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For the love of the music: Ghost Riders still kickin' 30 years into their career

By Howard B. Owens
the ghost riders
A recent Ghost Riders lineup: Jimmy "Steel" Duvall, Bill McDonald, Kay McDonald, Bill PItcher, and Bob Norton.
Submitted photo.

There were some sharp elbows involved, says Bill McDonald, and Bill Pitcher's brother didn't expect the partnership to last when the two "Wild Bills" of the local music scene came together in Batavia 30 years ago to form the band that became the Ghost Riders.

But the partnership has thrived, producing some great music and some great memories for all involved as the Ghost Riders prepare for their 30th Anniversary celebration show at Batavia County Club at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 27.

By the time 1993 rolled around, both McDonald and Pitcher were veterans of the local music scene, with McDonald even venturing well beyond Genesee County's borders to pursue a musical career.

When he returned home, it was with the intent to take care of his family in their new home in Darien.  Then a friend suggested he needed to start a country band.

He found a guitarist, and they started inviting in established musicians they knew who would fit into the hardcore country style they were after.

After a few rehearsals, they lined up a first gig and then the bass player had to hightail it to Florida because of some legal issues to resolve there, and then the lead guitarist quit to join an established gigging band in Buffalo.

At the same time, Pitcher's band Bullseye was running its course. The pedal steel player decided it was time to retire, and another member moved to Buffalo and another to Florida.

"So my band was dissolving right at the time that Bill needed a bass player and guitar player, so we kind of morphed into a good group of guys," Pitcher said. "We had all the elements we liked."

But still, no name for the band and gigs already lined up, including gigs originally booked for Bullseye.

Also, part of that original lineup was Jimmy Duval on pedal steel (Duval has played with McDonald for 40 years),  Larry Merritt, and Jimmy Symonds.

The first gig was a long-gone tavern, Confetti's, located on property now occupied by City Centre.

"We played on a Saturday night, and it went over great," McDonald said.

"We’re hardcore country, country with a twang, with steel guitar and lead guitar, and we sang harmonies," Pitcher said.

McDonald said they drew on influences such as Merle Haggard.

"We wanted to keep real country alive," he said.

It was a few gigs into the band's career before they came up with a name.

One evening, the band was booked at the South Byron Fire Hall, and they decided to hold a band name contest. They invited fans to write new suggested names on a card. Then the band reviewed about 20 submissions and narrowed down the field to three "we could live with," McDonald said.

They read the names off to the crowd, and Ghost Riders, taken from the name of a song they played, and suggested by Fred Ferrell, was the overwhelming favorite.

"It may not be the most unique name, but it stuck," McDonald said.

In those early months, the Ghost Riders were a cover band even though McDonald was an established songwriter.  The original songs would come later.

"It just was so hard to put all that together in a short period of time," McDonald said. "Everybody knew all the other songs (the covers), so it just made it easier.  We learned (the originals) as we went into the studio to record an album. Then we practiced all of the original songs that we had. That's when we did our rehearsing, right in the studio. Yeah, that was pretty cool."

The Ghost Riders, in their career, have released five studio albums.  None, of course, were big sellers, but they kept the fans happy, and there were always plenty of fans.

Pitcher remembers that on the first CD, the band included Ghost Riders in the Sky.  They had to pay royalties -- eight cents for each CD sold.  He ended up sending a check for about $3 to the publishing company in New York.

The band has also released another four live CDs, mostly compiled by Pitcher.  There is a collection of songs recorded over a three-year period at the Stafford Carnival.  There is another set recorded at a venue in Buffalo through the sound system onto a cassette that Pitcher said has just amazing fidelity considering the available technology. 

Rarely, over the past 30 years, has the band traveled much beyond Western New York, but there have been gigs in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

"We never got a national booking agency involved with the band," McDonald said. "We had some chances to do it, but we booked our own stuff. We were getting up there. As I said, I was 30 when we started the band. He was 40. So we weren't a couple of youngsters."

McDonald had had his time on the road.  As the frontman of Slim Chicken and the Midnight Pickers, McDonald toured throughout New York before moving the band to Texas (with a year at the end in California).

He even had his shot at a major record deal. One snowy winter night, his band was booked into the Cafe Espresso in Woodstock.  That was a place favored by Bob Dylan and The Band at one time.  The place was dead because of the winter storm. There was one customer, a man sitting by himself shuffling papers and just not leaving.

"I kept saying to the guys, why won't they close the place up and let's get the hell out of here?" McDonald said. "The owner said. 'We've still got a customer.'  And he sat there all night. At the end of the night, after we played our last song, he came up to me and he told me, 'What are you guys doing tomorrow morning? Busy? I ask him who he is, and he says, 'I'm Harley Lewis. I'm from RCA Records in New York City."

He was an A&R man, and he wanted Slim Chicken and the Midnight Pickers in the studio in NYC the next morning to cut a three-song demo.

The band was in the studio and cut the demo, but the deal didn't come through.

McDonald said RCA decided to sign Pure Prairie League instead. 

McDonald started his musical journey in Batavia with some friends and the band T&T and the Explosions, followed by Lookout Bridge and then Beethoven's Dream Group.

Pitcher’s musical journey began when he was five years old.  His dad was a guitar and harmonica player who attached his harmonica to his guitar, not on a rack around his neck like Bob Dylan would popularize. As Pitcher and his brother, known locally as Uncle Rog, were growing up, their dad mostly played house parties, maybe six or 10 couples at the parties, maybe two or three times a week.  He was a school teacher who drove truck in the summer.

When the Pitcher boys -- from Pavilion -- got older and had a band of their own, Dad would sometimes sit in.

"He never took a nickel for playing ever because he loved to play."

Then they formed a family band, Family Plus One. That band included another Pavilion boy, Charlie Hettrick, and Pitcher's mom, who bought her own Git Fiddle, which was a wire connected to a stick and a bell on top. She would hit the floor on the downbeat and pluck the string. Uncle Rog played drums. 

By then, Pitcher was playing a little melody on guitar, which would give his dad a break on harmonica. 

Most of the time, they played in Fulton County, where both of Pitcher's parents had extended family.

They would go into a bar and ask the bartender if they could play a bit.

"We had a good time in the bar," Pitcher said. "You know, in a half hour, 45 minutes, people would gravitate in. Somebody would make a couple of calls or something, and we would end up playing for two or three hours."

Before Bullseye, Pitcher was the leader of The American Countree Four.  He was known as Wild Bill.

And McDonald, in Slim Chicken, was Wild Bill.

For years, fans would get them confused, both McDonald and Pitcher said.

"People would start talking to me, and I would figure it out -- 'oh, they mean a gig that Bill played,'  and I'd tell him, and then he'd go, Yeah, somebody talked to me at a wedding reception, he thought that he was me," Pitcher said.

