We lost a major contributor to the Buffalo music scene at the outset of the new year.
Ken Biringer acted as talent booker and local music advocate at the Sportsmen’s Tavern for more than twenty years. During that time, he left an indelible mark on our live music community, and greatly aided the growth of the Sportsmen’s Tavern from a warm and inviting corner bar to a warm and inviting corner bar that was also a significant attraction for both touring bands and regional artists.
“Ken’s contributions to the growth of Sportsmens from its humble beginnings can not be measured by words alone,” Jason Hall of the Sportsmen’s Tavern and The Cave wrote in the wake of Ken’s passing. “So much of what we are and do is due to the relationships Ken developed over the past two-plus decades at Sportsmens. His legacy will continue to fill our stage night after night.”
Please join me in raising a glass to Ken Biringer. He will be dearly missed, but never forgotten.
Here’s a few awesomely idiosyncratic and eclectic shows to help you kick off your new musical year…
Frac/Tured String Quartet
Saturday, January 6 at 5:30 p.m., Shakti Lounge, 133 Grant Street, Buffalo, NY. $20 suggested donation
“Conscious movement. Creative energy.”
So reads the welcoming not on the home page of Shakti Yoga, the combination yoga studio/meditation space/live music venue on Grant Street in Downtown Buffalo.
The start of a new year feels like a proper time to add something new to your live music experience menu, and this new series – crafted by the Lavender Haze Collective in conjunction with Shakti, and launched in October – is clearly offering just that. Creative energy is essentially what fuels live music, so it’s fitting that this monthly mindful music series is presenting Buffalo’s Frac/Tured String Quartet – Evan Courtin and Isabel Ong, violins, Bob Donowick, viola, and Andy Borkowski, cello. Frac/Tured will offer Insurrection Introspection, a program that, according to the string quartet’s members, includes “works that allow for reflection on the clown show that was the insurrection of January 6, 2021.” Among these pieces will be imaginatively arranged works by Charles Ives, Dimitri Shostakovich, Bohuslav Martinu and Imogen Holst.
The series will continue throughout the winter and early spring with appearances by Elliot Scozzaro (2/3), Adam Bronstein & the AB Trio (3/2), Sammy Enaharo (4/13) and the John Bacon Quartet (5/4).
Miller & the Other Sinners
Thursday, January 4, 5:30 p.m. at the Buffalo AKG Art Gallery. Free.
I finally had the opportunity to spend some significant time at the renovated Buffalo AKG Art Museum over the holidays, and I found the experience to be an indelible one. Though I was as sober as the day I was born during my visit, I swear I felt some heavy vibrations in the space, as if the gallery itself was breathing, or perhaps vibrating with a cyclical hum that hovered just beneath audibility.
Weird, right? But I’m not making this up. In conjunction with the awe-inspiring art on display, this feeling added a delightfully surreal aspect to my tour.
Hearing live music in such a space will surely deepen that lovely surrealism.
The AKG Gallery’s Thursday Night Music Series, held in the Knox Building’s Town Square space on the first and fourth Thursdays of each month, offers us the opportunity to tune in and turn on in this elevated space. This week, David Michael Miller brings his expanded Miler & the Other Sinners ensemble to the AKG for an evening of southern soul and gospel-inflected rhythm ’n’ blues.
Brass & Burlesque: Folkfaces, 12/8 Path Band, The Stripteasers and Buffalo Bully Brass
Saturday, January 6, 8 p.m. at Mohawk Place, 47 East Mohawk Street, Buffalo, NY.
$15/$12 with canned goods donation
After a four-year break, Tyler Westcott and his Folkfaces friends are bringing back their Brass & Burlesque event, a celebration of primal Americana music, brass bands and burlesque, all aimed at benefitting Friends of the Night People. (Canned goods, non-perishable foods, socks, long underwear, and lightly worn jackets, hats and gloves will be accepted at the door, all earmarked for our less fortunate brothers and sisters during these coldest of months.)
According to event organizer Westcott, “Folkfaces’ set will feature a horn section comprised of Tim Clarke, Ellen Pieroni, & Ray Skalski on trumpet, sax, and trombone. Also, the burlesque dancers will be dancing live to the band on stage, as opposed to a pre-recorded song.. it’s going to be a special and very fun night!”
