Those two "community-supported art" ventures are producing art, and one's still seeking subscribers. More in Program Notes.

Pittsburgh’s first two experiments with “community-supported art," launched in May, are off to a good start.

CSAs let subscribers buy a share in an art-subscription service, and in return receive a series of original artworks — or, in one case, admission to a series of new performances.

The concept is borrowed from community-supported agriculture, the trendy way to patronize local farmers. Folks in Minnesota pioneered art CSAs in 2010. The idea is to fund artists when they most need it — when they’re creating new work.

On June 7, CSA PGH held its first art pick-up, at The Andy Warhol Museum. Visual artworks by three local artists — a hand-lathed record album (David Bernabo), small photographs of local scenes (Ed Panar) and 50 pieces of a shirt belonging to Andy Warhol (Lenka Clayton) — were distributed to the 50 shareholders, who had ponied up $350 apiece.

And last night, The New Hazlett Theater welcomed shareholders and other guests to a preview event for its own CSA program.

The New Hazlett’s CSA is unique nationally in being dedicated to performance art. Four of the six CSA artists spoke, including Sarah Parker, of Continuum Dance Theater, and “audio/visual astronaut” Dan Wilcox (whose interactive work will ask, “Would you go to Mars if you had to leave tomorrow and you couldn’t come back?”

New Hazlett shares cost $100. Executive director René Conrad says that as of the conclusion of last night’s event, 89 of the target of 150 shares had been sold.

Hmmm — CSA PGH sold out its $350 shares in a month, while the New Hazlett is still trying to sell its $100 shares (albeit rather more of them, but still). Is performance a tougher sell than physical artworks? Certainly it’s non-collectible, which might deter some potential patrons — even though $100 is dirt-cheap for six original live performances.

Still, the first New Hazlett CSA performance isn’t until August, so there’s time for the other shares to sell. The theater does plan to offer non-subscription tickets to individual performances. But as Conrad says, “I really want to support the farm and not just the carrots.”

CSA PGH, meanwhile, has started a waiting list for next year’s offerings.

Thursday, Washington D.C.’s minimalist, punkish, folkish duo the Evens makes their first stop in Pittsburgh since 2006. Comprised of Ian MacKaye of Fugazi on guitar and Amy Farina of the Warmers on drums, they’ll play the Union Project, a venue you may have visited for a yoga class or a wedding, but, quite possibly, never to see a band.

CP spoke with MacKaye about seeking out unusual venues, keeping the cops bored, and living in the moment.

Was there any particular reason you guys decided to start your tour in Pittsburgh? I know you haven’t played here in awhile.

We haven’t played anywhere in awhile. Basically, we had a kid about 5 years ago, and a slew of other things happened that took us off the road for a number of years. We finally started doing some weekend gigs, because our kid is in school. On weekends we can do a 3 hour maximum travel radius, but Pittsburgh, its 4 and a half, 4 hours away. But I love it, I’ve always loved Pittsburgh.

I heard that you were initially interested in playing the Mr. Roboto Project. Had you played there before?

No, I knew about it, I know about their work. Fugazi was too big to play there and when [the Evens] played [Pittsburgh], we played a coffee shop [The Quiet Storm] and we played CMU…The thing with the Evens is, we play wherever. We don’t want to play clubs, and it has to be all ages. I think I’ve done my time in the rock club world, so I thought, let’s find other places to play. To me, that’s where punk kind of came from, working outside the system. I actually have a friend who lives in Polish Hill, and she looked into a couple spaces, but things weren’t panning out. So I thought, we should call the Roboto people, because I think we share a mission on some level.

Do you ever have problems finding unusual venues?

Not really … One thing I think, culturally, is that people have swallowed the notion that you really need to have a bar at every [music] event. It’s not about the moral or ethical issue of alcohol, it’s just , the idea that there has to be a bar has really perverted the whole system in terms of the possibilities for music. Once you remove that from the equation, suddenly it opens up any number of rooms. And then if you say, well, we have our own PA and our own lights and we’re not particularly loud, it opens up even more. It’s a matter of creativity. We’ve played bike shops, we’ve played yoga studios, we’ve played libraries and multi-purpose rooms, we played a thrift store. They’re great gigs, it’s really enjoyable to bring music and put it anywhere. It should go anywhere. Why not?

