Yesterday, proving its never too early to start thinking about summer, Town Ballroom announced that London band Bombay Bicycle Club will be making a stop at the Main St. venue on Saturday, August 2nd. If you are unfamiliar with the act, think of them as a UK version of Vampire Weekend and go from there. Tickets go on sale this Friday, April 4th, at noon for $20 in advance, $22 day of.

This evening, the Wild Wild Fest announced the initial lineup for year three of the two-day fest. Hosted at the Willow Creek Winery in Silver Creek, NY on August 29th and 30th, the fest will be hosting Well Worn Boot (festival founders), Lazlo Hollyfeld, Jack Toft, Mr. Boneless, Aircraft, Armcannon, Lesionread, Folk Faces, and many more acts from the WNY area and beyond.

Tickets will be available for $30 in advance/$40 at the door for a full weekend pass, or $20 in advance/$30 at the door for single day passes. You can purchase tickets at the Wild Wild Fest website, or at a few local shops, including Ultra Hoops in Buffalo and Willow Creek itself. Volunteer opportunities for the festival, which include free entry, camping, and food, are also available. If interested, please inquire here.



In other Well Worn Boot news, the band just released the first single from its upcoming new EP. Titled "Certified Party Girl," the track will be featured on Boot's Boot in Space EP, set for release on Saturday, April 19th at Nietzsche's. You may listen to "Certified Party Girl" below.

After playing one of the most blistering shows that the Tralf has held in some time, the long time post-punk outfit Swans is set to return to the downtown Buffalo venue on Saturday, July 5th. Led my Michael Gira, the band is set to release the follow up to 2012's critically claimed album The Seer on May 13th, a double album titled To Be Kind. You can listen to To Be Kind's first leaked song, "A Little God in My Hands," below. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, March 28th, at noon for $15 in advance/$18 day of.

Phil Elverum will bring his Mount Eerie project, formally known as Microphones, back to Buffalo this spring on Thursday, April 17th with a performance at Babeville's Ninth Ward. Mount Eerie most recently played the Buffalo venue back in September of 2012. The prolific musician was quite busy in 2013, releasing a string of albums, including November's Pre-Human Ideas. Tickets for the show will go on sale this Friday, March 28th, for $13 in advance/$15 day of.

Last week, the Outer Harbor Concert Series was teasing the announcement of two big shows, and after today's unveiling, it's clear the organizers weren't lying. The first and biggest land, Vampire Weekend, is set for Monday, June 9th (doors 6pm, show 7pm), and second, a loaded bill of City and Colour, Tokyo Police Club, and Young the Giant, on Friday, July 11th (doors 6pm, show 7pm).

Vampire Weekend is still riding the critical success of Modern Vampires of the City, the band's third, and in this writer's opinion, best release yet. VW recently played Rochester's Main Street Armory, but hasn't graced Buffalo since their early days, so expect this to be a much hyped and anticipated affair. As for the second show, it has been said before and it will be said again: Buffaloians LOVE Canadian bands. While the Hip won't be touring this summer, City and Colour and Tokyo Police Club are sure to fill the Canadian fix, and along with California's Young the Giant, both will be making welcome returns to the WNY area after numerous visits in the past.

The folks over at the Outer Harbor Series and Alternative Buffalo (the series' co-presenters) have been nice enough to give the blog a pair of tickets for each show to give away this week. Make sure to follow us on all forms of social media (facebook, twitter, instagram) this Wednesday for a chance to snag two Vampire Weekend tickets, and Thursday for City and Colour/Tokyo Police Club/Young the Giant.

If you aren't lucky enough to win the giveaway, tickets will go on sale to the general public this Friday, March 14th, at 12pm. Vampire Weekend tickets will run $39 in advance/$43 day of, while City and Colour and co. will be $42/$47. Tickets can be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets, in addition to the Town Ballrom and After Dark offices.

The Waiting Room's spring schedule continues to flesh out as the venue, along with Alt Buffalo, announced a date with Chicago buzz garage act, The Orwells, on Wednesday, April 23rd. Being presented as a part of the radio station's "You Saw Them First" series, the barely out of high school act has been getting some serious burn over the past year on Sirius XMU radio, as well as a Letterman approved performance of their first single, "Who Needs You," this past January on The Late Show. 

Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 7th, at 12pm, for the LOW price of $1.07 (yep). Don't wait to long as prices will sky rocket to $5 on the night of.

With one of the worst winters of most of our lifetimes still going strong and spiteful, we can at least put our cold weather woes aside and celebrate a birthday party, more specifically, our birthday party. On Saturday, March 29th, we will ring in year 4 of buffaBLOG's existence with a great night of WNY music at our home base of Duke's. For this showcase, we have brought together a more than formidable bill of Mr. Boneless, Harmonica Lewinski (Rochester), Alex Berkley & the Atlanta Falcons, and Real People, in addition to Chauncey Tails as our house DJ. Check out samples from all of the acts below to get a taste of the night's music. Music, as always, will kick off at 10pm sharp, with a cover of $5. It should stop snowing by then, right?

