MikeSpace

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, with the aid of magical elves and giant robotic monsters, here are some videos from a show we played at Double D’s Queen City Grille on Friday January 29th 2010.

I like to play all the videos at once – you can hear the whole show in less than 7 minutes!

(If you are only checking out one song, might I recommend #16 – It’s our newest, we are excited about it, and it smokes!)

I’m not sure why, but the gain seems pretty loud on these files – so be ready to adjust your volume. Just sayin’ . . .

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01: Rain On The Sky (cover – some 80′s band)

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02: Done It All (by Nick Pietrzykowski)

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If you are interested, there is 14 more songs on the next page – thanks for listening!
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I guess you end up taking it for granted after a while . . . encouraging, friendly, helpful, kind, and talented fellow musicians. And a vibrant active healthy choice of places to play, where original music is de rigeur – encouraged and preferred. Cool people, cool clubs, and cool bands. In any genre.
I only bring this up because I’ve been reading the musician section of craigslist in Rochester, and I must say it’s a huge contrast. I feel sorry for those folks, as apparently it has been a difficult place for so long that they have resorted to sniping and bitching and whining as a means of expressing their frustration, to the point that the whole section is a little like watching a train wreck – it’s horrible, but I can’t look away! If you need a reminder how good we have it in Buffalo, or you just need a morbid giggle, check it out. I think you’ll see what I mean. They are all welcome to come to Buffalo to play any time!

(art by Sean Madden)

Folks who know me well know that I listen to a lot of public radio. It has been perhaps 30 years since I last listened to a commercial radio station, or watched a television for that matter.

Here in Buffalo we have some pretty fine public radio stations – WNED fm does NPR (National Public Radio) and classical music, WBFO fm does NPR and jazz, and the one I use most often is WNED am, which is a 24 hour news station with NPR, PRI (Public Radio International), and (yay!) BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).

Imagine my delight and surprise when I heard our own Gypsy Jazz(ish) virtuosos Babik being profiled on “The World”, a PRI show out of Boston that is on every weekday at 3PM on WNED AM! This show culminates each day with a musical segment that profiles musicians from the farthest reaches of the globe – quite a diverse selection – and has introduced me to more than one of my favorites! And somehow they found Babik! Awesome. A little national exposure for the guys who, as we’ve all known since that lovely summer when Hardware cafe opened their patio and diluted their yuppie regulars with freaky music affectionadoes, simply tear it up every time! I will risk copyright infringment by letting you all listen to the cool interview here, but I admonish you all to check out The World, as its a terrific show!

Click Here to listen to Babik on Public Radio International’s “The World”.

It’s out, and here’s where we’ll all be this year:

5/29 – Galactic, The New Deal
6/05 – The Disco Biscuits
6/12 – Yonder Mountain String Band
6/19 – David Sanborn Group, Gamalon
6/26 – Martin Sexton, Mike Doughty Duo
7/03 – Jakob Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels
7/10 – Jimmie Vaughan, JJ Grey & MOFRO
7/17 – Mickie Hart Band, Tea Leaf Green
7/24 – The Gin Blossoms, Common King, Dan Erickson
7/31 – Spirit of the West, Babik, Penny Whiskey
8/07 – Zappa plays Zappa, The Whigs
8/14 – Mike Gordon, Samantha Stollenwerck
8/15 – Great Big Sea – Buffalo Place Rocks the Harbor
8/16 – Robert Cray Band, Keb’ Mo‘ – Buffalo Place Rocks the Harbor
8/21 – Saliva, Klear
8/28 – Candlebox, Agent Me
9/04 – Big Head Todd, Monsters with Indigenous

That’s a lot of good free entertainment!