"Ted," Bad Landlords, and Two Nights of Buffalo Bands at Mohawk Place
The most Buffalo song of the summer might be a complaint about your landlord set to an island-y acoustic guitar. That's Amateur Hockey Club's "Ted" — a single that surfaced this summer from the Buffalo band, described as a song about landlord neglect riding a bright, tropical-leaning acoustic lilt. Renters' rage in a beach shirt. If you've ever emailed a property manager three times about a dead furnace in a Buffalo February, the concept alone earns a stream.
A few honest caveats, because that's the deal here: "Ted" is a single, not an EP or LP, and I don't have a confirmed release date to hang it on. What I do have is a lead worth following and a band worth watching — which, in a scene like ours, is most of the point.
Because the real story this week isn't one song; it's the pipeline that produces songs like it. Look no further than Mohawk Place, the grungy downtown club that's still the first real stage a Buffalo band gets to stand on, covers hovering around ten bucks. This past weekend it ran two straight nights of stacked local bills — the kind of programming that never trends but quietly builds a scene.
Friday, August 7, brought Anxious Cricket, Paper Tigers, Cowboy Vampires and The Nigh — four acts, ten dollars, doors at 7 and music at 8. Saturday, August 8, kept it rolling with Justsam, Skyway, Mother Nature's Son and Milo Duhn, same $10, same 7-doors/8-show rhythm. Eight bands in a weekend for the price of one arena beer. That math is the whole argument for caring about a room like this.
This is where "Ted" lives, spiritually — down at the club level, where a Buffalo band can put out a wry little single about a negligent landlord and then go play it four feet from a crowd that has lived that exact grievance. The touring giants get the gorge and the waterfront; the small rooms get the songs that are actually about here. Amateur Hockey Club writing about a slumlord over a tropical guitar is Buffalo self-portraiture, and Mohawk Place stacking eight local acts across a weekend is the frame around it.
So do the two things that keep this alive: chase down "Ted" on the band's own channels, and put ten dollars down on the next Mohawk bill you see. The headliners will be fine without you. The scene that made "Ted" won't.
Bad landlord, good song. Only in Buffalo.
Sources: buffaBLOG; Mohawk Place Events