“DIY arena-rockers”
It sounds like Cheap Trick playing in your basement … if Robin Zander were, you know, a girl.
Displaced from Point State Park, the Three Rivers Arts Festival retools.
The festival is still mostly free. It’s also about as big — just laid out much differently.
A Fistful of Voters
Ballot Box-ing The mood at Patrick Dowd’s election-night party wasn’t just pleased. What people were feeling, beneath the high ceiling of the Church Brew Works, was something akin to redemption. Going into the May 15 primary, Dowd’s supporters knew the race for Pittsburgh City Council District 7 would be close. Dowd was taking on…
Three Rivers Arts Festival
American Humbug. “[J]ust as God gave us flesh, he gave us language for the primary purpose of manipulating our neighbors and concealing our true thoughts.” That’s P.T. Barnum, sharing his philosophy about fleecing willfully gullible patrons of his 19th-century museum, full of faked freaks and trumped-up wonders he calls “humbugs,” in this raucous new stage…
Ballot Box-ing
Elections are rarely exercises in civility, and this year’s Pittsburgh City Council races were no exception. Allegations of nasty, and in some cases illegal, behavior came in from several polling places — notably in the hotly contested council races for districts 3 and 7. In District 3, where challenger Bruce Kraus faced incumbent Jeff Koch,…
Pittsburgh n’@
From: http://www.aftertastebliss.com/ Why Are My Neighbors So Annoying? Or really, just the one neighbor. There is a lady who lives a few houses down from us that has a small poodle and a rather unattractive Siamese cat. … The first week that we had Chelsea, I became acquainted with her pretty quickly. Every time I…
Bloomfield legend Victor Navarro Jr. releases debut
Those who embrace outsider Americana will find new respect for this truly unique and seasoned yinzer.
Affrilachian Poets co-founder Frank X. Walker talks about his new cultural journal, Pluck!
“People say ‘Appalachia,’ they don’t think ‘jazz.'”
Underground noise rockers Ludlow release Vol. II
From the recording’s non-title to the fact that its four songs barely break a total of seven minutes, there’s an extreme lack of bullshit here.
Port Authority Cuts Shortsighted, Some Say
Area bus riders have known for months that service was going to be cut. But until May 21, the plan was available only as a broad, route-by-route outline. Some routes retain their weekday service, but weekend runs will be dropped. Those service reductions threaten to paralyze residents who depend on bus service seven days a…
This Just In: May 31 – June 6
Highlights from the local TV news.
Homophobic material nixed from Kennywood dive show
The offending scene depicted a crew member in need of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, until a crew member with a limp wrist and a lisp proclaims, “I’ll do it, sweetie.” After parent Mary Hawk and a group of friends complained, park officials scrapped the reference.
“No one here was sensitive enough to pick up on it,”…
FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father’s Code
Subtext is a good thing in a play, but it can’t be the only thing.
Sprout Fund’s big ideas turn into big proposals
Among the ideas: a citywide festival celebrating alternative transportation and a text-message-based system to enable cell-phone users to find nearby events, friends, restaurants or directions wherever they are in the city.
Bunny Bunny
There are enough laughs to go around and the expected, but comfortingly cathartic, three-hankie ending.
Going Through the Motions
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl may return to his office in a walk this fall, but if last week’s city council meeting was any indication, getting re-elected may be the easy part. Council members sharply questioned the mayor over contracts involving car-sharing and animal control.
“We control the purse strings,” Council President Doug Shields said. “I wonder…
East meets West, and spoken word yields to sound and movement, in a new dance performance.
Bodaji, an acclaimed dancer in the very structured technique of Bharatanatyam — an ancient dance form from the south of India — says she was captivated by Miller’s movement sense, and relished the idea of collaborating.
Area improvisers offer summer experimental music and video classes for the young
More people are asking the fundamental question: “How — and why — do you guys make those weird sounds?”
Knocked Up
Buried beneath the body-by-Budweiser, the farts and admittedly attractive nature of a self-indulged life are all the genre conventions of a chick flick.
A local architect’s new book tells how to work with members of his profession.
It’s all a very rational and measured explanation of what an architect might do for you, the potential homebuilder.
Mr. Brooks
This suggests we’re in for a very black comedy that will tweak our fascination with murder as entertainment. Wrong again.
No Time Like the Present
Wait a minute … I thought April was the cruelest month. But while the Pirates hung in for a respectable 12-12 start in April, they’ve been depressing in May. The players are trying. They’re just not good enough. But why is management so inept? Is it simple stupidity? Greed? We may never know, but we…
Gracie
Gracie is as familiar as a worn pair of cleats, but its heart and girl-power message is in the right place. (Capsule review.)
An August Occasion
We’re honoring August Wilson on May 30 with a landmark dedication ceremony outside his birthplace, at 1727 Bedford Ave. His résumé is long, his awards prominent, his successes outstanding, and his gifts unending. And oh yeah, he was born and raised in the Hill District. I remember talking to Wilson one day, and being struck…
Jake’s Beef & Bar-B-Que
The barbecued meats are cooked dry, with rubs, and the diner chooses from four regional sauces on each table: Virginia, Memphis, Kansas City and Texas.
Savage Love
This formerly frustrated wife, separated after eight years of marriage, is acting on the stuff I fantasized about while I was with my straitlaced husband. I’ve done the sex-friends thing and the sex-in-a-hotel-with-a-stranger-during-a-business-trip thing. But I have yet to do the one thing I’m most interested in: a threesome with two men. I have ads…
Black Tie Revue leaves home
“We could totally pull a Thriller and have like eight singles off this album,” Matt Hanzes jokes.
Race the Ghost performs at the Three Rivers Arts Festival
The band combines a DIY ethic — proudly using its own equipment to record — with a professionalism often lacking in the age of cheap audio software and the CD-R.
