Don’t be let out in the cold! Join Inclusive Theater

By Benjamin Joe

Stacy Kowal and Heather Benson sit across from each other in “The Go-Away Face” by Scott Mullen and directed by Shanda Gardner. Photograph Credit: Benjamin Joe

ITOWNY’s 2024 Short Play Festival is coming to St. Mary’s High School in Lancaster starting April 12-14 & 19-21.

Nine short plays will be presented to audiences by Inclusive Theater of Western New York, many of which were written by local playwrights. The plays are “Building Balanced Men in Buffalo” by Justin Karcher, “On Rooftops and Rowboats” by Bella Poyton, “Soar Spot” by Allison Fradkin, “The Merry Men of Tinder” by Madison Sedlor, “Peace in the Mist” by Adam Norton, “The Golden Girls Convention” by JB Stone, “Damn You Roger” by Mark Lloyd and “Coffee Dance” by Lynnemarie Scrivano.

Founder of the acting troupe is Aimee Levesque. She said her daughter, Jessica Levesque, was obsessed with acting, but her diagnosis of autism seemed to be shutting doors for her passion. Inflamed the English professor said if no one else would give Jessica a stage, she would. 

That’s how Inclusivity Theater started out.

“We like to give people local opportunities,” Aimee Levesque said, humbly.

People in the troop don’t have to have a disability, but they won’t be barred from it if they do. Levesque explained that many people from all different walks audition and she doesn’t shut them out. Given the correct environment, actors and actresses with disabilities can be just as professional, hard-working and successful as anyone else, she said.

And many of the actors in the troupe are professional actors, disabilities or no.

Take Hussein Mohsin, 20, for example. He started his acting career 10 months ago.

“I’ve always loved (acting) since I was young. I always was into film and stuff like that, but I never did anything because I didn’t have the courage. I didn’t think I could do it,” he said. 

However, something happened last year that Mohsin swallowed his fear and got on stage. While in college he saw the opportunity to do it and decided to pursue what he really loved.

“Even if I failed … I didn’t care if I failed. At least I know I tried,” he said.

Since then Mohsin has gathered a few credits to his portfolio: a commercial for Evergreen Health, Bomb Prom (a short film starting next month), and a small role in the same feature as Sadie Sink of Stranger Things and The Whale fame.

“Myself I have a physical disability. That was one of the reasons why I didn’t think I could do acting. (I’d say) I have a disability, I probably can’t do it,” he said.

“But then I realized it doesn’t matter what your background is, where you come from, anyone can act.”

Jessica Levesque said that self doubt wasn’t the only thing stopping people with disabilities from being among the great actors of the world. It was actual conditioning from a young age. People saying that show biz and physical or mental disabilities just didn’t mix.

“I had seen over the years how individuals with disabilities weren’t represented on film,” she said. “Or in theater. I didn’t see anything like that and I had always been into acting since I was a little girl.”

Even as a young girl Levesque said she remembers listening to the naysayers. People saying, “they won’t put up with you.”

“People in society. They didn’t treat us equally,” she said. “Especially our own teachers telling us, ‘That’s just a pipe dream. That’s not something you should pursue.'”

Determined though, the younger Levesque got her first part in another community theater group where she played a teddy bear and a shoe.

“I wanted to try it out to see if they’d put up with me,” she said.

For those parts, she said, it felt amazing because she’d just begun her career and was high on life. There was only one problem and that was she had trouble reading. She learned best from comic books, she said, and while teachers didn’t understand, her mother did.

“She said, ‘Literacy is literacy’,” Levesque remembered. “’She’s still learning, just a different way.’”

Levesque was able to get through the parts, and the inclusive approach appears to be working. The elder Levesque explained, that while it is a cliché, “diversity is beautiful.”

“Disability is what we’re good at, but also we work with different people of different cultures, different backgrounds,” she said. “So this is a safe space like some of the plays do have gay characters. Characters from other countries. Because that’s important to us, because diversity is beautiful, and that’s what it’s like. I mean that’s what the world is like.

“For so long people have spoken on behalf of people with disabilities. And they do that to people of different cultures, too. But it’s time they got their voice back and that is so important to me.”

As for the cast, it’s not about money or fame. Geno Delmaro, also an owner of a roofing company, fell into theater three-years ago.

“I met a girl in a bar and she’s a writer/director/actress and she let me audition for something after we started talking for awhile, and she gave me the part,” he said.

Delmaro said that he’d originally thought that that acting was a “one and done” experience, but he couldn’t keep away. That first part “snowballed” into other things, including parts in Inclusive Theater’s Nine Short Plays.

Delmaro plays a mysterious suitor in “Coffee Dance” and the much tormented Bills fan in “Building Balanced Men in Buffalo.” It’s not cutting into his day job, but he enjoys himself.

“I fall off a roof once a year,” he joked. “There’s really no money in this, but it’s a lot of fun. Especially in Buffalo.”

