The cast of the one-act play, Mr. Icky by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Photo by Howard Owens.
This month's night (or afternoon) of theater at Main St. 56 Theater at Batavia City Centre consists of three one-act plays performed by members of Batavia Players.
The plays are:
"The Bear," by Anton Chekov
"Mr. Icky," by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Verbatim," by Albi Gorn
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $16 for adults and $14 for students and seniors.
Creator David Raines poses in front of his residence at 209 Bank St., Batavia, where where he has a "Nightmare on Bank Street" haunted house in his back yard. Photo by Steve Ognibene
The haunted house experience David Raines has designed at his Bank Street residence can be so scary, he said, that he's developed a red light, yellow light, and green light system so that actors in the attraction know when to tone down the level of fright.
This is the sixth year Raines has opened the haunted house to the public and it's his most elaborate yet, he told The Batavian.
"I've actually lived here for 17 years and I love Halloween," Raines said. "There's nothing like this in Batavia. I've had people say this is the best thing in town. So it just keeps me going."
The haunted house, dubbed "Nightmare on Bank Street," is free, but Raines is asking for donations in order to help cover his cost, and also to help expand the attraction, perhaps in a larger venue in Batavia.
It will be open from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday and from 5 to 11 p.m. on Halloween. The address is 209 Bank St., Batavia.
This year, the attraction has spilled out into his front yard. It also takes up all the space in his back yard.
"This is just something fun that I love to do," Raines said. "I like to see kids have a good time, and adults have a good time and enjoy it. And I like to scare people, too."
Gaines hasn't done all this work by himself. His daughter and her friends as well as his girlfriend, he said, helped with the setup. Work started on the project on Sept. 1.
He explained the red light, yellow light, and green light system, which aren't actually colored lights but him yelling out to actors what light category they're in.
Red light: The haunted house is fully lit. Guests can see all the details of the exhibits and the actors don't try to scare anybody.
Yellow light: The lighting is off and the actors tone down the scare factor.
Green light: All bets are off. No lighting, full-on scare from the actors. There's also fog, strobe lights, and laser lights.
"Then Greenlight is, you know, you're entering at your own risk," Gaines said. "If you don't come back out, I don't know what to tell you."
And if full scare is too much for you, there are emergency exits.
"I want to say I think I had a couple of people last year ask me where the bathroom was because they were so scared," Gaines said. "I had people running down the driveway screaming because they were scared. So to be honest with you, the more fun that I see the public have the more fun I have."
The maze inside Nightmare on Bank Street. Photo by Steve Ognibene
The Spider Room, Nightmare on Bank Street. Photo by Steve Ognibene
Photo by Steve Ognibene
David Raines starts building his haunted house in early September to have it ready two weeks before Halloween, Nightmare on Bank Street. Photo by Steve Ognibene
Jaclyn Breeze of Chili during one of her flute concerts. She will be performing at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Batavia First Presbyterian Church. Submitted Photo
While the thought of composing a song with indigenous birds may seem intriguing, doing so for two violins, which at first blush don’t quite seem to fit the mode of a tweet or cackle, and for seven minutes, sounds even more daunting a task.
Yet songwriter Jaclyn Breeze of Chili, who obtained her master’s in music composition this May from Syracuse University and bachelor’s in flute performance from Roberts Wesleyan College,described it as anything but.
“A teacher in Wisconsin at St. Norbert College was having a bird-themed recital this fall, and she was familiar with my work. And she said that she wanted to use the calls of the birds in her area kind of as a basis for the piece. And so from there, I was free to do what I wanted. Just with that idea in mind,” Breeze said during an interview with The Batavian. “It was fun. It’s going to be premiered in November.”
Breeze’s primary focus while pursuing her master’s degree was composing music, which she does on a commission basis for groups and individuals, but then she began to miss the performance aspect of her work, she said, and so she promoted her flute concerts to area churches and organizations.
“I loved going for my master's degree doing composition. But I found that I really missed performing, which, you know, I got to do a lot as a performance major in my undergrad,” she said. So after I graduated, I decided that was something that I was going to make a priority in my life, make sure that I was still getting my performance.”
She will be part of the Fall Concert Series at Batavia First Presbyterian Church, with a concert at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 300 E. Main St., Batavia.
As many kids do in elementary school, Breeze began her instrumental career. When asked why she picked the flute out of all the possible instruments, Breeze wasn’t entirely sure.
“I don't know, I just enjoy it. It's fun to work on. I'm not really sure why I chose that. I guess when I went to college, I kind of was deciding between doing flute and going for vocal performance. And I just started on flute,” she said. “And that was kind of that. I had taken lessons for both in high school. I don't really know when this decision was made, or why I made it.”
She also plays piano and saxophone, and comes from a musical family — her mom always sang with Breeze as a child, she said, and her great-grandpa played a lot of different instruments.
“He was always trying to get different instruments and getting new things. He usually had a harmonica with him. And I remember him playing just different string instruments. I'm not sure exactly. You know now I can't remember what they all were,” she said. “When it came time to pick an instrument in fourth grade, I was really excited about it. I think by the time I was in high school, I knew that music was what I wanted to do.”
