A3C Hip Hop Festival Recap
Soon after landing in Atlanta, it was evident that the weekend ahead would be one of great personal progression. I made the journey to attend the A3C Hip-Hop Festival, a three-day series of performances and panel discussions all held at The Masquerade, a large complex located minutes from downtown that featured several indoor and outdoor…
Obama Pittsburgh visit gets cool reception from environmentalists
Nikki Luke remembers what it meant to support to Barack Obama in 2008. The 19-year-old University of Pittsburgh student interned for him in Southern Virginia, knocking on doors, working on get-out-the-vote campaigns and making phone calls. “I believed him when he said we’d be the generation that frees the country from the tyranny of big…
VIA wrap-up
A waxing gibbous moon began rising over East Liberty to the ethereal echo of Ford & Lopatin bouncing around the concrete outer-shells lining Broad Street for the final day of the VIA festival. The crowd was on the sparse side as people were still trickling in, bracing themselves for an event that wouldn’t end until…
MP3 Monday: Donora
Hey! Howdy! Good day! It’s Monday, and FFW>> die-hards know that means a visit from the MP3 fairy. This week’s track comes from the local band Donora. A few weeks ago, we told you about their latest, Boyfriends, Girlfriends. It’s available everywhere now (like on iTunes); check out the track “The Untouchables,” which you can…
Tar Sands Pipeline Protest Planned for Obama Visit; Bill McKibben Speaks Here
Soon after his arrest at the White House to protest the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, writer and activist Bill McKibben came to Pittsburgh to raise the climate-change alarm over the tar-sands oil the pipeline would improve access to. But some Pitt students were ahead of him. The three students — who were also among the…
VIA day two wrap-up
Day two of VIA was set up Friday on Broad Street in East Liberty, a place lined with empty buildings and infinite potential. Video screens flickered inside of multiple buildings while the main performance area was filled with festival-goers and lit up with the constant presence of quality video art. The early evening began with…
VIA first day wrap-up
The VIA festival kicked off with a heady bang last night at the Rex Theater on the South Side. The inside was packed to capacity while the outside bustled with staunch music lovers taking quick smoke breaks. The entire atmosphere was thick with excited anticipation. Hailing from London, Walls opened up the evening accompanied by…
Zombie protest means Columbus Day controversy — again
The depiction of Christopher Columbus that most of us are familiar with usually goes something like this: The heroic Italian explorer discovered the “new world” by mistake in 1492, while seeking a trade route to India. But there’s another version of the event that a group of activists want to make sure doesn’t get forgotten:…
Art Students Mark 10th Year of Afghan War
Today’s the tenth anniversary of America’s war in Afghanistan, and if you don’t think that fact is getting enough attention, join Susanne Slavick. The Carnegie Mellon University art professor says she listened to NPR this morning and didn’t hear a word about the war that’s taken an estimated 1,670 U.S. military lives and well over…
Occupy Pittsburgh takes another step
First things first: The second “General Assembly” to plan the Oct. 15 Occupy Pittsburgh event is taking place Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., in Oakland’s Schenley Plaza. Plans for the event itself will be discussed and voted on — and now’s as good a time as any to check your level of commitment. Kickoff for…
LGBT advocates seek Casey’s support on marriage bill
In the fight for marriage equality, advocates are calling for support from Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey. The Freedom to Marry, Courage Campaign and Equality Pennsylvania are calling on Casey to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act. That legislation seeks to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex…