Opening night happens Friday and Inclusive Theater is holding its breath and crossing its fingers. Find out  more at inclusivetheaterofwny.com.

The White Devil: Webster’s tale revisited

By Benjamin Joe

Ian Michalski plays Monticelso, the evil cardinal who condemns Vittoria as Giovanni (Connor Snodgrass) and Cornelia (Stephanie Bax) sit, left to right. Photo Credit: Benjamin Joe

The White Devil hits the stage at the American Repertory Theater of Western New York on Thursday, April 11.

The author of this adaptation of the tragedy by John Webster, Charlie McGregor, also the co-director of the performance, said that he had come upon the work while studying abroad. He picked out “the whore” speech from it and started using it in auditions.

“If you don’t know ‘the whore’ speech you’ll know it when you see it,” he said.

McGregor also noted that “a lot of fluff” had been taken out of the play to make it more palatable for the audience. The original script is over 400-years old.

“Sometimes in plays back then there tended to be too much exposition and not getting to the point. Our attention span, over the years, has gone down and I think that we’re used to ping-pong conversation now,” he said.

For the sake of time (the original script is about five hours long) six characters were cut out of the play, and the ending has been adapted. Still there is plenty here that modern and classical audiences alike can appreciate.

Speaking to co-director Ari Lasting, she talked of the way women were presented in this adaptation of The White Devil.

“Victoria is already a strong character,” she said. “So it’s finding more moments to give her that autonomy in a world where she had negative autonomy. Finding and creating even more moments to give her that autonomy and independence in a world that was trying to keep that away from her was super fun.

“But something we created out of nothing was the character of Isabella who really, for lack of a better term, in the original script didn’t really exist. Was kind of one note.”

The White Devil’s plot is somewhat convoluted, as McGregor stated. A murderous row of circumstances envelope these characters with lust and power being the two linchpins upon which the audience’s fascination is poured upon.

First there is Vittoria, played by Heather Casseri, a young woman of a noble but poor house, married to a drunkard, Camillo, fabulously played by Justin Pope, and who’s sibling, Flamineo, played expertly by Andrew Zuccari, seeks higher station for himself. Their mother, Cornelia, bemoaning her children, is played by Stephanie Bax.

Through Flamineo’s encouragement, Duke Brachiano, played in emotional heights by Johnny Barden, pursues Vittoria, and rages against his own wife, Isabella, played by Camilla Maxwell — also emotionally brilliant — who has returned to Rome with their son, Giovanni, played by Connor Snodgrass.

Camilla Maxwell, playing Isabella, next to Johnny Barden, playing Brachiano. Photo Credit: Benjamin Joe

The stage is set for infamy, but the aforesaid relevancy of this new adaptation shines through.

“A couple of the additional scenes we created were centered around (Isabella) to give her a little more background. She has the first scene with Lodovico (played by Steven Maiseke). We gave her a little more background with him and that relationship. We gave her a little more background with her son to flush out that relationship and show that she really had the hand in raising this boy and making him the moral leader he became at the end of the play,” Lasting said.

“(Camilla) portrays it so well with such a gravitas and strength to her. (It was great) finding those moments where we could take another woman who is told what to do and where to go and who to marry and who to not be married to, and  give her that (determination that), ‘this is my choice and this is my life and I can do what I want!’ That whole ‘ode to be a man’ speech that Camilla does so well?

“I think that really reflects on what we were trying to do in this play.”

That question of autonomy, independence, continues throughout the production. Ian Michalski plays Monticelso, the cardinal, lashing out his list of judgements against Vittoria, finally condemning her to a convent of “penitent whores” as masterfully as any right wing bigot can on YouTube.

“Ian’s character was definitely a tricky one with the original text. He’s this evil character and he has these moments of evil, these moments of ‘you should be beholden’,” Lasting said. “I think it’s a tough juxtaposition and think Ian’s navigating it very well.

“The text is super difficult for that character and making sure that throughline of that he’s not a good guy and puppet mastering does come through.”

Other pieces of the story come together in the second act of the play as the characters, especially that of Francisco, played by David Wysocki, Isabella’s brother, as he wrestles with letting his loss lie, or seeking revenge.

“The story I’m trying to tell is that faith can be a little tricky,” McGregor said. “We tend to begin our lives in faith whether it be some kind of religion or some kind spirituality and we turn to it in times of joy, desperation, anger, solace and sometimes these ideas of the seven deadly sins and ideas of selfishness and stubbornness come through us and affect us. Sometimes we have obstacles in life that are either self-inflicted or come from a test of faith or circumstance.

“And I notice that when people are at their lowest point, or highest point, they turn to faith in some sort of way. I think this play brings a lot of challenges, but each character has to play with this idea of the battle of revenge versus mortality.