Breeze has taught music at the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University as a teaching assistant and was a guest lecturer at the University of Kentucky for Intro to Music and Jazz History.
She has collaborated on new music compositions with the Society for New Music in Syracuse the last two years and has also had several commissioned works with groups including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Rococo Quartet.
Self-described as a “composer, collaborator and creator” on her website, she’s a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, an age group winner of the 2022 Warren County Summer Music School’s Promising Young Composer Competition and received Honorable Mention in 2021 for the Hypotenuse Trio COVID Commission.
When asked about the difference between playing the flute and clarinet, two woodwind instruments usually found near each other in a band, she said that all of the air has to be blown into the clarinet, versus the flute, which gets about 70 percent of the air, meaning that 30 percent of the air is lost.
“So it definitely takes a good amount of air to get that going, get the sound going, and keep it,” she said, addressing prospective concertgoers. “I don’t want them to see a flute concert and think ‘Oh, this is going to be boring.’ The program that I have set up is music of pretty much the last 100 years. And some of that is really beautiful impressionist music, and some of that is rock music that was written six months ago. The program is varied and there is stuff that anyone who likes going to a strictly classical concert will enjoy. There’s also stuff that people who don’t typically enjoy classical music will enjoy.”
Her portion of the concert will be about 45 minutes, and local musician Melzie Case will lead a hymn sing for another 15 minutes. The concert is free and open to the public.
Breeze is also scheduled for a free concert at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 22 at Le Roy Presbyterian Church, 7 Clay St., Le Roy.
S. Shade Zajac conducting the Genesee Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal in 2018. Photo by Howard Owens.
Audiences can be unpredictable, suggested Genesee Symphony Orchestra Music Director S. Shade Zajac while discussing how he's programmed the 2023-24 season and especially the season's opening show next Sunday, Oct. 22.
"Sometimes you think something is really going to connect with people, and it receives a lukewarm reaction," Zajac told The Batavian. "And sometimes you think, oh, boy, this is going to be tough for people to grasp, and then they go wild for it. You never really know."
The lineup for the opener for next Sunday's concert:
Romanian Dances, by Béla Bartók
Háry János Suite, by Zoltán Kodály
Trail of Tears Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra, by Michael Dougherty
Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, by George Enesco
Zajac thinks audience members will find the music of the concert both challenging -- because some of the selections might be unfamiliar to many people -- or engaging -- either because of the dynamics or sheer beauty of the selections.
"I'm always trying to bring things that the audience really will connect to and also maybe give them something a little new," Zajac said.
The program selection is built around the Trail of Tears Concerto, which will feature Rebecca Gilbert, principal flutist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Composed by Dougherty in 1989, the piece commemorated the 150th anniversary of the forced march in 1838-39 of Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws and the Seminoles off their land in the Southeastern U.S. more than 1,500 miles to what is now part of Oklahoma.
"It's a very, very interesting piece," Zajac said. "It's got some really beautiful and emotional moments in it. And it's got some unbelievable virtuosic playing for the solo flute. He (Dougherty) asks her to do a lot of different kinds of techniques to sound like a traditional Native American flute, so what we call breath tones and pitch bends and slides. It sounds very, very authentic, ethnic, which then kind of ties the rest of the program together."
The ethenic theme of the program is set up by the Bartók and Kodály (pronounced co-die) pieces. Both Bartók and Kodály were composers, but they were also ethnomusicologists, perhaps the first ethnomusicologists, something that wasn't really possible before the invention of machines that record voices and music. They both traveled to Transylvania with a Thomas Edison invention, a wax cylinder recorder and recorded the music of the towns and villages in that part of Romania. They then incorporated the unique musical elements of those songs into their own compositions.
"The Kodály is a really wild piece of music," Zajac said. "Again, I've never conducted it before. And it calls for a very large orchestra, I think, like six trumpets and a smattering of percussion. We're just we're having tons of fun doing it. And it's a very colorful, colorful piece of music."
The final piece of the program returns to a Romanian setting.
Enescu, born in Romania in 1881, building his fame as a composer in the early 20th Century, was often compared to Mozart. This piece was composed in 1901 and is perhaps his most famous work.
"It's really virtuosic and showy for the orchestra features a lot of people," Zajac said. "After our last two seasons with the 75th season, which was two seasons ago, and then last season, you know, doing all this Brahms and all this heavy dramatic music, I kind of wanted to go in a completely different direction. When you finish a monumental project like that, you're like, 'Okay, what do we do next?' And this seemed like a different way to go. And the orchestra is really enjoying it. I think the audience will really like this program."
Earlier in the conversation, discussing the challenges of selecting pieces for an orchestra concert, Zajac compared some pieces of music to "comfort food."
"It is called comfort food for a reason because, you know, mom's chicken pot pies always gonna taste good," Zajac said. "So if she asked someone what they want to eat, they're gonna say, chicken pot pie. It's scarier to go out and try something new. You're gonna take a chance. There's a chance you really like it, and you find something that you really like, and there's a chance that this is going to be terrible. And now you feel like you've just wasted dinner. So I think there's a human need to feel comfort. I know how this is gonna go. I'm not going to be surprised."
