Signal To Noise
Fog machines and strobes, lasers and lights: This stuff was tired when Blue Oyster Cult did it. But that didn’t stop Secret Machines from landing their pulsating mothership at Mr. Small’s on Sunday. Those able to tear themselves from the Steelers game were treated to nearly two hours of the Machines’ psychedelic thunder and lightning,…
Back in the Saddle
Urban Cowboy: Jason Sauer, at Moxie DaDa, is a one-man show that attempts to, well, “mix” the biography of the local artist with the myth of silent-era movie cowboy Tom Mix.
The VICE Guide to Travel
“Been there, done that” gives one a rosy feeling of magnanimous satisfaction. But after viewing The VICE Guide to Travel, you’ll feel better saying “Beirut? Never heard of ‘im.” This new DVD’s seven mini-documentaries and hefty volume offer sneak peeks at the worst places ever. Call it National Geographic for shorter attention spans, amoral curiosities…
Who the hell does this Sienna Miller skank think she is?
I was in San Francisco when this “story” broke, and I have some words of consolation for the heartbroken. I didn’t hear a word about this until I got back home. Why? Because while the story got a bit of national press, no one cares what Sienna Miller thinks about anything. Except us, of course.…
Bill Cowher Keeps His Chin Up
Steelers coach Bill Cowher is once again striking his best Patton-esque pose this season: rough and gruff … yet beloved by his players. Probably that’s precisely because Cowher balances his toughness with a willingness to take the punches for them, right on that prominent chin. I began to appreciate how directly Cowher addresses mistakes after…
Mellon: An American Life
A biographer explores one of the most powerful — and enigmatic — public figures in Pittsburgh history.
Smoke Gets in His Aye
I’m trying to get into Dan Onorato’s head. I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on up there. I enjoyed getting to know Dan when he was but a mere city councilor. I argued with him about putting cameras on East Ohio Street. I said it was Orwellian. He said it would help reduce…
Basick Sickness
The 10 tracks on the new Basick Sickness CD display a manic musical eclecticism: from horn-driven funky beats to raunchy rap rock.
This Just In
A Pittsburgh news anchor takes a trip to San Diego … Getting to “know” the two tiger cubs at the Pittsburgh Zoo … Grieving over the third straight Steelers loss
Two Ton Boa
What’s better than a great bass line? Why, two of course. That dual rumbling bottom end forms the basis (no pun intended) of Two Ton Boa’s heavy-duty underground rock. On the debut, Parasiticide, those bass lines are fleshed out with raw throbbing drums, keys, chord organ, banjolele … and nary a guitar. Think Morphine combined…
Hoffstot’s Café Monaco
French may be the language of love, but Italian is the flavor of Pittsburgh’s favorite cuisine.
Tortured Logic
In the summer of 1966, the U.S. Navy was short of living spaces for personnel in its port support facility at Danang, Vietnam, which was then under construction. But it had many troop transport ships in the 7th Fleet, cruising the western Pacific or anchored in Danang harbor. Greenfield native Marty O’Malley — then a…
Planning Not to Be Planned Out of East Liberty’s Future
Before big developers can come any further into East Liberty, residents want to try to influence the process.
Infamous
In a drama based on the life of a famous liar, how much should we believe about what the filmmaker tells us?
Duty to Tour Against War after Tour of Duty, Say Vets
[image-1 When Toby Hartbarger was an Army Specialist in Iraq, he says he went on patrol looking for bombs, manned checkpoints and conducted raids in Baghdad and other cities for 15 months ending in August 2004. The Muncie, Ind., resident observed the conditions of the Iraqi people he fought among while “looking at who was…
The Departed
Infernal Affairs, the 2002 Hong Kong film that serves as the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, is one of my favorite sorts of films — a dense crime thriller that demands your attention, but rewards your brainwork with a gut-punch of a final reel. This adaptation stays true to the intertwined-cops-and-criminals plot — it…
Finally: Up the Up Staircase
More than three years ago, disabled public-housing tenants filed a lawsuit against the city housing authority for failing to accommodate them. Now, finally, the city has agreed to change its rules. In the first week of October, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh reached an agreement with the plaintiffs to retrofit city-run apartments…
Litbriefs
“To me writing takes as much destructive energy as it takes to be a really good professional drunk,” fiction author Dan Chaon told The Believer in a recent interview. “It’s like going on an all-night bender and then waking up and thinking, ‘You know, I think I’ll do that again,’ and pouring yourself another drink.”…
Employee of the Month
An underdog comedy this lame is sure to deliver the expected conclusion. (Capsule review.)
Kid Congo Powers
Kid Congo Powers has bailed on more cool bands than most guitarists have a prayer of joining. At 21, he left the Gun Club for the Cramps, then quit the Cramps to rejoin, establishing an off-and-on pattern with the Gun Club that persisted until the death of longtime friend and head deviant Jeffrey Lee Pierce.…
Dust & Feathers
Is improvised music, by definition, possible to compose? If you’re Gino Robair, San Francisco percussionist, journalist and composer extraordinaire — yes. A member of Bay Area improvisors Splatter Trio and proprietor of the challenging Rastascan Records label, Robair has devised I, Norton, a work he calls his “guerilla anti-opera,” dedicated to the life and writings…
In Our Court
In the last days of August, the Pittsburgh Organizing Group — the radical collective behind local anti-war and anti-military recruiting protests — discovered that its entire $1,140 bank account was gone. The account was in the name of POG member Brian DiPippa, and the ATM card and PIN number had been stolen from his Bloomfield…
Oedipus the King
This is a relentless, aggressive and loud version of a relentless, aggressive and loud play
The Rover
Aphra Behn’s place in history is that she was the first woman to have made her career as a writer. The gal wrote a ton of stuff, but the only thing you know her by, if you know her at all, is her 1702 Restoration comedy The Rover. It says something that this Point Park…
The Nocturnal Wanderer
If there was ever a play I wanted to like, it’s the University of Pittsburgh production of Gao Xingjian’s The Nocturnal Wanderer. A Chinese writer persecuted by the Communist government, Xingjian fled to Paris after he wrote a play about Tiananmen Square; in 2000, he won the Nobel for literature. It is, however, doubtful he…