“Is the satisfaction of the revenge — the death of your sister, your loved one — is everything that costs you that revenge worth it? Or is it the harshness of morality and doing what’s right and justice (the best course)? Because a lot of the times the easy thing is the wrong decision and the right decision, the just decision, is always the most arduous decision. I hope people reflect after the show and say in their own live, ‘how petty do I need to be in order to get my fill of life? Or should I look to the high road?’”

Still, the brightest point of this play is not that of a contemporary of Shakespeare, written only 150 years after the Bard’s advent, and still playing with the ideas of human vice and hubris when it’s clear to the audience that forces of emotion are the strong river that dictates the outcomes. Instead it is a very relevant look at today’s battle with equality, specifically between men and women and how they are supposed to act.

“There’s no whore in this play,” McGregor said. “It’s a woman who finds a better love. Someone who connects with her more. Someone that can give her what she wants more. 

“And back then, and even in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and even today sometimes, there’s this disgusting look at women, who are trying to find what they want. Being honest and open and free without men being misogynistic, men sexualizing women, men not taking women seriously for standing their ground and pushing their power like they deserve, so this is an awesome place to showcase some of those things as well.”

More information about the performance can be found at artofwny.org.

London Calling calls our deeper nature

By Benjamin Joe

I rolled down the highway after my work-a-day job listening to the sounds of that fabled band, The Clash, also known as the only band that matters.

I whizzed by other cars. Streetlamps. Over the lines on the road. Heading south to the American Repertory Theater of WNY. There was something seething inside me, a deep down desire to live amongst the people in those turbulent times. In some cinematic universe of hope against all adversities as young people united behind the ideals and courage that The Clash embodied. Now I can only describe history and society moving away from that as this entire nation sways its own way merrily down the road, as surely as I did on my drive, hoping to find something that could rid me of this bad taste of mercury and lead in my water bottle.

Something to see. Something to believe in.

The play “London Calling” is a collaborative work of one acts pulled together by two wonderful directors Catherine Burkhart and Mariangela Mercurio. It features the times that birthed the new world that a young Joe Strummer, the other members of The Clash and many a punk rocker saw the aftermath of in England, sweet glorious England, that was bombed in World War II and never forgot it.

And this is the story of those days.

Bombed like so many other places are bombed from Gaza to Hiroshima in the midst of war. The people of London fled to the tunnels below the city. While the bombs dropped, an interested audience member might remember that all parts of society are affected by a rising tide of anti-semitism and genocide.

When two “butches” retell their stories of living outside the margins of society, one cannot help but recall the rich friends spoken of by three sisters, who preceded this often unseen narrative. The rich friends that also hid in these tunnels. Everyone is brought down to point zero in war. Young, old, rich and poor trying to exist while the Germans drop bombs like confetti upon that city.

By the intermission one cannot help but wonder what The Clash saw as they grew up and eventually encompassed the entire world? A generation after these war times, wondering if the world will continue turning without this grisly scene?

Or will it take all the strength and courage of all the characters in our lives to seek something new to stop war? To build what this Irish bartending wife wants to build with her English soldier husband as they, too, flee the bombs coming down on the very church they said their vows in. Forget the past. Forge the way to the future. It’s the idea that evil must be fought and it’s never enough to wait until spring.

Actor Andrew Zuccari plays the soldier.

“What I find so interesting about Jeremy’s character is he’s the human side of war. He wants to be all professional until it comes downs to it … then he always makes a human decision,” Zuccari said, noting that good or bad, hate or love, people are people, not cogs in a machine.

On the other end of this spectrum of ideas is Sarah Emmerling’s character “Sister #3” the youngest of three harboring in the tunnels. Every night they enact a short play.

“The older sister …  this is her coping mechanism … the more she does the story, the more she knows we can get through this … my philosophy in the show is the exact opposite. I don’t want to wait and hide. I feel repeating the same story over and over again is not going to progress us out of the crisis we’re in,” Emmerling said.

Danette Pawlowski also plays a pivitol role as MJ, a self-described Buffalonian butch who heard life for LGBTQ+ people was easier in the UK than the states. We find her though, crouching in the subways to hide from Nazi bombs and bullets.

“I think we’re all kind of down there just trying to survive. Not sure who to trust or who is who. That comes up a lot in the show,” Pawlowski said.

When the curtain comes up again we see the diametric society created even in this tunnel. A place of endless doubt and worry, but also hope. There are bullies and idealists. There are ideas that propel us and finally there is the choices we make. To be human, to be pure.

Director Burkhart said she loves how the different elements of our society intermingle and combust against — and also with — each other in the play’s narrative. The different segments of the world all in one place, she said.

“I like seeing MJ and Nicky’s little tale and very different from Mary and Jeremy’s tale and why are they here and what’s their background? I was a theater major so all of that characterization (is important to me). All of that backstory. This is what I think about, especially in directing them. You’ve got to think about that. The audience needs to see that. Or hear it,” she said.

