music

Van Halen performed last night at Darien Lakes PAC and lead singer David Lee Roth was back in action on stage with some entertaining moves. Roth missed the first show from the band's second leg of their U.S. tour in Hershey, Pa., this past Sunday night due to illness.

The crowd of approximately 9,000 people were entertained by classics like "Dance the Night Away," "Ain't talkin bout Love," "Panama," and "Running with the Devil."

This is the band's first time back to WNY since the group played a North American tour in 2012 at the First Niagara Center, Buffalo. Van Halen did not disappoint the crowd and still packed a punch to their lineup with additional tunes like "Hot for Teacher," "Jump," "Unchained," and "You Really Got Me."

Two solos were performed through the show: Alex Van Halen on drums; and Eddie Van Halen with guitar near the end.  

The opening act was the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band pictured in the last two photos below. Next stop for Van Halen is tomorrow night at Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, N.J.

Some photos below Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band.

Press release:

The Genesee Community College Center for the Arts is prepared for another exciting year of events offering a wide range of entertainment including jazz music, graffiti art and dinner theatre. The community is enthusiastically welcome to all events which are listed in chronological order.

The Roz Steiner Art Gallery will host and display "Impromptus," paintings by Jonathon Langfield from Aug. 27 – Sept. 25. Langfield carries on the tradition of American abstraction while infusing an element of graffiti. Utilizing the ideological framework of modernism, his art is executed in a spirit of improvisation. The result is a painterly impromptu. Opening receptions are planned for Thursday, Aug. 27, at 12:30 - 2 p.m. and 5 - 7 p.m.

The Genesee Symphony Orchestra presents a "Fall Festival" performance on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Stuart Steiner Theatre with S. Shade Zajac conducting. Guest soloist Raymond Feng, winner of the GSO Young Artist Competition will perform Greig's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Movement 1. The GSO hosts world-class artists and composers as well as a multitude of well-known local soloists that give audiences a professional-level musical experience. Tickets can be purchased in Batavia at the Senior Center, Roxy's Music and GO ART!, and at the Bank of Castile in Le Roy.

The Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet will take the stage on Friday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m. and bring together the elemental qualities of four creative jazz musicians: the buoyant swing of Bill Chattin's drums; the melodic pulsations of Don Messina's bass; the oceanic depth of Charley Krachy's tenor; and the fiery adventurousness of Kazzrie Jaxen's piano.

Honoring jazz tradition with straight-ahead swing and spontaneous improvisation, the band draws from the collective inspiration from jazz greats such as Lennie Tristano and Sal Mosca, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Bud Powell, Warne Marsh and many others. The quartet plays standard tunes, jazz lines, originals and occasional excursions into the abstract stretching the music in unique and complex directions.

Tickets to the event in the Stuart Steiner Theatre are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors (55+), students (16+) and GCC faculty/staff and $3 for GCC students with ID. GCC alum with ID will receive a $2 discount. Go to http://www.kazzriejaxenquartet.com/ for photos and further information.

Mixed media paintings by Nate Hodge will be displayed in the gallery from Oct. 8 – Nov. 25. The "Everything Flows" exhibit can be viewed during regular gallery hours, which are Monday-Friday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. For more information on all upcoming events at the Roz Steiner Art Gallery visit www.genesee.edu/gallery or www.facebook.com/gccgallery.

In November, audiences are asked to take a trip back in time to a lively Victorian musical hall for a night of dinner theatre where a distinguished ensemble of actors, the Music Hall Royale, stages its flamboyant rendition of an unfinished Dickens' mystery, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." The show tells the story of the upstanding young Edwin Drood who mysteriously disappears and is presumably murdered. But who the Dickens did it? In the end, the audience gets to decide! The dinner theatre shows will run Nov. 12-15, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, at 7 p.m. and Sunday Matinee at 2 p.m. All tickets are $30 and will include a pasta buffet dinner. The production will benefit the Mental Health Association in Genesee County and advance reservations are required.

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is a musical by Rupert Holmes and the original Broadway production was produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival with Joseph Papp as producer and the arrangement by TAMS-WITTMARK MUSIC LIBRARY, Inc., 560 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10022.

For ticket reservations for "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," or for further information, contact the Genesee Center for the Arts box office at (585) 345-6814 or via e-mail: boxoffice@genesee.edu. Information can also be found online at www.genesee.edu/campuslife/arts or www.facebook.com/GCCTheatre.

It's never too soon to mark your calendars for not-to-miss events already scheduled for 2016.

