Gusto Stories 1978

  One of Buffalo’s best bands on the brink of its national breakthrough. Aug. 25, 1978  Spyro Gyra         The new edition of Spyro Gyra rattled the rafters of the Tralfamadore Café Thursday night with revisions of its old jazz-rock favorites and previews of the high-energy creations that have been recorded for the band’s second album on Amherst Records, due out late this fall. The group will hold forth at the Tralf through Sunday night and perhaps Monday.         Opening with “Heliopolis,” a cut from the new LP, they defined their latest sound with a snap of the snare drum, a kick of the congas and the eerie rise of twin synthesizers, all leading to the butterscotch joy of Jay Beckenstein’s saxophone.         Where once Spyro Gyra was five, now the band is a septet. Taking the basic core of Beckenstein, bassist Jim Kurzdorfer and pianist Jeremy Wall, they’ve doub...

  The University at Buffalo was in a period of major physical transition in the 1970s, but it wasn’t the first time. Aug. 26, 1978 THE UNIVERSITY THEN         Welcome to the dirt and clatter of construction. Welcome to classrooms and offices scattered all over the map. Welcome to chaotic registration. Welcome to a crisis in school spirit. Welcome to the fine art of slipping outside with your fellow students to smoke Old Golds and tip a hip flask in somebody’s car. Welcome to the University of Buffalo. The fall semester starts Sept. 19, 1928. Tuition is $350, payable in advance.         1928-29 is going to be a great year. At last the majority of UB’s operations are on the new Main Street campus, which displaced the old Erie County Poorhouse. Yes, the poorhouse. From the completion of the first new building – Foster Hall in 1922 – until the takeover of pre-existing Hayes Hall in 1926, students shared the g...

  Another long-forgotten fixture of the late 1970s July 28, 1978 Sgt. Pepper's         Anyone who grimaces at the thought that discotheques have to be brazen and flashy – with a cover charge to match – will be disarmed by the presumptions of the newest nightspot on Hertel Avenue. Sgt. Pepper’s, artfully installed in the first floor of a two-story house at 1126 Hertel, is as cozy as a North Buffalo parlor, and when it comes to admission, the price is right. It’s free.         Even in the flash department, the sense of proportion isn’t blown asunder. There’s the obligatory police gumball light back in the sound booth, casually zapping the angular mirrors and the aluminized wallpaper, but provisions have been made for escape. The alternatives are crystal clear. Choose the main room for the dazzle. Retreat to the little lounge with the couches if the mood gets conversational.      ...