"Strike of the Sword" by Dan Syracuse, Big Bang Graphics©

Buffalo is the place where I was born and raised, and where I have consciously chosen to live most of my adult life. Yes, I was planted here, but why would anyone else care about this sometimes weather and image-challenged city? And furthermore, why should other musicians be concerned about Buffalo?

It's true, the Buffalo Bills did go to the super bowl an incredible four consecutive times, losing all four times. Our Buffalo Sabres almost win that Stanley Cup, but never quite make it. And those famous snowstorms... but it's just these types of things that help shape the gritty blue-collar collective determination that all Buffalonian's seem to have. This overall attitude spills over into all walks of life here, including the way we play our music.

Buffalo is called "The City of Good Neighbors" not because everyone is giddy from too much money and sunshine, but rather because looking out for each other is sometimes a matter of survival. It's part of our DNA here. Except for the occasional battle of the bands type of event, competition amongst musicians is a rare thing here. "Supportive" is a word that comes up often in descriptions of the Buffalo music scene. There's work for all, and we tend to get paid too. No "pay-to-play" here like some other big cities. There are multiple "best-of" awards nights annually for music and the arts here, run by a number of arts magazines and societies. We also have a well-organized, not-for-profit Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in which I myself am honored to have been a 2004 inductee.

Buffalo is the perfect size for a musician to develop their "act"- big enough to have plenty going on for inspiration, and small enough that you don't have to worry about a president of a major record company dropping by to brand you with thumbs down while you are still getting that act together. This is not to say that Buffalo is completely off the entertainment industry map either.

Statue of Geoff's Great Great Great Grandfather: Oliver Hazard Perry

Many well-known musicians hail from our good city. The GooGoo Dolls and Ani DiFranco are the most current. Bass men Rick James and Billy Sheehan (Talas, David Lee Roth, and others), drummers Sandy Konikoff (The Band, Taj Mahal, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan), Gary Mallabar (Steve Miller, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springstein, Eddie Money, Van Morrison), Tommy Walsh (America), and Bobbie Previte (Charlie Hunter, others) are all from Buffalo. Synthesizer guru, the late Robert Moog, manufactured all his instruments in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo (until loosing the rights to his own name in the early 80's through a corporate takeover!). R&B-man Brian McKnight, and many great jazzers got their start here, including Spyro Gyra and Bobby Militelo (Maynard Ferguson, Dave Brubeck). There are many others.

Gamalon, an instrumental rock group I played with for 8 years, never made it to super stardom, but did get signed to MCA, had a brief showing on the Billboard Jazz Charts, recorded and toured with sax legend Ernie Watts, and played a Newport Jazz Fest date- just to prove that you can get "there" from here. Even if they remain relatively unknown, it is a cherished experience of mine to have stood next to two of the world's great guitarists in that band, George Puleo and Bruce Brucato (think Jimmy Page/Jeff Beck/Joe Satriani mixed together) while I added my electric violin and "Quatar;" a fretless bass strung with guitar-gauged strings. (See my site www.fanaticalfitzhugh.com to hear some clips and get more info on that instrument if interested, and check out Gamalon on the web. I've recently heard of some good bootleg video of the band floating around on YouTube).

As far as local culture goes, Buffalo has history too. The early to mid 1800's saw Buffalo as the terminus point of the Erie Canal, which helped it become the busiest shipping port in the world at the time, with a Wild West attitude (yep, this WAS the west back then!), and a murderous, brothel-laden harbor area still heralded in period songs.

Buffalo's shipping business made many of the country's first millionaires and by the early 1900's, Buffalo was the most cosmopolitan city west of New York. Many mansions still stand on the "millionaire row" we call Delaware Avenue. Presidents were sworn in (Roosevelt) and assassinated (McKinley) here. Mark Twain lived here for a while too.

Buffalo hosted the Pan American Exhibition in 1902, which was the first place electric lights were demonstrated. This eventually led to the mysterious genius of inventor Nicoli Tesla, the inventor of AC current, coming here to design electric power plants that harness the power of the mighty Niagara River in Niagara Falls (only a 20-minute drive from Buffalo). This grid still supplies power to guitar amps all over the region, extending as far as New York City. There's a statue of Tesla up there somewhere I'm told, and speaking of statues, there's also one of my great, great, great grandfather, Oliver Hazard Perry http://www.nps.gov/archive/pevi/HTML/Perry.html who according to history books, as head of the Navy, was responsible for winning the decisive battle on Lake Erie over the British in the War of 1812.

