Dale Anderson's Gusto stories

  These days it’s hard to fully appreciate what a phenomenon Mulligan’s on Hertel Avenue was when it was in full flower in 1977. To take its measure, Gusto needed two reporters and a cover story in three segments. Barbara Snyder did the serious work, setting the scene and providing the feminine point of view. As for me, I strolled in, ordered up a cocktail and made myself at home. Café Society   By Barbara Snyder             Mike Militello doesn’t manage his nightclub, he merchandises it, like a fine department store.           Armed with ideas from the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue , the galleries of the Museum of Modern Art and the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, Mike makes sure Mulligan’s Café and Fine Arts Emporium keeps step with the latest of “in” fashions.           And like the fashion industry he emulates, Mulligan’s creed is change, creativity, movement.           Mulligan’s doesn’t just drift into seasons, for example. It “presents” them.           “Mulligan’s

  One of the concerts that totally blew my impressionable young mind in the mid-1960s was the Blues Project at Floral Hall on the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds in Dunkirk. Little did I suspect at the time that there was a Buffalo connection. Oct. 21, 1977 Music as a Craft            Andy Kulberg, at age 21, was on the front line of a musical revolution. It was 1965 and he was bassist and flute player for the Blues Project, a New York City-based sextet that turned Greenwich Village from the folk revival to rock. Kulberg’s skipping-along instrumental “Flute Thing” brought the electric flute to rock ‘n roll.           Two years and three albums later, the group was broken up. After introducing thousands of musicians to the new magic, the members of the Blues Project went off to pursue separate visions of it. Some did well – keyboardman Al Kooper founded Blood, Sweat & Tears. And some just kept plugging – like drummer Roy Blumenfeld, who regularly visited the Belle Starr in C