Daryl Hall
Daryl Franklin Hohl was born on October 11, 1946, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, but his Upstate New York connection runs deep. As Daryl Hall — one half of Hall & Oates, the best-selling musical duo in American history — he chose the Hudson Valley hamlet of Pawling, New York, as the home for both his celebrated […]
Snapcase
Before Buffalo was known for indie rock breakouts and jam bands, the city’s underground was seething with hardcore punk energy. Few bands channeled that fury more effectively than Snapcase, whose fusion of heavy rhythms, intricate guitar work, and politically charged lyrics made them cornerstones of the 1990s hardcore scene. West Seneca Beginnings The band originated […]
Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev emerged from the University at Buffalo in 1989 as something between a student film project and a sonic experiment. Co-founded by Jonathan Donahue, Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak, David Baker, Dave Fridmann, Suzanne Thorpe, and Jimy Chambers, the band drew inspiration from drone-music pioneer Tony Conrad, who was teaching at UB at the time. What […]
Blotto
Before there was MTV, before there was alternative rock, before Albany had any claim to a national music identity, there was Blotto. The new wave comedy-rock band that emerged from the University at Albany in the late 1970s became one of the Capital Region’s most unlikely success stories — and one of the first music […]
Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot emerged from Syracuse University in 2006 as one of the most distinctive indie rock bands of their generation — a group that fused soaring strings, urgent vocals, and infectious melodies into a sound that put Syracuse on the national indie map. Their story is one of creative ambition, devastating loss, and a […]
Joywave
Joywave is Rochester’s most successful musical export of the 2010s — a synth-rock band that turned the Flower City’s post-industrial grit into a launching pad for a sound that splits the difference between new wave, electropop, and art-rock. Led by vocalist Daniel Armbruster, the band has spent over a decade proving that a world-class act […]
Robby Takac
Robby Takac is best known as the co-founder and bassist of the Goo Goo Dolls, one of the most successful rock bands to emerge from any American city in the 1990s. But in Buffalo, his legacy extends far beyond “Iris” and multi-platinum album sales. Takac has spent decades reinvesting in the city that raised him […]
Levon Helm
Levon Helm was the heartbeat of The Band and, in his final years, the soul of Woodstock itself. Born Mark Lavon Helm on May 26, 1940, in Elaine, Arkansas, he grew up in the cotton country of the Mississippi Delta — a landscape that imprinted itself on every beat he ever played. He graduated from […]
Van Morrison
Van Morrison’s Woodstock period is one of the most creatively fertile stretches in modern music. The Belfast-born singer-songwriter settled in Woodstock, New York, around 1969, joining the constellation of artists drawn to the Catskills by Albert Grossman’s gravitational pull. What Morrison produced during his years in Upstate New York — including the album many consider […]
John Sebastian
John Sebastian is a founding architect of American folk-rock, a Woodstock legend in both the literal and figurative sense, and a songwriter whose catalog defined a generation. Born on March 17, 1944, in New York City’s Greenwich Village, Sebastian grew up surrounded by folk music royalty — his father was a classical harmonica virtuoso, and […]