•    Jan. 29, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. -- The Rochester Rat Pack invites you to join us in the cocktail lounges of the world as we laugh and dance the night away to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Keely Smith, Etta James, Jimmy Durante, Bobby Darin, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis and the gang.

•    Feb. 12, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. -- Etta Mae -- an evening of laughter with the reigning "Queen of Southern Sass" and winner of American Comedy Awards: "Stand-Up Comic of the Year." (www.ettamae.com)

•    Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 at 4 p.m. -- Genesee Symphony Orchestra Mid-Winter Concert at GCC's Stuart Steiner Theatre.

It's a year today since local musician Frank Penepento started playing the National Anthem on his trumpet every morning at 7 a.m. at the VA Center in Batavia.

This morning, he was joined by several other players, including Mitch Cayea, now in the Navy and home on leave, who was in high school when he first filled in for Penepento on a morning Penepento couldn't play.

Penepento missed a period of playing while recovering from neck surgery, so other trumpeters filled in for him, and all but one of those stand-ins joined him this morning.

Besides Cayea, playing this morning were Harold McJury, Donny Allen, Ross Chua, Don Shirk and Tom Cecerce. Unable to play this morning was Richard Samsel.

Together, the group has performed the National Anthem at 7 a.m. at the VA Center through rain, sleet, snow, zero-degree mornings and golden ones like today.

Previously: Trumpeter plays National Anthem every morning at VA to honor veterans, and his father

Slipknot headlined Darien Lake PAC Wednesday night. Lamb of God opened. Also performing were Bullet for my Vallentine and Motionless in White.

Pictured below photos of Lamb of God:

Pictured below photos of Bullet for my Vallentine:

Motionless in White:

Scott DiMartino played in local bands as a teenager. He had all the sound equipment needed for his big idea. In December, he approached his brother, Danny DiMartino, with the idea to set up a portable night club in Batavia. They bought a light setup and are now staging events at T.F. Brown’s and Billy Goats with their business, Esdee Entertainment.

“Batavia has a lot of culture for bars,” Scott said. “There is Center Street, Bourbon & Burger and other places. As far as dancing goes, there isn’t really much to offer. It’s the same bars, the same bands, the same nights.”

The brothers never thought that Batavia was big enough to support a nightclub for more than six months. Scott is hoping that monthly events will get people out and give them exposure to a different scene they may not have necessarily seen before.

“We want to bring something different to this town,” he said. “People in Batavia may not have seen real mixing on turntables and that’s what we want to bring.”

The idea came to Scott after his friend, Macy Paradise, came back from Colorado for a visit. He asked Scott to play a show with him at T.F. Brown’s. At the event, Paradise spun records and DiMartino played the drums. The response was overwhelming.

“Tons of people showed up,” DiMartino said. “We received so much support from the people of Batavia that night.”

DiMartino praises Paradise and his brother for their help with bringing his idea to life, but he really does it out of his love for music. He works 55-hour weeks at his full-time job. Yet, he somehow finds the time to plan events to share his passion with the rest of Batavia.

“We are just two brothers who love music and bought a bunch of stuff with a ton of support from the community,” he said.

The duo is hosting their next event on July 24 at Billy Goats. The $5 throwback dance party is for the 21-and-over crowd. Music will be exclusively from the '80s, '90s and early 2000s. The brothers hope to turn the occasion into a giant karaoke party.

“I want to see the looks on people’s faces when they say, ‘Oh my god, I forgot this song existed!’ ” DiMartino teased. “People are going to have a really good time. I couldn’t be more excited to share this with my hometown.” 

Check out their Facebook page for updates on their future events. 

Photos by Steve Ognibene

Paul Draper is used to being a musician for the Ramble, a musical event hosted in Batavia, but this year, he’s experiencing the event from another angle. Bill McDonald and the rest of the Ramble Posse have decided to pass the organizational and promotional torch on to Draper. He couldn’t be more excited.

“When Bill asked if I would like to be involved with the Batavia Ramble, my answer was, ‘yes. 100 percent,’ ” Draper said. “I’m the lucky one to take the hand-off.”

This year, Draper worked on filling the band rosters, organizing information and he even created a Facebook group.

“Batavia Ramble Facebook group is a local hub for all things Ramble,” he said. “In the group, you can find the band lineups, schedules for each stage as well as pictures from previous years.”

 Next year, he’s taking the lead on the event.

The 90th season of the Batavia Concert Band got off to a soggy start Wednesday evening, forcing musicians and audience members to seek the warmth and comfort of the Stuart Steiner Theatre at GCC.