Speaking of the alcohol issue, something that was interesting about the old Roboto location was that it was in a dry town, so it was especially conducive to being alcohol- free.

After all this gigging, I think back about all the serious problems we’ve had, and I would say 95% of the time, alcohol was involved. And I just never was a drinker, so I just have nothing to do with it, except I have to contend with it all the time. All people need to think about — in terms of the sickness involved with the alcohol industry — is how many people couldn’t see a band play because they weren’t old enough to drink alcohol. How can that be? Music, for 15 and 16 year olds, is sacred. It’s so important. And yet they can’t see these bands because they’re not old enough to drink. It’s completely insane. And I’m speaking directly to the bands, really. They say, “well we can’t really make any money“…the economy itself has been skewed to support that notion. But if bands said no, I can assure you that things would change. People want to see music. I think most all ages places I know —especially house shows — they get shut down inevitably because people want to drink. To me that’s when you leave the thread out for the cops to pull. You can’t have house shows and also have a keg in there, because inevitably there’s going to be a drunk 15 year old. And the cops will shut you down. You know, you don’t give them anything to pull on. You just keep them bored. But, you know, that’s me.

People still talk about your 2004 show at the Quiet Storm, where you sort of scolded someone in the audience for filming.

I remember that exchange really well. What was happening in that moment was, we had no records out. We’d never played Pittsburgh. It was like, maybe we’re terrible. I don’t mind documentation, obviously. I’m in the midst of this enormous project of posting every Fugazi recording we have. I’m interested in trying to keep documentation out of the way of the moment. That particular night — I remember that guy really well — he was sitting right in the front and had a camera. I was like, come on, let’s make a show together, let’s make something worthwhile.

Imagine you’re going to meet someone on a blind date, and you meet them at a coffee shop and the person sets up a video camera. That would be pretty weird. You just want there to be some sense [of] engagement before pictures are getting taken. I understand that I may have scolded the guy — i don’t mean to be a scold. I was trying to engage people, because I don’t think people were thinking about these things. I don’t mean to say, ‘everyone’s a sheep and I’m not,’ I don’t think that at all. It’s just so dominant in our culture that we don’t think about [it]. I didn’t mean to bum the guy out.

It’s also worth noting, it was our first tour, probably one of the first shows we’d played out of town. I’d been playing for a long, long, time, but [with the Evens] I was playing something that was radically different from Fugazi, and I can be punchy. That’s something that I’m certainly aware of. I don’t mean to be quite so aggressive about it, I’m just thinking about things at a very heightened way. When I go on stage, I’m there to get free. So shit is poppin’off.

You’re taking your son on tour. Is it sort of a family vacation?

I don’t know, I don’t really ever go on vacation. It’s all one thing for me. Amy and I, this is our work, and it isn’t lost on us that we haven’t played regularly for so long. We never stop practicing, and finally we’re slowly getting to a place where we can start traveling again. We really don’t know what to expect. We’re just trying to figure out how it will work. It’s a new construct to travel with a child. With Fugazi we toured and toured and toured and it was a very natural evolution. We could figure things out as we went. But with the Evens it’s a bit more interrupted by other things. And since we’re not playing regular venues it’s really hard to assess how many people want to see us. I don’t give a damn if its 10 or 10,000, all I know is if it’s 10, I want to play a room that holds 10 and not 10, 000. That’s it. That’s all that really matters to me.

Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m. 801 N Negley Ave., Highland Park. $6. Visit the facebook event page for details.

For years now, lawmakers, transportation advocates and community leaders have agreed on one thing: there needs to be a dedicated funding stream for transportation in Pennsylvania.

And this year, there actually seems to be legislative will to do something about paying for roads, bridges and mass transit. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, the union representing Port Authority bus operators and mechanics, last year agreed to $60 million in concessions for their current contract, which appeased the state and helped avert massive cuts.

And a transportation funding package bill, Senate Bill 1, is before the House transportation committee. But it appears to have stalled, as Tom Fontaine at the Tribune-Review notes today.

