Gusto Stories 1978

  Another night of surprises at Harvey and Corky’s Stage One. May 25, 1979  British rocker Tom Robinson overwhelms Stage One crowd “This is the first time we played in Upstate New York,” Tom Robinson said as his band came back for an encore, “so we really didn’t know what to expect.”          Neither did the crowd of 200 at Harvey and Corky’s Stage One in Clarence. After all, Robinson is an unfamiliar sort of British import – a gay, rock and rolling human rights activist who’s gotten minimum airplay locally. But before Thursday night was over, everyone’s expectations had been fulfilled to overflowing.          The Tom Robinson Band established its credentials by laying down a thick chunk of sound. This would not be a rinky-dink folksong session or a jagged piece of New Wave. It was nothing more than a lead guitar reinforced by keyboards, backed by rock-steady bass and drums.  ...

  A visit with one of Buffalo’s musical legends April 13, 1979  Jazz Star The bartender is a fan. He beams a big handshake to Don Menza and promises to drop by to catch the weekend’s show. Menza has become something of a jazz star on two fronts here on his home turf. His following includes both the audience who heard him in Buffalo’s jazz clubs two decades ago and the folks who hear his saxophone and flute in countless recordings from Los Angeles.          “I’m not going to tell you who I’m working with,” he says as the waitress brings the menus. “That would be name-dropping and I don’t want to get into it. Everybody. Everybody. What are you going to measure success by, anyway? If it was a musical situation, it happened before I went to California.”          Menza came up in the aftermath of Charlie Parker, when bebop was a thinking man’s alternative to the popular culture of the ‘50s. Ev...

I frequently run into the subject of this little feature story these days, but I'd completely forgotten about our first encounter. April 6, 1979  Talent: Looking for it in pop music. If there’s hot new musical talent out there longing to be discovered, Tina Joan Ball is all ears. And for a small fee, the 26-year-old former Buffalonian offers to be that hard-to-get connection in the music business. In essence, she’s an artist-and-repertoire person, the one who comes out from the record company to assess an up-and-coming act.          The difference is that she’s a freelancer. And while the honchos from the record labels are usually tight-lipped about what they think, Ms. Ball has no qualms about expressing her opinions. If performers are ready for a shot at the big time, she’ll tell them and she’ll help them make it. If they’re not ready, she’ll tell them why not. She calls her service Rising Artists Inc. and her office is at 1697 Broa...

  April 6, 1979  Catch the Milestones while you can. They’ll be gone by summer. The area’s best little jazz band is the best-kept secret in Niagara Falls. That’s where Richard Kermode and the Milestones have been holding forth to appreciative but spotty audiences since New Year’s. This weekend, however, they’ve ventured down to Buffalo’s Tralfamadore Café, 2610 Main St., where they’ve expanded their usual Thursday date into a Friday and a Saturday as well.          Bearded Kermode began playing rock in Buffalo bars in the early ‘60s. A first-class keyboardman, he made the big time in Janis Joplin’s Full-Tilt Boogie Band. Then he caught the Latin music fever during stints with Santana and Malo in the early ‘70s and he’s still got it strong. In his new home base, San Francisco, he works with a salsa band six nights a week, doing dances and Mexican weddings. Yes, he says with a grin, it’s a wild time.     ...

One of my quests in writing cover stories for Gusto was to explore Buffalo’s treasures and back in the late 1970s many of them were still overlooked. This one really drew me in. For five years, I spent a stimulating week in June at the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute at Buffalo State College. One year I got to lead a workshop session in how to apply journalistic principles to the problem solving process. March 30, 1979 Problem Solving One of the world centers for the study of creative problem solving is here in Buffalo. The problem is not everybody knows about it. A few minutes with Robert E. Johnston Jr., director of Pro-Think Systems, 1371 Delaware Ave., and your mental muscles are already playing catch with the far-fetched. “Suppose you want to develop a radio that would peel apples,” he proposes to illustrate a point about rating ideals on a scale from zero to 100. Up come the plusses and minuses. There’s convenience. There’s the expense. There’s the danger of getting...

  One of the more bizarre figures in a strange time. He showed up here one day after the Three Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown. March 30, 1979  Tonio K.           The live concert broadcast from Harvey and Corky’s Stage One began at midnight Thursday with the sound of a mother serving lunch to kiddies home from school. But instead of soup, mom is ladling out Tonio K’s totally inedible debut album, “Life in the Food Chain,” which, the announcer’s voice tells us, is “100 percent polyvinyl chloride, cardboard and music.”           Tonio K’s live show was the album without the extraneous plastic and paper. After disposing of an unfamiliar number properly, he and his band laid out their songs in virtually the same order they appear on the record. The only one missing in action was the vampire love song, “How Come I Can’t See You in My Mirror.”       ...