Buffalo Live! Music Podcast - 2 Songs From Buffalo

I came across a wonderful web page today. I don’t even remember what it was I was looking for when I found it, because I’ve spent the past several hours reading it and I haven’t even scratched the surface.

It’s former Buffalo Disc Jockey, Radio Announcer, Gary Storm’s page. You may remember his night-shift show Oil of Dog. He’s put up a lot of his writings about his experiences in the radio/music industry in the ’70s through late ’80s - basically a journal kept at that time. It’s pretty crude web page, and I don’t know how long it’s been up (it looks like it might be untouched for years) but it’s quite a history of that era’s Buffalo music scene.

Here’s a taste of it:

I often fantasize a concert to end all concerts, an event for people who truly love music. It would open with a chamber ensemble, perhaps a string quartet and they would perform something by Elliot Carter and perhaps some Schubert. Then a jazz ensemble, on the outside of things, to rant and blow and tease music out of the moment. Then a chamber orchestra for something gentle by Corelli and something violent by Varese. And then, of course, a rock band to blast everyone away and make them sweat. They would be on a revolving stage so there would be no waiting between sets. Maybe each group would do three or four fifteen minute sets one after another, pow pow pow pow chamber jazz symphony rock chamber jazz symphony rock pow pow pow pow. What a show it would be. Then for a finale, they would all play together, perhaps a special piece commissioned just for the event. Or a few of the musicians in an open jam. What an audience, all the hipsters and flipsters and misters and missuses and rockers and snobbers all together mingling and laughing and exchanging uncomfortable looks, applauding wildly, telling one another to please be quiet and holding their hands over their ears. What a concert it would be.

The wonderful thing is that such concerts can happen. I do them all the time on my show. On a revolving stage. Not, of course, with all the people in the same place and the crazy, wonderful things that happen when you pack people together. But I can make the music happen. This is one of the mightiest innovations brought upon our culture by radio and long-playing records. People my age don’t realize how differently we relate to music than did our ancestors. Today it is possible to shit to Brahms. Before records and radio it was not possible to shit to Brahms or anyone else. Today there is hardly a soul who has not pooped to Paganini or Art Pepper or Peter, Paul and Mary, or Billy Preston. What a luxury – anyone can hear any piece of music at any time of day while engaging in any activity. Moreover, we can listen to dream concerts any time at any venue featuring any performers. No promoters, no roadies, no bouncers, no tickets, no waiting. We can hear any piece of music as many times as we wish; we don’t have to wait for the orchestra to bring it into their repertoire, we don’t have to wait for the group to come to town. We can intimately learn each note, we can weep a thousand times in a row to the words. We can hear the “Easter Oratorio” in November or Christmas carols in June. We can enjoy Arthur Fiedler though he is dead and Stevie Wonder when he was a little boy. On the radio, I can put any two tunes together and anyone who wants to can shit to them. Nothing is sacred, nothing is privileged. It is beautiful, it is art for everyone. It all melts and fuses into a glowing background, an uplifting muzak, an unseen vision.

Check out all of the Oil of Dog.