Bio

(download press photos here)

Daring independent songwriter Rob Falgiano explores light and shade with intimate, playful,  blunt lyrics about the human experience – with joy, wonder, hope, anger, sarcasm, despair and love. Deep and shallow mingle, because that’s what most people are, not all one or the other. His music is mostly politely controversial, somehow somewhere between James Taylor and Jello Biafra.

With a love of classic pop structure and fascination with the mysteries of sound, Rob unconsciously blends genres, incorporating jazz chord voicings with pop melody, rock, bossa nova, R&B low end, early country folk (then called “hillbilly!”), syncopation and other cryptic influences, plus ambient electronics and synth bass sounds from 1980s border-town independent American and Canadian college radio and the British alternative pop he loved growing up in border-town Buffalo, NY, USA, which is home. (There was a time before the corporatocracy that is surely retrievable.)

Stream 6+ hours of Rob’s songs on shuffle here.

In the comfortable sanctuary of a recording studio, every sound must feel true to join the whole. It’s a rule, even when leading to weeds and the unknown. Art as self-discovery while trying to entertain, stimulate, and hopefully, inspire inviduality and self-expression.

Some songs are about love, lust, and silly fun. Others are about the creator and the beauty of the natural world, or deep space, from which we likely come – and to which we likely return. Some are somehow metaphysical, physical, and spiritual simultaneously, like Prince and Ray Charles, who intuited that the sacred and divine weren’t so far apart, and could overlap.

(In a clear dream, Rob wrote half of a song with Prince which he remembered well enough upon waking to complete. It’ll be on his next record.)

Rob loves intangibles. Mood, atmosphere, and Does This Make Me Feel? Ideally a song displaces you in its mystique, though sometimes playfulness wins. Some songs are surface obvious, others kaleidoscopic.

Falgiano’s 10th full-length record of original songs is Back With The Dreamers. He’s released three EPs from 2023 to 2025, and written two related books on metaphysics and the possible nature of a creator/god between 2014 and 2023, including Life is Magic, Part One (2023). He hopes to complete the sequel, time and space willing.

Rob’s 11th full-length record of originals is on schedule for 2026 and called “Everything is Only the Beginning” or possibly “In Between the Earthquakes and the Falling Stars,” which would be too long a title.

Falgiano is also an independent, non-corporate concert promoter in Buffalo, booking major and lesser-known artists in his hometown for almost 30 years, including: Mark Knopfler, Diana Krall, Bonnie Raitt, The Jacksons (Jackson 5), Gregory Porter, Brian Wilson, Burton Cummings (The Guess Who), Ray Davies, Tedeschi Trucks Band, The Pixies, Jeff Beck, Nikki Glaser, David Byrne, Samantha Fish, Sufjan Stevens, Robin Thicke, Brian Culbertson, Anderson Rabin & Wakeman, Chris Cornell (two remarkable solo tours), Kool & The Gang, Joe Cocker, The Head and the Heart, Joe Jackson, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Rosanne Cash, Martha Ambrosius, John Hiatt, Leo Kottke, Monsieur Perine, Boney James, Petros Klampanis, Esperanza Spalding, Levon Helm, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Robert Glasper Experiment, Sarah Brightman, Dweezil Zappa, Buddy Guy, Feist, KD Lang, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, David Sedaris, Ray Charles (final tour!), Gregory Hines, Chick Corea, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Mythbusters, Lily Tomlin, Blues Traveler, Bright Eyes, Herbie Hancock, Tears for Fears, Straight No Chaser, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Jimmie Vaughan, Ian Anderson, Steve Vai, “Rain,” John Legend, Ne-Yo, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, “Experience Hendrix,” Ace Frehley, Trombone Shorty, Beth Hart, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, The Decemberists, Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, Will Downing, Pat Metheny Group, Randy Hauser, Alton Brown, Lewis Black, among hundreds of other events, at venues throughout Buffalo.

His favorite bookings have been the lesser-known boundary-expanders, like Klampanis and David Byrne, who blew up into legend in the years between when Rob booked him twice in the city. (Byrne absolutely puts on a great show. But the ticket prices are at Live Nation levels now.)

Musically, Falgiano Rob has worked with studio producer / engineer Mike Rorick since 2009. Rorick is a sonic genius who helps get artists’ songs to the finish line. They collaborate in a fluid way, in favor of the best, most interesting result, as only art which is honest resonates.

For the new record, talented mixing/mastering engineer Rich Ells and Mike Bridges have also created mixes at GCR Studios. The goal is a broad 19 or 20-song effort touching on almost every style with which Falgiano has experimented, plus new wrinkes and surprises.

Rob’s songs have been used as background music on some national TV shows, without wide acclaim, including: ‘Friday Night Lights’ (NBC), ‘Felicity’ (WB), ‘The Black Donnellys’ (NBC), ‘Everwood’ (CW-ABC Family), ‘Dude I Just Want My Pants Back’ (MTV), and ‘General Hospital’ (ABC).

Opening slots for a dozen national artists include: John Hiatt, Jakob Dylan, Nickel Creek, Ingrid Michaelson, Three Dog Night, Matthew Good, Goo Goo Dolls, The Pursuit of Happiness, Ron Hawkins, Deep Blue Something, Nellie McKay, and Chris Trapper, also Buffalo-born.

Rob has played more than 1500 shows in the northeast US & Southern Ontario, Canada in the last 30+ years, performing for tens of thousands of humans.

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DISCOGRAPHY:  ‘Super Sexy Xmas EP’ (2025) | Burning Sun EP’ (2024) | ‘In It EP’ (2023) with Plaster Sandals | ‘Back With The Dreamers’ (2020) |  ‘Little Vision’ (2017) | ‘Live @ Home: Acoustic Pink Floyd’ (2015) | ‘Nice Mouth’ (2013) | ‘All Star Heart’ (2010) | ‘Red’ (2005) | ‘Things I Used to Know’ (2003) | ‘The Contortionists Get Sweet For You’ (2001) with The Contortionists | ‘Down The Long Lonely’ (1997) | ‘Pop Revolution’ (1997) with Plaster Sandals | ‘Two Steps Left of Hip’ (1993) with Plaster Sandals | forthcoming: ‘Everything is only the Beginning’ (2026)