Gusto Stories 1978

  Getting cozy with the late, great Harry Chapin. Jan. 26, 1979  The Good Part Is Reliving the Old Times          Going to a Harry Chapin concert is like spending the evening with a long-lost cousin. First you’re obliged to grin and bear the small talk and the updating. Then you get down to the good part – reliving the old times.          So it went in a sold-out Kleinhans Music Hall Thursday night. The affable Chapin strode out first, a casually handsome figure – tall, trim and curly-haired, square of jaw and broad of forehead. No superstar coyness for him. He plunked himself down on the traditional folksinger’s high stool and cozied up the mood by his lonesome.          “What you’ve got here is an opening act,” he grinned between tunes. “I’m gonna warm you up till the group comes out. Now there’s two things that an opening act can do – you can eit...

  Here’s a soundtrack to accompany the Love Canal documentary that’s airing on PBS this week. Jan. 19, 1979  The Vores          The Vores seem quite at home in the stark, studied essence of this white-walled showroom in the CEPA Gallery on Essex Street. The focus is uncluttered. Nothing is extraneous. Art is all.          “This is where we started to play, this very room,” says Biff the guitarist. “Then the neighbors started to complain across the street. Now we practice in a warehouse in Riverside. They still complain across the street over there.”          Next to Biff, behind their respective Foster Grants, are Raoul the guitarist and singer, Alfredo the bassist and Mike the drummer. Biff has a master’s degree in photography. Raoul teaches photography as a grad student at UB. Alfredo’s a student. Mike builds houses.     ...

  A show that must have raised the midwinter air temperature in downtown Buffalo by at least 10 degrees. Jan. 12, 1979 review High intensity J. Geils performance wows crowd in Shea’s Buffalo          They came 2,700 strong to party in Shea’s Buffalo Thursday night and the J. Geils Band did not disappoint them. The Bad Boys from Boston drove proceedings to a frenzy from the moment they set foot on stage and didn’t let it stop until they’d gotten a triple encore.          They’re old pros at this kind of thing. The band is rolling into its 10th year with the same six-man lineup. Though their albums and their fortunes have blown hot and cold, the intensity of their live performances is a guaranteed fact. When their coliseum-sized approach is jammed into the confines of a concert hall, it just becomes more charged with energy. Shea’s positively reverberated in the face of their attack.  ...

  A stroll around the radio dial in the good old days 45 years ago. Jan. 12, 1979  Radio          I’ve started listening to the radio again.          Listening the way I did when I was a kilocycle-happy teenager – scanning the dial for new songs, new shows and new thrills. It all started when my old car broke down in November.          The old car and my listening habits fit like a felt liner inside a snowmobile boot. That dilapidated buggy had plenty of things wrong with it, but one thing was always right – the cassette player. A simple shove of the tape would provide all the music I wanted to hear, all the time.          As a record reviewer, it was easy to slip into such a high-handed attitude. The real action in music was at home on the turntable in the form of new releases, which could be taped for the ...

  Before I started spending all my money on records as a kid, I spent all my money on comic books. Jan. 5, 1979  The Comics          The young fans of Spider-Man cluster knee-high to the comic book racks in Fantasy World, a narrow Hertel Avenue storefront that specializes in comics and used records. They’ve thumbed through this month’s new releases and then they’ve thumbed some more. Now they’re waiting impatiently for their web-spinning superhero.          “Where’s Spider-Man?” one of them whines.          “He’s out to lunch,” says Norm Sinski, 22-year-old partner in the store. “He ought to be back any minute.”          Sure enough, before you can say “Holy moley,” this red-and-blue costumed character pounced into the store, big as life and twice as spectacular. The adults ooh and aah. The kids get suddenly...

  A great way to start off a new year. Jan. 4, 1979  Devo Purposely Reverses Direction of Evolution          It was the weirdest-looking crowd Kleinhans Music Hall had seen in years, but nothing was quite as bizarre Wednesday night as the main attraction – a spectacularly demented rock group from Akron, Ohio, called Devo.          Once the group’s introductory film started rolling, it was clear where the inspiration came from for all the stocking-mask faces, bright buttons, strange ties, outlandish coveralls and funny glasses in the sell-out audience of about 800 in the Mary Seaton Room.          The 10-minute movie, which included segments seen on TV’s “Midnight Special” and “Saturday Night Live,” was great fun, but it didn’t really tell much about devolution, the band’s philosophy of reverse development.       ...

  With the Century Theater shuttered, Harvey Weinstein and Corky Berger head off into a new venture. Dec. 8, 1978  Harvey and Corky’s Stage One          Watch for the final double bill in the old Century Theater next week – the wrecking ball and the bulldozer. Rest assured, however, that the memories, the guiding spirit and even a few of the fixtures of the grandly decrepit downtown movie house and rock concert hall are safely ensconced in the suburbs.          They’re out here near the metropolitan area’s new commercial epicenter – Main and Transit in Clarence. The Century’s old brass balcony railing fences off a raised section of tables. Shining down on the new T-shaped marble bar are the white and gold stained-glass light covers from underneath the balcony. Hanging from the low peak of the ceiling are three antique chandeliers.          This is H...