It was my first-ever trip to The Thirsty Turtle in Victor to dig some ska band called Some Ska Band, led by the stingy-brimmed man of the saxophone and poison pen, Charles Benoit. The place was packed and pleasant as the band rocked steady at a comfortable gallop and volume. More than a few in the happy-hour crowd left as new ska fans. How cool. How rude?

I've been watching Break of Reality grow from metal-inspired coffee-shop upstarts to a chamber quartet powerhouse that filled Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre Friday night with a noisily enthusiastic crowd. The group's talent is rivaled only by its humility and the no-frills kick in the ass it gives nu-classical music. The sound was mighty big and the drums were a bit muddy (I preferred when the drummer worked the hand drum as opposed to the full kit), but overall it was majestic.

Walked over to Montage Music Hall after that to dig a multi-band punk bill. Trophy Lungs was delivering the blast-furnace three-chord joy as we made it through the door. The guitarist had obviously mastered the dead-string bar-chord octave slash, because that's pretty much all he did. No matter, it still sounded cool. The Off-Season followed and spent a good amount of the show airborne; the kids gave it right back. That's how you wind up with a good show, jack.

Saturday I caught the air-tight slapstick ska (that's right, more ska) of 5 Head on the Record archive stage. The sound was magnificent, with the band's charge-up-San-Juan-Hill horn section over the skittery bop of the rest of the band. Made me wanna jump, jump like a mack daddy.