News flash: There is at least ONE gas-drilling plan a county exec candidate dislikes
Unless the county is guaranteed at least 50 percent of the revenues from future natural gas drilling at Pittsburgh International Airport, Rich Fitzgerald says he’d be “reluctant” to allow anyone to drill there. Fitzgerald, the Democratic candidate for Allegheny County Executive, made the comments during a Wednesday rollout of his plans for the airport if…
Short List: Week of October 6 – 13
Thu., Oct. 6 — Free Stuff You’ve got 10 more days of RADical Days, the annual festival of free admissions to cultural attractions courtesy of the Allegheny Regional Asset District. Highlights include no-money-down ins at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium (Sat., Oct. 9); tours at Heinz Field (Oct. 11); admissions to the National Aviary…
GoPretzel
Rob and Genalle Day know a thing about offering treats Downtown that are a little different. The couple owns Sweetlix Yogurt and Pittsburgh Popcorn Company, known for such unusual flavors as buffalo wing and thin mint. GoPretzel is the Days’ latest culinary venture. The storefront shop, on Liberty Avenue, opened in early September, and offers…
In a Pickle
All in all, there isn’t anything about Sonny’s Tavern that would call out to the uninitiated. The bar is on a quiet corner of a side street in Bloomfield. There are a few neon lights in the windows and a simple sign, but nothing that screams, “Drink here!” It’s a neighborhood bar, patronized mostly by…
Tana Ethiopian Cuisine
Back in East Liberty’s first heyday, when international cuisine meant either Italian or Chinese, Tana’s sweet little terracotta storefront housed Charlie Ung’s Tea House. We didn’t arrive on the scene in time to patronize it, but in hindsight, Charlie Ung’s seemed to capture the flavor of the era in which it flourished. Similarly, the restaurant’s…
Skating Party: NHL kicks off season on the rocks before heading to the ice
Every year before the NHL season begins, its top players are flown to New York City to participate in a whirlwind press junket, which kicks off with a high-end cocktail party. This year I was fortunate enough to be invited, although it was odd having to comb my hair and dress up for a hockey…
Arresting an Old Woman for Booking Numbers
A poem by Jimmy Cvetic
Savage Love
I am an 18-year-old straight male. I have a hodgepodge of birth defects that affect my genitalia: severe hypospadias (my urethra — my piss slit — is at the base of my penis), micropenis (less than two inches), and anorchia (I was born without testes). I have never been naked around anyone else. I don’t…
Council unanimously backs police accountability bill
It took 568 days, numerous amendments and many heated debates, but city council finally gave its unanimous preliminary approval today to a controversial bill intended to increase police transparency and accountability. “It was a fascinating journey,” Tim Stevens, chair of the Black Political Empowerment Project, told council just minutes before the 9-0 vote in favor…
Surgical Strike: Onerous abortion bill could force providers to close
Of the dozen or so abortion-related bills pending in the state, Senate Bill 732 is the most likely to cause some service-providers to shut their doors. Unfortunately for family-planning advocates, it’s also among the bills most likely to pass. Proposed by Sen. Patricia Vance (R-Cumberland), the bill would subject providers to the same fire, personnel…
Chief Concerns: Accountability issues strain Harper’s bond with black community
It’s not that Ayodeji Young lacks sympathy for Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper. “I never knock Nate Harper for the shit he goes through,” Young told City Paper Sept. 14. Young, who works as a community-outreach coordinator at the Homewood-Brushton YMCA, says, “Nobody knows what it’s like to be a black police chief in a…
Critics’ Picks: October 8 – 12
Local shows by mr. Gnome, Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout, Helmet, Motion City Soundtrack and Emperor X.