That's one reason Pitcher's brother didn't think these two guys used to leading their own bands would be able to put away the sharp elbows long enough to make music.

The first compromise was Pitcher, a few months older than McDonald, became "Mild Bill" while McDonald remained "Wild Bill."

Over 30 years, the Ghost Riders have played a lot of gigs.  Most of them paid.  There was a time when a good local gigging band could make a living in the warmer months playing lawn fetes and carnivals and picnics and parties. Every community had at least one annual event back then that needed live music.

Now it's much harder to find enough gigs, McDonald said.  The band has also started other projects.  McDonald and his wife Kay (who is also now a member of the Ghost Riders), for example, also tour as The Old Hippies. Pitcher has a few side projects, including a bluegrass musicians collective in Pavilion. Still, the Ghost Riders have some of the same gigs they play every year and have for 20 years.

One thing they've always done is play for free in support of good causes. 

"We did a lot of civic stuff," McDonald said. "We thought when we started, we wanted to do what we could for the community for no money. You know, just do whatever we could do."

All along, the Ghost Riders have been all about the love of the music, both musicians said.  That's the real secret to keeping the band going for 30 years.

"We just, we'd enjoy it," McDonald said. "We love playing music. And this is what gave us the opportunity."

Pitcher added, "My answer to why we're playing is because that's what we do. We love it. It's part of us. It comes from the heart."

All photos courtesy of the Ghost Riders.

The Ghost Riders Play at Batavia Country Club on Aug. 27 from 3 to 6 p.m. The current Ghost Rider members are: Gene "Sandy" Watson, Bill McDonald, Kay McDonald, Bill PItcher, and Nino Speranza.

the ghost riders with graz
One incarnation of the Ghost Riders: Jimmy "Steel" Duval, Bill McDonald, Brian Graz, Bill Pitcher, and Bob Norton. 
the ghost riders
The Ghost Riders can often be seen participating in local parades, picking their songs on a flatbed trailer.
the ghost riders
Bill Pitcher, Batavia, Jimmy "Steel" Duvall, Waller Tx, Jim Sweet, Buffalo, Bill McDonald, Batavia, Bob Norton, Union City, Tennessee. 
the ghost riders
CDs released by The Ghost Riders during their 30-year career.

Lumineers found the 'Brightside' for fourth studio album

By Alan Sculley
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Photo courtesy of the Lumineers

By Dave Gil de Rubio

Whatever you do, don’t call “Brightside,” the Lumineers’ fourth and latest studio effort, a COVID-19 album, even though the band started tracking its nine songs in March 2021. 

While founding member Wesley Schultz acknowledges the pair of two-and-a-half week sessions occurred during the pandemic time frame as the 40-year-old New Jersey native was hunkering down with his family in Denver, he feels this latest outing is its own thing.

“We kept saying it was like the post-COVID-19 record,” Schultz explained in a recent phone interview. “To me, it was not consciously trying to float above that while still observing that. In a lot of ways, we were trying to make a record that we’d want to hear in 10 years and it would still make sense…Part of the goal of the record, at least subconsciously, is to try to write an album that describes the pain without getting so caught in the weeds in using the words quarantine or pandemic. It was bigger than that.”

Like many-a-music act, when touring was paused in March 2020, the Lumineers’ time on the road came to an abrupt halt. Schultz went through what he felt like was a quasi-grieving process.

“You go through your confusion, anger and then acceptance,” he said. “I felt pretty stifled and down. I was out of my element for a while there. I think the writing helped dig me out of the hole and find a purpose again and maybe channel some of the stuff I was really feeling in a healthier way versus drinking every day or doing something that was going to distract me.”

And adding a baby girl to a brood that already included his toddler son helped give him perspective during this unprecedented time. “The way touring goes, you say yes to a hell of a lot more things than you say no, so I was forced to be grounded and to see my son and spend real time with him,” Schultz said. 

“You’re like a workaholic in some ways because you’re hustling for so many years that it was a gift to be told that you have to stay still for a little while. Even though that was painful, I felt like what do I do with myself now? I felt useless. You crawl out of that and get a lot of beautiful time out of it. I feel way, way closer to my son than I probably would have had we been on the road.”

For the past decade, the duo of Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites have been the constants in The Lumineers (cellist/vocalist Neyla Pekarek was in the band from 2010-18), carving out a niche as one of the premier folk-rock/Americana acts through what is now the group’s fourth album. 

The band’s breakthrough single was the 2012 Top 5 hit “Ho Hey.” Its simplicity taps into an organic vibe that has come to define much of the Lumineers’ work that Schultz has found to be lacking in a lot of pop music.

That straightforward simplicity comes across in spades on “Brightside,” whether it’s the opening title track that uses a cadence reminiscent of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” while Schultz implores that, “I’ll be your brightside, baby, tonight” or providing reassurances during uncertain times amid bare-bones piano accompaniment and just a hint of strings amid the optimistic vibe of “Where We Are.” Both songs have provided a degree of comfort to the band’s fan base, who have shared their feelings on social media.

“Ironically, a lot of parents, whether it’s people I don’t know that are posting it or parents that I know personally, so many have sent me images of their kids singing ‘Where We Are’ or ‘Brightside,’” Schultz shared. “But particularly ‘Where We Are’ and they’re singing, ‘Where we are/I don’t know where we are’ and it’s these little kids, most of whom don’t even know words yet and they’re mouthing these words. That for me is very exciting to see. It’s like tapping into some kind of universal power.”

Suffice it to say that the creative restlessness that defined so much of how “Brightside” came out will be a driving force of what the Lumineers will bring to the stage on this summer’s tour.

“We have four albums out and we have to cut songs now and that’s a good feeling,” Schultz said. “We can actually put on a show that has no fat. As a band, we’re most excited to play. Not pulling a rabbit out of our hat, but having, from start to finish, moments [fans] won’t want to leave, grab a beer or take a leak. You want to just be there. I got to see Tom Petty during his “Wildflowers” tour and I forgot how many songs he wrote. I would never compare us to him, but in that feeling, I want people to leave hopefully saying, ‘I forgot how many songs they wrote,’ even just four albums in.”

Lumineers will be playing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.

Offspring brings 30 years of 'Smash' hits to Darien Lake

By Alan Sculley
offspring-dexter-noodles.jpg
Dexter Holland (left) and Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman of the Offspring.
Photo courtesy of the Offspring

It might seem surprising, but Dexter Holland, singer/guitarist of the Offspring, considers this summer’s tour the biggest outing of his band’s career and a sign that the Offspring might be bigger than ever as a band.

“It feels like it’s getting better for us. We’ve talked about why that might be, is it a post-COVID thing, and people are excited to be back, or just the fact that now we’ve had 30 years of people being used to our songs?” Holland said in a late-July phone interview. “We’ve got people that are a little older, we’ve got kids that are just discovering us, and they’ve created this bigger audience of more than one generation, I guess, let’s say. But for whatever reason, man, it just feels really good right now.”

