Avi Buffalo making friends, influencing grown-ups
Kevin Bronson on
5
Three-quarters of Avi Buffalo (“or Avi Buffalo Music,” the barefooted 18-year-old frontman tells the crowd in a voice you’re not sure has hurdled puberty yet) is still in high school, but five minutes into the Long Beach band’s set you’ve forgotten that, at their age, proms and final exams ought to be bigger concerns than albums and record deals.
Buffalo, whose real name “is really long, with a hyphen,” he says, is a preternaturally gifted guitarist who crafts swoon-worthy folk-rock full of nooks and crannies, exposed nerves and shimmering soundscapes – think an incipient Neil Young, or a low-fi Mercury Rev, or a lovingly shambolic Wilco. Joined by bandmates Sheridan Riley and Rebecca Coleman (who also attend Millikan High) and Arin Fazio, Buffalo has a growing cadre of Eastside fans and, to no one’s surprise, some interest from record labels.
- ||| Download: Though Avi Buffalo has no formal recordings, they’ve done a session for the new website Groupee. Download “Remember Last Time” and “Where’s Your Dirty Mind,” or visit their Groupee page for videos and downloads.
“There’s nothing in concrete,” Buffalo says, adding about the business side: “That’s where things can get sticky.” And what’s the rush? Avi Buffalo Music are currently recording an album in the new home studio of Aaron Embry, the Amnion frontman who has played with the likes of Elliott Smith and Jane’s Addiction. Embry has also been standing in with the band live too. “He’s an intense guy, and definitely a teacher,” Buffalo says. “He’s not mentoring me like the people who taught me music, but he is teaching me things. He digs really deep into what he’s doing.”
Buffalo, who says he was raised on Paul Simon and the Beatles, took up guitar early and got serious about it after Joel Weinberg, a family friend, introduced him into the veteran-dominated lineup of a professional blues jam in Huntington Beach. “He took me under his wing and it showed me everything I would need to know about making music, and performing it,” Buffalo says. “It wasn’t necessarily the technical side of playing, but more the importance of dynamics.”
Even in the band’s embryonic state, they are dynamics that seem instinctual.
||| Live: Avi Buffalo plays the Echo on Thursday as part of the HEART label launch party, which also features the Movies, the Happy Hollows and Anni Rossi, among others.
||| Watch: There’s more at Groupee, but here’s the band performing “Coaxed” at Red Rockets Glare studio in Rancho Park:
[…] Buffalo, whose real name “is really long, with a hyphen,” he says, is a preternaturally gifted guitarist who crafts swoon-worthy folk-rock full of nooks and crannies, exposed nerves and shimmering soundscapes – think an incipient Neil Young, or a low-fi Mercury Rev, or a lovingly shambolic Wilco. Joined by bandmates Sheridan Riley and Rebecca Coleman (who also attend Millikan High) and Arin Fazio, Buffalo has a growing cadre of Eastside fans and, to no one’s surprise, some interest from record labels. – Buzz Bands […]
[…] Buffalo, whose real name “is really long, with a hyphen,” he says, is a preternaturally gifted guitarist who crafts swoon-worthy folk-rock full of nooks and crannies, exposed nerves and shimmering soundscapes – think an incipient Neil Young, or a low-fi Mercury Rev, or a lovingly shambolic Wilco. Joined by bandmates Sheridan Riley and Rebecca Coleman (who also attend Millikan High) and Arin Fazio, Buffalo has a growing cadre of Eastside fans and, to no one’s surprise, some interest from record labels. – Buzz Bands […]
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