Zajac said comfort food on a program helps the less familiar pieces go down a little easier for audiences.
“Romanian Rhapsody” is perhaps the comfort food on the first program, Zajac said.
"Whether or not you know, if you sit down and you listen to this piece, there is no way, if we do our job, and the GSO always does its job, there's no way you're gonna be in your seat because it's just, it's one of those pieces. It's a showpiece. There's fireworks and fast playing and all sorts of things. So that's probably the comfort food, but the Bartok and the Kodály, even though they may be unfamiliar, they're just excellent pieces of music, and they're wild."
After Sunday's concert, the GSO has five more performances this season -- three concerts as part of its regular season and a performance at the GCC Foundation's annual Encore event.
The holiday concert will, of course, include the ultimate in comfort foods, "Sleigh Ride," by Leroy Anderson.
The program will also feature a solo by GSO's concertmaster, Julia Plato, on the winter movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
"She's a wonderful, wonderful leader and an excellent musician, so we're excited to feature her," Zajack said.
The Dec. 15 Encore event will also be filled with holiday music but not all the same pieces as the GSO's annual Holiday Concert.
In February, the GSO's theme turns British, with English composers being featured, including Sir Paul McCartney. The former Beatle has written -- even some of his biggest fans aren't aware of this -- a number of classical pieces.
Zajac predicts his mom will especially like the concert.
"My mom is like the world's biggest Paul McCartney fan," Zajac said. "I know every fan says that they're the biggest Paul McCartney fan. My mom is like the biggest Paul McCartney fan. In fact, when she met my father, she goes, 'Well, just so you know, there is one other man, and that man is Paul McCartney.'"
The anchor piece of the program is Elgar's “Enigma Variations.”
"It's one of my favorite pieces in the entire literature," Zajac said. "It's a very special piece. I've conducted only one movement from it (previously). It's a remarkable piece of music. Every note, every bar sounds like English music, which is incredible because you can trace every note to some other composer. You can hear the influences of Beethoven and Bach and Wagner. But somehow, he makes it all sound like English music."
The GSO will close out the season with a concert comprised entirely of works by American composers.
"I'm a sucker for American music," Zajac said. "I wish we did more American music here in America, aside from, you know, Copeland, and there's nothing wrong with Copeland. Indeed, we're doing Copeland's Appalachian Spring, which is a great piece of music, but there's so many other things.”
The program will include pieces by David Diamond, a contemporary of Copeland's, and is from Rochester, along with an often overlooked black female composer, Florence Beatrice Price.
"Her music has been enjoying a revival these days," Zajac said. "A lot of people have been doing her first symphony and those big pieces. I decided to program this little piece called Dances in the Canebrakes. It's just really fun, beautiful. It just reeks of America. You hear it, and it's like, yes, that is an American sound."
Also on the program is William Grant Still, another black American composer with ties to Rochester. The orchestra will perform “Summerland.”
And just like an American program probably must include Copeland, it will also include Gershwin's Piano Concerto, featuring the winner of GSO's Young Artists competition.
Perhaps the most familiar piece on the program is Appalachian Spring.
"I've never had a chance to do the piece before though I've known it for many years," Zajac said. "I've studied it. The orchestra hasn't played it in a very long time. It's a beautiful piece, and it ends quietly. Sometimes I like to end programs quietly. It's great to end with fireworks and huge standing ovations and sometimes it is really meaningful and really poignant to end a concert quietly, and indeed ending the season quietly."
That ending, Zajac said, will be a tribute to Roxanne Choate, the former GSO board president who passed away this past week at age 80.
On the topic of performing American composers, The Batavian asked Zajac if he would consider Duke Ellington.
"I've been thinking about doing a jazz-inspired program at some point because there's some really great pieces," Zajac said. "Of course, there's Gershwin, An American in Paris. I'd love to do it with the orchestra. I've only gotten to do the piece once. But Duke Ellington, I'm so glad you said something because I know there are things that we can do, but I haven't really thought about him. That might be an excellent addition if I ever get around to doing this program. That would be really cool."
Teressa Hirsch, playing Juror #7, doesn't hide her anger after Juror #8 refuses to join the other 11 jurors for a quick unanimous guilty verdict in the Batavia Players presentation of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
A simple plot -- 12 ordinary people deliberating the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of murder -- became a riveting drama on Sept. 20, 1954, when it first aired on CBS's Studio One.
In the 1950s, women couldn't serve on juries, so the title was to the point: 12 Angry Men.
A lot has changed over the past seven decades. Women have been able, for example, to serve on juries for decades, so now the play is called 12 Angry Jurors (12 Angry Men was also an award-winning movie in 1957 starring Henry Fonda).
And a lot hasn't changed. Not all is equal just yet. Society is still beset by prejudices, and people still have biases and personal histories that color their views of events.
So juries can still sometimes find it hard to agree on a verdict.
That's why the play originally written by Reginald Rose is still performed all over the country, is taught in schools, and is the subject of scholarship.
