The Connecticut punk-rockers in Hostage Calm are visiting Soundlab this evening.  With the myriad of sub-genres that exist these days, it is hard to know exactly what kind of "punk" Hostage Calm could be claiming to be...  Well, their Facebook page indicates that they are "punk/punk/punk/punk/punk," but seriously, HC songs are fueled by the recession culture that our youth is facing today.  They take Springsteen-esque rock and meld it with punk energy and a little bit of pop melody.

Buffalo-based support comes from the indie-punks The Traditional (who are currently gearing up for a month-long tour of their own!) and the 90's emo revivalists in All Blondes Go To Heaven.  Rounding out the lineup is the female-fronted Doses from Erie, PA.  Tickets are $10 in advance, $13 at the door.  Doors at 6:00pm.

Pittsburgh melodic rockers, Instead Of Sleeping, will be coming to Buffalo this Friday to play at the Forvm alongside Doses, Skylight Stereo, Friends U Can't Kill, and Emily Hawthorne. Needless to say it'll be a night of fresh, earnest music arranged by up and coming music venture - Tiny Blue Entertainment. Since you guys have probably never heard of these these Pittsburgh natives, a phone interview with singer Shaun Sweeney was conducted to give you a glimpse of what you would be missing if you opted out ;-)

buffaBLOG: Describe yourselves, who are some of your influences, etc?
Shaun Sweeney: Manchester Orchestra, Brand New, The Deer Hunter, those are the really positive influences we would all agree upon. The band has been together for 5 years, playing music, but we've gone through a lot of changes since then, band members and sound wise. All the music is completely collaborative. Whenever we work on that, someone might have an idea and bring it to the table, we might have a whole song listen to it and judge what stays and needs to be taken out.

buffaBLOG:  What do you try to bring out or emphasize in your live performances?
SS: For one, kind of quoting one of our own songs that we still play a lot ("Footprints"), we treat every show as though we don't want to leave just a footprint, we want to leave a crater. Do our thing as hard as we can. Not worry about whats going to happen the next day. Sing loud enough that I might just lose my voice. It's about that one show that night. We think of ourselves as a live band, since we often get told that our live performances are better, but we want our recordings to show the energy we have live as well.

buffaBLOG: What do you guys do when you gather that crowd isn't responding?
SS: One of the things we do is try to up our game, the movements, the energy. One of the things I do is make more eye contact like "hey, I'm here, you're here, I hope you're listening."

buffaBLOG: What are some of your favorite memories playing live?
SS: There are two categories. Whenever I'm on the stage, and I can hear nothing but dead silence, for instance. We were playing one of our main songs in Indiana the other weekend and our new merch guy said he could literally hear one of my exhales during the pause because the crown was entirely silent. Or, whenever people are singing back the words, words I had wrote down in my notebook. I also love the after show feeling, the buzz you get from the show. Once we played with the Dear Hunter and their drummer asked if we were serious about doing this, making music a career, and we replied absolutely, and he said "that's awesome, but it's a tough life, you have to be prepared for it."

"We've been doing this for 5 years and it's been getting more and more fun for us. We don't like to sit in the back room, and drink beer, I know most of our fans by name, we like to meet people. It's more about connecting with people."

There ya go. Doors open at 7pm and tickets are $10. See ya there.