Music fans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Monday, June 10, when the Syracuse Common Council unanimously approved legislation that allows Armory Square’s Sound Garden record store to stay in business. The drawn-out saga began in January but gained momentum with the public in April and May as customers caught wind that the store might close because of its failure to comply with a law aimed at preventing pawnshops from selling stolen goods.

Five years ago, Say Yes to Education came to Syracuse. A chance meeting between Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor and Say Yes president Mary Anne Schmidt Carey resulted in an offer that the Syracuse City School District could not refuse.

It's hard to imagine the Syracuse music scene without the Westcott Theater. Every week, the venue is pumped full of acts spanning legendary to local, hip-hop to folk to electronic.

Some pit-stops to check this summer by Margaret McComick The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que looms large over Syracuse. It perfumes the air with the enticing aroma of slow-cooked meat, fills it with the sound of soulful blues—and the thunder of Harley-Davidsons—and brings busloads of visitors downtown.

After all, it was a Sunday show on a bitter cold night in January in Moscow, Idaho. As soon as the 1995 baby blue GMC conversion van the band calls Pat Sajak (the first van was named Vanna White) pulled up behind the snow-covered venue, an older, clearly intoxicated brunette started banging on the window.

If a voice from upstate is heard at all in Albany, it is likely to be that of state Sen. David Valesky. . . unless you want to count Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, whose influence in the Capital, if it exists, has thus far been kept well out of public view.

Frank Malfitano, the founder and producer of the Syracuse M&T Jazz Fest, always manages to keep his lineups unpredictable.

“I like what we can be,” Boeheim said after Louisville handed the Orange its third consecutive loss on March 2 at the Carrier Dome. “We’ve lost to three ranked teams {Georgetown, Marquette and Louisville} and we haven’t played very good. We haven’t shot very well, and we could have won two of the three.