout the week. Initially, I walked in the venue expecting the indie/folk-rock six-piece Baby Shiver's Boutique alongside the much-hyped Golden Ghost.The set...

Last night the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, with the help of the Rochester Oratorio Society, officially re-opened the Eastman Theatre, and rechristened it Kodak Hall. The program lived up to the momentous occasion, with the debut of a...

Let me just begin by saying, "Holy shit." I've seen the Israeli rock trio Monotonix before, I've interviewed them, I think I know what they're about. But last night's show at the Bug Jar was a cross between Caligula and the ball pit at Chuck E....

Over the rest of the weekend-long fest I caught more primo sounds. I'd heard some of Dan Eaton's stuff before, and my wife always comes running to the TV for new recipes whenever he's on, but I'd always pegged him as a mellow rocker. That's not...

Most of us in Rochester have been getting a heavy dose of Swati's oft-requested tune on WBER, "2 a.m." It's near tranquilizing; penetratingly poetic, it draws you in.But if you came to check her out on Friday evening downstairs at the German...