Queen City P.R.I.D.E.

I was, sadly, unable to attend this years Pride Parade for the first time in years. Wonderful writer, and friend, Samantha Nephew, contributed this wonderful piece to QCLA! (check out her blog at www.SamanthaNephewBlog.wordpress.com )

       "This last Sunday, Buffalo was out in full force showing some pride.

The Pride Festival of Buffalo, sponsored by the Pride Center of Western New York, is an annual festival that aims to spread awareness of issues in the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, Bisexual, Queer (or Questioning) communities while allowing these individuals to show Western New York that they are in fact fearless.


      This year’s theme to the weekend-long celebration was fearless. The theme honors to those who before being part of the LGBT community was socially acceptable to stand up against prejudice. Fearless honors those people who were willing to buck the idea that being different meant something was inherently wrong with a person.


      Fearlessness in showing pride not only represents and honors those who have come from before, but those who need inspiration and the courage to be true to who they really are.

According to the Pride Festival website, fearless also represents “…the Dean of the Law School at the University at Buffalo who was awarded the Mwongozi Award by Kenya’s National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for speaking out for equality and non-discrimination and challenging negative attitudes and actions…”


      Pride is a celebration of achievement, awareness, and growing acceptance of the LBGT community.

And they showed their pride in style.

Local Music: I Can See Mountains : New Album

Buffalo, NY’s I Can See Mountains have wrapped up recording of their debut LP, Life On A Houseboat. The band spent the later part of 2012 on an enlightening journey to write a record that would define the bands core ingredients; heart, and music that puts a smile on the listeners face and a thought in their head.

Last week the band released their first offering from the LP, "I Play The Fox" with their self-made video on Youtube (See below) and this week, the band presents you with "One Big Table" on their Bandcamp page - http://icanseemountains.bandcamp.com.

I Can See Mountains’ Life On A Houseboat is set for a release date of July 2nd, 2013 on vinyl, CD and Digital formats through Panic Records.

www.facebook.com/icanseemountains

http://www.panicrecords.net

-Brian Campbell

Music: Complete Arkpark Lineup

Complete Arkpark Schedule Tickets are $5,$10, or $15 depends on advance purchases and lineup act!

June 4: Billy Idol
June 11: Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
June 18: REO Speedwagon
June 25: Chicago
July 9: The Doobie Brothers
July 16: Bad Company with Paul Rodgers
July 23: Blue Rodeo
July 30: The Machine performs Pink Floyd
Aug. 6: .38 Special with Blue Oyster Cult

Cuisine: Buffalo Restaurant Week 2013!

Don't forget WNY, this week is Buffalo Restaurant week! With over 100 establishments featuring a multitude of "$20.13" deals, it's an ideal time to try a new place out. From high end places offering  a single meal and a glass of wine for $20.13, to other places that have dinner for two for a total of $20.13, it's a great way to expand your food horizons at a great cost! so check out The Full List of Restaurants here to make your choice!

Mrs. QCLA and I will be going casual this friday, heading over to Boomerangs to try the dinner for 2 for $20.13, so expect a review this weekend!

Music: Counting Crows and Wallflowers @ The Harbor

For anyone who liked good music in the 1990's, today was a great day.

The Counting Crows and The Wallflowers are coming to Buffalo's Harborfront on Tuesday, June 28th for $16. This is a great first announcement for the prime Buffalo summer music series, especially for the types of people (like myself) who really grew up in the 90's.

"August and everything after" is one of the best albums of all time, even though Rolling Stone magazine rates it at (only) the 67th best album of the 90's :

"An artfully crafted, intimate song cycle, August and Everything After seemed to explode on impact. Vividly produced by T Bone Burnett, its post-punk bleakness married to old-school rock influences, August became that rare album over which both alterna-kids and classic rockers could bond. Sure, there are a few moments when you can hear how badly the Crows want to be Van Morrison, the Band, R.E.M. and, yes, Bob Dylan, but those don't offset the divine inspiration of "Rain King," "Round Here" and "A Murder of One."

The Wallflowers are a decent band also, with front man jakob dylan (yes, Bob Dylans son), they created a great, catchy acoustic sound that straddled the happy/depressing line really well, sometimes within the same song. They took a 7 year hiatus a few years back and, from all accounts, are stronger than ever.

NFL: 2013 Draft

It's that time of year again Bills fan, the time to pick apart a whole bunch of college kids most of us have only seen highlights of: its the draft!

For the past 13 years, this has been one of (if not the) most exciting time to be a Bills fan, with new optimism and hopes. This years draft is especially interesting because of the holes on the team, and the "Will they/Won't they" Quarterback question.

