This week is highlighted by Buffalo born entertainer Ani DiFranco making her return to Babeville for the first time since 2012.
Also on tap is the second annual Springfest at Marcy Casino that you won't want to miss.
Here are 16 Editor's Picks of cool and interesting events going on in the area for the week of April 28 - May 04, 2014. Be sure to check out our events calendar for much more of what's going on in the area, and check back every Friday for a "Best Bets" for the weekend.
Aziz Ansari
Alumni Arena
Mon Apr 28
Aziz recently debuted his much anticipated third hour-long stand-up special Buried Alive on Netflix in November. The special was named one of the best standup specials of the year by The Onion AV Club and Paste Magazine. Official site.
Local H
Waiting Room
Mon Apr 28
Hallelujah! I'm A Bum is the seventh studio album from the pioneering two-man, Chicago band Local H, who are known for their gut-quaking live shows and incredibly loyal fan base. The album was produced by metal guru Sanford Parker (Yakuza, Bloodiest, Pelican) and showcases the band rocking harder than ever. It's an epic concept record that sees front man Scott Lucas setting his sights on the deeply divided political climate that exists in the U.S. and around the world, using his hometown as a backdrop to sardonically comment on how this polarization personally impacts people -- within their communities, their neighborhoods and even within their relationships. A dog theme runs throughout, making it a fitting companion to the band's widely praised 1998 concept album Pack Up the Cats, which earned a spot in SPIN magazine's top 20 albums of that year. This is their first album of new material since 2008's critically acclaimed 12 Angry Months, for which the Chicago Tribune named them "Chicagoans of the Year," more than a decade after their breakthrough hit "Bound for the Floor" ruled the Modern Rock charts. Official site.
Keir Neuringer
Hallwalls
Mon Apr 28
Keir Neuringer is a musician and interdisciplinary artist who is involved in creative arts communities in Poland, Holland, and the US. He has cultivated a personal and intensely physical approach to saxophone improvisation, plays analogue electronics and Farfisa organ, and sings and narrates text. After training as a composer and jazz saxophonist in the US, he spent two years on a Fulbright research grant in Krakow. He then moved to The Hague, where he spent eight years, curating performative audiovisual art and earning a master degree from the experimental ArtScience Institute. He lives in Philadelphia and continues to travel widely to present his work, collaborating closely with Rafal Mazur, Ensemble Klang, and Julius Masri, among many others. Official site.
TECH N9NE
Water Street Music Hall
Tue Apr 29
Realizing one's own power can be a life-altering experience. Just ask Tech N9ne. After almost 10 years in the business, the heralded Kansas Citylyrical sniper, who has recorded with everyone from 2Pac to Eminem, recognized the impact his music had on fans while touring to support "Anghellic," his critically acclaimed 2001 album. Official site.
Buffalo Chamber Music Society presents the KLR Trio
Kleinhans Music Hall
Tue Apr 29
After 36 years of success the world over, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio continues to dazzle audiences and critics alike. As one of the few long-lived ensembles with all of its original members, the Trio of pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson have set the standard for performance of the piano trio literature through annual appearances at the world’s major concert halls, an active recording agenda and the commission of major new works. At the same time, the three members maintain internationally-acclaimed solo careers. Official site.
Beauty and the Beast
Shea’s Performing Arts Center
Tue Apr 29 – Sunday May 4
The award-winning worldwide smash hit Broadway musical returns to Shea's. The original creators of the Broadway production are together again for this new touring production. Disney's Beauty and the Beast is the classic story of Belle, a young woman in a provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a young prince trapped in a spell placed by an enchantress. If the Beast can learn to love and be loved, the curse will end and he will be transformed to his former self. But time is running out. If the Beast does not learn his lesson soon, he and his household will be doomed for all eternity.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast features the animated film's Academy Award®-winning score with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by the late Howard Ashman, with additional songs with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice. The show has become an international sensation that has played to over 35 million people worldwide in 21 countries. Official site.
Edge Comedy Night
Helium Comedy Club
Wed Apr 30
103.3 The Edge Presents Edge Comedy Night on Wednesday, April 30 at 8pm with a performance from The Edge's James, Josh Potter and headlining Marianne Sierk! Official site.
Buffalo Infringement Festival Fundraiser
Buffalo Iron Works
Wed Apr 30
An evening of Infringement art and performances. Official site.
Wil Anderson
Helium Comedy Club
Thu May 1 – Sat May 3
Performing over 200 shows a year, Wil Anderson's comedy is a densely written, high-speed ride through one of the most wonderful comedic imaginations in the world. He has won three "GQ Man of the Year" awards for Comedy and Media Performer. Official site.
The Slackers
Waiting Room
Thu May 1
Smashing the stereotypes of "ska" as happy,uptempo, and shallow music, the Slackers play with an aggressive edge and their songs veer in themes from the personal to the political. Back in 1996, the NY Times declared the Slackers to be part of "the sound of New York", a mantle they haven't given up since. Ten years later, Alternative Nation stated that their music is "protest music made for dim, sweaty basements, The Slackers would sound at home supporting Rancid as well as some grizzled New Orleans electric blues trio." The LA Weekly wrote about, "their unfettered energy, unerring skankability, and playful anger." Official site.
