Author: Burnt Sugar Arkestra

Well it’s On like “Bang A Gong”!  BSA & DJ Milk are returning to Nietzsche’s for Round Two!  The first time under the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center’s banner, with the blessings of Ed Cardoni, Steve Baczkowski and LeRoi Johnson, Rick James’ brother and back-in-the-day manager, BSA brought RJ & The Stone City Band’s swaggadocious music back to life : https://youtu.be/krFX3022cZ8.

For round two Cory Perla, the Music Editor at The Public, Buffalo’s free paper and website for those “in the know” has chosen BSA to “caramelize” the music of Prince and their newest release “All You Zombies Dig The Luminosity” with DJ Milk spinning & winning beforehand, in between and closing the night so even the BSA crew can get their “dance on”!

DJ Milk has been a part of the Buffalo music and video production scene for over a decade. Milk is not only a DJ he is a performer, a media personality and force within his community. He is notorious for bringing that special energy to a party when spinning or not. When not spinning at the hottest clubs, lounges and concerts in Buffalo, uou can catch him on television on WGRZ Channel 2’s segment Arts 2 Entertainment every Friday and Saturday giving a break down on the weeks hottest events in Buffalo. Milk’s most recent gig took him to St. Croix where he got to let his Soca vibe out. Milk is best known for his versatility, specializing in multiple genres of music which appeals to a wide range of audience. Whether rock, soul classics, hip-hop, pop, house, dancehall, reggae, reggaeton, soca or salsa. DJ Milk knows the songs that will make you dance!

Nietzsche’s is one of Buffalo’s truly legendary venues—not only because it is a linchpin in the local scene but because of its welcoming reputation among national and regional touring acts, and because of its history as the jumping-off point for many local musicians who have moved on to bigger things; Ani DiFranco is the most famous, but by no means the only of these.  Nietzsche’s is a fixture in Allentown.  The club’s owner, Joe Rubino, opened his doors nearly 25 years ago. He was a partner in a long-gone West Seneca club called Frodo’s but was looking for a new venture. His accountant, a high school friend, told him about a cavernous joint in Allentown that was up for sale. The rest is local music history!

The Public is Western New York’s true alternative media source, offering an honest and entertaining look at a fast-changing region and the whole spectrum of its culture—from politics to theater, books to visual arts, music to food and drink.

Burnt Sugar Arkestra Family … now You know!

Stefanie Batten-Bland is the Artistic Director of Company SBB.  Company SBB creates performances rooted in community. Past awards and honors include the 2016 Jerome Robbins Award, 2015 Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists Choice Award, 2014/15 Alvin Ailey Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab Fellow, 2014 Joffrey Ballet Choreographer of Color.

Stefanie Batten Bland’s Company SBB & BSA present PATIENT(CE), an interdisciplinary work inspired by father daughter conversations between Company SBB founder and controversial composer and film maker Ed Bland. This creation examines the structure of jazz with its formal emphasis on the eternal present. Through a collaboration with futuristic jazz ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber’s choreographic unit of Mikel Banks, Julie Brown, Chris Eddleton, V. Jeffrey Smith and Greg Tate and visual installation by Ms. Batten Bland and Alaric Hahn, PATIENT(CE) will examine the critical relationship that the musical, physical and visual arts have with space and time.

The School is a venue for special exhibitions as well as a home for the gallery’s collection. The architecture of the existing 1929 federal-revival elementary school lent itself to the vision of architect Antonio Jimenez Torrecillas. Torrecillas maximized the potential of the original structure through redesign features including a build out of the school’s gymnasium, creating a 5,000 square foot exhibition space with soaring 24-foot ceilings. A perimeter gallery rings the former gymnasium while classrooms on the second level function as more traditional exhibition spaces. In addition to the interior galleries, the property sits on five acres of land that will provide a temporary home for outdoor sculptural and site-specific installations.

Oh and just so you know … this “happening” is made possible with support from Mr. LeRoi C. Johnson (Rick James’s Brother, Manager & a noted painter) and through public funds from the Music program of the New York State Council on the Arts.

Here’s a bit of Leroi’s background:

From 1981 to 1992 LeRoi C. Johnson was the President & Vice-President of Mary Jane Productions, Inc.  During that time period LeRoi negotiated entertainment contracts for Rick James, The Mary Jane Girls, Val Young and Process and the Doo Rags with Motown, CBS and Warner Brothers; toured the United States and Europe extensively in venues ranging from 10,000 to 110,000 people and personally managed and represented Rick James, Stone City Band, The Mary Jane Girls, Val Young and Process and the Doo Rags who sold over twenty million records collectively.

Regarding those times LeRoi says … ” Everything that Rick did including his day-to-day activities and operations were managed by my company during this period.  So, in addition to being his brother and close friend, I was his manager.  Rick created the musical ideas and I made them work both financially and artistically.  Rick and I were a team. He was the leader, I was the manager, it’s that simple.”