Gusto 1980-1981

Anybody remember this turkey?  June 14, 1980  Meat Loaf Main Course In Half-Baked 'Roadie' "Roadie" is a Texas joke, a gross and silly movie about the brutish backstage world of rock 'n roll. And like Texas jokes, its overblown humor is infectious as it careens giddily from coast to coast to coast. Shanghaied into this manic musical subculture is a tall, tubby, beer-truck-driving Texas named Travis W. Redfish, whose junkyard home is half Rube Goldberg and half "Pink Flamingos." The family motto: "Everything works if you let it." It is Redfish's fate to fall for a lurid 16-year-old groupie who quickly bends him and his incredible talent for fixing things to assist her grand designs. She wants to become a camp follower of ghoulish rock star Alice Cooper.  With its fast cutting, boisterous slapstick and heavy lampooning of rock 'n roll's behind-the-scenes characters, "Roadie" works itself up into a fine lather of luna...

Another look at a locally-made innovation that changed the world of music. June 13, 1980 Moog The musical synthesizer is less than 20 years old, but already it's being acclaimed as one of the nation's great inventions. The recognition has come from none other than the U.S. Small Business Administration, which has chosen the Moog Synthesizer for its traveling exhibition, "Eureka! A Celebration of American Business Innovations," along with such marvels as the telephone, the bifocal, the zipper, the ice cream cone and the Xerox copier. Inventor Bob Moog has been making his synthesizers in an unassuming warehouse-like building in suburban Cheektowaga since the mid '70s, when he merged his pioneering company with MuSonics, a local synthesizer manufacturer. Moog's mainstay is the Minimoog, a three-oscillator unit which sells at about $2,000. (About $8,000 in 2025 dollars.) In the 10 years it's been available, Moog has sold 13,000 Minimoogs and, in the process,...

Another entry in the parade of forgotten New Wave rockers at Stage One. June 13, 1980 Chartbusters try for a breakthrough Robin Lane and the Chartbusters ain't exactly busting up the charts in Buffalo. Or the turnstiles either, judging by the paltry gathering of about 100 that came out to greet them in Harvey and Corky's Stage One in Clarence Thursday night. Nevertheless, Lane and her four male compatriots let fly with the kind of hard-hitting music that's made them the toast of their hometown, Boston, and other appreciative sections of the Northeast. The thundering succession of tunes transformed Lane from a small, rather haggard-looking blonde-haired figure into something quite like a rock 'n roll angel, looking for the saving sparkle of hope in a heavily tarnished world. "I'm givin' you a second chance," she barked bitterly in "Why Do You Tell Lies." "And you better not let me down. I want to love you ..." Standing there in ...

A taste of the good life 45 years ago. June 6, 1980 Clam stands Going out for clams is the kind of warm weather adventure that's easy to find accomplices for. Few can resist the vision of a dozen of the meaty little bivalve mollusks glistening expectantly on the half shell, waiting for that final piquant dash of lemon or vinegar or hot sauce. If not raw, then how about steamed with drawn butter, maybe with some corn on the cob and a piping hot cup of clam broth. To wash it all down, a gang of ice cold beer. Now that's summertime eating. And clams, for some reason, taste better when you eat them outdoors. In Buffalo, classic clam-eating country is the West Side. Not so long ago, the old-timers will tell you, the West Side had a clam stand on every corner, or so it seemed. Nowadays, you can count the West Side clam stands on the fingers of one hand. Some say it was inflation that did in the others. A generation ago, a dozen freshly-cut cherrystones would s...