The music of the Clash was also incorporated into the play with the three sisters and others singing various tunes from the legendary band that rose out of a new generation of London residents in a time when it wasn’t the Germans dropping bombs, but the economy dropping more and more misery upon the masses, especially the young who had no future to look forward to.

The 716 playwrights who wrote “London Calling” were Ellen Catherine Falank, Justin Karcher, Monish Bhattacharyya, James Marzo, Mark Humphrey, Matthew LaChiusa and j Snodgrass.

The play’s acting ensemble included Justin Pope as the radio announcer/soldier who earned his BFA in Theatre Performance with a focus in playwriting at Niagara University and acted in “Mercy Seat” last year.

Danette Pawlowski played MJ and is also an ART alumni with roles in “When World’s Collide” and “Mercy Seat.” She is a regular Pro Roster player and referee with Buffalo ComedySportz.

Brooke Bartell Goergon played Siobha McNamara, and also acted in “Rust and Redemption” which earned her an Artie nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Play.

Andrew Zuccari played Jeremy, his third role in a show at ART of WNY. Previous shows include “Birth of Santa” and “Mercy Seat.”

Jamie Moore played Nicky as her debut with ART. She has now formally broken her seven year hiatus from acting since minoring in theatre performance at Niagara University.

Stephanie Bax played Mary and previously played Sharla in “Killer Joe” for which she was an Art Voice Award nominee. Bax graduated from Niagara County Community College and Niagara University, eventually earning a bachelors in musical theater.

Kaylie Horowitz played Sister #1 and this is also her debt at ART. She holds a BFA in performance from Auburn University and graduated from UB with a masters in Theatre and Performance Studies.

Sarah Emmerling played Sister #3 and has a BFA in Theatre Performance from Niagara University. She also played Mrs. Cratchit in “When Worlds Collide.”

Isabella Rouf played Sister #2 and is performing with ART for the first time in this production. She has played Elizabeth in “Frankenstein” and Lucy in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.

The creative team was made up of Matthew LaChiusa as Set & Lighting Designer, Catherine Burkhart co-directing with Mariangela Mercurio, Monica Morrissey as Stage Manager and Rebecca Mutchock as Costume Design.

Showings of “London Calling” will begin on Feb. 8 and end Feb. 24. Go to https://artofwny.org/about-us/whats-next-at-art-6398679 for more information.

A little more to sing about

by Benjamin Joe

Adam Putzer in Mohawk Place. (photograph by Benjamin Joe)

Adam Putzer, a Western New York transplant by way of Staten Island, said that the biggest thing for him when it comes to music is that  he doesn’t have a lot to say.

But let’s say that one shouldn’t start complaining.

The former guitarist for the popular three-piece, The Tins, followed his musical aspirations to Buffalo, making it his home and base of operations. For years the band continued its work in music, but eventually went on hiatus — a Christmas present from the COVID 19-pandemic —and Putzer found himself landing in a world of new signposts with new priorities.

“I feel like back in the day I had to struggle for subject matter. I always want my songs to mean something, but it’s also I fully admit (that) I didn’t have a tough childhood. I didn’t have a super tough life unless it was of my own creation. So, it’s not like I had any trauma to sing about. It was always about what was angering me that day,” he said.

But that was soon to change. Putzer’s son was born amidst the pandemic, a harrowing time for anyone, but especially for young parents. Also, because of Covid, no one was touring, though that may as well have been a blessing, because Putzer wasn’t keen on leaving for a month at a time in any case.

“You hear all these horror stories about musicians going on tour and being negligent parents,” Putzer said. “I don’t want to be a negligent parent. I want to be a good dad. I want to be able to see my kid everyday.”

Then, as though things weren’t “heavy” enough, a landmine of news exploded just a few months later.

“It was back in June of 2020. I had just had my kid in February, so we were in lockdown,” Putzer explained. 

Putzer said he decided to take a bike ride, get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors. He was a little sore — he doesn’t exercise, he joked, — but that night there was blood in his urine.

“I was like, ‘that’s not normal.’ The rest of my night my kidney felt like something was pushing on it. It was very uncomfortable, I couldn’t sleep.

“The next day I went to the emergency room.”

Putzer said the doctors wanted to do a biopsy of his kidney to see what was going on. The results came in quickly. A test on a piece of his kidney tested positive for cancer. Responsibly, Putzer got a second opinion, then went under the knife.

Now he had two choices. Just wait a year or two to see what happens or do chemotherapy to reduce the risk of it returning. He went with the chemotherapy.

“It was heavy. I lost all my hair. I was on steroids, so my head grew three times the size it is! It was strange. I looked like a dolphin,” he laughed. “But ever since, after I stopped in January (2023), I’ve been good.”

For a long time, Putzer said he regulated his songwriting to “snapshots” or instants in his life. How different things made him feel. For the rest of it, he ran a pretty short shift when it came to perfecting the performance of songs, without getting too much into the lyrics.

Contributed image

Now, all of that’s changed.

