Downtown After Dark is award winning journalist Russ Tarby's weekly take on the best and brightest of happenings inside and outside of Downtown Syracuse. Each week he adds best bets too.
Bio:
Central New York journalist Russ Tarby has been writing about entertainment, crime, sports and politics since the 1970s. His reviews and feature stories have appeared in newspapers such as the Village Voice, the Dallas Observer, the Auburn Citizen and the Syracuse Post-Standard.
For 12 years, he worked as music and books editor for the Syracuse New Times and while there he won several Syracuse Press Club awards including a Best Feature Story award for 'The Sweet Man,' his 1998 profile of 95-year-old jazz trombonist Spiegle Willcox.
In 2000, he was named music writer of the year for weeklies with a circulation of less than 55,000 by the international Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
Tarby was a member of the steering committees which founded the Syracuse Area Music Awards(Sammys) and the Syracuse Walk of Fame.
He has been a member of the Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse's Board of Directors since 1993.
In 2007, Tarby edited "Into The Deep," a book by Dr. Andrew G. Hodges about the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway on the island of Aruba.
Tarby now works as a free-lance writer and editor. He compiles two weekly columns, Downtown After Dark for the Syracuse City Eagle and Livin’ in Liverpool for The Review, both published by Eagle Newspapers.
He can be reached at 457-1517, or via e-mail at russtarby@netscape.net.
Downtown After Dark is where Russ Tarby highlights happenings of special note in and sometimes out of Syracuse, the heart of CNY.
Al Wolf’s hanging up his rock’n’roll shoes!
After 47 years of music-making here in Central New York, the talented electric bassist is retiring from show business.
Wolf will play one of his final live dates with Smokin’ from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the Metro Lounge and Sushi Bar, 505 Westcott St., on Syracuse’s East Side; 428-0815.
Smokin’ sizzles with keyboardist Bob Lindberg and guitarist Frank Rhodes, the reliable backbeat of Jan Fetterly and the vocals of vivacious Janice Wilson.
While Al enjoyed a 20-year run with Smokin,’ one of CNY’s hardest-working oldies groups, Wolf will be best remembered for his work with Sam & The Twisters, Syracuse’s seminal Sixties rock combo which also featured Jan Fetterly on drums and vocals. That locally famous foursome also included Sam Amato and Mickey Palumbo.
While Wolf and Fetterly performed with Sam & The Twisters in the 1960s and the Livin’ Ennd in the ’70s, Lindberg and Rhodes each played with Carnage and later The Limit.
Sam & The Twisters were inducted into the Syracuse Area Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1994, at the Landmark Theatre. Old-timers recall that the Twisters released the best-selling 45 rpm record in Syracuse history, “Fooba Wooba John,” later resurrected as “The Transylvania Twist” with a vocal by Baron Daemon (channel 9’s Mike Price).
Son’s a sushi chef
“Looks like I’m going to return my bass guitar to the Guitar-Rent-A-Center and spend more time with (my wife) Billie and our family,” Wolf wrote in a recent e-mail. “This is very necessary: Billie and I have been married for 44 years and when I add up all of the time spent with bands since 1962 and the evening responsibilities of working in administrative gigs at the building level for the Syracuse City School District, Billie and I have really only been together for 18 months, six days, 13 hours and 35 minutes.”
Wolf hopes to see a ton of old friends and fans at Friday’s gig at the Metro Lounge.
“The sushi is the bestest,” Al attests. “Of course, I would believe that since my son, Steve, is the chef. He also has a great bistro menu in place for those who are not sushi-inclined. The bar serves the best selection of beers and wines and specialty mixed drinks.”
Smokin’ will also rock out at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30, at Le Moyne Manor, 629 Old Liverpool Road, in Liverpool
At Le Moyne Manor, however, Al will be replaced by Rich DePoe, another longtime Syracuse musician most recently with East Side 66.
The irrepressible Fetterly, who now hits the skins and sings some for Smokin,’ also hopes to retire soon. He’s mulling a move to sunny Arizona.
Scary snowmen?
Did you notice that it snowed like crazy down in the Southern Tier last week? Yeah, and it’s not even Halloween yet!
I wonder if anyone in the Triple Cities area built snowmen with Jack O’Lantern heads…
Swingin’ at Delavan
Chanteuse Marcia Rutledge will be accompanied by Ithaca guitar phenom Doug Robinson, from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the Delavan Art Center, 501 W. Fayette St. Admission costs $10; 425-7500. Expect vintage jazz tunes sung and strummed with plenty feeling.
While you’re there check out the retrospective of landscape paintings by 95-year-old artist George Earle, and say hello to Delavan’s new intern, Christine Chansamone.
Poems ‘like melon slices’
Poet Diane Wakowski says that each of Gary Young’s brief imagist poems “is like a fresh slice of melon.”
CNYers will get to taste for themselves when Young reads from his work at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, in the GallerY at The Downtown Writer’s Center, inside the Downtown YMCA, on Montgomery Street. Thes DWC event is free and open to the public.