Western New York's concert scene is definitely taking it up a notch this year, and there's no better evidence of that than today's announcement that Brit band of the moment Arctic Monkeys, will be playing Artpark on June 18th. OK, that's not completely fair to the pride of Sheffield (position previously held by Pulp), who've been kicking around and building up to this moment for over 10 years, and they're taking full advantage with an expanding tour that's bringing them far and wide across our great nation and to our neck of the woods. Frankly we're usually skipped over by these big UK band shows, so this is entirely refreshing and something of a big deal... especially with the nice advance general admission ticket price of $10 and $25 for in front of the stage. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10 AM.

Buffalo is all of a sudden a hot spot for shows. The latest tour to add our city on its routing will be breakthrough rapper Danny Brown. A native of Detroit, Brown describes himself as a "hipster by heart but I can tell you how the streets feel." The rapper, unique in his own, has grown to major festival tours and signed to high-profile label Fool's Gold Records, which released his well received Old early last fall. Brown will be making his return to Buffalo with an appearance at the Waiting Room on Wednesday, April 16th. Tickets from "The "Old Danny Brown" tour go on sale tomorrow at noon for $20 in advance/$25 day of.

Former Smiths frontman Morrissey just announced a spring/summer tour and the string of dates will include a stop at Artpark in Lewiston on Monday, June 16th. If you follow him at all, you know he is notorious for canceling shows due to various ailments, moods, and such, so lets hope this date stays intact. No further on-sale date and price info is currently known, so keep an eye out.

A couple years back, former lo-fi turned angst rockers Cloud Nothings played one of the best shows that Babeville's Ninth Ward has had the privilege to host. This April, the Cleveland, Ohio based band will return to Buffalo, this time at Buffalo Iron Works, maybe the best show the still newish venue has landed yet. The band will be releasing its much anticipated follow up to 2012's Attack on Memory, titled Here and Nowhere Else, on April 1st, and will include a Buffalo stop on its tour on Friday, April 4th at the recently opened Cobblestone District venue.

Tickets will go on sale this Friday, Feb 14th, at 10am for $14 in advance/$16 day of. In the mean time, listen to Here and Nowhere Else's first single, "I'm Not Part of Me Here," below.
 

Local psychedelic funk fans and art lovers will be coming together again for the semi annual ritual that is the welcome return of Athens, GA's of Montreal to the Town Ballroom on May 13th. Kevin Barnes and company have treated us to some fantastic shows over the years; some full on multi-media art freakouts, others stripped down and direct, but always they are weird, beautiful, and a total dance party. Ticket prices and the on sale date are not available yet but definitely circle that day. 

If only we could close down the months of January-March and slide into the anticipation of April, when life starts to blossom and a 'gentle' breeze doesn't make your bones get frostbite. But, alas, it is better to live in the moment and endure the turning of the year. Luckily, with festival season announcements cropping up already, we can take our sweet time to decide how to best spend our summer days, and Buffalove Music Festival is definitely at the top of the list. Returning for their second year at the Willow Creek Winery, from June 19-21st, this line-up catches the eclectic mixture of Buffalo's music scene, from fusion jam-rock to bluegrass psychedelia. The full line-up will be announced on Valentine's Day.

Line-up so far:

Aqueous
Funktional Flow
Roots Collider
Smackdab
Lazlo Hollyfield
Universe Shark
Slip Madigan
The Whiskey Reverb
Broccoli Samurai
Groove Force
Blue Roots
Wonder Crayon
Little Mountain Band
Kid Splendor & The Royal Fortune
Luanjie

Acts I wouldn't want to miss:
Aqueous, Smackdab, Lazlo Hollyfield, The Whiskey Reverb.

The First Niagara Center is all of the sudden the hub in Buffalo from some of music's heavy hitters, between late 2013's Drake show and the upcoming Jay Z and Justin Timberlake shows early this year. Add Lady Gaga to that list now. The mega pop singer has announced the very-likely-to-be over the top tour, titled "ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball," and the tour include a stop at the First Niagara Center on Monday, July 7th. She will be on tour to support her underwhelming ARTPOP album. While prices are not yet available, tickets go on sale this Monday, January 13th, at 10am through all Live Nation outlets.

Looks like Cults will continue on their journey to play every venue in Buffalo as they return to our snowy city on Monday, Feb 17th. This time around, the NYC retro, wall-of-sound pop act will be hitting up the Tralf, after playing the Town Ballroom and the now defunct Soundlab a couple years back. Thankfully, for their third forth trip to Buffalo, the band will have a much needed set of new material as their sophomore release, Static, dropped last fall.

Alvin Risk was one of the first producers signed to OWSLA, the high-profile record label started by Skrillex, in addition to releases with Steve Aoki's Dim Mak Records and also London-based Ministry of Sound. A prominently known dubstep producer and DJ, he also carries out his vocal talents as a singer. If you don't have plans for Valentine's Day, After Dark Entertainment is bringing him through for a show at The Waiting Room on Feb. 14.