“2020 just threw me for a loop,” he said and laughed. “I now have such a ton of things to sing about.”

Putzer said “Slipping’” was a direct result of his experiences in 2020. In the lyric, “I’m losing my grip, and I’ve got no one to blame but myself,” it’s straightforward in its vulnerability.

“That was in the aftermath of a lot of things,” Putzer said. “My son was born, the band broke up. I was just in a very rough place for a couple of months.”

“Slippin’” and “Blue Shadow” can both be found on streaming under Putzer’s stage name: asalone.

Jupiter Trolley hiding out in the attic

Ignacio Florian shows off some busking moves. Photograph by Benjamin Joe

Ignacio Florian is the guitarist for Jupiter Trolley, a psychedelic-alternative band now in its fifth year. A dedicated street musician in his day job, Florian and his partner, Stephanie Kustreba, on bass, make up the lineup, along with singer, Jesse Powers and drummer, Michael Govoni. Florian said the band came out of “garage rock discipline.”

“Very rough, tough and ready to roll,” he said. “But then in my sense, I have a very different side of myself that’s psychedelic and trippiness.”

Florian showed off his board of pedals, explaining each one. Just then, Kustreba came up to the attic that serves as the band’s practice space.

“Hello, she said. “I’m Stephanie. Nice to meet you.”

The two went on with some prodding about their relationship with bands like The Beatles and The Doors. Kustreba said she saw Paul McCartney perform on his last tour and screamed like a little girl at the hype of Beatlemania. She said it was strange that people these days don’t even seem to know about the iconic rock band, or any other rock band from that era.

Florian admitted that there was some desire to be beside them, though not as one of the greats.

“Nobody could ever surpass them,” Florian said. “I just would like to be on that same wavelength (of sounds).”

The beginnings of Jupiter Trolley started in Buffalo State where Kustreba met the band’s former lead singer, Julian Maloney who in turn introduced her to Florian and drummer, Phil Bungo.

“We all just kind of started jamming together,” Kustreba said. “Lost a couple of people along the way.”

Casualties included the former lead singer. Kustreba said it was really just artistic differences that got in the way.

Florian and Kustreba talk about their old space before COVID. These days the “trippy” band is in the attic of a cottage house. It gets kind of cold in the winter, Florian admitted, but there’s space heaters, as well as plenty of sonic tools to play with. Photograph by Benjamin Joe.

“He really enjoyed bands like Panic at the Disco, Cage the Elephant.” Kustreba said.  “He wanted us to sound more like that and the rest of us all loved The Beatles and Pink Floyd and wanted to try to incorporate as much influence from those guys as we could.”

After Maloney left, the group ended up being contacted by Powers, who loved their sound. Kustreba and Florian  both noted that the band is still trying to roll around his input — Jesse hasn’t had a lot of experience —but in general its been pretty good.

“I’d say that Jesse is a good mediator,” Florian said. “He tries to let the moment guide him to do funny things.”

But more trouble would bite the band with the departure of their drummer, Bungo. Florian, Kustreba and Bungo all also played together in another psychedelic band called Ekohta, which Bungo also left.

Florian was particularly floored by Bungo leaving, but said there are no hard feelings.

“It’s not as if people have been getting out of this group through mean spirited acts,” Florian said. “There seems to be some type of no reasons out there, inexplicable reasons.”

In the end, Jupiter Trolley is a part of a scene around Western New York all the way to Rochester. They say that it’s about inviting different musicians to come into their “family.”

“This scene we’re talking about, we have a bunch of bands within our network. It’s not as if we control them, we don’t manage them, we basically just ask them to be apart of our little family and let us know when they’re doing things so we can come out to them,” Florian said.

New moves include getting together a third album, which Florian said has a lot to do with “adventuring” and “spies” while the band has access to their new drummer before he, Govoni, finishes school.

“He’s really picked up on our material very well, we’ve played a few shows with him,” Kustreba said.

Jupiter Trolley can be heard on Instagram @jupitertrolleyofficial.

‘Hello London’ greets the world

By Benjamin Joe

James Froese stands in Delaware Park. Photograph by Benjamin Joe

The new track from Scarling-lyric inspired artist, Hello London, is like the final gasps of a man still working. Though the war is done. The children raised. The cow milked and there really is no need for him left. It’s a dirge of a dirge and like all of James Froese’s prior works, it is every bit relevant and important as the sonic clothing it takes on.

A statement like that, of course, is a bit heavy handed, but take a listen to “Breathing In” and say that Froese has run out of things to say.

Froese is a working man’s working man. Currently employed at GM, married and settling into another shift of exploring the realm of introspection and relationships in music, Froese took his time with this song. He said it takes “balance” to keep coming up with tunes and still function in the day-to-day.

“It’s always a balance trying to balance music and working an actual full time job. It’s like, ‘how much you want to push?’,” he said.

Froese has been in a lot of bands over the years, but the most recent one, The Traditional, was the one when the multi-instrumentally talented Froese was called into work.

