Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  Another episode in the eternal struggle between a band’s ambitions and the expectations of a club crowd.   Nov. 27, 1976   Piper Changes Music Strategy – Hopes Ride on Original Tunes   IT’S PIPER’S SECOND NIGHT in the battered finery of a bar and restaurant complex in Niagara Falls , Ont., called the Boarding House and this time around the four of them figure they’ve got to change their strategy.           “Last night we ran into the most hostile audience,” guitarist Jay O’Rourke was saying as the group gathered in the house they share in Lewiston before the gig.           “They kept calling for Rolling Stones. Sure, we do a couple of their songs. You have to keep your sanity.”           The guys in Piper have their own priorities, which include a fistful of highly likeable original tunes and Jay’s showy Bruce Spring...

  Lenny Silver lands a big fish for Amherst Records. Nov. 13, 1976 LaFlamme Rises from Ashes, Still Seeking a Beautiful Day   “I HAVE JUST ONE REQUEST,” David LaFlamme says as we arrive at a suburban restaurant for lunch. “After I tell you the whole story, do me a favor. Don’t write in the paper that I’m a bitter person.”           LaFlamme, followers of the late ‘60s San Francisco rock scene may recall, was the singer and violinist who led one of the Bay Area’s germinal rock bands, It’s a Beautiful Day.           He wrote the group’s best-known song, the soaring “White Bird.”           But while the group’s records have become collectors’ items (used copies of their first album command a price of $12.95 and up), LaFlamme has had to endure an incredible stream of hard luck which has stripped him of virtually everything but his pr...

  Some shows, you go in loving the artist a lot and come out loving them even more.   Nov. 20, 1976 Phoebe Knocks Them Dead             It was the old Jo Stafford tune, “Teach Me Tonight.” It came up second before a sold-out Shea’s Buffalo Friday night and Phoebe Snow darn near stopped the show with it right then and there.           Snow, having already jolted the crowd to attention by opening with the rip-roaring Motown hit, “Shakey Ground,” followed it up by driving folks to their feet with an incredible display of vocal acrobatics on the ‘50s standard.           The coy hit of a generation ago was enough of a surprise on the singer’s “It Looks Like Snow” album, but the recorded version scarcely was an indication of what she does to it in person.           It became a vehicle for...

  I never liked Chicago . As a guitar rocker, I was dismissive of their horns. I thought their songs were doofy. And I despised their name. Can you imagine the reaction if somebody called their band " Buffalo ?" Nevertheless, their durability and their enormous mass appeal couldn’t be denied. The journalist in me had to check it all out. Nov. 13, 1976 Chicago Might Be Fat Cats, But They Deliver the Goods The rock group Chicago, now observing its 10th anniversary, has matured into the same kind of regime as the one that rules their namesake city.           What might be considered quirks in younger administrations have become formalized in Chicago , as was evident from a seat behind the eight-man aggregation in a nearly sold-out Memorial Auditorium Friday night.           Self-indulgence made for a 35-minute break between the group’s opening 45-minute set and the final hour – long ...

  One of the biggest bands of this bicentennial year at the top of their game. Nov. 6, 1976 Overall Excellence Scores Points for Earth, Wind & Fire             Earth, Wind & Fire has mastered the art of being Number Two. It’s like in the Olympics. Pile up enough number twos and you’ve got a winner.           For instance, their “Spirit” album is second on the charts this week. And every trick they trotted out in Memorial Auditorium Friday night was second-best to someone else.           There was their entrance onstage. Coming out of three huge pyramids was spectacular enough, but only because Parliament-Funkadelic cancelled out of here last month before they got to show off their $275,000 spaceship setting. * * * TOWER OF POWER could blow Earth, Wind & Fire’s horn section over like the Walls of Jericho. Next to th...

  A Zappa concert like none other, thanks in part to a certain special presence.   Oct. 23, 1976 Sure, Zappa’s Older, But Smarter Too   Thirteen states of realization from the Frank Zappa concert Friday night in Memorial Auditorium:           1. This is one of the most thorough bottle searches known to man. One at the door. And man, it’s cold outside. One at the gate. One at the floor.           2. Cheers for mention of WBUF from the crowd, who are bold enough to do with the lights up what most concert crowds do with the lights down.           3. Zappa gets older – he’s past 30 – but his fans don’t. Except for a few diehard freaks, they’re basically 18 to 21. Official Festival East headcount: “A little over 6,000.”           4. The band appears at 8:25. For introductions, let us ...

  Bat McGrath is part of a special memory for me. He was one of the featured artists at a 97 Rock concert in Delaware Park in August 1976 and, in my secret radio identity as Dempster Bucks, the meanest music critic in town, I was there. So was the station’s morning deejay, Jim Santella, who introduced me to his then-girlfriend’s roommate, a UB senior with dark hair down to her butt. I gave her a ride home later in my Volkswagen Thing and we’ve been together ever since. Oct. 16, 1976 Bat McGrath’s ‘Blue Eagle’ Is Filled With Local Flavor   BAT McGRATH TAKES A BITE of tuna fish sandwich – he doesn’t eat meat – and surveys the radio and record promotion people around the table.           “I never saw this end of the business before,” he grins through his beard. “Usually I’m back on the hill, being your basic reclusive songwriter.”           He doesn’t have to look too far fro...