Architecture from these periods still stands intact here, in contrast to other "modernized" towns. Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built many homes here as well. Shea's Theater, the glorious 4000-seat early 1900's era concert hall, and the acoustically perfect Kleinhan's Music Hall (home to the Buffalo Philharmonic), along with a world-class art museum (Albright-Knox) all mix into the cultural stew that we call Buffalo.

Like other "rust-belt" towns, the steel and auto industries had their Buffalo hey-days into the 1970's, bringing good jobs and prosperity to a bulging middle class. Buffalo bars were open 'til 4 a.m. to accommodate late shift factory workers and still are! The 1950's and 60's found Buffalo Radio at the forefront nationally with many early R&B records getting airplay here first, with the help of famous DJ "Hound Dog" Lorenz. The "Buffalo Shuffle" drum beat came out of bands playing in this period and fueled a whole early rock 'n roll R&B scene that remained strong well into the 90s with rock 'n roll piano legend Stan Szelest (the Band, others) at the forefront. The aforementioned Buffalo drummer Sandi Konikoff, is credited with being the first to record (with Taj Mahal) this piece of our local musical pride.

The Allen St. Hardware Cafe' (where I play every Wednesday with Babik)

The 1970's and 80's saw a boom for live Buffalo entertainment. I'm glad to have been a part of these local legendary times. David Lee Roth mentioned them in a post Van Halen lyric that went, "…like ladies night in Buffalo," no doubt influenced by his virtuoso bassist Billy Sheehan, who had done thousands of legendary bar gigs here as a member of the rock group "Talas." I played many of those ladies nights as a bassist myself for the locally popular Vincent Michaels Band. It was not uncommon to draw 1000 people on a weeknight to the more popular bars. Bands didn't even start playing 'til nearly midnight and would play well past 3 a.m. Every local band had a full light show and road crew. The GooGoo Dolls were a bare-foot, stompin' power trio in those days, playing many of the same clubs. Ani DiFranco (who I also recorded with) was in her early shaven-head phase then.

A hold-over from the steel mill days, Buffalo still has a late crowd with many bars being mostly empty 'til 11 p.m. or so. I remember LA guitarist super session player Tommy Tedesco a native of Grand Island, NY, a suburb between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, coming out to a Gamalon gig once as we were setting up. He thought we were tearing down and was disappointed he had missed the band he'd been hearing so much about. When he found out that we didn't start 'til 11 o'clock he said he couldn't stay out that late and left!

With the MTV era came changes, however, and suddenly folks seemed to prefer staying home to watch music and party there, rather than risk a DWI citation. In a way, I can't blame them. Bands had to adjust. Smaller venues and the absence of road crews have made bands even more determined to find their own ways to do things, and in the long run, it has been healthy for the scene overall. Bands can no longer be assured of the 1000+ crowds of yesteryear and now tend to be more original rather than simply popular cover bands, not that there aren't plenty of cover bands here.

Buffalo's Chippewa Party District

Many tribute bands get good work in the more recent Chippewa Party District downtown, where thousands of college kids and bikers go from bar to bar and party in the street year-round. This new era is now being mentioned in songs too. I heard the line "like Chippewa in Buffalo" mentioned in a top-40 country tune recently.

I am quite sure that Buffalo, in its own gritty determined way, will keep evolving and reinventing itself for a long time to come! So come check it out. You may just fall in love with the soul of this place, and decide to stay!

Multi-instrumentalist Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry currently plays violin in a Gypsy jazz group called "Babik" (bah-beek, see www.babikjazz.com ). He is the author of Fiddle Jam/A way-cool easy way to learn how to improvise" (www.fiddlejam.com), and is scheduled to co-write a book with Mel Bay's Martin Norgaard entitled Blues Fiddle Wizard.

Geoff currently lives "out in the sticks" in the hilly countryside south of Buffalo, and enjoys a life of variety not only as a performing and teaching musician, but also as a visual artist (see: www.fanaticalfitzhugh.com). In 2004, he was proud to have been commissioned to modify and paint a violin for an auction to benefit the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. A family man, Geoff has been with wife Elizabeth 20 years, has 3 children, and 7 grandchildren; and will always be a student of metaphysics, and a fan of science, especially where the two rub elbows.