Second Line Cities Weekend featuring Rebrith Brass Band

Saturday, Sunday, Monday September 5th-7th

The brass band tradition of New Orleans is as integral a part of that city’s culture as its food and parades. Funerals for jazz greats consisted of a somber procession backed by mournful gospel dirges, giving way to more upbeat and ecstatic numbers which marked a release from the body and a heavenly homecoming for the spirit of the deceased—as well as a joyful celebration of life for the bereaved. The parades are typically led by tubas, trumpets, trombones and saxophones, with a big bass drum and snare cracking out the beat—followed by the “second line” of marchers who wind up dancing to beat the band. This Labor Day weekend (Sept. 5-7), a series of events are scheduled around town with proceeds to benefit the South Buffalo Education Center, which helps out-of-school people achieve their GEDs. Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 5 & 6) the Market Arcade Cinema is screening the award-winning documentary Trouble the Water, which presents shocking footage of Hurricane Katrina and governmental indifference in the storm’s aftermath. Sunday (Sept. 6), Nietzsche’s hosts an ILOVENOLA party with comedians Kristen Becker and Sean Patton, followed by the Allen St. Jazz Band. Finally, Labor Day’s events (Sept. 7) move over to Buffalo/NOLA righteous babe Ani DiFranco’s Babeville, where photographer Michelle Elmore’s shots of street life, second lines, and Mardi Gras Indians will be on display, as well as performances headlined by the Rebirth Brass Band—the pre-eminent practitioners of that great New Orleans style. Also on the bill are the Brownman Electryc Trio, local funksters Critt’s Juke Joint, the 12/8 Path Band, who’ve been Buffalo’s answer to the brass band tradition for years, and more TBA.

Plus, for that famous “little bit extra,” Lagniappes will be putting on a crawfish boil.

—buck quigley

Various times and locations, Saturday-Monday, September 5-7. Tickets $40/all weekend. $25/Labor Day. Tickets available at the Babeville Box Office, Tickets.com, Terrapin Station, and all Tops locations.

Friday, September 4th

Burnt Sugar Arkestra

Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber was born 10 years ago, as a collusion between like-minded musicians with an absurd idea: Create a new, contemporary version of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew band, mashing up musical forms and genres and soundmaking mechanisms, alternately manhandling and delicately disassembling them until the whole bears only a passing resemblance to its parts. The result is neither Davis nor Sun Ra. There are heavy guitar lines here, punctuated by croons and shouts, hard-driving rhythms that give way to cool clubland jazz and disassociative brass. The Arkestra are devotees of the Butch Morris conduction system, whereby performances are composed on the spot. They hie to no genre, claiming to channel influences from Hendrix to Holiday, Steve Reich to Brian Eno, Parliament to Wu Tang. Such comparisons are of little use. You have to hear them to understand. Burnt Sugar (the Arkestra Chamber) returns to Buffalo with their latest release, this year’s Making Love to the Dark Ages (Livewired), on Friday (Sept. 4).

—geoff kelly

8pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (www.bigorbit.org/soundlab). $10/$8. Presented by Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center .

Friday, September 4th

The Felice Brothers

Living up to comparisons to Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and Nebraska-era Springsteen can’t be easy for this all-American, Catskill-based band slinging muddy, depression era style folk rock. But after a listen to the wheezy, resonant vocals of frontman Ian Felice, who founded the band along with real brother James and and a dice-playing friend named Christmas, it sure sounds easy. Rumor has it they got their start busking in NYC subways—a gritty fit for their image—before finding attention in Woodstock, NY playing Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble. Now after plaing numerous concerts including the high profile Newport Folk Festival, the Brothers have landed tours with such acts as Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band and the Big Surprise Tour with Old Crow Medicine Show and Justin Townes Earle. Their second major release, Yonder Is the Clock, was released in April on Team Love—the band’s debut for the label. They’ll play at Mohawk Place on Friday (Sept. 4) with Willy Mason opening the show.

—k. o’day

8pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St. (855-3931 / www.mohawkplace.com). $15

Friday, September 4th

Moonlight Paddle

The Buffalo Niagara River Keeper has so far done a great job exposing the people of Buffalo to their major waterways. With cleanup programs and Niagara Habitat Studies, there are more and more opportunities to experience the deep blue that weaves through the great Buffalo area. One particularly neat way to do this is to take part in their Ecotour programs. These are usually paddle tours by boat and kayak provided by the Riverkeepers. The Buffalo and Niagara rivers are usually the more popular tour routes, but their most recent—and arguably most daring—addition to the tour schedule is the Moonlight Paddle. At 7:30pm this Friday (Sept. 4), a fleet of man-powered boats will traverse Tonawanda creek, an easily overlooked body of water in an easily overlooked part of Buffalo. Moonlight Paddle will be geared more towards experienced paddlers. Although the Ecotours receive a fairly decent turn out of adventurers who are new to people-propelled sea faring, due to the increased safety risk of a nighttime tour, those who know the ins and outs are the target demographic of this endeavor. The goal is to bring people out at night to do healthy and environmentally geared activities during times where most are usually installed firmly in front of the television.

—ann marie awad

Contact Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, 1250 Niagara St. (852-7483 / www.bnriverkeeper.org) to register. $15.

Sunday, September 6th

Space Cowboy @ Factory Nightlife

Those familiar with Lady Gaga’s platinum album The Fame will know the song “Starstruck,” her duet with producer/instrumentalist/vocalist Space Cowboy and Gaga’s partner in intergalactic adventure (as seen on the Web chronicle “Transmission Gagavision”). But despite keeping such illustrious company, Space Cowboy has a story all his own beginning back in the UK club scene where he built a following spinning what he dubbed “digital rock” in packed London nightclubs. Success from his electronic-dance-rock satellite feeds caught the attention of Cherrytree Records, home to the pop-diva Lady G., and she invited him to join her touring ensemble, effectively launching his stateside career. Pure Nightclub hosts Space Cowboy this Sunday (Sept. 6) for a special holiday edition of Factory Nightlife. DJ Little Joe joins him in the Main Room, along with perhaps a surprise guest...

—alan victor

10pm. Pure Nightclub, 75 W. Chippewa St. Ages 18+

Thursday, September 10th

Free Energy

With a roster that includes Hercules and Love Affair, Hot Chip and Yacht, DFA Records pretty much owns the hipster dance genre it created in the early 2000s with seminal releases by the likes of the Rapture and label founder James Murphy’s group, LCD Soundystem. Trending toward a sound reminiscent of late ‘70s and early ‘80s punk-funk, DFA tends to release rock music you can dance to, and dance music you can rock to. In the case of their newest act—Minneapolis rockers Free Energy—the emphasis is clearly not on dancing, which is surprising considering LCD Soundsystem’s Murphy and Pat Mahoney not only produced the record but filled in on bass and drums respectively. Making summery power-pop evocative of ‘70s rockers like Cheap Trick or Steve Miller, Free Energy will likely confuse those looking for a party—unless it’s of a more laid back sort. As Pitchfork put it, Free Energy makes “Perfect mood music for a night that looses itself in the afterglow of the inevitable busting of the moontower kegger, leaving everyone a little high, a little bored, and completely enraptured with the endless possibility of youth.” Opening for them next Thursday (Sept. 10) is the new Buffalo group Worrywort, featuring ex members of Besnyo.

—greg gannon

9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (www.bigorbit.org/soundlab).