"It's still relevant," said Director Kristy Walter. "It's like one of those timeless plays that speaks to justice, it speaks to humanity, it speaks to people's prejudices and biases. And that's, I think, what makes it so compelling because when you watch the play, you see yourself in those characters. So I think that's what makes it worth seeing."
The first Batavia Players performance is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The play begins with an off-stage charge from a judge in a murder trial: The jury must reach a unanimous verdict.
Once in the jury room, Juror #7 (the jurors are only identified by their numbers until the close of the play), played by Teressa Hirsch, says, “Yeah, lets vote. Who knows, maybe we can all just go home.”
She has someplace else to be, she reveals.
And the vote? It's 11-1. Not unanimous.
The lone holdout, Juror #8, played by Steven Coburn, confesses, “It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”
The jury decides it's up to them to convince him why they are right -- that the young man on trial stabbed his abusive father and killed him. A guilty verdict would send the kid, from an impoverished background, to the electric chair.
The disagreements erupt for the jurors to confront their own morals and values, their own histories and beliefs.
You can probably guess the resolution -- if you've never caught the movie on late-night TV -- or better, no matter how well you know the story, you can join Batavia Players at 56 Main Theater this weekend to see how it plays out. The play holds up over decades of changing cultural norms and multiple viewings.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Steven Coburn, as Juror #8, cast the lone "not guilty" vote at the start of Batavia Players production of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
Here's a slide show of photos from over the Labor Day weekend in Oakfield of the Labor Daze Music and Food Festival, including many previously unpublished photos.
All photos by Howard Owens.
The Batavian provided the community with the most comprehensive, daily coverage of Labor Daze. If you appreciate what we do, please sign up for Early Access Pass.
The Floyd Concept, a Pink Floyd tribute band from Buffalo, closed out the third and final day of the Oakfield Labor Daze Music and Food Festival with a show that brought the legendary progressive rock band's most iconic recordings to life.
Rochester-based Public Water Supply, an alt-Americana band that artfully mixes tasteful covers with well-written originals, played Monday afternoon at Labor Daze in Oakfield.
The Pink Floyd tribute band, The Floyd Concept, is on the main stage from 7 to 10 p.m.
Music fans were clearly having a good time on Saturday night at Labor Daze during performances by a hardcore country band, Hazzard County, and the rockin' trio, Dave Viterna Group.
There is more music planned for the rest of the long weekend.
James Catino with the SkyCats rocks Labor Daze in Oakfield. Photo by Howard Owens
Labor Daze is underway in Oakfield, and organizers have set up two stages so that the entertainment continues pretty much non-stop throughout the event.
Batavia Players kicked things off with a set of show tunes, and then the SkyCats started rocking on the other stage at 1 p.m.
Hazzard County took the stage at 4 p.m. and performs until 7 p.m., followed by the Dave Viterna Group from 7 to 10 p.m.
Tomorrow, Sunday:
9 to 10 a.m., Christian Music Hour
10 a.m., Church Service
11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Russ Peters Group
12:30 to 3:30 p.m., Songbirds
3:30 to 6:30 p.m., Dark Horse Run
6:30 to 9:30 p.m., Nerds Gone Wild
On Monday:
11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Batavia Swing Band
1 to 4 p.m., Exit 13
4 to 7 p.m., Public Water Supply
7 to 10 p.m.: The Floyd Concept
The Labor Daze parade is at 10 a.m. on Monday.
The SkyCats Photo by Howard Owens.
Sophie Houseman, with Batavia Players, sings a show tune at Labor Daze on Saturday. Photo by Howard Owens
When you look like Elvis -- to the point that people have a tendency to stop you in the street unless you wear a bit of a disguise -- and can sing like the King, there's a natural path to take in life, especially if you're already living in the entertainment capital of the world.
That's the situation former singing bartender and Niagara Falls native Rick Alviti found himself in more than 20 years ago when his career as an Elvis impersonator started in Hollywood.
That life path brings him and his show, "That's the Way It Was," to Batavia Downs at 7 p.m. Sept. 9.
"I like the people I meet," said Alviti when asked what he enjoys about his career. "I meet the nicest people. They're always so kind to me. When I'm out in stores or restaurants, people come up to me because I have this Elvis resemblance, and sometimes I wear a hat when I'm out, but when they come up to me, I always give them a card and invite them to a show. That's what I do for a living.
"Meeting people, especially the people who love Elvis, is the best part. They're excited to meet because they love Elvis. I'm fortunate to have that connection, and to me, that's a good thing."
After attending North Tonawanda High School, Alviti moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. He landed a job at Dimples, a bar across from the NBC Studio that was a favorite entertainment industry hangout. His gimmick was signing while he poured drinks, and already a huge Elvis Presley fan, he sang a lot of Elvis songs. But Alviti had a beard, so nobody yet noticed his resemblance to Tupolo's most famous son.
He landed an acting job and had to cut his hair and shave his beard. That's when, he said, everyone started calling him "Elvis."
He decided to get an agent and began getting serious about studying Elvis Presley's moves, watching his movies, and learning his songs. He got some gigs in Las Vegas and then the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority sponsored him on a national tour.