Young, 58, hails from the West Coast where he teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In addition to his writing, Young is an accomplished printmaker whose artwork is included in many collections at institutions such as Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art. While he’s here, the YMCA GallerY will feature poetry broadsides he printed by of his own poems and those of other poets.
The editor of the Greenhouse Review Press, Young’s 2005 collection of short prose-poems, No Other Life, won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.
He appears here Friday as part of the Downtown Writer’s Center’s Fall Visiting Author Series. The GallerY will feature poetry broadsides printed by Mr. Young of his own poems and the work of other poets.
For info, call 474-6851 x 328, or visitymcaofgreatersyracuse.org/arts.
Crunch Off the Ice
New radio play-by-play man for the Syracuse Crunch, Joe Brown, hosts a new hour-long show every Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m. on SportsRadio 620 WHEN-AM.
Off the Ice with the Syracuse Crunch will feature one guest each week talking about the past week’s games and looking ahead to upcoming Crunch contests.
In addition, fans will be invited to phone in with questions for Joe and his guests which will include players, coaches and other team personnel.
One of the program’s first guests was new Crunch defenseman Dylan Reese.
Meanwhile, back on the ice, the Crunch return to the Onondaga County War Memorial at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 23 and 24, for games against the Binghamton Senators and the Rochester Amerks, respectively. Ticket prices range between $13 and $22; 473-4444.
Flanigan back from Brazil
Flanigan recently completed a tour of South America as part of a Benny Goodman Centennial Tribute Orchestra led by clarinetist Allan Vaché. On Oct. 18 Flanigan joined the Jambalaya Jazz Band from Buffalo playing a concert for the Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse at McNamara’s Pub in Camillus.
Led trombonist Ray Skalski, the Jambalaya Band includes Phil Nyhuis and Jon Seiger on trumpet and keyboards, Peter Ferran on reeds, Tommy Kasperek on drums plus Flanigan. The swinging sextet played good old good ones like “Dinah,” “Fidgety Feet” and “Bourbon Street Parade.” Flanigan nearly wore his fretboard down as his fingers swept up and down the strings improvising solos on “One of these Days” and “Exactly Like You” among others.
And back at the Bistro
Bassist extraordinaire Phil Flanigan will accompany his wife, singer-guitarist Hanna Richardson, as the couple returns at 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, to the Bistro Elephant, the hip little eatery attached to Lemongrass Restaurant in Armory Square.
“What could be better?” Hanna asks. “Spicy, Asian fusion food and classic, swinging American music…They also have a very nice bar,”
That’s what Hanna has to say. Now here’s what others are saying about her and Phil.
“Phil Flanigan,” wrote a Miami Herald critic, “plays bass the way other guys wish they could play guitar.”
And the Mississippi Rag zeroed in on Hanna:
“Given all the bad acting that now infects jazz and popular singing, a singer without affectations, someone with innate swing and melodic sense, is a pleasure. Meet Hanna Richardson!”
There’s no cover Saturday at the Bistro, but a reservation is a good idea; 475-1111; or visit bistroelephant.com.
Oren Lyons honored
Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper Oren Lyons is one of five honorees receiving Peace Awards from Peace Action of CNY at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, at the Empire Room at the State Fairgrounds.
Lyons will be in good company that Sunday evening at the Fairgrounds as Peace Action will also honor labor activist Mark Spadafore, Mothers Against Gun Violence founder Helen Hudson, civil rights attorney Joseph Heath and the Syracuse Alliance for Middle East Dialogue.
For info, dial 478-7442, or visit peaceaction.org.
Vampires in the zoo?
Two atmospheric horror films from the 1930s will be screened as a Halloween double feature at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, as part of the Syracuse Cinephile Society’s fall film series at the Spaghetti Warehouse.
The two terror titles are Murders in the Zoo (1933) starring Lionel Atwill and Randolph Scott; and Mark of The Vampire (1935) featuring Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi, directed by Tod Browning.
Vintage movies run Monday nights through Dec. 7, at the Spaghetti Warehouse, 689 N. Clinton St., near the Inner Harbor. Admission to each screening costs $3or $2.50 for Cinephile members. For info, call the restaurant at 475-1807; or visit syracusecineephile.com.
On Nov. 2, audiences will enjoy There’s Always Tomorrow, a 1934 drama starring Frank Morgan and Margaret Hamilton, both of whom would go on to appear in The Wizard of Oz. musical starring Alice Faye, John Payne, Betty Grable and Jack Oakie.
CATEGORY: Entertainment News
TAGS: cinephile society,Spaghetti Warehouse,Murders in the Zoo (1933), Lionel Atwill,Randolph Scott;Mark of The Vampire,Phil Flanigan,Hanna Richardson,Bistro Elephant,Al Wolf,Smokin,Downtown After Dark,Russ Tarby, Metro Lounge,westcott nation,Marcia Rutledge,Doug Robinson,Syracuse Crunch,Delavan Art Center