Here's the schedule for the remainder of the season:

• July 4th at noon, Guest Conductor David Keller. Picnic in the Park sponsored by GoArt!
• July 8 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 15 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 22 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 29 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey, Annual Chicken Barbecue

All concerts are at Centennial Park, unless weather forces a relocation to GCC.

For as long as he can remember Batavia native Gary Call Hanley has been surrounded by music. As a child, his grandmother, Leona Pastore, took him to orchestras and encouraged his love for music. It wasn’t long before Call Hanley learned to play a variety of instruments and began to play in various bands.

After a few years of touring in Western New York with local bands, he started playing with national bands. He has played legendary venues like New York’s CBGB. Now, Call Hanley has planted roots in Nashville, Tenn., as a recording and audio engineer with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

On July 3, his composition “Plight of the Common Man” will premiere at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center as part of the “Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture: A Star Spangled Evening with the Nashville Symphony” event.  This will be the first time in the history of the Orchestra that it plays a symphony written by someone on its staff.

“The 1812 concert is annually one of the most popular performances on our concert calendar,” Dave Felipe, publicist for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra said. “It means Gary’s work will be heard by upwards of 1,500 or more people along with works by Gershwin, Copland, Barber and more.”

Felipe is right. Call Hanley is very excited.

“I don’t know of anyone else who has had their first symphony played by a world-renowned orchestra,” Call Hanley joked. “I just thought, if other composers can do it, so can I.”

So he did.

“Plight of the Common Man,” starts off minimalistic, builds up in the middle and comes back to a gentle ending. Call Hanley likened it to the life of man.

“We start off small, we live these big lives, and then we end small,” he said.

The title comes from the thought that man is facing a constant struggle.

“Life isn’t always a fanfare, sometimes it’s a plight,” he added. “The challenge is to overcome all of the hardships and heartaches that life brings. With the good comes the bad and with the bad comes the good.”

When he isn’t writing symphonies or recording for a GRAMMY Award winning orchestra, Gary Call Hanley finds solace in playing with his band Subway Lights. In addition to cowriting songs with his writing partner Alex Quinn, Call Hanley sings lead vocals.

“Music is in my DNA,” he said. “I hear melodies and music all the time in my head. If I didn’t have those outlets, I think I would be a very sad man.”

Call Hanley believes that Western New York holds a great deal of musical talent and he feels lucky to be a part of it.

“I feel very fortunate,” he said. “I feel very lucky to be where I am. I am very grateful to that. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I’ve been very grateful.”

(Photo: Courtesy the Nashville Symphony.)

Heavy rain didn't dampen the spirit of Friday's Genesee Symphony Orchestra concert, which was moved from Jackson Square to City Centre because of the storms. As promised, the GSO delivered a lively and energetic show.

Press release:

The Genesee Symphony Orchestra is having a full-orchestra concert this Friday, June 12, 7 p.m. at Jackson Square. The GSO musicians are reaching out to our Batavia audience in hopes of having an entertaining concert for all ages. The program will be conducted and led by GSO concertmaster Gregory Docenko. Greg is a phenomenal violinist and will be playing his electric violin while conducting the orchestra through the program.

Greg has designed the program with musical arrangements that will get the audience whistling and clapping. There is a portion of the program that will feature the GSO Jazzers, and Blue Grass Fiddles. Howard Owens will be featured on his typewriter during the "Typewriter" by LeRoy Anderson. State Assemblyman Steve Hawley will read the narrative/story of "The Frog Prince" with orchestra accompaniment. "Stars and Stripes Forever" and a brass rendition of "America the Beautiful" will fill our patriotic hearts.

Though Jackson Square concerts are free, the GSO will be accepting donations to support our orchestra for the upcoming 69th season. So, bring your chairs and enjoy our very entertaining hour-long concert. The GSO is proud to continue and support our area's cultural traditions.

Photos by Howard Owens, rehearsal Monday evening in the band room at Batavia HS.

Ross Chua and Chelsea Jensen rehearse Monday afternoon on the Batavia High School stage for tomorrow night's talent showcase.

The show goes on at 6:30 p.m. and tickets are $3 each.

The Smokin' Eagle BBQ & Brew in Le Roy kicked off a summer series Battle of the Bands on Wednesday night.

For each of the next 10 weeks, 10 bands will compete to move on to the next round. One band each Wednesday is playing from at least 8 to 9 p.m. (the period of judging, the bands may play longer).

The series kicked off with a performance by JP Shaggy, from Syracuse.

There will also be bands in the competition from the local area as well as Buffalo and Rochester, said Jimmy B, from Jimmy B entertainment, who is organizing the event with Smokin' Eagle co-owner Jon Marcello.