After his parents moved to Myrtle Beach, he visited them knowing, too, that J.D. Sumner and the Stamps (Sumner was long associated with Presley), had a long-term residency at a theater in Myrtle Beach. That led to meeting the theater owner, and after Sumner's death, Alviti got an offer to set up an Elvis tribute show at the theater.
That was a residency with a 12-piece band that lasted for years.
Doing two shows a day really helped him refine his Elvis impersonation, he said.
His career has led to shows all over the U.S. and several in Las Vegas, including at the Winn, the Mirage, and the Gold Coast.
That's where he met the Jordinairs (once backup singers to Elvis), he said. They became friends, and he performed with them. He's also performed with the Stamps.
He also played a birthday party for a playmate at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion, where he met Hefner, whom he said was a nice guy. He was provided one of the mansion's many bathrooms (he guessed 27) as a changing room but kept getting interrupted by people wanting to use it for "one of two things," as he put it.
As for acting, being Elvis has opened doors there, too. He played in a production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and was cast as Elvis in episodes of “ER” and “One Tree Hill.” He also played Elvis is a Rusty Wallace commercial for Miller Lite.
Alviti now splits time between Buffalo and South Carolina. When he's in the northeast, he tours with a five-piece band of guys mostly based in and around New York City. In South Carolina, he has another band, though when he's in the Nashville area, his band is led by the son of DJ Fontana (Presley's former drummer).
Tribute bands are a big deal now, but until Elvis impersonators, as they were called then, came along in the 1980s, musicians either played in cover bands or bands that played their own songs.
Impersonating some other act to the point of trying to sound exactly like that act and putting on their costumes was an industry waiting to be born.
"When I started out, there were maybe nine guys who did an Elvis tribute," Alviti said. "You had to look the part and sing the part and entertain the audience. Now there's probably 9,000 guys doing it."
He said it's probably for Elvis impersonators to get a start now, and a lot of guys doing it for "$200 and just to have fun. They just want to be Elvis for a bit. What I do is a professional production."
When he first started out, the Elvis Presley Estate was also much more concerned about Elvis impersonators, and he was contacted by representatives of Graceland. He said he told them that he wasn't trying to convince people he was Elvis. He was performing as Rick Alviti.
"You're allowed to do a tribute to anybody. That's in law," Alviti said.
When he was contacted, he said he told them, "I'm not saying I'm Elvis. I'm Rick Alviti. I happen to resemble him, but I'm not pretending to be Elvis."
He makes a point of calling his show "That's the Way It Was" without claiming to be Elvis Presley so he doesn't violate the estate's intellectual property rights. People who go to the show know they're seeing an Elvis tribute and not a substitute Elvis.
"Now. I think they've embraced tributes because it's helping keep the image alive," Alviti said.
He said his show is different from most Elvis tributes because it's interactive. He gets the audience involved. He performs many of the songs it expects to hear, such as "Suspicious Minds" and "A Little Less Conversation," and his set can change on the fly.
"I try to gauge the audience," Alviti said. "If I'm doing too many ballads, I'll add in some faster things, stuff that gets everybody going. I think I have a good sense of what the audience wants to hear."
While this show will be the "jumpsuit Elvis," he does do the "leather Elvis" at some of his appearances when the show includes an intermission.
"Elvis is great because there's four eras," Alviti said. "There's the early Elvis, the movie-era Elvis, the leather-wearing comeback-era Elvis, and the Vegas years."
This will be Alviti's first appearance in Batavia.
"I invite everybody to come out and enjoy themselves," Alviti said. "We will have a wonderful time. That's what it's all about, making people happy and making sure everybody enjoys the music of Elvis."
A recent Ghost Riders lineup: Jimmy "Steel" Duvall, Bill McDonald, Kay McDonald, Bill PItcher, and Bob Norton. Submitted photo.
There were some sharp elbows involved, says Bill McDonald, and Bill Pitcher's brother didn't expect the partnership to last when the two "Wild Bills" of the local music scene came together in Batavia 30 years ago to form the band that became the Ghost Riders.
But the partnership has thrived, producing some great music and some great memories for all involved as the Ghost Riders prepare for their 30th Anniversary celebration show at Batavia County Club at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 27.
By the time 1993 rolled around, both McDonald and Pitcher were veterans of the local music scene, with McDonald even venturing well beyond Genesee County's borders to pursue a musical career.
When he returned home, it was with the intent to take care of his family in their new home in Darien. Then a friend suggested he needed to start a country band.
He found a guitarist, and they started inviting in established musicians they knew who would fit into the hardcore country style they were after.
After a few rehearsals, they lined up a first gig and then the bass player had to hightail it to Florida because of some legal issues to resolve there, and then the lead guitarist quit to join an established gigging band in Buffalo.
At the same time, Pitcher's band Bullseye was running its course. The pedal steel player decided it was time to retire, and another member moved to Buffalo and another to Florida.
"So my band was dissolving right at the time that Bill needed a bass player and guitar player, so we kind of morphed into a good group of guys," Pitcher said. "We had all the elements we liked."