That’s quite a welcome reality for a band that has already had some periods of huge success. Formed in 1984 in Garden Grove, California, the Offspring broke through in a big way with their third album, 1994’s “Smash.” Featuring the hit singles “Come Out and Play,” “Self Esteem,” and “Gotta Get Away,” it became the biggest indie album to date, with sales standing
at more than 11 million worldwide.

With its energetic and fun punk rock songs, “Smash” joined Green Day’s “Dookie” as the primary album that brought punk into the mainstream. Then, after a follow-up album, “Ixnay on the Hombre,” which didn’t sell as well (it still topped out at around 3 million copies sold), the next album, “Americana,” became another blockbuster. It featured the hit singles “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “She’s Got Issues,” and “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and the album sold more than 10 million copies.

Still, this summer’s tour, with Sum 41 and Simple Plan as opening acts, takes the Offspring to new heights.

“I think it’s the biggest headlining tour we’ve ever done, actually,” Holland said. “We’re playing like 25 cities, all amphitheaters, tickets are selling really well, and we’ve got a great package.”

Fans can expect to hear the songs that have kept the Offspring on the radio and in a prominent place in the rock world for more than three decades.

“You get to the point where you’ve put out nine or 10 albums, it’s a lot of material to choose from,” Holland said. “But I believe you’ve got to play the songs that people want to hear, right? Sometimes artists can get a little obscure with their stuff. You’ve kind of got to play the hits. So that dictates a good chunk of our set.”

Far from resting on their considerable laurels, the Offspring, which includes Holland, guitarist, and fellow founding member Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, bassist Todd Morse and drummer Brandon Pertzborn are acting like a band that’s still inspired and looking to grow musically.

While the studio's five albums that followed “Americana” haven’t sold in the eight figures, they’ve generally done well commercially. There have also been almost another dozen top 10 singles, including “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” which has become the Offspring’s most streamed song.

That single is featured on the 2008 album, “Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace,” which was recently re-released for its 15th anniversary with a pair of live tracks added to the original album. Holland considers it one of the band’s best efforts and an important album in the overall career. 

In 2005, the band released a greatest hits album, and Holland said the band wanted to prove the hits album didn’t mark the end of the road for the Offspring and that they were inspired and as good as ever musically.

“It’s an important record for us,” Holland said. “And it’s something I’m really proud of, that that far into our career (we had) our most popular song.” 

Having released their current studio album, the well-received “Let The Bad Times Roll” in 2021, Holland and his bandmates have been back in the studio recently.

“We did another song, and that makes six, not completely done, but they’re mostly done,” Holland said. “So we’re four-ish songs away (from an album). I think we’ll get something out early next year.”

Holland can’t yet say for sure how the next album will compare to other Offspring albums, but it’s bound to have some of the usual musical and lyrical signatures. “Sometimes you just start writing songs and you don’t realize how an album is coming together until it’s almost there,” Holland said. 

“Like on ‘Americana,’ ‘Americana’ was one of the last songs I wrote because I didn’t realize until then all the other songs like ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job?’ and ‘Pretty Fly,’ they were describing American society. I didn’t really realize that’s what the album was about until I got almost done and thought well, I’ll call it ‘Americana’ because that’s like ‘Americana’ means American culture. This was my vision of what I thought American culture was doing in the late ‘90s. We’re kind of still in that phase with the songs, but we’ve always liked the energy of punk music and the rebelliousness...What I’m focusing right now on is just melody. I want the songs to be really good.”

Offspring will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Sunday.

Photos: Songbirds pack Jackson Square for Friday night show

By Howard B. Owens
songbirds in jackson square
Christian Hehr, on lead guitar, performs with Songbirds in Jackson Square, Downtown Batavia, on Friday night.
Photo by Howard Owens.

A larger-than-typical crowd jammed into Jackson Square on Friday night to catch Fleetwood Mac tribute band Songbirds perform the legendary band's best-known songs.

The five-piece band formed in 2020 comprises musicians from Genesee County and the immediate area and has been growing in popularity throughout Western New York.

Band members are:

  • Dave Cocuzzi - Drums 
  • Jeffrey Fischer - Bass/Keys/Vocals
  • Christian Hehr - Guitar/Vocals
  • Maryssa Peirick - Keys/Vocals 
  • Julia Riley - Vocals/Aux Percussion/Ukulele 

Previously: It's more than just ‘Rumours’ that Songbirds pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac

songbirds in jackson square
Songbirds, a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, performs in Jackson Square on Friday night.
Photo by Howard Owens.

 

songbirds in jackson square
Singer Julia Riley.
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Maryssa Peirick, keyboards and vocals.
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Jeffrey Fischer on bass.
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Dave Cocuzzi on drums.
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds in jackson square
Photo by Howard Owens.

Nickelback will 'Get Rollin' into Darien Lake on August 16

By Alan Sculley
nickelback-richard-beland.jpg
Photo of Nickelback by Richard Beland

By L. Kent Wolgamott

The guys in Nickelback weren’t dreaming about selling millions of records and filling arenas when they started playing together in tiny Hanna, Alberta, back in 1995.

“We had no idea what this even looked like and what it meant to be winning in the music business,” said bassist Mike Kroeger. “When you're 19 years old, and you're trying to figure out how to play the instrument and maybe get a couple of people to stop and see you play at your local community center or even just come to the garage and pop a couple of beers
and watch, you're not thinking to yourself about arenas.” 

Nor did Kroeger, his younger brother, singer, and songwriter Chad and keyboardist/backing vocalist Ryan Peake have a clue about the reality of the “rock star” life they’ve led since 2005’s chart-topping album “All The Right Reasons” propelled them out of the clubs and opening act slots to arena headliners.

“I'm, right now, sitting on a tour bus that I travel on by myself,” he said. “My blessings are so many that I couldn't possibly try to count them with you. I'm so happy and fortunate to be where I am. But there's no chance any of us had any idea what this was going to look like as we went along.”

And, Nickelback certainly couldn’t have predicted one of the elements that fueled its rise to popularity – Napster and the other “peer-to-peer” file-sharing apps that emerged on the music scene in 1999 -- just before the release of “The State,” the Canadian quartet’s third album – and he band’s first to go gold.

“We were just starting to come up when Napster was just starting to come up and that whole dust-up with Metallica and some of the other artists and societies going on,” Kroeger said. “We were one of the most downloaded and probably uploaded artists on Napster when we were just coming up."

“To be honest, I think that the timing of being the new band at the genesis of this new sort of interface with fans served us tremendously,” he said. “I don't think we'd be where we are now without the whole illegal file sharing.” Napster, Kroeger said, let Nickelback build a relationship with fans who wouldn’t have paid for the music and helped spread the band’s songs beyond radio and the tight selection of the band’s hits that would get played a few times a day.

