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The third annual Music Is Art Festival, a gathering of musicians, photographers, artists, dancers and more, exceeded the first two Music Is Art festivals in every good way, and unfortunately, in the annoying reaction from some other organizations and lack of cooperation it received.
The brainchild of Goo Goo Dolls bassist/singer Robby Takac, Marc Hunt and the recording studio, record label and associated ventures he operates, the event featured 80 bands as well as associated artists (again, including my wife, Buffaloroots.com web mistress and photographer Val Dunne, who exhibited her photographs for the second straight year, this time of carnivals and sideshows), a sideshow area which featured the Human Marvels, led by Enigma, who many will recall from the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow as well as “The X-Files", dancers and artists creating works live. Proceeds from this year’s Music Is Art Festival will benefit Hospice of Western New York and the Music Is Art Foundation, which supports school music programs in several ways, including collecting and providing instruments.
The unfortunate side issue is that some, but not all, of the organizing groups and people running the Allentown Arts Festival, which occurs the same weekend in the Allentown neighborhood adjacent to Chameleon West (also an Allentown business) do not like the fact that the Music Is Art Festival occurs the same weekend that their festival (which I believe is more like the Allentown Arts and Crafts Fair) does, and some claim that Music Is Art either draws some of their crowd away or that the music interferes with their festival. Having attended the Allentown Arts Festival almost too many times, believe you me, festival organizers should be more concerned with the poor quality of art too many exhibitors display, as well as the fact that festivals like this have to accept their responsibility in the vast number of shepherd staffs sold to suburban kids and adults. If it weren’t for Music is Art, Val and I would not have attended any part of the Allentown Arts Festival for the last three years; indeed, Music Is Art drew us to Allentown (we live in the neighboring Elmwood Village part of Buffalo) and to walk through part of the Allentown Arts Festival. Takac and company deserve applause and thank yous for the fine job they have done, not interference.
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But let’s get to the music; we got there at about 12:45 p.m., and after getting Val’s artist credentials all sorted out and her camera set up, we hit the viewing area between the two stages, and things started on the rootsy side:
1:15 p.m. – Leeron Zydeco and his band performed, you guessed, it, zydeco, Cajun and other related styles of music and were lots of fun. The songs included “Mardi Gras Mambo,” and Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry supplied a very fast, fine guitar solo on “Shango Shake.”
1:30 p.m. – Flatbed, purveyors of country flavored rock and roll and alt.country/roots rock/whatever, delivered a typically good set of their music mainly with the strong singing of Joelle Labert. Guitarist Dan Smith had some tasty 1960s sound to his guitar leads on the first song; there were stronger country sounds on the second song, sung by guitarist Derek Bassett and smartly countered by some wah-wah guitar from Smith. Flatbed’s third song was a nicely jangled-up two-stepper song by Labert and the band ended its 15-minute set (all bands were kept to this limit) with a basic Southern rock tune paced by Smith’s slide Telecaster playing.
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Flatbed with Joelle Labert and Derek Bassett |
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Transonics playing outside the garage |
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1:45 p.m. – The Steam Donkeys country swing, with some rock tossed in, produced some dancing; the set seemed a bit more revved up than recent sets, and guitarist Charlie Quill in particular added some muscle without histrionics. “Raise the Bar a Little” was a good mix of twangy country and roots rock, and “Ain’t That the Way” was well received.
2:15 p.m. – Sadly, the Irving Klaws was not present as scheduled.
2:45 p.m. – Klear performed a set that toughened up their commercial rock sound from last year (Val and I argued over them, she taking a much more positive view), but I’m still not sold.
3:15 p.m. – Wow; Val and I caught the Transonics for the first time, after repeated recommendations, and they really delivered the goods. Crashing, fun, hard 1970s rock in the MC5/Stooges/garage style, with an occasional touch of Cheap Trick on steroids (or Ramrods, for Buffalonians). 3:30 p.m. – Got to talk to Takac for about 3 minutes, the longest I had the chance to all weekend (Val was able to do so for longer Sunday, while I walked and fed our dog), and he was happy but exhausted: “I haven’t been to bed yet. The stage was delivered 6 1/2 hours late; we didn’t start setting it up until 1:30 a.m.” He then said he’d talk more a bit later and ran off to handle one of about 100 issues. |
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