But still, no name for the band and gigs already lined up, including gigs originally booked for Bullseye.
Also, part of that original lineup was Jimmy Duval on pedal steel (Duval has played with McDonald for 40 years), Larry Merritt, and Jimmy Symonds.
The first gig was a long-gone tavern, Confetti's, located on property now occupied by City Centre.
"We played on a Saturday night, and it went over great," McDonald said.
"We’re hardcore country, country with a twang, with steel guitar and lead guitar, and we sang harmonies," Pitcher said.
McDonald said they drew on influences such as Merle Haggard.
"We wanted to keep real country alive," he said.
It was a few gigs into the band's career before they came up with a name.
One evening, the band was booked at the South Byron Fire Hall, and they decided to hold a band name contest. They invited fans to write new suggested names on a card. Then the band reviewed about 20 submissions and narrowed down the field to three "we could live with," McDonald said.
They read the names off to the crowd, and Ghost Riders, taken from the name of a song they played, and suggested by Fred Ferrell, was the overwhelming favorite.
"It may not be the most unique name, but it stuck," McDonald said.
In those early months, the Ghost Riders were a cover band even though McDonald was an established songwriter. The original songs would come later.
"It just was so hard to put all that together in a short period of time," McDonald said. "Everybody knew all the other songs (the covers), so it just made it easier. We learned (the originals) as we went into the studio to record an album. Then we practiced all of the original songs that we had. That's when we did our rehearsing, right in the studio. Yeah, that was pretty cool."
The Ghost Riders, in their career, have released five studio albums. None, of course, were big sellers, but they kept the fans happy, and there were always plenty of fans.
Pitcher remembers that on the first CD, the band included Ghost Riders in the Sky. They had to pay royalties -- eight cents for each CD sold. He ended up sending a check for about $3 to the publishing company in New York.
The band has also released another four live CDs, mostly compiled by Pitcher. There is a collection of songs recorded over a three-year period at the Stafford Carnival. There is another set recorded at a venue in Buffalo through the sound system onto a cassette that Pitcher said has just amazing fidelity considering the available technology.
Rarely, over the past 30 years, has the band traveled much beyond Western New York, but there have been gigs in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
"We never got a national booking agency involved with the band," McDonald said. "We had some chances to do it, but we booked our own stuff. We were getting up there. As I said, I was 30 when we started the band. He was 40. So we weren't a couple of youngsters."
McDonald had had his time on the road. As the frontman of Slim Chicken and the Midnight Pickers, McDonald toured throughout New York before moving the band to Texas (with a year at the end in California).
He even had his shot at a major record deal. One snowy winter night, his band was booked into the Cafe Espresso in Woodstock. That was a place favored by Bob Dylan and The Band at one time. The place was dead because of the winter storm. There was one customer, a man sitting by himself shuffling papers and just not leaving.
"I kept saying to the guys, why won't they close the place up and let's get the hell out of here?" McDonald said. "The owner said. 'We've still got a customer.' And he sat there all night. At the end of the night, after we played our last song, he came up to me and he told me, 'What are you guys doing tomorrow morning? Busy? I ask him who he is, and he says, 'I'm Harley Lewis. I'm from RCA Records in New York City."
He was an A&R man, and he wanted Slim Chicken and the Midnight Pickers in the studio in NYC the next morning to cut a three-song demo.
The band was in the studio and cut the demo, but the deal didn't come through.
McDonald said RCA decided to sign Pure Prairie League instead.
McDonald started his musical journey in Batavia with some friends and the band T&T and the Explosions, followed by Lookout Bridge and then Beethoven's Dream Group.
Pitcher’s musical journey began when he was five years old. His dad was a guitar and harmonica player who attached his harmonica to his guitar, not on a rack around his neck like Bob Dylan would popularize. As Pitcher and his brother, known locally as Uncle Rog, were growing up, their dad mostly played house parties, maybe six or 10 couples at the parties, maybe two or three times a week. He was a school teacher who drove truck in the summer.
When the Pitcher boys -- from Pavilion -- got older and had a band of their own, Dad would sometimes sit in.
"He never took a nickel for playing ever because he loved to play."
Then they formed a family band, Family Plus One. That band included another Pavilion boy, Charlie Hettrick, and Pitcher's mom, who bought her own Git Fiddle, which was a wire connected to a stick and a bell on top. She would hit the floor on the downbeat and pluck the string. Uncle Rog played drums.
By then, Pitcher was playing a little melody on guitar, which would give his dad a break on harmonica.
Most of the time, they played in Fulton County, where both of Pitcher's parents had extended family.
They would go into a bar and ask the bartender if they could play a bit.
"We had a good time in the bar," Pitcher said. "You know, in a half hour, 45 minutes, people would gravitate in. Somebody would make a couple of calls or something, and we would end up playing for two or three hours."
Before Bullseye, Pitcher was the leader of The American Countree Four. He was known as Wild Bill.
And McDonald, in Slim Chicken, was Wild Bill.
For years, fans would get them confused, both McDonald and Pitcher said.
"People would start talking to me, and I would figure it out -- 'oh, they mean a gig that Bill played,' and I'd tell him, and then he'd go, Yeah, somebody talked to me at a wedding reception, he thought that he was me," Pitcher said.