A quarter century later, however, Kroeger has some issues with what arose when Napster undermined the industry by providing free music–streaming services, which largely do the same.

“What that kind of relationship has done to the music business since Napster, I'm not as happy about,” he said. “It's essentially hollowed out about 65% of the capital in the music industry. There's no sort of licensing."

“It's a very rare thing to see a label or somebody else actually investing money to develop talent now because there's just no money,” Kroger said. “That exploratory capital just doesn't exist anymore.”

As Kroeger talked about the growth of Nickelback – “I wouldn't want to sound too self-aggrandizing to say evolution, like we're kind of closing in on some kind of perfection or something” – he turned to speaking of how Chad Kroeger has gotten ever better as a songwriter. “I think he’s got it down,” he said.

Chad Kroeger’s songwriting, Nickelback’s now two-decade-plus experience, and the versatility within its music – hard rock, metal, ballads, love songs, and nostalgic songs -- have combined to make the band better, record by record, year by year, Kroeger said. 

These qualities can be heard on “Get Rollin’” -- the band’s new album and the songs from it that get nightly showcases in Nickelback’s set. 

“We’re doing three every night on the tour, stuck in there with the old standbys,” Kroeger said. “It’s not like we put them into a block together where everybody’s gonna go buy a beer...We want to keep our momentum up on stage and keep people excited.” 

While it rarely, if ever, makes headlines, Nickelback is a band led by brothers, who, defying the norm set by The Kinks and Oasis, have managed to get along since day one. 

“Truthfully, not everybody can do that,” Kroeger said. “We all know about the bands that have brothers in them that have made the papers or whatever. There was one point really early in our career I'll never forget. We'd gone overseas. I remember where I was, in London. I got this phone call in the middle of the night. It was a person on our record label’s team. They were suggesting Chad and I get into a public fistfight in London to drum up some noise. I was just like, ‘Okay, I know you're, I know you think you're trying to help, but that's a level that we will not stoop to, and that's it.’” 

And the fact that Nickelback fills arenas night after night is evidence that thousands of people like the band, for which Kroeger is grateful. “Just to hear that phrase – It never gets old –  filling arenas,” Kroeger said. “It's an incredible, humbling gift”.

Nickelback will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

Only "Cry Baby" is on stage as Batavia Players happily open doors to new theater Aug. 11-13

By Joanne Beck
batavia players cry baby
Deacon Smith as Dupree
Photo by Howard Owens.

Cast members and leaders of Batavia Players' Summer Youth Theater want you to grab a seat for their production of “Cry Baby, The Musical,” this weekend, and the only question is: just where will that seat be?

Director Patrick Burk has been teasing the community’s curiosity with the debut of this show, via the sign outside of City Centre and an online post about the long-awaited opening of the new Main St. 56 Theater. 

"We have done a great job, thanks to our community, raising needed funds for seating so that we could open the theater for our summer program.  We still have a lot of work to do to complete the overall project.  We are at approximately $41,000 of our $265,000 goal," Burk said Wednesday. "It is our hope that the community will continually support this fundraising effort so that we can complete the project by the New Year."

Even by Burk’s own recounting of the process, it’s been a long, arduous journey of paperwork, grant applications, construction details, COVID delays, increased labor and raw material costs, and, most importantly — fundraising, fundraising, fundraising. 

"Much of the funds we raised paid for rent, interest, insurance and utilities while the project was on hold during Covid.  Now, we have to raise all that funding again to finish the project. We have had a huge outpouring of donated materials and sweat equity from a number of individuals and local companies. More is needed," he said. "It is our hope that the community will look at this beautiful facility and donate to make it happen."

In May, Burk was at best hopeful for a September splash of the new downtown theater at Batavia City Centre. Batavia Players ramped up a “Be My Guest” campaign seeking donations of any amount to help pay for theater amenities, such as that seat you’re going to hunker down in to watch this musical billed as a rebellious teen comedy based on the 1990 film “Cry-Baby.”

"We are very excited to be opening this weekend with the cult classic 'Cry Baby' and present to the community this highly entertaining and fantastic production," Burk said.  "Our cast is amazing."

Based in 1954, when everyone likes Ike, nobody likes communism, and Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker is the coolest boy in Baltimore, this show features a bad boy with a good cause: truth, justice and the pursuit of rock and roll. 

Wade and the square rich girl, Allison, are star-crossed lovers at the center of this world, with plenty of detractors and distractions to get in the way for a fun plot. Or, as the show’s website states: It's Romeo and Juliet meets High School Hellcats.

“Filled with unforgettable songs and a truly unique and fresh story, Cry-Baby is a perfect choice for any theatre looking to add a-rockin' good time to their season,” the site states. “Cry-Baby, Allison and Baltimore's energetic juvenile delinquents will dance their way right into your audience's heart!”

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at 56 Main St., Batavia. 

Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for students and seniors. Go HERE to purchase. 

batavia players cry baby
 Paige Sikorski as Lenora, Peyton Woeller as Baldwin and Marc Sapareto as Cry Baby Walker
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Paul Daniszewski, Echo Baumer, Peyton Woeller, Michael Gould and Rhys Tanner as the Singing Group "The Whiffles"
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Lyla Jones as Wanda Woodward, Samantha Jane Balbi as Mona "Hatchet Face" Malnowowski, Kylea Wright as Pepper Walker and Jasmine Wessel as Jazz - The Bad Girl Drapes
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Samantha Jane Balbi as Mona "Hatchet Face" Malnorowski
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Alana Kelso, Amora Mabon, Delaney Baker, Carolyn Flint and Emily Gould as the Good Girls
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Elijah Saille as The Guard, Joel Coburn as Junkyard Joel, Billy Zerillo as The Guard, Adam Jursted as Skippy, Deacon Smith as Dupree, Rose Mosher as Mrs. Vernon Williams and Seth Coburn as Judge Igneous Stone
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Kinsley Baker as the Nurse, Adam Jursted as Skippy and Austin Haller as Dr. Woodward
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Marc Sapareto as Cry Baby Walker, Maia Zerillo as Allison, Adam Jursted as Skippy the Poster Boy, Rose Mosher as Mrs. Vernon Williams, Seth Coburn as Judge Igneous Stone and Paul Daniszewski, Echo Baumer, Rhys Tanner and Michael Gould as The Whiffles.
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Paige Sikorski as Lenora, Peyton Woeller as Baldwin and Marc Sapareto as Cry Baby Walker
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Deacon Smith as Dupree during the finale.
Photo by Howard Owens.
batavia players cry baby
Entire Cast in the Finale "Nothing Bad is Ever Gonna Happen Again"
Photo by Howard Owens.