Instead of will they, the question in this post is "should they" and the answer to that question is absolutely yes. If they think they've identified a guy ***coughcoughBARKELYcoughcoughNassib*** and they think this player can lead them to the promised land, then pull the trigger at 8.

Especially now that the jets have 2 first rounders (9 and 13) and are a quaterback needy team, I don't feel like there's much choice. Wait til the second round? Top of round two has a multitude of QB needy teams (which is why theyre drafting at the top of the round), and while i would love it if they traded back into the first round (I pretty much just love trades), there is no gaurantee of that happening.

So go ahead Bill, take that QB and 8 overall, grab your WR/LB/TE in rounds 2/3, and give me a real reason to watch and hope this year.

Sports: Complete Bills Schedule Breakdown NFL 2013

Thank the NFL gods, we have warm weather games!

There will be 6 home games before thanksgiving this year, and only one Ralph Wilson Stadium home game in december, so for all the TV watchers out there, a lot more should be on TV this year!

Heres the full recap! (with some notes)

Preseason
Aug. 11 at Indianapolis, 1:30 p.m.
Aug. 16 Minnesota, 7 p.m.
Aug. 24 at Washington, 4 p.m.
Aug. 29 Detroit, 7 p.m.

Regular Season
Sep. 8 New England, 1 p.m. -Doug Marone gets thrown to the wolves early, and he better hope the NasKleOlb QB monster is up for a quick challenge.

Sep. 15 Carolina, 1 p.m. - It'll be nice to finally see Cam Newton in person, he's a dynamic talent, and Carolina should be better this year than last.

Sep. 22 at N.Y. Jets, 4:25 p.m. - Battle of the AFC east bottom feeders? Mike Pettine gets a chance to outshine Rex Ryan only three games into the season.

Sep. 29 Baltimore, 1 p.m.- For me, a much more likeable ravens squad now that RAy Lewis is retired. I'm already marking this one down as a defeat (Welcome to being a Bills fan!)

Region: Riding the Metrorail

So this past weekend, a few of us were heading to the Sabres game and decided to ride the metro rail from the allen street station.

I stood outside the station for a moment and thought about how UB will be building a $375 million dollar state of the art medical facility right over top of this staion (while incorporatioed the station into it). Its going to be gorgeous, and this rail stop has so much potential.

The excitement

Region: New HARBORcenter design disappoints...slightly

The Pegula backed HARBORcenter redesign came out today and I must say, while still being a great project overall, the redesign leaves much to be desired.

Initially, the top hotel portion had a beautiful curved glass design which i thought mimicked, or paid homage to the grain silos of Buffalo's past. This 1970's block top look isn't nearly as nice as the original renderings.

That being said, my disappointment is still muted due to the fact that this is still such a wonderful project, with the two NHL size ice rinks, massive sports bar, 8000 feet of retail space, and a hotel being built. The parking garage size is a little overbearing but at the very least I get it.

Now about fixing that hotel portion...

-Bob Z

Oh, Comely: A Review of Jeff Mangum @ Asbury Hall

I will try as hard as I possibly can to not sound as gushy gushy as i would like to be about the show last night, but i make no promises to you, my loyal readers.

It was wonderful, beautiful, haunting, and somehow amongst all that, fun.

To summarize how the entire show felt, a couple songs in, during "King of Carrot flowers" the power to Asbury Hall went out. In the darkness, only illuminated by the Street lights from outside, Jeff unplugged his guitar, came to the very front of the stage, and started playing for us with no power.

And for any of you that frequent concerts knows, a magical thing happened... everyone became completely silent. No one, and i mean no one, made any noise, and we all just listened, like he was hanging out in our living room.

At a point in the song, everyone then started singing along, and in some sort of transcendent moment, while we were all singing and the energy was building to a peak, the power came back on, we continued singing, he plugged back in and the concert was on its merry way. Its one of those magical moments that makes you remember why you go to live concerts in the first place.

After that, he ran through the gauntlet of songs from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and others. And also played a song that he had "Never played before" (and asked us afterwards "if we liked it", he is exceptionally endearing)

You could tell that he really enjoyed being up there, and openly admitted how taken aback he was at how appreciative we, the audience, were. It was one of the best shows i have ever seen in Buffalo (up there with Andrew Bird and St Vincent @ asbury hall, Roger Waters @ Darien Lake, Umphree's Mcgee @ the outer harbor, Medeski Martin and Wood at Klienhans).

And who knows when, or if, he'll ever be back? He's only played a handful of shows over the past decade, and i for one hope to see him many times again in the future, but if he never comes around again.... This was filled with enough memories to last a lifetime.