That's one reason Pitcher's brother didn't think these two guys used to leading their own bands would be able to put away the sharp elbows long enough to make music.
The first compromise was Pitcher, a few months older than McDonald, became "Mild Bill" while McDonald remained "Wild Bill."
Over 30 years, the Ghost Riders have played a lot of gigs. Most of them paid. There was a time when a good local gigging band could make a living in the warmer months playing lawn fetes and carnivals and picnics and parties. Every community had at least one annual event back then that needed live music.
Now it's much harder to find enough gigs, McDonald said. The band has also started other projects. McDonald and his wife Kay (who is also now a member of the Ghost Riders), for example, also tour as The Old Hippies. Pitcher has a few side projects, including a bluegrass musicians collective in Pavilion. Still, the Ghost Riders have some of the same gigs they play every year and have for 20 years.
One thing they've always done is play for free in support of good causes.
"We did a lot of civic stuff," McDonald said. "We thought when we started, we wanted to do what we could for the community for no money. You know, just do whatever we could do."
All along, the Ghost Riders have been all about the love of the music, both musicians said. That's the real secret to keeping the band going for 30 years.
"We just, we'd enjoy it," McDonald said. "We love playing music. And this is what gave us the opportunity."
Pitcher added, "My answer to why we're playing is because that's what we do. We love it. It's part of us. It comes from the heart."
All photos courtesy of the Ghost Riders.
The Ghost Riders Play at Batavia Country Club on Aug. 27 from 3 to 6 p.m. The current Ghost Rider members are: Gene "Sandy" Watson, Bill McDonald, Kay McDonald, Bill PItcher, and Nino Speranza.
One incarnation of the Ghost Riders: Jimmy "Steel" Duval, Bill McDonald, Brian Graz, Bill Pitcher, and Bob Norton.
The Ghost Riders can often be seen participating in local parades, picking their songs on a flatbed trailer.
Bill Pitcher, Batavia, Jimmy "Steel" Duvall, Waller Tx, Jim Sweet, Buffalo, Bill McDonald, Batavia, Bob Norton, Union City, Tennessee.
CDs released by The Ghost Riders during their 30-year career.
Whatever you do, don’t call “Brightside,” the Lumineers’ fourth and latest studio effort, a COVID-19 album, even though the band started tracking its nine songs in March 2021.
While founding member Wesley Schultz acknowledges the pair of two-and-a-half week sessions occurred during the pandemic time frame as the 40-year-old New Jersey native was hunkering down with his family in Denver, he feels this latest outing is its own thing.
“We kept saying it was like the post-COVID-19 record,” Schultz explained in a recent phone interview. “To me, it was not consciously trying to float above that while still observing that. In a lot of ways, we were trying to make a record that we’d want to hear in 10 years and it would still make sense…Part of the goal of the record, at least subconsciously, is to try to write an album that describes the pain without getting so caught in the weeds in using the words quarantine or pandemic. It was bigger than that.”
Like many-a-music act, when touring was paused in March 2020, the Lumineers’ time on the road came to an abrupt halt. Schultz went through what he felt like was a quasi-grieving process.
“You go through your confusion, anger and then acceptance,” he said. “I felt pretty stifled and down. I was out of my element for a while there. I think the writing helped dig me out of the hole and find a purpose again and maybe channel some of the stuff I was really feeling in a healthier way versus drinking every day or doing something that was going to distract me.”
And adding a baby girl to a brood that already included his toddler son helped give him perspective during this unprecedented time. “The way touring goes, you say yes to a hell of a lot more things than you say no, so I was forced to be grounded and to see my son and spend real time with him,” Schultz said.
“You’re like a workaholic in some ways because you’re hustling for so many years that it was a gift to be told that you have to stay still for a little while. Even though that was painful, I felt like what do I do with myself now? I felt useless. You crawl out of that and get a lot of beautiful time out of it. I feel way, way closer to my son than I probably would have had we been on the road.”
For the past decade, the duo of Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites have been the constants in The Lumineers (cellist/vocalist Neyla Pekarek was in the band from 2010-18), carving out a niche as one of the premier folk-rock/Americana acts through what is now the group’s fourth album.
The band’s breakthrough single was the 2012 Top 5 hit “Ho Hey.” Its simplicity taps into an organic vibe that has come to define much of the Lumineers’ work that Schultz has found to be lacking in a lot of pop music.
That straightforward simplicity comes across in spades on “Brightside,” whether it’s the opening title track that uses a cadence reminiscent of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” while Schultz implores that, “I’ll be your brightside, baby, tonight” or providing reassurances during uncertain times amid bare-bones piano accompaniment and just a hint of strings amid the optimistic vibe of “Where We Are.” Both songs have provided a degree of comfort to the band’s fan base, who have shared their feelings on social media.
