Lorde

Sunday, September 7

During the summer of 2012, “Pour it Up” by Rihanna reached number one on the Billboard charts. The catchy, inescapable single was fraught with lyrics like “Valet cost a hundred bills / I still got my money / Gold all up in my grill / I still got my money”. You could only help but wonder how many of her listeners could actually relate. Fast forward a year later, enter Ella Yelich-O’Connor aka Lorde, a young, soulful, pop artist hailing from New Zealand whose first single “Royals” immediately took off. It was a response to the kind of flashy materialism pervasive within pop music; a refreshing, anti-autotune single whose minimal production focused on her startlingly mature voice (she was hardly 17 years-old), “But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom...We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams,” she sings. Since then the young heroine has garnered credibility as an artist who spreads a message of teenage realism; embracing imperfection and proving that meaningful expression is still possible within the paradigm of pop music. She’ll be headlining a concert at Artpark this Sunday (Sept 7). Indie-pop band Majical Cloudz is set to open.

- jeanette chin

8pm Artpark Mainstage, 450 South 4th St., Lewiston (754-4375 / artpark.net) Indoor seating: $49.50-$59.50, general admission lawn: $39.50

Friday, September 5

Adventure Club

Stepping into an Adventure Club concert feels like stepping into a utopia created by the DJs themselves, where it rains vodka and music from all eras is heard through the epic beats of dubstep. They keep jumping and screaming, never ceasing to amuse and fascinate their audience, showering the crowd in water, vodka and champagne, crowd surfing, taking close-up iPhone photos and standing up on the speakers to dance. Hailing from Montreal, Christian Srigley and Leighton James formed AC in high school. Starting out as a hardcore pop-punk band, they later progressed to dubstep, although their pop-punk influences can still be heard in some of their mashups. Their remixes range from 1950’s classics, to post-hardcore rock and the sweet electronic sounds of today. One of their earliest remixes to achieve notoriety was “Daisy” by Brand New. Speeding up the downtrodden track, they mix in dirty electro synths that are slightly subdued, but still get your heart racing. They’ve herded a cult following of “Adventure Seekers” with their take-no-prisoners stage presence and their proven ability to take elements from house, dubstep, techno and hip-hop and melodically spin them into complex works of art. Adventure Club will perform at the Town Ballroom on Friday (Sept 5) with support from Eyes Everywhere, Brotherbear, and Swagglerock.

- kellie powell

8pm Town Ballroom, 681 Main St. (852-3900 / townballroom.com) $27

Friday, September 5

The Nth Power

What do you get when you combine members of Beyoncé’s touring band, Lettuce, John Brown’s Body, and Toubab Krewe? Well the supergroup that is the Nth Power, of course. The relentlessly funky and soulful band believes in music as a higher power. “Just know that when you hear this music, you’re going to feel something—you’re going to connect with something higher than yourself,” says the band’s West African djembe drum master Weedie Braimah, also of Toubab Krewe and Kreative Pandemonium. Though the band has only been together for slightly over a year, they jam with the chemistry of a band like Steely Dan or Tower of Power. Their recent record, the independently released EP, Basic Minium Skills Test, is a case study on spiritual funk and natural improvisational skill that leads with a rhythmic power track, “Spirits,” which combines African drumming styles with fiery funk guitar riffs and intergalactic vocals that call to mind 1990s funk-pop groups like Jamiroquai. Don’t miss the Nth Power when they come to the Tralf Music Hall presented by Eclective Collective Entertainment on Friday (Sept 5) with support from local soul rockers Smackdab.

- cory perla

9pm The Tralf Music Hall, 622 Main St. (852-2860 / tralfmusichall.com) $10 advance, $12 day of show

Saturday, September 6

Fall Fest featuring T.I. and Schoolboy Q

It appears as if, when it comes to hip-hop, UB students can have whatever they’d like at their annual Fall Fest. Within the past seven years UB’s student government has booked A$AP Rocky, Ace Hood, Chiddy Bang, A$AP Ferg, French Montana, Childish Gambino, Ludacris, NAS, J.Cole, Rick Ross and Kendrick Lamar for their student festivals. This year’s line up is chock full of superstar hip-hop artists as well as two support artists on the come up. Headlining the festival this Saturday (Sept 6) are T.I. and Schoolboy Q. Direct support will be provided by Ab-Soul and Bas. The concert will be outdoors at either Baird Point unless the weather forces the concert inside Alumni Arena. Schoolboy Q’s latest album Oxymoron catapulted him to the top of the Billboard charts in what seemed like overnight. With instant hits like “Studio,” “Collard Greens,” and “Man of the Year,” Schoolboy Q took the radio by storm and this fall he will be all over the country playing college campuses similar to UB. T.I. has been a hip hop legend for what seems like decades. Working with other superstar artists including Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Jay Z, and Justin Timberlake has secured his seat at the hip hop head table. This UB Fall Fest is highly anticipated by hip-hop heads all around Western New York. If you don’t have a UB ID you might want to grab a ticket soon as there are not many left.

