Chiggity-Checkout Yourself Before You Wriggity-Wreckout Yourself

chit-chat from the Chainsaw--
an irregular feature

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to stop the insanity! And since Susan Powter has disappeared, it behooves me to take matters into my own hands. I’m trying to get a law passed, but seeing as I’m not a high-class escort, politicians in Albany are turning deaf ears to my pleas. So what is it that has caught my ire? Those damn self-checkout lanes.

Much too often, I find myself at Tops, dying for my late night fixin’ of Combos, frozen pizza and grape soda. But the self-checkout lane will be backed up because some douchebags are shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoy the convenience of bagging three carts worth of food. Maybe it’s because we have so little control of our lives in other areas, but at some point in human civilization, we’ve accepted the notion that bagging our own groceries represents an important step towards autonomy.

And it’s not like it’s cheaper to self-bag the way it’s cheaper to pump your own gas. Really, the only convenience the self-checkout lane offers is the ability to pay completely in loose change without worrying if you’re on penny 638 or 639. These machines do offer freedom from Coinstar’s loan-shark fees, but that’s all. The time-saving aspect is merely an illusion. You still have to wait in line during busy hours since everyone seems to want to use them. Not to mention that at least one of the machines will be down. And at least one will be occupied by someone with so little grasp of technology, they probably still have a flashing 12:00 on their VCR. And let’s not forget the aforementioned example of someone who doesn’t understand the tiny space allotted is not conducive to massive grocery shopping.

So folks, please, let’s treat these things as express lanes and limit ourselves to 15 items or less. I know it’s a lot to ask that we police ourselves, but it’ll help bring some harmony to the world. And it’ll represent a true step towards real autonomy.

--A.L. Cerda

Love Parade CD release party: for “All Together Now”

a rudy sizzle review

When: Saturday, March 1st
Where: The Mohawk Place


Considering the fact that late February, and pretty much all of March, is when “real winter” sets in for Buffalo, the attendance for Love Parade’s CD extravaganza was great. I rarely get stoked mid-winter to leave the house, but perhaps knowing one of my favorite live bands was braving the elements, traversing across the 90 West all the way from Brooklyn, to make a special appearance and to celebrate with Love Parade was enough enticement to get me out. Upon seeing Aloke, one may consider earplugs and maybe to have a few shots of whiskey. Not that you need to mute your hearing to enjoy them; they are pummeling sonically, very confrontational on the stage and need to be appreciated on an up-close and personal level. Their poignancy is felt wholeheartedly in each of the band's four members, channeling a vibe akin to that of Fugazi or Quicksand, yet somehow honing in on their very own brand of thick indie-rock that both crushes and captivates. The vocals are washed in an ocean of delay, blending into a wall of sound, balanced on the tightly-woven rhythm section. The Aloke song craft is high caliber, despite the heavy barrage of distorted and effected guitar and vocals. There are some seriously memorable moments in Aloke’s battery of material, namely songs like “Head inside a Suitcase” and “Unresolved”, which are both spectacularly captured on their up coming full-length release recorded by Steve Albini.



Aloke is a very difficult band to follow however, Buffalo’s own noise-laden indie-rockers La Cacahouette were up for the challenge. La Cacahouette are a trio based out of the Queen City and have been steadily developing their craft over the past four years. Since their inception, the “Little Peanut” has managed to build a solid fan base locally, as well as outside of Buffalo with a regular tour roster that has seen the band make it out to the West Coast and numerous jaunts to the Mid-west. Co-fronted by the married duo Pepper Ochsner-Thomas and Gerald Thomas, La Cacahouette’s song craft mixes keyboard and electric stringed instrumentation equivocally in the sonic spectrum. By having the monster-bashing drum skills of Blake Ellman, the songs tend to lean more towards metallic-tinged stoner rock while morphing occasionally into an analog-digital hybrid ala My Bloody Valentine or Stereo Lab. At times the genuinely sweet inflections of Gerald and Pepper’s vocals syrup the sound and offset the powerful tension being built by the chaos of the heavy pounding and cacophony of heavily effected guitars and keys.

I’d also like to take moment to rewind to the beginning of this special CD release party and describe the genius that is Nick Gordon. There are certain types of songwriters, namely the folk-style purists who are offended by anything that digresses or mars the aesthetic of the preconceived folk-roots tradition. Nick Gordon makes this niche seem plausibly real and honestly easy to fall in love with. If you did not know him, you would have thought you were being privy to the roots of beat music, to the old school noir-hearted center of post-modern, post-mortem, post-post-office… etc. I know that Nick’s style is not merely a “shtick” because this fellow means it. If you did not know him, you might be willing to wager the farm on this kid being full of shit. You’d lose the farm once you spoke with him; the man has soul. Song-craft and soul are a married couple of convenience, they tend to stay together as long as they can usually to get the kids up and out of the house and into their own fucked up marriages, families and thus the cycle repeats. Nick’s songs are mad and blunt, dangerous and safe to enjoy, if there are no strings attached.


Love Parade took to the stage very late. The numbers dwindled, but not nearly enough to thwart the Parade of Love’s vigorous song sequence. They performed the track list of the new CD “All Together Now” from start to finish and this apropos statement is definitive of this trio. They all seem to be connected to the same weird muse that makes great pop music seem slightly drug induced, maybe even a bit insane. They keep this secret within the lines of the songs lyrics, such as the line “Driving is fine if you can get to a new place instead of hitting a wall so close to home…” and thus the brilliance of the Love Parade. Jason Sallese has a dry wit that keeps the serious freak-out of manic absurdity at bay. The tongue-in-cheek nature of this band is what draws you in and wins you over. Their performance was nearly flawless, which makes it more than perfect, as they tend to force themselves off the rails every once in awhile. “All Together Now” is a solid representation of this quirky and loveable trio’s musicality.

For locals: punk-is-the-new-punk

ever since the punk explosion of late 70s underground musicians have been searching for the next thing to shake rock's foundations. In the 80s it was hip-hop, hardcore and new wave. In the 90s it was grunge, rave and nu-metal. In the 00s its been wave after wave of revivalist movements: garage rock, techno and ???

locally, a few revival-minded bands have grabbed the punk mantle and made it their own. Some have taken influences from punk's early years while others have taken from other sub-movements within ever-growing scope of punk rock music.

the music of White York expands on the folk resonances found within the punk movement. The band dwells in territory staked out by folk/ punk icons like Patty Smith and Tom Waits.



"we use a musical style that originates directly from a punk rock background, and we (more or less) have the accompanying ideology and attitudes," WY guitarist Alex Yoshi tells S3 via email.

basement-dwellers plates take a more purified approach to punk. According to Dave Anchovies, plates guitarist and all-around nice guy, the biggest single influence on the band is the '77 punk band the Wipers, which can be heard in the loud, tight, fast plates songs.

artvoice battle-of-the-bands winner London vs. New York is another high-profile local group proudly waving the punk banner. Their battle victory is no doubt a testament to punk rock presence and popularity in the local scene. WBFO Music Director Bert Gambini writes the band, who recently performed on the radio station's 'Live at Allen Hall' series, plays with "raucous spirit and high volume," which sound's like Yoshi's idea of what punk music should be:

"with 70's punk, there was a shift taking place in terms of how music was being treated. It was approached not as an arrangement of notes and rhythms that were foreign to the player, but as an invitation to take a simple pattern and intensify it, make it dynamic, make it explode."