It's more than just ‘Rumours’ that Songbirds pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac

By Howard B. Owens
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
The Songbirds in their practice studio in Corfu: Christian Hehr, Julia Riley, Jeffrey Fischer, Dave Cocuzzi, and Maryssa Peirick. The Songbirds bring their live versions of Fleetwood Mac to Jackson Square on Friday.
Photo by Howard Owens.

Why would a few friends in and around their 20s with roots in and around Batavia come together to play the music of Fleetwood Mac, a band whose biggest-selling album, “Rumours,” came out when their parents were barely out of their teens themselves?

It's timeless music, they say. It's authentic. It's fun and challenging to play. And everybody knows and loves the songs, even their coworkers and friends.

The Songbirds is comprised of

  • Dave Cocuzzi - Drums 
  • Jeffrey Fischer - Bass/Keys/Vocals
  • Christian Hehr - Guitar/Vocals
  • Maryssa Peirick - Keys/Vocals 
  • Julia Riley - Vocals/Aux Percussion/Ukulele 

The one person who connected all musicians together was Jeffrey Fischer, who met Peirick (the Christine McVie of the band) during high school in a summer musical theater camp and met Riley (Stevie Nicks) at an all-state chorus event while in high school, and Fischer played in various bands with Cocuzzi and Hehr.

All along, they all had a common love for Fleetwood Mac, but things didn't get rolling until Hehr posted on Facebook that he dreamed of playing in a Lindsay Buckingham/Fleetwood Mac tribute band.

Hehr, Fischer, and Cocuzzi joked around about it.  The talk got serious when they learned Peirick and Riley were moving back to the Batavia area.

"I kind of got roped into this," Peirick said. "Batavia is home to me, and I moved back in 2020 and reconnected with Jeff. At the same time, Julia moved back from Portland, Oregon. They sort of pitched the idea to me. Jeff and Dave were like, 'Hey, do you want to be in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band? I said, 'I'll try anything once, right?' I've loved Fleetwood Mac for a long time, but I didn't think it would take off like this. I'm very glad that it did, but I definitely kind of got pressured into it, if you will."

The band played its first gig in Attica in December 2021. They're now playing six to eight gigs a month. A lot of them are private parties, which Riley said also gives the band a chance to stretch out and explore other bands from the same period, such as the Eagles.

"The parties are fun for us because we get to expand beyond Fleetwood and into other high-energy rock. We're Mac-heads through and through, but with the talent and interests across our group, it's always fun to explore other styles," Riley said.

On Friday, they will play what is arguably their biggest gig in Batavia yet -- a concert in Jackson Square.  It's not their local debut -- they played a block party on South Swan last summer -- but Jackson Square shows always draw a lot of local music fans.

Buckingham to Nicks and McVey
Hehr doesn't shy away from being called a Fleetwood Mac nerd.  He's the guy who tracks down every possible live recording, watches all of the documentaries, and reads the books and articles. He's just the guy a tribute band needs to bring some historical context to the act and also the musical knowledge to help the band get inside the heads of the artists they're emulating.

"I like studying the parts and finding the patterns in the songwriting -- so, like how Stevie writes versus how Lindsay writes, and identifying those elements in it," Hehr said. "So when we bring it into practice, if we're having trouble figuring out a certain part, I can contribute and say, 'well, knowing Stevie, her chord progressions are very simple and very back and forth, so chances are, it's this chord.'"

Hehr's love of Fleetwood Mac started with guitar. He started playing when he was 13, but it wasn't long before he abandoned picks. He preferred early on playing with his fingers, and this led to an appreciation of fingerstyle guitar, an area where Lindsey Buckingham is a master.

"I just had an affinity for Fleetwood Mac through Lindsey Buckingham's playing," Hehr said. "There was one song I always vowed to myself that if I could ever play it, I would consider that I've made it as a guitar player, and that was 'Never Going Back Again.'"

"He uses Travis picking often," Hehr explained. "'Never Going Back Again' is a good example of him using compound rhythms. He's playing quarter notes with his thumb, but he's doing triplets with his other fingers at the same time, and somehow it works out. It's just incredible.

"When I was finally able to play that song, I was like, I felt so good about myself. I felt very accomplished because that song is very intense and very complicated. I loved the challenge of it, and it was gratifying to finally get it."

Early Mac
While most of the band gravitates to the era of Fleetwood Mac that featured Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, Jeffrey Fischer is more of a Peter Green-era Mac fan.

Peter Green was the original lead guitarist and a bit of a mythical figure among guitar aficionados because he accomplished so much in such a few years before apparently losing his mind to LSD.

"Peter Green, in my opinion, was the most progressive, in the weirdest experimental way, pushing the boundaries of what blues is, and it's just great to listen to. It's more psychedelic. It's breaking all the rules in the best ways," Fischer said.

And because the Songbirds are a group of top-notch musicians, they love including some of those early Mac tunes in their sets.

"It's really an opportunity for myself and the other instrumentalists to jam out and show off our chops," Fischer said.

But what he appreciates most about being in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, he said, are the close harmonies.  Since he's the bass player, the John McVie of the band, and McVie isn't known for overly complicated bass parts, it gives Fischer a chance to sit back, in a manner of speaking, and enjoy the vocals.

"I've always wanted to be in a band that was able to sing very tight together," Fischer said. "I would say my chorus teacher in high school really instilled this love of harmony in me. The Beach Boys, Doobie Brothers, the Eagles, all of these bands that are able to sing so close, even the Beatles, he instilled in me how beautiful harmonies can be. And not only just in terms of music but in terms of like a life philosophy, how it is just great to harmonize with one another."

The Songbirds have been a chance for Peirick to get back to musical performance, something she studied for two years at SUNY Fredonia but took a break from for a few years to take on a nursing career.

"It definitely scratched that itch for me," Peirick said. "When they asked me to come back to do this, it had been approximately eight years since I'd touched a piano. And I guess they weren't lying when they said it's like riding a bike."

The live music experience
While some tribute bands put their own touches on classic songs, and others try to precisely reproduce what audiences are used to hearing from studio recordings, the Songbirds have studied Fleetwood Mac's live recordings and try to bring that energy and vitality to their performances.

"There are a lot of tribute bands that recreate the studio tracks," Hehr said. "That alone is super duper challenging. You're compensating for layers and layers of tracks (recorded in the studio). I think one of the areas we excel in is being able to listen to Fleetwood Mac and ask, 'How did they do it live? How would they have done it back in 1976? And what parts were they prioritizing?' And then that clues us into what they were thinking about -- what was the most important part of that song for them to do? Why is Lindsey not playing this part? Why is Stevie not singing this part? So, in that way, we are trying to recreate that live Fleetwood Mac feel."

Fischer likes trying to recreate the Fleetwood Mac experience as a live band because that is what it was like going to see the band in concert back in the 1970s. That discovery of something new is why people paid for a ticket in the first place.

