The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 25

The Buffalo News Weonesda June 10 2009 Entertainment C7 Horton Heat show is a hoot ByJeffMiers Concur Review 'i By Alan Pergam ent I mail jmiersbuffnewscom mail: apergarnentbuffiwwscom Covers add spellbinding spice ByDanIIerbeck Concert Review Best riends Advertisers: Reach Your Target Customers vr mail dherbeckbvffnewscom Dffkuri Prokofiev's Romeo Juliet Wednesday June 10 at 8 pm ENTS The Buffalo News To advertise in a special section or for information call 849 5S64 Disc our band kicked into the sick day anthem in before digging into the more se rious fare represented by the minor key burner a song lamenting the loss of friends to heroin use The song still boasted some serious musicianship particu larly during its mid section breakdown which found Heath soloing nimbly over drummer Paul and bassist Jim bo subdued swing and walk By this time the band was fully warmed up and the tunes just started pouring out of it in a succession that suggest a desire to get out of Lewiston quick but rather to get the en gine running at capacity tem perature So the hilarious and irreverent of fell from the sky the swanky Martini followed and the set framing ly let everyone know this modus operandi The Reverend Horton Heat show was an absolute hoot But they also performed cov ers of songs made famous by the Rolling Stones James Tay lor and the Grateful Dead Crosby Stills and Nash do ing and Yes indeed and it was all quite entertaining Reverend Horton Heat Tuesday night as part of the Tuesday in the Park series at Artpark Outdoor Amphitheater The new songs from a forth coming covers album they are recording with producer Rick Rubin added some spice to a fine 90 minute show at the Ava lon Ballroom in the allsview Casino orty summers ago Crosby Stills and Nash were at the top of the music world They had just released their first album and were preparing to play be fore a half million people at the Woodstock Music estival pos sibly the most famous rock con cert of all time Tuesday night found them in front of 1547 people in the casino The harmonies that soared into the skies at Wood stock are now thick raspy and occasionally just off key These guys are now well into their 60s but they still know how to delight an audience nothing short of amazing that all three of them are still alive and still playing together battle with cocaine addiction landed him in a Texas prison in the late 1980s and in 1995 he needed a liver trans plant Now at age 67 he still has a beautiful expressive voice and still likes to let his freak flag fly on strident songs like Time which he delivered in a powerful way Tuesday night Stills 64 survived surgery for early stage prostrate cancer last year His voice has taken a beating over the years and he struggles mightily to reach any high note But his work on elec tric guitar always a focal point of the band is as good as ever producing spellbinding guitar solos again and again Trim and fit at age 67 Nash is the glue that holds the pres ent day CSN together Best known as a vocalist he is also and underrated songwriter as evidenced by his performances of and A Song Before I CSNs current North Ameri can tour began last week and will head off to Great Britain and Europe before returning to America for more shows NEWS CONTRIBUTING REVIEWER NIAGARA A LIS Anyone who traveled to Niagara alls Tuesday night expecting to hear a replay of Crosby Stills and gr eatest hits collection was in for a big surprise Yes David Crosby Stephen Stills and Graham Nash did play some of their most popular songs including Your Time Gone' and graphical areas if they have an outside an tenna Of course 200 calls from Channel 17s audi ence of 13 million weekly is an extremely low percentage anyway (less than 02 of a percent) In a sense Channel 29 and Channel 17 have done the hard work for the Buffalo stations that waited until deadline to drop their ana log signals and deal with the calls of confused viewers see much of an impact said Magnini based on his WUTV experience think answered most of the ques agreed Boswell resolved the ques tions that might be received by the other sta tions I really think there will be a Channel 2 General Manager Jim Toellner whose channel has two digital signals for Chan nel 2 and Universal Sports and will soon have a third for RTN and its classic reruns believes there may still be some issues to pop up riday in addition to those experienced by WUTV and wned gone through some of the said Toellner will be people who watch those stations so there might be a very small number of viewers without digital sets or services who may need to scan the antenna to find all the "The stations that have gone before probably have taken care of three quarters of added Toellner NEWS POP MUSIC CRITIC LEWISTON Tuesdays in the Park kicked off psycho billy style with a rather delightfully irreverent set from the Reverend Horton Heat Yes every DA in Buffalo not the lawyer version I assure you ev ery leopard skin pillbox hat and tiger print dress every pair of pegged Levis turned out in force This seemed to surprise those simply strolled in with lawn chairs to watch the free concert Some of them left rather abruptly once it became clear just exactly what was go ing on Some stayed and seemed to get it after a while This was rockabilly blues and rock roll played with the ferocity of punk rock The Reverend Horton Heat is a trio from Texas a killer group of musicians whose first record were released in the ear ly and whose incredibly consistent material has en deared it to a sizable cult audi ence The Western New York chapter of that contingent as described above descended on Artpark Tuesday to wittingly or not help the Lewiston landmark kick off its