“I went to work at GM and they went on tour,” he said. “They got a different drummer and it just wouldn’t have worked … It was kind of upsetting.”

Still, even as Froese worked, he still felt called to make music. He went solo. He put out Past Futures in 2022 and “Breathing In” in June of 2023 and there’s no planned ending of this chapter in life and art.

The main facet of all of Froese’s work is his lyrics. He said his many years of being in the background as the drummer, he got to watch — almost like an outsider looking in, but in a special capacity — how the frontman made the room feel the music he put out and to him it was always the lyrics that fueled that reaction.

Froese tells as it is during an interview by the History Museum. Photograph by Benjamin Joe

“I think lyrics are the most important part … they can affect you without even you noticing,” he said. “Obviously not instrumental music, which I love too, but the lyrics are the thing that kind of stay in your subconscious. They’re there even if you don’t realize they are or aren’t.

“I think sometimes people hear something that’s catchy and the melody is like catchy, but I think sometimes what’s really sticking with them is the lyrics, because they’re relatable.”

Froese said there are “life struggles” in his work. Point in fact, “The Brink” first track of Past Futures, is about positivity and balance, whereas “Breathing In” is a response to the world situation, the pandemic, the economy, things he notices or can’t stop noticing that have affected everyone’s lives.

And maybe he is not far wrong. 

Froese described that all too familiar action of “going into a rabbit hole on the Internet” and finding more and more information and also more and more people who feel the same way about it.

“Cosmic thinking, all of that. There’s a balance between realities. How much do you need to stay positive and how much do you deal with of what’s actually going on? Like mentally?” he asked. “I think ‘Breathing In’ is about dealing with life, here, and some things that just ‘sit.’ Like how did we get to the point where everyone’s wearing a mask and people keep getting hammered down?

“It’s a knee jerk reaction to the positive mindset thing. What works? What works in life? Staying positive or asserting your will?”

The imagery in “Breathing In” is like a “storm,” Froese said. He noted that after he wrote the song, about breathing the air and fires spinning dust into the air, the wildfires in Ontario began and he felt his song coming to life.

But the big thing is the idea of the little guy being “hammered down.” Of one punch after another taking the champ to the mat. It’s a hard thing to watch, Froese said.

As an artist, a lyricist, Froese said his process comes in waves with one line coming into his head. From there, he comes up with a melody and puts chords to that tune. His response to the idea of some lyrics being aetherically inspired said a lot about what makes this 35 year-old musician tick. 

“I definitely believe in that stuff,” he said. “You have to be in the right mindset and, I feel, to write something good and you really have to be able to slow down and get into that zone of enjoying it, and in that way, a lot of times songs just hit me.”

A natural, humming a tune in a shower, Froese broke down his own discography as song ideas that “come in” consistently every day. At that point its just which ones he writes down. He speculated that he was always into reading as a kid, and maybe that helped with songwriting.

“You have to feel like you’re supposed to do it and I think that’s a block to people. They feel they’re not supposed to do it and they’re not creative,” he said. “But if you’re encouraged to do that from a young age, I think it helps a lot when you get older. Feeling comfortable to do that. To write songs.”

Froese’s work can be found at https://hellolondon.bandcamp.com/music.

A Work in Progress: David Lewis’s split music personality

by Benjamin Joe

Photo Credit Benjamin Joe. David Lewis in Starpine Studios.

In the outskirts of the suburbs, an unassuming house stands next to other unassuming houses. There’s a driveway. Yard. Garage.

And inside of this home is another room filled with different odds and ends. A slow compilation that will eventually become a full recording venue. It’s called Starpine Studio , and like its owner, it’s a work in progress.

David Lewis, aka Dov Leon, and founder of two very different projects started his career in shortly after learning four chords on the guitar.

“I picked them up, I tried them and I was like, y’know, I’m in love with this!” he said.

And the rest is history.

Lewis put the act into high gear while in college at University at Buffalo. He put together a duo called Seven Sails and he and Cristian Trochez started playing together. It was an indie band that got some help along the way from the producer of their first EP, Land of Lions, Lewis said.

“The producer we were working with, he had a drum kit and he was also a very talented guitar player. So, we go in with our acoustic song and he said, ‘I think I hear bass, I think I hear drums,’ so he helped us out because he was talented on all of them,” Lewis said.

The band was a place for that indie sound, Lewis said. Later, Trochez moved to Florida. They still stay in touch and Trochez will occasionally send a recording of a riff or progression and the two will work out the song remotely.

But there were some tracks that weren’t quite for Seven Sails.

Lewis took his more hardcore and electronic, and even hip-hop based projects to his second identity, Dov Leon.

“I also loved post-hardcore, like We Came as Romans … I loved both styles so much I was starting to fuse them,” he said. “That’s when I realized that maybe I should stick Seven Sails to that acoustic, indie stuff because that’s what people came originally came on for. My first fans were there because they liked that style and I was going too far the other way, and that’s when I made the split.”