"It carries on that torch," Fischer said. "It carries on that tradition, that live music is something you can't experience anywhere else. Every live show is different, and you're getting something unique at each show."

Peirick said the Songbirds, with their play-it-live ethos, bring something new to the tribute band concept.

And she isn't surprised to see people across generations going for it.

We all know the songs
Everybody, she said, loves the music.

"It was just the golden era of California music," Peirick said. "(Rumours) was the perfect summer album that people can just pick up at any point and say, 'Wow, this is really catchy and really good.' I think that it stood the test of time because of that. I think that a lot of people, regardless of age, find it really agreeable."

She recalled talking to a trainee at work recently. She mentioned she played in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. 

"Fleetwood Mac? Who's that," the trainee asked.

So she played her three songs -- "Go Your Own Way," "Dreams," and "Everywhere." 

"And she said, 'Oh, these are all Fleetwood Mac. I definitely know Fleetwood Mac.' So I think that's part of the appeal, too, right? It's the music that we all know, that we're all familiar with. But we (the Songbirds) sort of bring new energy to it because we're doing the live versions of the way they perform the songs instead of the studio versions. So it's a fresh twist on an old favorite."

Fischer is pleased to see things working out so well for a young band that started out with a half-joke of "Let's start a Fleetwood Mac tribute band."

"We're receiving a lot more attention than I ever thought we would," Fischer said. "We're playing venues that bands who have been together for years and years have not had the opportunity to play. We're just really excited to see where it takes us."

Songbirds play this Friday, Aug. 11, in Jackson Square from 7 to 9 p.m. and from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 3 at Triangle Park in Oakfield. Admission is free.

songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Christian Hehr
Photo by Howard Owens
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Maryssa Peirick
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Jeffrey Fischer 
Photo by Howard Owens
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Dave Cocuzzi
Photo by Howard Owens.
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Christian Hehr, Julia Riley, and Jeffrey Fischer.
Photo by Howard Owens
songbirds fleetwood mac tribute band
Photo by Howard Owens

Photos: Don Felder at Batavia Downs

By Howard B. Owens
don felder at Batavia Downs

Supporting acts for headliner Don Felder were the High Water Band and Yachut Fathers.

Photos by Nick Serrata.

don felder at Batavia Downs
don felder at Batavia Downs
don felder at Batavia Downs
don felder at Batavia Downs
don felder at Batavia Downs

Matchbox Twenty returns to Darien Lake after 2020 show scratched by COVID

By Steve Ognibene
Matchbox Twenty Band headlined Darien.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Matchbox Twenty Band headlined Darien.  
Photo by Steve Ognibene

American Rock band Matchbox Twenty headlined at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on a cooler Tuesday night in front of 9,000 fans, playing songs on their Slow Dream Tour.  

Some popular hits include 3 A.M., Unline and Push.

The band originally was first scheduled to play on Aug. 29. 2020. That show was canceled because of restrictions on large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The supporting act was Matt Nathanson.

Photos by Steve Ognibene

Lead singer Rob Thomas, MB20.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Lead singer Rob Thomas, Matchbox Twenty.  
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fan Club behind band on stage, Matchbox Twenty.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fan Club behind band on stage, Matchbox Twenty.  
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Matt Nathanson  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Matt Nathanson  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Matt Nathanson  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Matt Nathanson  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene

Godsmack will be 'Lighting Up the Sky' with their last album

By Alan Sculley
godsmack-chris-bradshaw.jpg
Photo of Godsmack by Chris Bradshaw

After 20-plus years as the drummer in Godsmack, one would think drummer Shannon Larkin had seen it all – and undoubtedly he has seen a lot. But he said when the group wrapped up rehearsals in April for the first leg of 2023 touring, he heard Sully Erna, the singer, songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and founding member of Godsmack, say something he’s rarely expressed ahead of the launch of a tour.

“By the end (of rehearsals), Sully isn’t usually like ever ‘We sound great.’ It’s always ‘Ah, you know, we’ve got work to do.’ Even (after) a year on tour, he’s still messing with the set list,” Larkin said. “We ended this with him (Erna), who never really gives it up and says we sound great, he says ‘We sound great. We’re going to be OK.’”

The guys in Godsmack – Erna, Larkin, guitarist Tony Rombola and bassist Robbie Merrill – have good reason to be on point. This will be the last time the band does what’s known as a cycle tour, where music acts typically spend a year-plus on the road promoting their latest album or EP.

Erna and his bandmates have recently announced that their new album, “Lighting Up the Sky,” will be their last as Godsmack. With that, the band will no longer need to do the cycle tours that have followed each of their eight studio albums. It’s not the end of the road for Godsmack, just time to ease up on what has been a rather all-consuming career.

“I hope everybody knows we’re not going away,” Larkin said, reassuring fans that Godsmack is not breaking up. “We will go out and play after this (cycle tour promoting) ‘Lighting Up the Sky’ is all done. We’re going to call each other up and say ‘Hey man, let’s go rock two or three weeks of shows this year’... And (we’ll) be able to control our lives for once instead of music controlling us.”

That last sentence gets to a key reason Godsmack are done with making full albums. Since seeing their 1999 self-titled debut album go quadruple platinum and spawn four top 10 singles, Erna, Larkin, Rombola and Merrill have felt pressure to live up to the successes of their previous output every time they’ve made a new album.

They’ve thrived despite that, building a catalog that includes 26 top 10 singles, 12 of which have gone No. 1 on “Billboard” magazine’s mainstream rock chart. But it’s time to say goodbye to the weight of expectations.

“You have lots of pressure to be successful and to continue to be successful. And the pressure sometimes is in your own mind and you’re putting it on yourself,” Larkin said. And the fact is, Godsmack have achieved everything the four band members set out to accomplish.

“We finally came to the decision that gosh, we’ve climbed the mountain that we envisioned reaching the top of when we are 10-, 12-, 13-year-old kids picking up our instruments,” Larkin said. “We don’t want to quit. But we do want to just, I like to say, jump off of the machine and not have to sell product after so many years of touring and selling product.”

There are other reasons why Godsmack will gear things down after the “Lighting Up the Sky” cycle. Some of the band members want to spend time with their families or have other hobbies and interests they want to pursue. And with the band members in their 50s, it’s not getting any easier to meet the physical demands of extensive tours.

The band members also feel with “Lighting Up the Sky,” they’re ending their run of Godsmack albums on a high note. Larkin said “Lighting Up the Sky” was the easiest album Godsmack has made, and to a man, the band members consider it their best release yet.

“For this one, we wrote over 20 songs. We had three years, with the pandemic and stuff. In fact, at one point we had written pretty much a whole record of music, and it was a totally different thing where it was like Pink Floyd, long-ass songs,” he said. “We wrote like 11 songs (initially) and we ended up keeping ‘Surrender,’ ‘Growing Old’ and ‘Red, White & Blue.’ Those three stayed. We had taken a break from writing and he (Erna) comes back with ‘Soul On Fire’ and God, it was just relentless, ‘What About Me’ and ‘Let’s Go.’ Just all of these songs started just pouring out and it was so easy for us and we were like ‘Wow!’”