summer season The band tore it up with its patented blend of grit grease and grace on Tuesday offering a tour through its history and throwing in a passel of new songs to boot All were the same in the way that ACDC songs are the same the band has found its particular area of rock roll (and country and swing) history to root around in and is quite pleased with what it has found there Calling him the star of the show may not be quite right but certainly guitaristsing ersongwriter Jim Heath is the man directing traffic during a Horton Heat show His guitar playing Duane Eddy and Carl Perkins and Santo Johnny all run through a punk rock sensi bility is both idiomatically dead on and marked by a sort of aggressive restlessness the sort of sneer and snarl that marks it as punk After opening with an in strumental that ably displayed roots in Memphis rock roll Texas swing and even Les jazz based licks the Local digital conversion transition has begun DISCOVER Taylor Bianco HC enner Elementary School Grade 3 3rd Place A New riendship Once upon a time there was a dragon named Gravels He was blue with white on his back He was a friendly dragon He would wake up every morning and he would fly in the sky Then one day he saw another dragon that looked jusl like him His name was Sunshine Gravels decided to come down from the sky to greet Sunshine and he replied hello back They then became good friends and would go everywhere together The two dragons would fly high in the sky all day long and search for fun things to do Soon one afternoon Gravels and Sunshine got into an argument This had never happened before Gravels wanted I to fly into town to look for something to do but Sunshine wanted to stay in the forest and look for fun there They both went their separate ways and did not speak for many days Neither wanted to argue but neither knew howto make up So days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and they hadn't seen each other or played One day while flying over town the two dragons almost flew right into each other! They stopped to talk and soon realized that their argument was very silly Suddenly they were friends again and never let anything come between them again William Edwards Colonial Village Elem School Grade 3 2nd Place My Dream Anthony D'Arrigo Spruce Elementary School Grade 3 Honorable Mention Excuses MTROSPECrUS NEWS TV CRITIC If the ebruary digital conversion experience of WUTV the local ox affiliate that carries such popular programs as and is any indication Western New Yorkers have much of a problem when all the stations end their analog signals ri day Nick Magnini the general manager of Sin clair owned stations WUTV and WNYO said he received about 10 telephone calls in ebruary from people without cable or satellite service when WUTV stopped its analog signal and only broadcast on a digital signal recommended they get a converter or an tenna and heard from them said Magnini had zero complaints gotten no calls after the first And he believes viewers would have been shouting from the rooftops if they had been un able to see the second most popular show in Western New York during the May sweeps The analog signal of WNYO the MyNetwork TV affiliate that also carries a 10 pm newscast from Channel 2 has continued Magnini said he believes it have been as big a test as WUTV has been because programs as popular as WUTVs The local stations that will drop their analog signal riday and solely broadcast in digital for the first time are WGRZ TV (NBC) WTVB TV (CBS) WKBW TV WNLO TV (CW) and WNYO The only other station in Western New York to drop analog before the June 12 deadline is WNED TV the local PBS affiliate It dropped the signal April 16 to save $32000 in energy costs Don Boswell president of WNED TV said he received about 20 calls after the analog signal was dropped and about 15 of them were from Ca nadians Canada convert to digital until 2011 which could be a problem for Canadian viewers who get the Buffalo stations over the air instead of cable or satellite dishes need a converter to get the American stations Dick Daly senior vice president of broadcast ing at WNED said the station has received a few hundred calls in six weeks with the majority coming from Canada think awareness of the transition is 999 percent at this said Daly adding that the station tried to help the callers get the right equipment and set it up properly but people call back to say that things have been re solved He said that some people who get the con verters still could have a problem in certain geo Crosby Stills Nash Tuesday night in theAvalnn Theatre of Niagara allsview Casino Resort GRADE 3 Alyssa Minotti St Mark School 1st Place Robert KirkhamBuffalo News Jim Heath fronts the Reverend Horton Heat Upcoming Buffalo News Special Sections Last minute tips or general information on the con version: wwwdtv2009gov Coupons are still available to help de fray the cost of the converter box You would need one box for each TV The pro gram ends July 31 To get a coupon call (888) 225 5322 go online at wwwdtv2009gov or write to TV Con verter Box Coupon Program PO Box 2000 Portland OR 97208 2000 If you need help hooking up your con verter box or have questions help will be available until July 15 through Ameri Corps Call the CC at (888) 225 5322 wwwwnedorg tl ki 1 1 Mkirnr tl' i Li ie Duiidiu iNewsdiiu VVNCU5 i iiuiKonyiii die piuuu lodimuuiice a It i The 5th Annual iff Share a story Contest WINNING STORIES Ip ji 1 CO vt ft CJr Jf I 1 a Publication Special Deadline to Date Section Reserve an Ad July 9 Health July 1 August 2 Today's Education July 13 i 17 Buffalo 101 July 31 1 23 A Buffalo Magazine July 13 4 September 6 Across the Border Aug 11 10 NL Preview Aug 28 10 Health Sept 2 21 Buffalo Brides Sept 7 ENTS.