Critic Van Halen Concert

Colin Dabkowski

And here I thought I’d seen it all. Today marks the 11th and final day in Buffalo’s annual Infringement Festival, a pan-artistic free-for-all that slots hundreds of underexposed artists into dozens of local venues and invites the public to watch the unpredictable results.

Since I began covering the festival in 2007, I’ve seen a seemingly endless parade of strange and often gloriously unclassifiable performances, ranging from the Brechtian agitprop theater of the Subversive Theatre Collective and Michele Costa’s spellbinding experiments in puppetry to the evolving work of the gifted musical shape-shifter Jack Topht and the tech-infused poetic inventions of Geoffrey Peters.

This year alone, it wasn’t uncommon to see a man wearing a hard hat with a built-in guitar amp wandering around Allentown and serenading stunned passers-by with intricate passages played on a custom- made 12-string guitar. Or to stumble across J. Tim Raymond, who set up on various street corners to create chalk mandala sidewalk drawings set to improvised musical accompaniment.

But this summer, as in past years, the Infringement Fest retained its innate ability to surprise even the veteran Infringer. What follows are a few of my favorite and sometimes least-expected moments of Infringement 2011.

• Offerings of poetry at Infringement, as with every other medium, are a mixed bag. So when I attended an evening of burlesque performances and “erotic” poetry at Nietzsche’s on Wednesday night, I adjusted my expectations appropriately. These were promptly shattered when I heard the work of Marina Blithsteyn, a Soviet-born Williamsville native now in Columbia University’s poetry master’s program. Though much of what she read that night is unprintable here, it struck my ears as uncommonly wise, versed in equal parts experience and reading, and also somehow irresistibly lyrical. A huge, delightful surprise.

• Also a surprise: The fact that Buffalo has, at minimum, five active burlesque troupes. This form of old in recent years has been undergoing a revival — sometimes tinged with nostalgia, sometimes with a certain brand of neofeminist critique, often with both. I saw a tongue-in-cheek performance of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” performed by a group known as the Boom Boom Betties. Suffice to say, it lived up to its title. The fact that the evening also featured troupes Hell’s Harlots, the Zombettes (who, naturally, perform in zombie makeup), the Stripteasers and the Beau Fleuzies speaks to the burlesque movement’s hold in Western New York.

Quick quips: Toni Iommi, Ian Gillan, Beatles, Tony Bennett, Van ...

Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath and Ian Gillan of Deep Purple are planning to go back into the studio together once again after the success of their charity single Out of My Mind.
Gillan told Bravewords "I've got some free dates next April and I think we're planning to get together for a week and see what happens. Whether we'll have enough time to make an album, I don't know. That's the plan, and certainly working with Tony is very quick because he's unique."


A theatrical version of the 1994 movie on the early days of the Beatles, Backbeat, will open in October at London's Duke of Your Theatre.
Producer Karl Sydow said in a statement "It will allow people the experience of being at the birth of The Beatles. It tells a story that many music fans may not know, set to a musical backdrop that absolutely defined the early '60s. Next year will mark 50 years since The Beatles released their first single, and I am proud to be bringing their early days to life in the West End."


Columbia Records is releasing Amy Winehouse's last recording, the duet with Tony Bennett on Body and Soul, in September to benefit the Amy Winehouse Foundation. Amy's father, Mitch, is setting up the foundation to help charities associated with children and young people.


Former Van Halen member Michael Anthony says that he would be glad to open for the group with his new band Chickenfoot. He told the VH1 Radio Network "I know people, from the fans and the critics, they'll all be doing the heavy comparison thing and you know what, I'd be lying if I didn't say, 'Yeah, sure I'm interested to hear what a new album, you know, what they got happening.' But I'm very proud of what we've done and I don't mind at all. They can put their album out before, after, or on the same day. They want to go out on tour, we'll open up for them, I don't care."

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