VIA Festival releases lineup, sort of
VIA has been building up a massive festival tease all year. One monthly VIA Presents show after another has formed a steamroll of anticipation for what kind of stops they’re going to pull for festival number two. Yesterday, they finally released some sort of pressure valve release, although, it kind of just preps you for…
Mp3 Tuesday: Slingshot Genius
Howdy! This week’s MP3 comes from Slingshot Genius. The band’s led by Scott Canavan, and plays pretty straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. The song they’ve offered up is called Blur. Download it and listen! Happy Tuesday!
Show review: Big Freedia at Shadow Lounge
Big Freedia, The Queen Diva, came to town Thursday, June 2, and had Pittsburgh striking a major jealous chord with the LGBT communities of other cities as she played an unofficial kick-off show to Pittsburgh Pride Week. VIA couldn’t have planned her return more perfectly. It was hip-hop for the masses that breaks with the…
Bike-sharing advocates peddle their vision in Market Square
The wheels are in motion. Conversations about bringing a bike-sharing system to Pittsburgh officially began today, and a presentation by a Wisconsin-based company operating bike shares earned support from local officials. But it’s still uncertain when, or if, Pittsburghers will take part in the increasingly popular transportation program. Representatives of B-cycle, which conducted a bike-sharing…
Get ready for some REAL influence peddling, Pennsylvania
What does the news that ExxonMobil has bought two more Marcellus shale drillers mean for Pennsylvania? For environmentalists, it’s yet another sign that the heavies are taking an increasing interest in the state’s gas desposits. And that means that when citizens seek to protect water supplies, for example … these companies are poised to blow…
Q: Are we not giving away tickets to see Devo?
As promised, here it is: your chance to win tickets to see Devo next Friday, June 17, at Stage AE. Your mission: answer the following question in our comments section. Be sure to either use your regular email address to register your username on the site, or else include your email address in the comment,…
Play Unplugged and LEGO Fest
“Kids need to play together. It breaks down a lot of barriers,” says Enrico Nardini. Nardini is founder and editor of www.PlayUnplugged.com, a locally based website and blog that promotes board games, table-top games, role playing games, any game that doesn’t need a plug or battery. For Nardini, the movement away from traditional group play…
Critics’ Picks
Local shows from The Black Swans, Jooklo Duo, Cults, Guards and Kellee Maize
CD Reviews
New releases from Pete Bush & Hoi Polloi, The Bastard Bearded Irishmen, The Pump Fakes
An artist offers a memorial in sound for casualties of the Iraq war.
Pearl calls it “a sound ecosystem.”
King Hedley II
Eileen J. Morris directs a tightly knit cast whose chemistry bubbles up and flows into the audience.
God of Carnage
It may be a skit stretched to play length, but those 70 minutes fly by.
A Pittsburgh native writes about his family’s ghost story.
“A story like that, for a reporter, is unacceptable.”
Veteran poet and indie publisher Don Wentworth releases his first book.
“It’s unpretentious work in a medium that [can often seem] pretentious.”
On The Record with state Rep. Dan Frankel
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act currently doesn’t protect the LGBT community from discrimination. To change that, state Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Squirrel Hill) recently re-introduced legislation, House Bill 300, to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. This isn’t the first time you’ve introduced this bill. What’s held it back? A pro-life…
Leaving her ‘Legacy’
“I’m glad people are coming to us who are HIV-positive. I am not happy that there are new HIV positives all of the time.”
Keeping Faith: LGBT community searching for church inclusiveness
“Although there are still very many conservative churches that say they are welcoming, the welcome ends when you come in the door to worship.”
California four-piece Dawes does it ’70s-style
“We say, ‘Let’s be brave and stand behind the material, without any frills for us to lean on.'”
The Slow Reel brings the sounds of the South to Pittsburgh
The country-rock five-piece has the hallmarks of a classic band, and little of the sheen of an indie-darling outfit.
Technique to Go
A student-run, fast-food operation selling sandwiches, pizza, salads and soup opens Downtown
Go East, Young Man
East Liberty’s Spoon attracts mixologists
Savage Love
I’m a 22-year-old FTM. I will become a legal male this summer. WOOT. Useless hole but still no pole. My friends — all straight — don’t know I’m FTM because I don’t feel it matters. I don’t know any other FTMs, and I really don’t care to. However, I like men. I have never had…
Target in the Crosshairs
Lots of us were disappointed when the Rapture failed to take place May 21 — both the Christians who predicted they’d be spirited up to Heaven, and those of us who’d be glad to see them go. Just think: Had God held up His end, we wouldn’t be facing a gay-bashing Rick Santorum presidential candidacy…
Living Room Chamber Music Project brings classical tunes into local homes
“Sometimes audiences don’t realize how important they are to the performance. We invite them into the music.”
Weekend extras
Hey! It’s Thursday afternoon, and that means it’s almost the weekend, and that means it’s time for me to mention a few shows that are happening that we weren’t able to get into the paper, because, y’know, paper is finite. Tomorrow (Friday) at noon, Pete Bush and the Hoi Polloi play the Arts Festival –…
Free agent: P-G sports scribe moves across town
After 26 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, high-profile sportswriter and former Pirates beat writer Dejan Kovacevic is leaving to become a sports columnist at the Tribune-Review. The reason? The Trib promised him a long-coveted job as columnist. “I’ve worked pretty much every position this job has to offer over the years from copy editor to…
PA voters may not have heard the last of Dan Onorato
In the wake of last November’s gubernatorial election, when Tom Corbett steamrolled Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato by a 9-point margin, a lot of folks were willing to write Onorato’s political epitaph. That Onorato would lose Pennsylvania was no surprise … but he even lost Allegheny County itself — a circumstance that had Republicans chortling. …
Gerontocracy
In Pittsburgh, old is as old votes.
Short List: Week of June 9 – 16
The 10-day annual LGBT festival Pride is in full bloom, and there’s plenty to keep every color of the rainbow busy. The week’s highlights include the TransPride Celebration at Cattivo, in Lawrenceville, and a seminar, “What are you rights as a buyer or seller in the LGBT community?” at Regent Square’s Square Café, both on…
Midnight in Paris
Woody Allen’s new comedy, Midnight in Paris, is a charming bit of romantic piffle. Not romance as in relationship, but the wistful, sentimental and fanciful thinking that plagues its protagonist, Gil (Owen Wilson). Gil is a successful Hollywood hack, but he suffers from “Golden Age thinking” and longs to be a real writer, working in…
Incendies
Beginning with a will reading in Canada, before moving to an unnamed war-torn Middle Eastern country, Denis Villeneuve’s drama jumps around in place and time, offering viewers scattered jigsaw pieces that will indeed snap into a whole. In it, two grown children journey to their recently deceased mother’s homeland to uncover lost family members and…
Echo
Two well-credentialed chefs have come together to create a superlative dining experience in a surprisingly sophisticated location.
Three Rivers Film Festival Juried Visual Art Exhibit
TRAF jurors did a nice job choosing work for the return of the JVAE, a festival hallmark that went missing last year. The jurors are Jason Busch, from the Carnegie Museum of Art; Kate Lydon, from the Society for Contemporary Craft; and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust curator Murray Horne, best known for his work at Wood…