Contributed Image. David Lewis.

Lewis started collaborating with other names for that “gritty” vocals — screaming vocals — to keep his own Seven Sails vocals clean. Rob Davies from the UK was featured on one of the songs.

“This is the one thing in my life that’s been consistent, writing music because of the joy it can bring going through the process,” Lewis said.

Over the years Lewis has worked to perfect both of his projects. He’s reached out to people to play different parts and honed the sound on each track that he’d record and produce from Starpine Studios. Parts of Seven Sails discography include violins and parts of Dov Leon’s tracks hold “chunky” electric guitar highlights courtesy of Lewis’s uncle.

Lewis talks a lot about why he does what he does. It isn’t for the money and it’s not for the fame. His audience is a small one, but the way he figures it, if a song can touch one person or help somebody come to something for themselves? Then that’s what he’s in it for.

“I’d say my audience is why I write the music now,” Lewis said. “When you start writing music, there’s multiple drivers for it. There’s the passion. There’s wanting to inspire people. And there is that little piece of, ‘Can I get this up to a million or 100,000 streams?’ There’s just that little … — I don’t know — temptation to fame instead of focusing on the real beauty of what you’re doing. It’s almost selling out if all you’re concerned about is the stream counts.”

Interested parties can catch Lewis’s act as Dov Leon at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdaIutrCFSs for a feel of “Virtual Vices.”

Seven Sails is also still hanging out on streaming sites. Linked here is “Rewind”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FSqCckF1kY.

We’re going to ‘Snakeland’

by Benjamin Joe

Photograph by Benjamin Joe

Jimmy Collis, Declan Ryan, Steve Layman, Tony Cashaw and Bill Holtz make up ‘Snakeland.’

Perusesr of bandcamp or longtime Buffalo music fans may have been aware that the band “Snakeland” had released its first single, “Dragging Out Stars,” for their full-length album.

Called “Panamerican!”, the band will be playing at the Cave on July 15 to celebrate its release.

The official date of the release of “Panamerican!” is July 14 when they’ll be playing in the Abilene Bar & Lounge in Rochester.

Photograph by Benjamin Joe

Drummer Steve Layman bemoans missing the spare. Layman’s trip back to New York was the basis of the band’s single, ‘Dragging Out Stars.’

Taken with a little laughter, the “dad rock” tag on the bandcamp website is a joke, say members of the band, but it’s only too fitting. The age average checks out with demographical data. If they aren’t dads, then they should be.

Numbers don’t lie, but to be fair, neither does “Snakeland.”

Instead, the five piece puts out a bleary eyed, honest hangover of album with all the heavy hitting riffs and beats of a late-night bender’s gallant charm with ironic sidebars in the vocal arrangements. A little big punk rock, a little big alt-country. All Buffalo.

And the dad rock label to laugh at death.

Guitarist Jimmy Collis was the instigator of the band’s creation. He seemed surprised when asked how he got the band together.

“The idea for the band came to me in 2020, during COVID shutdown,” he said. “Got bored. Started buying guitars.”

Collis knew Tony Cashaw, the lead vocalist, and Declan Ryan, also a guitarist. He called them up with the idea.

“I don’t even think I called them,” he said. “I just bumped into them one day and said, ‘Let’s start a band,’ and they were like ‘OK.’”

The band picked up Bill Holtz, who did not know bass, but quickly learned, and Steve Layman, a drummer who penned the lead single’s lyrics based on his recent trip back to New York after living for years in Pennsylvania.

“It’s like a short story of his life, recently. He had to get out of there and it was good,” Cashaw said, noting he gets the sentiment. He said Layman was feeling nostalgic. 

As the keeper of vibes, Cashaw talked about his relationship with the rest of the band, being a vocalist for words that he doesn’t necessarily have a say in.

“I work on every song,” Cashaw said. “I don’t always sing what they write, because I can be pushy and I have to say it — I don’t think the chorus they have on there is what he intended for the chorus, (but) people are going to understand this part of it the most and I’m going to say that often.”

Cashaw laughed as he spoke of his own musical upbringing.

“So, when I was a child I was tortured by my father and he made me sing in this religious organization, called church,” he said — tongue-in-cheek. “And it was every weekend!

“And we had to go to practice! And I didn’t want to do it, but we did it, and I guess I got through it and got older and moved out and then I couldn’t stop doing it.”

And thank the gods for that.

Cahaw’s vocal style fits in easily for all ten tracks of the release with more than a little of the power one might find listening to a choir. The interesting thing is how he works around the instrumental frequencies spinning and darting around the soundscape of his voice. 

In a word, and what every member of the band agrees with more-or-less is that “Snakeland” is about doing the music right — the first time.

“The album is about being a middle-aged punk rock dad, but we didn’t say that outright because that isn’t too sexy,” Cashaw said. “If you just pay attention and squint your eyes at the lyrics, you’ll get it.”