A billing of New Wave bands that flashed across the scene like comets and disappeared. June 6, 1980 Headliners can't make it, so opening acts take over The bad news was posted at the door at Harvey and Corky's Stage One in Clarence Thursday night. The tripleheader had become a doubleheader. The Cretones were sick. Mark Goldenberg had been felled by strep throat. (So that's why he wasn't at the Elektra Records promotional luncheon.) Too bad. Nice guys, the Cretones. Three of their songs are on the most recent Linda Ronstadt album. Maybe next time. Despite the absence of the Cretones, most people stayed. No longer was there any doubt as to who was the headliner. It would be the British quintet, the Jags, who have just released their first album here on Island Records. But before them were the Toys, two sets of the Toys. While some professed to being tired of this ambitious local New Wave outfit, there was no denying their energy or their wacky, rudimentary appeal. Opera...

I take a ride with one of the heroes in my world – the guy who drives the beer truck. May 23, 1980 Here's to the men who bring us the brews. "That's the misconception with this job," Brian Domon is saying as he slings 10 cases of 12-ounce cans onto the two-wheeled cart. "You see a truck and you think the guy driving it is just a deliveryman. That's not true." The bright morning sun is awakening visions of summer on this one-way thoroughfare on Buffalo's West Side. Brian's big, gleaming, green and white Genesee Cream Ale truck is one of those hot-weather images. He latches the sliding doors, wheels the cart around the rear bumper of the truck and comes face to face with another creature of the summer – the street-paving machine – which has just laid two inches of steaming-fresh asphalt between him and the loading dock of the Bell's supermarket in the Grant-Ferry Plaza. "Oh, for cripes sakes," Brian grumbles. He tracks through the ...

One of the unsung giants of power pop. May 30, 1980 "How come I never heard of this guy before? He's great!" some fellow yells Thursday night during the odd moment when he isn't bobbing enthusiastically to the Greg Kihn Band. Kihn is a knockout. He also happens to be one of the best-kept secrets in rock 'n roll. Kihn is the star of the offbeat roster of tiny Beserkley Records in Berkeley, Calif. Since their debut on "Beserkley Chartbusters, Vol. 1" in 1975, Kihn and his three bandmates have gone on to put out five albums, becoming a major Bay Area club band along the way. The albums were knockouts too – ahead of their time in simplicity and pop energy – but they kept coinciding with disastrous Beserkley distribution deals. Kihn never got the big push. Kihn and his group show their prowess as a club band in Uncle Sam's in Cheektowaga, turning about 600 of the curious into believers. They're all good times and high energy, blasting out tunes from...

Superstars starting to show signs of wear and tear. May 20, 1980 Fans Forgive Flubs As Fleetwood Mac Pours on Romance The spotlight picks Christine McVie's blond head out of the darkness and 14,000 voices cheer wildly in Memorial Auditorium Monday night as Fleetwood Mac begins the show with one of McVie's best romantic visions, "Say You Love Me." It's a fine night for romance. Look at all those couples in this home-from-college crowd. Fleetwood Mac is playing their songs – songs that have been part and parcel of young love for the past five years. These same five years have seen the couples within Fleetwood Mac go their own way, to paraphrase one of their songs, but their collective partnership holds fast. At the close of the night, they’re actually hugging each other in congratulation. The concert succeeds on the strength of that feeling. McVie melts the heart with her clear soprano and her comforting sentiments. Then Stevie Nicks brings fantasies to a boil i...

Bob Dylan at the height of his born-again Christian phase. May 1, 1980 The Gospel According to Bob Dylan Verily, Bob Dylan entered unto Kleinhans Music Hall Wednesday night with his traveling gospel show and the crowd therein rendered unto him tidings that Christian missionaries have been greeted with for generations, yea, unto two millennia. At nightfall this evening, he comes again to Kleinhans. After the townspeople, 2,000 or more, claimed their places, he sent forth one ebony maiden clad in red spangles and close-fitting jeans and she did recite the parable of Jesus and the woman without a train ticket. And the people did marvel. Truly, the faithless soon grew restive in their $12.50 and $15 seats and they shouted and clapped and they made their exit to the restrooms, where they blew vainly on harmonicas, or descended unto the basement lounge, where they were suffered to stand four-deep at the bar while the jukebox emitted Jackson Browne. But the true believers held fast and th...