David Wax Museum with Rusty Belle
Babeville
Thu May 1
When future music historians look back at the strong currents circulating between the Americas in the 21st century, they will find Los Lobos, Calexico, and a charismatic, lanky Missourian singing tight harmony with a Southern belle rattling the jawbone of a donkey. David Wax and Suz Slezak form the artistic core of the David Wax Museum, and together they fuse traditional Mexican folk with American roots and indie rock to create a Mexo-Americana aesthetic. Combining Latin rhythms, infectious melodies, and call-and-response hollering, DWM was hailed by TIME for its “virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies” and has built a reputation among concertgoers all over the U.S, Canada, Europe and China for “kicking up a cloud of excitement with their high-energy border-crossing sensibility” (The New Yorker). With the release of Knock Knock Get Up (September 2012), David Wax Museum has reached a level of cross-cultural integration and musical fluency that allows them to speak electrifying and heartfelt poetry with a tongue that is wholly their own. Official site.
Ani DiFranco
Babeville
Fri May 2
Ani DiFranco comes home to Babeville for the first time since 2012!
After 20 years in the music biz, self-described “Little Folksinger” Ani DiFranco is still technically little, although her influence on fellow musicians, activists, and indie-minded people the world over has been huge. She still proudly identifies as a folksinger, too, but her understanding of that term has always been far more expansive than a bin at the record store or a category on iTunes, with ample room for soul, funk, jazz, electronic music, spoken word, and a marching band or two. Over the course of more than 20 albums, including the live double CD Living in Clip (1997) and the two-disc career retrospective Canon (2007), as well as the latest one, ¿Which Side are You On? (2012), Ani has never stopped evolving, experimenting, testing the limits of what can be said and sung. Her lifelong tribe of co-conspirators includes everyone from Pete Seeger and the late Utah Phillips to a new generation of twenty-something singer-songwriters who grew up with her songs and shows — and then there’s the motley crew of folks like Prince, Maceo Parker, Andrew Bird, Dr. John, Arto Lindsay, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck D, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Gillian Welch, Cyndi Lauper, and even Burmese activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, with whom she has crossed paths in a myriad of ways.
Born in Buffalo, New York in 1970, Ani spent part of her twenties in New York City, then returned to her hometown where she established first a business office and then a performance venue called Babeville as the twentieth century ground to a halt and the twenty-first one revved up. For much of the last decade she’s been based in New Orleans — but at her core she’s always seen herself as “a traveler,” covering pretty much the four corners of the earth by now, both solo and with her band.
Early in her career, Ani made a choice that is now so obvious to so many people that it’s hard to remember it was once considered brazen: to say no to every record label deal that came her way, and yes to being her own boss. That decision has earned her plenty of attention over the years, but it has never been what brought sold-out crowds to her shows around the world, fans debating every nuance of her lyrics, and fellow performers clamoring to work with her. No, all that has more to do with another choice she made early in life: To use her voice and her guitar as honestly and unflinchingly as she could, writing and playing songs that came straight from her own experience, her boundless imagination, her sharp wit, and her ever-more-nuanced understanding of how the world works. She did it in noisy bars with nothing but a shaved head and a lone guitar in 1990, and she’s doing it with renewed intensity today. Official site.
First Fridays @ The Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Fri May 2
On the first Friday of every month—from 10 am to 10 pm—admission to the Gallery's 1962 Knox Building and select events are free for everyone. Art classes and certain tours are available to non-members for a fee. Special exhibitions in the 1905 Albright Building are available to non-members with Gallery admission. Everything is free for Gallery Members, except for service in AK Café. More details.
UB Springfest 2014 Featuring The Band Perry
UB Center for the Arts
Fri May 2
American country music group composed of siblings Kimberly Perry, Reid Perry, and Neil Perry. They signed to Republic Nashville in August 2009 and released their self-titled debut album on October 12, 2010. Official site.
Hip Hop Karaoke Buffalo
DBGB
Sat May 3
Karaoke ain't karaoke if it ain't Hip Hop!
Hip Hop Karaoke Buffalo takes place the first Saturday of every month at Duke's Bohemian Grove Bar at 253 Allen St. in Buffalo, NY. All performers MUST pre-register to perform at www.hhkbuffalo.com.
Second Annual Springfest
Marcy Casino in Delaware Park
Sun May 4
On cue, and for its first public event since closing for a $1.2 million renovation, Delaware Park’s century-old Marcy Casino is preparing its patio and sparking the grill for the second annual Springfest at the Marcy on Sunday, May 4th (3-9pm, 199 Lincoln Pkwy, $10 advance/$15 door), featuring live music from the rousing reggae of The Rockaz, party pop-funk from Forealists, the return of curbside rockers Mohawk Street Saints, and breakbeats from DJ LoPro, whose closing set will include members of The Rockaz.
The hit food offering from the inaugural Springfest at the Marcy returns in the form of a taco bar featuring a suckling pig, grilled shrimp and chicken, and artisan sausages, along with a margarita bar sponsored by Jose Cuervo and an array of craft beers sponsored by Southern Tier Brewing Company. A percentage of all food and drink sales support Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy and its mission of “Connecting Parks and People.” Official site.