Ryan, 34, also chimed in ­— saying that, all jokes aside, the five guys were reliving exactly what they wanted when they first started their musical careers and were playing in bands, setting up house parties and making friendships that survived the years.

“This is funny, because when we tried to do this during the appropriate age to be in a band that sounds like this, we weren’t nearly as good,” Ryan said. “Now we’re doing this for real, but there’s some humor to the fact that we’re all older.”

If the release of “Panamerican!” seems too far away, the band encourages that potential fans take-a-look at their first video, which was set up in a basement, a classical piece of architecture that every music lover in Buffalo has located on their radar, one time or another, and take a listen to “Trust Falls.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sytxP-sJwec)

“We wanted to put something out there that we’re proud of making and that no one else is doing and make sure it’s fully cooked before bringing it to the table,” Ryan said.

Support your politics and getting it right

By Benjamin Joe

Photograph by Benjamin Joe

It’s not easy getting up and performing, but it’s something that sometimes has to be done. Some would say that music creates a safe space for marginalized people. There can be a lot of reasons for a performer to do what they do.

And it can also can be pretty scary.

“Some of the shows that stressed me the most out were house shows because they’re right there,” Adelaide said, laughing. “You’re really singing right to them.”

The artist known by their middle-name, Adelaide, talked about their life as a musician and ultimately, a person, in a well-known bakery and coffee shop on the West Side of Buffalo.

The Southern Towns native wrote their first song on guitar after living in Colorado for a spell (in the middle of nowhere) before coming back to Ithaca where they’d recently dropped out of the University. Once there, they started playing out with a band called “Thunderstorm Clouds.”

Many lifetimes later, Adelaide is in Buffalo for now, recently bereft of their day job and is a consummate musical artist who is frank about their gender (they are queer), their beliefs (healing with music) and their ability to “feel intensely.”

“I’m a bit of a vessel, a channeler to something bigger than myself,” they said. “Lyrics will come to me as I’m falling asleep or when I’m in meditation. …

“More often than not it comes from feeling something so intensely that it reverberates outside my body and it needs to go elsewhere.”

Adelaide had a few things to say about the music industry, but also said that “confidence,” was the major factor that has allowed them to play in so many bands, in so many places, write so many songs and have so many people connect with them. Life’s been good, however, they did note a male dominancy that seems to overcast the industry.

But this is not an unchangeable obstacle.

“When I lived in Portland, when this magazine started – it’s now a larger collective called ‘She Shreds Media’ –… I was a subscriber. So obsessed. Was very invested in what was going on,” Adelaide said. “It finally felt like there was a community of guitarists and bass players who were women or nonbinary people who wanted to change the narrative from ­– like pictures in the classic guitar magazines – where there’s a woman in a bathing suit holding a guitar.”

Adelaide said that rock guitar has a long history of women, but it’s been taken away. Today they say they listens to women and femme musicians to “honor that legacy.”

“I think there’s such value in uplifting musicians that are in whatever various, for lack of a better term, a marginalized identity,” they said. “If I go to a show and it’s five cis straight white guys playing instruments, I’m just like (pause).

“I value it in its own way, but I really at this point want to see more musicians of color, more queer people, people who’s gender, you don’t know their gender, but I’m digging their vibe.”

For the future of Buffalo’s music scene, Adelaide sees a lot of hope. The working class rust belt mentality has a long way to go in terms of being progressive, they said, but they still feels, “there’s an effort to push past that.”

“I think my music could be considered rock,” they said. “But it’s so lyrically and emotional driven it steps out. There’s a saturation of dad-rock in Buffalo. It’s interesting because it’s not all (that way). There’s so much of every genre here, in Buffalo, but I do think there’s a saturation of dad-rock… It’s changing because that’s how time works. People from every generation are coming through and I think that’s a good thing.”

In the end, Adelaide said one should never, “live in regret,” which is something they’ve learned from the very young and the very old.

“There’s a lot of people who I think lose that because they have to focus on the basic needs … to survive. There’s no shame in that, that’s living life,” they said. “I feel very fortunate. One of the things I love most about Buffalo is the cheap rent. If I lived anywhere else I couldn’t quit my nine to five. Being able to live as an artist in a location and make art – and obviously it’s changing, Buffalo is changing – I do feel so grateful to have this perspective. Sometimes you need to just go for something, even when it’s risky.”

Adelaide’s single “Fire” can be found at https://adelaideband.bandcamp.com/track/fire. While the song is about Portland, OR, many have listened and said it’s got to be about Buffalo. 

Ellen Pieroni’s first album

https://ellenpieroni.bandcamp.com/album/the-encyclopedia-of-soul-vol-i?fbclid=IwAR1jUjqlOfx65r7mujHDrf_F-33WYqs5X7RBPjYJX7kcnEKkzMMPESC9c_w&mibextid=kdkkhi