There is a panel of five judges. They will judge the bands on stage presentation, time management, sound quality, band synchronization, band enthusiasm, and attitude and audience response.

The top six bands move onto the semi-finals. Round 2 will be three weeks of two bands each week, top seed vs. bottom seed. 

The finalists will compete Sept. 19, which is a Saturday, from 2 to 10 p.m. That event will be a fundraiser for a charity yet to be selected. There will be other entertainment along with raffles and drawings.

JP Shaggy is Jason Krueger.  To find out more about him, visit his Facebook page.

Press release:

The Downtown Batavia Business Improvement District (BID) is sponsoring the 16th Annual Jackson Square Concert Series, each one is from 7 to 9 p.m. on Fridays, June 12th – Aug. 28th, in Downtown Batavia. Free to the public. Food and refreshments available. Rain Days at Batavia City Centre. Bring your own seating. More Info: Don Burkel at B.I.D. at 585-344-0900. Visit: www.downtownbataviany.com

The Jackson Square Concerts “ Friday Nights In The Square” will be featuring:

• Genesee Symphony (Friday, June 12th)
• Emerald Isle (June 26th)
• Fat City (July 3rd)
• Mitty & The Followers (July 10th)
• Penny Whiskey (July 17th)
• OHMS Band (July 24th)
• Ghost Riders (July 31st)
• Ghost Riders Drum & Bugle (July 31st)
• It’s My Party (Aug. 7th)
• Bluesway Band (Aug. 14th)
• John Cole Blues Band (Aug. 21st)
• C’est Bon Dance Band (Aug. 28th)

The ignition of the fuel on a diesel engine creates a low, aggressive grumble, booming bass and grungy chugging. Who would have thought that the same sounds could be heard in songs written in the Marine barracks in Iraq?

Dan Clor, 39, who grew up in Le Roy, wrote the songs in 2006. After his tour, he brought them to Los Angeles, where he lives now, and started recording them in 2007. From there, Weapon-X was born.

The name comes from a Marvel comic. It was recommended to Clor by a Marine friend. The band started playing live shows and people took to the name. Clor asked Marvel and they let him use it.  

As a Marine, Clor is moved by his time in the military. The band plays shows for veterans and receives a lot of support from them.

“I feel like three out of four veterans hear our music and latch onto it pretty well. Marines and vets are usually in your corner as long as you don’t screw up,” he said.

Although their songs have a lot of military and underdog overtones, Weapon-X doesn’t want to be put into a corner. They’re inspired by a lot of heavy and forceful music.

“It all started with Pantera, Metallica and (Black) Sabbath. I like everything from Johnny Cash to early '90s rap stuff,” Clor said. “Metallica is the band that made me go to House of Guitars and buy my first guitar. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Not only did he learn how to play guitar, but at 18, Clor was teaching music lessons at Roxy’s when it was in the Batavia Shopping Center. He’s grateful for the time he spent in Genesee County.

“I thought it was cool to be raised in the small-town atmosphere,” he said. “Everyone is real close to each other. I did like just kind of having that closeness, but I felt a little stifled. I knew I wanted to move somewhere bigger. I needed more activity, more opportunity.”

Clor moved to L.A. in 2003. He went to the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. After running low on money, he decided he had to get right to work in the industry. Now, in addition to being the front man of Weapon-X, Clor owns Victory Music Academy in L.A. There, he helps build and develop young bands. He aims to be a mentor for people who like to play edgier and darker music.

For now, Clor is back in town. He and Weapon-X are preparing for the Beast Coast Tour. This tour marks the first time the boys are playing the East Coast since the band's inception.

“We decided to come back here because we were getting a lot of response from people back home,” he said. “We put feelers out there and the response was really good.”

The tour kicks off at Montage Music Hall in Rochester on Friday for $15. They will play a second show at the same location on Saturday. Both shows are being sponsored by Center Street Smoke House. The tour will also see stops in Syracuse, Cambridge, Mass., Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C.

The band consists of Clor on lead vocals and guitar, Bill Scott on guitar, Ryan Whyman playing the keyboard, Jesus Rauda on bass, and David Thueson on drums. Unfortunately, the usual bass player and drummer could not make it. The Beast Coast Tour will see Jared Swaney on bass and James D. Jackson on drums.

Country singer Ricky Lee performed at the Batavia VA Hospital this afternoon. His set list included patriotic songs, songs honoring veterans and even some George "The 'Possum" Jones.

Each veteran in attendance was given a copy of his latest CD for free.