Now it’s time to hit the road, and Larkin said several of the new songs will be in Godsmack’s visually spectacular shows. (“We blow a lot of stuff up live,” Larkin noted with a chuckle.) The band members, after all, are promoting “Lighting Up the Sky.” But fans will hear plenty of the hits, too.

“We know that look, even if our new record is our favorite one and it’s great, we can’t oversaturate a set list when we have all of these radio hits that people expect to hear,” Larkin said.

Godsmack will be playing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Sunday.

Photos: Audibull cranks it up and rocks it out at the fair

By Howard B. Owens
audibull at genesee county fair

Genesee County's own Audibull provided live music entertainment at the Genesee County Fair on Friday.

Audibull is Tim Pitcher on guitar, Bill Christiano on bass, Chris Iannone on drums, and Todd Tracy on lead vocals.

Photos by Howard Owens.

Audibull
audibull at genesee county fair
audibull at genesee county fair
audibull at genesee county fair
audibull at genesee county fair
audibull at genesee county fair

Photos: The Eaglez capture the magic of the Eagles for Genesee County Fair audience

By Howard B. Owens
Eaglez Tribute Band at the Genesee County Fair 2023
The Eaglez Tribute Band at the Genesee County Fair on Thrusday evening.
Photo by Howard Owens.Thursday

Sitting in the entertainment tent at the Genesee County Fairgrounds on Thursday evening, if you closed your eyes, you could be forgiven if you thought you really hearing Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner

The musicianship was that precise, and the harmonies that tight as a group of veteran Buffalo-area musicians, now performing at the Eaglez Tribute Band, ran through 28 hits of the Eagles over three hours of music.

The Eaglez are, in reality:

  • Randy Barnard, Lead Guitar/Keyboard
  • Dennis Makowski,  Guitar/Vocals
  • Bob Brummitt, Bass Guitar/Vocals
  • John White, Rhythm Guitar/Vocals
  • Mike Nierenberg,  Vocals/Percussion
  • Micky Judware / Rich Keigley, Drums
  • Paul Vanacore, Sax/Keyboard

Note: Sadly, and unknown at show time, Randy Meisner passed away on Thursday. An original member of the Eagles, he was 77. Glenn Frey, another founding member, passed away in 2016.

Previously: The Eaglez highlights GC Fair's five nights of live music that spans genres and eras

https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873
https://www.thebatavian.com/howard-owens/three-arrests-made-in-alleged-gunfire-incident-in-the-city-of-batavia/635873

Editor's Note: The Batavian has a booth at the fair in partnership with WBTA as part of the official Genesee County Fair Media Center. Stop by to say hello in the Exhibition Building. We are an exhibitor and are providing coverage of the fair all week long as a proud supporter of the county fair, 4-H and the dedicated volunteers of the Ag Society. 

If you appreciate our fair coverage, as well as all of our coverage of Genesee County, you can help us continue news coverage by signing up today for Early Access Pass.

'Save Me' puts Jelly Roll on the charts

By Alan Sculley
jelly-roll-ashley-osborn.jpg
Photo of Jelly Roll by Ashley Osborn

It’s a bit ironic to know the song that saved Jelly Roll’s music career is called “Save Me.” The ballad seeped in despair is getting a second life as a featured track on Jelly Roll’s new album, “Whitsitt Chapel,” as a duet with Lainey Wilson. 

“Save Me” first appeared in a stark acoustic guitar-and-vocal version on Jelly Roll’s 2020 independently released album “Self Medicated,” and the success the man born as Jason DeFord is enjoying now can be traced back to that song.

“For lack of a better word, ‘Save Me’ went viral,” Jelly Roll said in a mid-July phone interview. “It was undeniable. I had built a pretty good career. Keep in mind I had a billion views on my YouTube show. But I couldn’t get it, I was missing that one song that made people go ‘Oh, OK, this guy can do it all.’ I think ‘Save Me’ was that.”

Soon Jelly Roll was getting meetings with multiple record labels. He said the labels had plenty of ideas for his music, but it wasn’t until he met with Jon Loba, president of BMG Nashville, that he heard what he wanted to hear from a label.

“The cool thing was from go, Loba and everybody in the office sat me down and said the biggest thing we want from you is to do what you’ve been doing. It was awesome. I had complete creative control,” Jelly Roll said.

“Save Me,” however, wasn’t the song that put Jelly Roll on the radar of country and rock audiences. First came “Dead Man Walking,” a robust rocker from his first album on BMG, 2021’s “Ballads of the Broken,” which topped “Billboard” magazine’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart and pointed to Jelly Roll’s potential to cross genres. Then a rootsy acoustic ballad from that album, “Son of a Sinner,” topped the magazine’s Country Airplay chart and spent a record-setting 28 weeks atop the Emerging Artist chart, which tracks the most popular developing artists across all genres.

Now “Whitsitt Chapel” is out, and he is starting a lengthy, highly anticipated tour headlining outdoor amphitheaters. Jelly Roll is doing his best to make sure his show lives up to the expectations.

“Knowing we have a chance to touch so many people, we’ve spared no expense,” he said of the show, which will feature not only new songs but selections dating back as far as to 2013. “I’m bringing tons of lights, video screens. Our goal is to kind of bring a mixture of a hip-hop show, a rock show, a country show and a little bit of a backroad tent revival.”

It’s quite a turn of fortune for someone who grew up on the streets of the working-class Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, did drugs and spent parts of his teens and 20s in jail for offenses ranging from robbery to drug dealing.

It was during one of those stints behind bars, though, that Jelly Roll, 38, was spurred to break his cycle of dead-end behavior. Informed by a guard that he had just become a father to a newborn daughter, he set his sights on making something of himself. Having begun making mix tapes in his teens, he decided that music was his ticket to a better future.

Around 2009, Jelly Roll began releasing a steady stream of indie albums, mixtapes and singles. His early music was predominantly rap and hip-hop, but as time went on, he began to broaden his sound.

“Ballads of the Broken” offered a preview of where Jelly Roll is now taking his music, as it spanned country, rock, pop and hip-hop. “Whitsitt Chapel” offers a similar cross-genre appeal as it touches on country (“Save Me,” “Nail Me,” and “Church”), muscular rock (“Halfway to Hell” and “The Lost”), hip-hop (“Unlive”) and songs that blend those styles (“Need A Favor,” which is currently a top 5 country single) with raw and emotional lyrics that continue to touch on his past struggles, but hint at the redemption he has started to attain.