- sean t. heidinger

6:00pm UB North’s Baird Point Amphitheater. (sa.buffalo.edu) $40 general admission, free for UB students with school ID

Tuesday, September 9

Ami Dang with Slag Ralden

Crunching bass drum, reverberating sitar, haunting vocals and buzzing synthesizer tones flow through the music of Ami Dang. The composer from Baltimore by way of New Delhi, India presents avant-garde noise music colored by North Indian classical sounds and experimental dance-pop structures; a blend of sounds that she refers to as “Bollywave.” In 2013 she toured Asia as backing vocalist and support for dream pop producer and critically acclaimed artist, Grimes. Later this year, she will release her full length record Sun On Our Skins. Dang and fellow Baltimore noise-maker Slag Ralden will take turns accompanying each other on electronics, vocals, bass, and sitar when they come to Sugar City on Tuesday (Sept 9). They’ll be joined by Little Cake and Jack Topht, who will present some material from their latest collaboration, as well as looping noise-maker and Buffalo stalwart Pam Swarts, and fuzz poppers Copy Manager.

- cory perla

7pm Sugar City 1239 Niagara St (buffalosugarcity.org) $5

Wednesday, September 10

Burning Books presents Ray Luc Levasseur

What causes activism to turn violent? What motivates a movement to take up arms? Understanding why an individual or group would resort to violence in the name of revolution is important in understanding political radicalism, and former political prisoner Ray Luc Levasseur can surely provide some insight into that. Levasseur, organizer of the American Marxist organization, the United Freedom Front, served 18 years in prison for Seditious Conspiracy after a series of bombings that targeted corporations like Union Carbide, IBM, and South African Airways, for their support of apartheid in South Africa, and US imperialism in Central America. 15 of the 18 years he spent in prison were spent in solitary confinement. He was released on parole in 2004. Coming from a prison abolitionist perspective, Levasseur is expected to speak in part about the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971, which inspired him to form the UFF—fomerly called the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, after Melville who was instrumental in the uprising. The incident, which underlines Western New York’s history of radical politics, has caused many to take a closer look at prisoner’s rights. Ray Luc Levasseur will speak at Burning Books on Wednesday (Sept 10). The presentation will not only coincide with the 43rd anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising, but also the third birthday of Burning Books. This event is free and open to the public, but donations are accepted.

- cory perla

7pm Burning Books, 420 Connecticut st. (881-0791 / burningbooksbuffalo.com) free

Thursday, September 11

Foster the People

In 2010, Foster The People made their mark with the bubblegum, indie-pop track, “Pumped Up Kicks.” Creepy as it is sweet, it runs off the nervous energy of an unhinged kid driven to random violence. Many contemporary songwriters have reflected upon psychopaths, tapping into a horror-movie energy, however, songs like Sufjan Stevens’ “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” or Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” leave the listener outside the story’s frame. Conversely, “Pumped Up Kicks” is a trip inside the mind of a sociopath. Foster’s shift from first to third person complicates matters: is he watching this tragedy happen? Is he making it happen? Or is he doing both—is that what we’re all doing, subjected to a 24-hour information cycle that simultaneously makes us witnesses to every horror, but through a screen that allows us to feel less implicated? On their latest album, Supermodel, Foster continues to sneak heavy lyrics into giddy pop, as in album centerpiece, “Best Friend” (“sometimes I swear I only dream in black and white”). These days, none of us can run faster than life’s bullets; there’s always a new assault, a natural disaster, a crazy dictator. But FTP is striving for a way to live with the bad, and even turn it sunny. Foster The People will perform at Canalside on Thursday (Sept 11).

- kellie powell

6pm Canalside, 44 Prime Street Buffalo, (canalsidebuffalo.com) $15-$55