Buffalo Live! Music Podcast

I got a phone call the other day from a local musician asking me about my open mike. What?

I called him back and had a nice conversation, but neither of us could figure out what open mike he had heard about that called itself Buffalo Live.

So, I did some Googling and didn’t find out much, but just enough to solve the mystery. Apparently, the building on the corner or Main St. next to Broadway Joe’s calls itself “Buffalo Live” and sometimes is open and held an open mike night. It was listed on the Buffalo Barfly web site, but other than that and a couple old Artvoice mentions, I didn’t see any current information.

So that’s the mystery solved.

When I named the podcast, I placed an exclamation point in the name after the word ‘live’. I thought it gave a little pizzaz and emphasized the concept of Buffalo being alive and exciting.

It could have just as easily been after the word ‘music’ as in ‘live music’ to stress the focus of the podcast being on live performances.

I really enjoy the two ways of interpreting it, solely by inflection!

But, sadly, it’s a podcast and only holds court in cyberspace. Sorry, but there is no open mike here!

(I wonder if that could be done? Hmmmm… Maybe artists could submit their own recordings?)

…this site, that is. Well, me too.

I don’t know how much longer I am going to maintain this site. The audio files have all been moved off of Libsyn and I am no longer paying for their hosting there. They have been uploaded to archive.org and presumably will be there ad-infinitum, but are hard to find at times. Their search is no Google, that’s for sure. The best search term I found to get the podcasts is http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Doc%20Wu%22&page=1 so start there if you are looking for them.

The photo gallery is also broken. I don’t know when or how it ceased functioning, but it no longer works and I am not going to try to fix it. It’s some problem with the database. Rebuilding it is also out of the question as it held literally tens of thousands of photos.

The blog – what you are reading here – is also out of date. the software is continually nagging me to update it and every time I do, it creates a few small issues that need to get fixed. I just don’t want to keep up with it any longer.

So, please remember Archive.org and the podcast audio is there, but this site may disappear at any time, probably collapsing under it’s own weight and neglect…

It’s been a long and good run. 70-some episodes of the main podcast and a dozen or so of the 2-Songs show. Buffalo is still a great town for local music and I hope I have gotten a few people to get out and appreciate it. I’ll leave the task of chronicling it to new and younger people who can do the late nights and lots of drinking! I know there are a few who a doing their part.

What I wrote on my personal blog, but might be of interest here.

I received the following from Scott Leffler:

Once I return from my holiday vacation, I’ll also be returning to a feature I used to have on WLVL … although with some adjustments. Music Friday’s returns to WNY’s airwaves on January 2nd … with music by WNY band “Serenity Falls,” and an interview with two of the artists in the band. While Music Fridays had previously meant live music from the bands, that had it’s drawbacks at times. Frankly, some bands that sound great on CD, didn’t sound as good live. Also there were several last-minute cancellations. Playing tracks off a CD, should fix both those problems.

I’ve booked Serenity Falls for the first show … but I haven’t booked anything past that. Are you in a band or know a band that A) is good and B) would like the exposure? Have them get ahold of me. Maybe we’ll get ‘em in on Music Friday … now Friday’s at 10:30 a.m. on Hometown 1230, WECK.

A great chance to get some local airplay. With Scott’s affiliation with WECK, his voice is now heard even more in the Buffalo area. This is the way radio should be, not some cookie-cutter programming that comes out of LA-LA-land!

I am in the process of moving all of the audio files from both the Buffalo Live! and 2 Songs podcasts to the Internet Archive. Read the rest of this entry »

While I’m not doing a podcast, I am getting out to at least one local series of shows.

The Molson-sponsored “Canal” Concert series that has been reinvigorated this season by a move to Lockport has been the one thing I have been able to get out to on a regular basis.

I’ve been taking a lot of photos of the event too. I’ve been posting the photos in the gallery under the “Doc Wu’s Magical Musical Mystery Tour” section. If you haven’t seen them because you looked in the Buffalo Live section, that’s where to find them.

I’ve also been blogging about the event, as well as whatever else is on my mind, at my personal web site.