It took some time and effort for Jelly Roll to find the direction of the album, as he set aside more than 70 songs after he realized only two of those songs – “Church” and “Hungover in a Church Pew” – were calling to him.

“I said, ‘Man, these two songs kept kind of putting their hands up to me, ‘Church’ and ‘Church Pew,’” he said. “Then I started thinking how God had kind of brought me to these two songs out of 70, the two I kept thinking of. And I was like, ‘That’s it. I’m going to write an album called ‘Going To Church.’”

“And my producer, Zach Crowell, sat me down and said, ‘What was the name of that church you went to?’ (I said) ‘Whitsitt Chapel,’” Jelly Roll said. “He was like, ‘You write songs that nobody else in this town could sing because they’re so personal to you.’ He said ‘Anybody in this town could have an album called ‘Going To Church.’ There’s only one person in this town who could have an album called ‘Whitsitt Chapel.’ That was the birth of the ‘Whitsitt Chapel' album. Me and Zach Crowell scratched everything but those two songs and started from there.”

Jelly Roll will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Thursday.

Matchbox Twenty releases first new album in a decade

By Alan Sculley
matchbox-twenty-jimmy-fontaine.jpg
Photo of Matchbox Twenty by Jimmy Fontaine

At one point during an early May phone interview, Paul Doucette of Matchbox Twenty considered the longevity of his popular band. “It’s hard to stay together for 30 years,” he said. “That’s why a lot of bands don’t do it.”

To be completely accurate, Matchbox Twenty won’t hit their 30th year as a band until 2025, but the guitarist knows a thing or two about how difficult it can be for a band to remain intact for so long.

In Matchbox Twenty’s case, there have been several periods where the band went inactive – usually involving times when singer Rob Thomas was making and then touring behind one of the four solo albums that have made him a major star in his own right.

Those projects had idled Matchbox Twenty in 2005 and 2006, 2009 and 2010, 2015 and 2016 and in 2019. In the early years, things were busy mostly good, as Matchbox Twenty became one of the most popular bands going. The 1996 debut album, “Yourself or Someone Like You,” sold some 12 million copies and yielded four hi singles, including the chart-topping “3AM,” “Push,” “Real World” and “Back To Good.” The 2000 follow-up, “Mad Season,” added four more hits, including the multi-chart-topping “Bent,” and 2002’s “More Than You Think You Are,” included the top 5 hits “Unwell” and “Bright Lights.”

But then Thomas, who has gained individual fame for co-writing and singing on the monster Carlos Santana hit “Smooth,” in 1999, launched his solo career. And since then, Matchbox Twenty has released only three albums – including 2007’s “Exile On Mainstream,” which combined 11 hits with seven new songs. The most recent release was “North” in 2012.

Doucette admitted Matchbox Twenty’s sporadic schedule had created points where the group could have split up. Guitarist Kyle Cook, in fact, left the band briefly in 2016 before rejoining in time for a tour the following year that seemed to put the band back on solid footing.

And Doucette reached a point where he had concluded Matchbox Twenty were done making albums. He, Thomas, Cook and bassist Brian Yale would tour from time to time, but that would be the extent of the band’s activity. It was not a notion he welcomed.

“When I sort of got to the point where I was like ‘Yeah, I think that we’re done making records,’ I legitimately grieved that process. Like that was a loss to me,” Doucette said. “But once I went through that process, I could look at it differently. I could look at it and be like ‘You know what, we can go out and we can play. We’re ridiculously fortunate to be able to do that and people will still come.’ And I have all these other things that I can do and I can concentrate on doing this (scoring). And maybe that’s not so bad.”

So Matchbox Twenty remained together, and after Thomas finished his solo tour in 2019, plans were formed for the band to return to touring. But of course, the pandemic hit and tours for 2021 and 2022 were pushed back once more to this summer.

But there was a major silver lining to the second delay. With the schedule cleared for 2022, Matchbox Twenty made a new album, “Where the Light Goes,” which arrived on May 26.

For “Where the Light Goes,” the four musicians reinvented their process for writing music. Where on past albums, the band members tended to send each other acoustic solo versions of songs and build out the arrangements together, Doucette, Thomas, Cook and Yale worked separately on the songs for the new album – a process necessitated by the pandemic and the fact the four band members live in different cities. 

Doucette said the band found that by working separately and e-mailing in-progress tracks back and forth to each other (as well as to producer Gregg Wattenberg, who was heavily involved in helping the band members to complete the songs) they were able to explore song ideas more thoroughly and in some cases, fully realize songs that might have been abandoned in the past if the song hadn’t come together quickly either in the writing/demo stage or when the four musicians gathered to flesh out the acoustic demos of songs.

The new approach to songwriting, though, didn’t alter the core pop-rock sound of Matchbox Twenty, and “Where The Light Goes” features a fairly even mix of concise and catchy uptempo tunes (“Friends,” “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and the title track), and richly melodic ballads (“Hang On Every Word,” “Warm Blood,” “One Hit Love”).

This summer’s twice-delayed tour will feature some songs from “Where The Light Goes,” Doucette said, but he noted that some fans held onto tickets purchased in 2021 and 2022 expecting a greatest hits show, and the band will play a good mix of new and older material.

“It’s a longer set than we’ve done on the past couple of tours,” he said “That gives us the advantage of being able to play a solid two hours a night. So we have more time, which is great. And we think we’ve got a good balance of it.” 

Matchbox Twenty will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.

Photos: Music and midway fun Sunday at the Genesee County Fair

By Steve Ognibene
Knight Patrol band headlines the music tent, Sunday evening.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Knight Patrol provided Sunday's live music entertainment at the Genesee County Fair.
Photo by Steve Ognibene

Knight Patrol headlined the music tent on Day two of the Genesee County Fair, a day full of sun and fun and games at the Midway, along with animal contests and pig races.

To view or purchase photos, click here.

Photos by Steve Ognibene

Knight Patrol band headlines the music tent, Sunday evening.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Zach Biern on bass on for Knight Patrol during Sunday's concert. Photo by Steve Ognibene
Knight Patrol band headlines the music tent, Sunday evening.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
The Pratt twins enjoying an evening of music entertainment.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Pig Races are always a fun family event to watch and bet to see who wins at the fair.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Pig races are held multiple times a day at the Genesee County Fair.
 Photo by Steve Ognibene
Pig Races are always a fun family event to watch and bet to see who wins at the fair.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Pig races are held multiple times a day at the Genesee County Fair.
 Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fair photos.
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fair photos.
Janice Spagnola, the "balloon lady"
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fair photos.
The Midway is open daily with rides for the whole family.
 Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fair photos.
Photo by Steve Ognibene
Fair photos.
Photo by Steve Ognibene
We want you to visit the Genesee County Fair this week.  Photo by Steve Ognibene
Eddie Krysinski on keyboards for Knight Patrol.
Photo by Steve Ognibene

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