“Ironically, a lot of parents, whether it’s people I don’t know that are posting it or parents that I know personally, so many have sent me images of their kids singing ‘Where We Are’ or ‘Brightside,’” Schultz shared. “But particularly ‘Where We Are’ and they’re singing, ‘Where we are/I don’t know where we are’ and it’s these little kids, most of whom don’t even know words yet and they’re mouthing these words. That for me is very exciting to see. It’s like tapping into some kind of universal power.”
Suffice it to say that the creative restlessness that defined so much of how “Brightside” came out will be a driving force of what the Lumineers will bring to the stage on this summer’s tour.
“We have four albums out and we have to cut songs now and that’s a good feeling,” Schultz said. “We can actually put on a show that has no fat. As a band, we’re most excited to play. Not pulling a rabbit out of our hat, but having, from start to finish, moments [fans] won’t want to leave, grab a beer or take a leak. You want to just be there. I got to see Tom Petty during his “Wildflowers” tour and I forgot how many songs he wrote. I would never compare us to him, but in that feeling, I want people to leave hopefully saying, ‘I forgot how many songs they wrote,’ even just four albums in.”
Lumineers will be playing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.
Dexter Holland (left) and Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman of the Offspring. Photo courtesy of the Offspring
It might seem surprising, but Dexter Holland, singer/guitarist of the Offspring, considers this summer’s tour the biggest outing of his band’s career and a sign that the Offspring might be bigger than ever as a band.
“It feels like it’s getting better for us. We’ve talked about why that might be, is it a post-COVID thing, and people are excited to be back, or just the fact that now we’ve had 30 years of people being used to our songs?” Holland said in a late-July phone interview. “We’ve got people that are a little older, we’ve got kids that are just discovering us, and they’ve created this bigger audience of more than one generation, I guess, let’s say. But for whatever reason, man, it just feels really good right now.”
That’s quite a welcome reality for a band that has already had some periods of huge success. Formed in 1984 in Garden Grove, California, the Offspring broke through in a big way with their third album, 1994’s “Smash.” Featuring the hit singles “Come Out and Play,” “Self Esteem,” and “Gotta Get Away,” it became the biggest indie album to date, with sales standing at more than 11 million worldwide.
With its energetic and fun punk rock songs, “Smash” joined Green Day’s “Dookie” as the primary album that brought punk into the mainstream. Then, after a follow-up album, “Ixnay on the Hombre,” which didn’t sell as well (it still topped out at around 3 million copies sold), the next album, “Americana,” became another blockbuster. It featured the hit singles “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “She’s Got Issues,” and “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and the album sold more than 10 million copies.
Still, this summer’s tour, with Sum 41 and Simple Plan as opening acts, takes the Offspring to new heights.
“I think it’s the biggest headlining tour we’ve ever done, actually,” Holland said. “We’re playing like 25 cities, all amphitheaters, tickets are selling really well, and we’ve got a great package.”
Fans can expect to hear the songs that have kept the Offspring on the radio and in a prominent place in the rock world for more than three decades.
“You get to the point where you’ve put out nine or 10 albums, it’s a lot of material to choose from,” Holland said. “But I believe you’ve got to play the songs that people want to hear, right? Sometimes artists can get a little obscure with their stuff. You’ve kind of got to play the hits. So that dictates a good chunk of our set.”
Far from resting on their considerable laurels, the Offspring, which includes Holland, guitarist, and fellow founding member Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, bassist Todd Morse and drummer Brandon Pertzborn are acting like a band that’s still inspired and looking to grow musically.
While the studio's five albums that followed “Americana” haven’t sold in the eight figures, they’ve generally done well commercially. There have also been almost another dozen top 10 singles, including “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” which has become the Offspring’s most streamed song.
That single is featured on the 2008 album, “Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace,” which was recently re-released for its 15th anniversary with a pair of live tracks added to the original album. Holland considers it one of the band’s best efforts and an important album in the overall career.
In 2005, the band released a greatest hits album, and Holland said the band wanted to prove the hits album didn’t mark the end of the road for the Offspring and that they were inspired and as good as ever musically.
“It’s an important record for us,” Holland said. “And it’s something I’m really proud of, that that far into our career (we had) our most popular song.”
Having released their current studio album, the well-received “Let The Bad Times Roll” in 2021, Holland and his bandmates have been back in the studio recently.
“We did another song, and that makes six, not completely done, but they’re mostly done,” Holland said. “So we’re four-ish songs away (from an album). I think we’ll get something out early next year.”
Holland can’t yet say for sure how the next album will compare to other Offspring albums, but it’s bound to have some of the usual musical and lyrical signatures. “Sometimes you just start writing songs and you don’t realize how an album is coming together until it’s almost there,” Holland said.
“Like on ‘Americana,’ ‘Americana’ was one of the last songs I wrote because I didn’t realize until then all the other songs like ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job?’ and ‘Pretty Fly,’ they were describing American society. I didn’t really realize that’s what the album was about until I got almost done and thought well, I’ll call it ‘Americana’ because that’s like ‘Americana’ means American culture. This was my vision of what I thought American culture was doing in the late ‘90s. We’re kind of still in that phase with the songs, but we’ve always liked the energy of punk music and the rebelliousness...What I’m focusing right now on is just melody. I want the songs to be really good.”
Offspring will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Sunday.