On the Record with Rob Mazurek
Cornetist/composer/improviser Rob Mazurek plays with numerous groups of various sizes and styles in Chicago. His band Starlicker includes vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and drummer John Herndon (also of Tortoise). Mazurek answered questions about his music philosophy via email. In the liner notes to Starlicker’s Double Demon, you say, “I feel like I’ve been looking for this…
Love You Becky Thatcher puts local bands on tape
Mark Sepe isn’t quite sure why he chose Tom Sawyer’s girlfriend as the namesake of his new cassette label, Love You Becky Thatcher Recordings. But in light of the label’s debut release, a compilation called Ride Me There: 20 Bands of Pittsburgh, Becky Thatcher is the serendipitously perfect patron saint for such a serendipitously sweet…
VIA Breakdown
Wed., Oct. 5 The kickoff party at Brillobox, in Bloomfield, features emerging talent with the R&B-tinged, bass-heavy Chicago footwork of Brenmar. Also rocking the decks and the screen with an A/V set will be hometown producing duo and VIA alum Pure Hype. The cerebrally robotic three-piece outfit Trans Am will be performing its seminal album…
Bring the Beats Back
With any urban culture there is blurring and blending in the arts — a certain sense that the rigidity of genres isn’t quite what we think it is. Though Pittsburgh’s musical landscape is small in numbers, it manages to thrive and cross-pollinate. Scene kids cross paths on their way to shows at Brillobox or Shadow…
The Dead
Now the developing world has a problem once only seen in the first world: zombies. Brothers Howard and Jonathan Ford’s horror film is set in an unnamed West African country overrun with the undead. The lightly plotted film follows two survivors — an American engineer and an African soldier — as they hazard a long…
Amigo
It’s 1900, and a small village in the Philippines is beset with conflict: The colonial Spaniards are leaving but American soldiers are pouring in, all while some villagers head to the jungle to become revolutionaries. At the center is Rafael (Joel Torre), the village leader who struggles to hold the community together, even after the…
Film Kitchen
Rats are represented by “Rat Stories,” an engaging 28-minute essay by University of Toledo instructor Holly Hey, who says she wanted “to take on a subject that made me really uncomfortable.” The video — a version of which has screened on PBS affiliates nationally — is built around the time Hey and her partner trapped…
Real Steel
When Hollywood combines a broke boxer, an orphaned kid and a rusty robot, you just know everything is going to work out OK! For everybody! Except the bad guys, of course. Real Steel, directed by Shawn Levy, is set in the near future, where everything is the same except cell phones are see-through and America…
The Ides of March
The political melodrama The Ides of March unspools one of the genre’s basic storylines: Idealistic young man has scales painfully ripped from his eyes, adapts by joining everybody else on the low road. George Clooney’s film offers some satisfying riffs on this age-old transformation, and a top-notch cast. But like so many candidates, it promises…
Punk icon and writer Henry Rollins turns photojournalist with a new book.
The ripped-and-tattooed Henry Rollins, now 50, rose to fame singing with Black Flag. He’s since fronted Rollins Band, released numerous spoken-word albums, done comedy, been a VH1 talking head and acted some. (He played a neo-Nazi on the FX series Sons of Anarchy.) He also travels — not to Cancun and the south of France,…
Last of the Line
Samm-Art Williams is a Tony-nominated writer for his 1980 play (and personal favorite of mine) Home. The August Wilson Center for African American Culture’s theater initiative, after a bumpy beginning, seems to be moving toward surer ground; it’s created an ensemble company and brought in Pittsburgh theatrical genius Mark Clayton Southers to oversee it. So…
Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods
The bottom line is this: Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods, by Tammy Ryan, is a very wholesome idea. If you see this Pittsburgh premiere, on stage now at the Playhouse REP, you will learn a lot about the Lost Boys of Sudan. You will start to understand the horrors of their journey, the miracle…
The Moth StorySLAM hits Pittsburgh. Plus: Small Press Festival, cybersecurity author Misha Glenny.
If you have a five-minute story on the theme of “Neighborhood,” and a burning desire to tell it, you’re in luck. Starting Tue., Oct. 11, the nationally acclaimed storytelling series The Moth brings its StorySLAM to Pittsburgh. It works like this: Prepare your story, show up at Club Café, and drop your name in a…
The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts’ leg of the Pittsburgh Biennial offers art evoking a chaotic world.
With big group shows, it’s tempting to find overarching themes among works mostly created by disparate artists working alone. Still, you wonder whether Pittsburgh Center for the Arts curator Adam Welch saw a sign of the times in Dennis Maher’s “Planisphere.” It’s a room-sized assemblage of demolition debris: bedposts, corrugated fiberglass sheeting, tarpaper, electrical cable…
Starlicker: Expanded interview
Starlicker plays the Warhol Museum on Saturday, Oct. 8. Our intrepid Mike Shanley caught up with Starlicker’s Rob Mazurek via e-mail; we printed a short version in today’s paper, but if you’re dying for more, here it is: You’ve played in both large bands like Exploding Star Orchestra to duos like Chicago Underground Duo.…