As Fontaine reported, the scuttlebutt afoot is that Republican Dick Hess, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, was going to introduce amendments to Senate Bill 1, that would, among other things, "require Port Authority of Allegheny County and the Philadelphia-based SEPTA to seek bids from private companies to run at least 10 percent of the agencies' routes".

Well, it's here. The Supreme Court of the United States is expected to hand down rulings tomorrow on same-sex marriage in the Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act cases on the final day of the court's term. And there's a handful of local events tomorrow in which same-sex marriage supporters can join together for the rulings.

Riot or Rejoice will be a gathering from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Liberty Avenue between 9th & 10th Streets in Downtown. A large outdoor television and speakers will be provided for to observe the rulings which will begin at 10 a.m.

This event is being produced by the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh, Marriage Equality for Pennsylvania, Persad Center, Equality Pennsylvania, New Voices Pittsburgh, Shepherd Wellness Center, Steel City Stonewall Democrats, and Dreams of Hope. If your organization is interested in participating, email [email protected].

Same-sex marriage supporters will also hold an interfaith prayer vigil tomorrow evening in light of the Court's rulings. The vigil will be held at 7 p.m., Wed., June 26, at Sixth Presbyterian Church, 1688 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill.

To follow Supreme Court rulings in real-time, SCOTUSblog runs a fantastic live chat which starts at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

And if you missed it today, SCOTUS struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act.

The best kind of Monday is MP3 Monday, and this week we bring you a track off of local band Second Empire's debut, self-titled album called "Birth of the Empire". The symphonic metal band formed only two years ago and has gained airtime on The X and won the Sardonyx Battle of the Bands hosted at Diesel Club Lounge.

Photo courtesy of Kaela Speicher

About 1,700 turned out last night at at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall to watch a sneak preview of Gasland director Josh Fox’s sequel.

Fox — who received a standing ovation just by walking onstage to introduce the film — says the Pittsburgh crowd was the largest in-person audience not only on the 23-city Gasland Part II tour (on which Pittsburgh was the final stop) but for either Gasland film.

The 2010 documentary is widely credited with helping spark widespread knowledge of, and opposition to, the practice fracking for natural gas. (It was also, predictably, widely denounced by the gas industry.) Gasland Part II, which premieres on-air on HBO on July 8, highlights not just the environmental and health risks of gas drilling, but the damage Fox contends industry influence does to democracy. (Here's CP's interview with Fox, previewing last night's screening.)

In the two-hour film, narrator Fox calls this effect “another layer of contamination” caused by drilling: “Not the water, not the air, but our government.”

Representatives from the Steel City Casino Workers' Council, who hope to unionize employees at the Rivers Casino, have been visiting Illinois in recent weeks, hoping to increase pressure on casino management with the help of investors in the fund that owns a majority stake in the property.

The employees are alleging an organized campaign by management to intimidate them from unionizing 800 of the casino's 1,800 workers. They have filed 38 separate complaints with the National Labor Relations Board naming 19 supervisors, including General Manager Craig Clark.

The workers appealed to the members of the Illinois Teachers Retirement System investment committee during a meeting Thursday morning in Springfield, according to the business publication Crain's Chicago Business. No vote or action was taken, according to the publication.

TRS invested about $100 million nearly a year ago in a fund managed by Walton Street Advisors, which has majority ownership in the casino on the North Shore, as well as the Sugarhouse Casino in Philadelphia.

Workers were also in Illinois in May. On May 22, the executive director of the Illinois State Board of Investment, William Atwood, sent a letter to Walton's managing partner, Neal Bluhm, saying he had met with the workers and was not happy about the complaints he is fielding.

State Sen. Dominic Pileggi’s move last week to uncap the state’s $60 million film tax credit couldn’t come at a better time for the state’s film industry.

Well, that’s not entirely true. The incentive program actually ran out of funds in October, just four months into the new fiscal year.

That resulted in the loss of 25 projects state wide, says Dawn Keezer, executive director of the Pittsburgh Film Office. She estimates those projects could have resulted in a boon of more than $200 million to the state. But regardless of the past, she says she lauds Pileggi’s move and hopes it meets speedy passage in the state legislature.

“Pittsburgh has a great history in the entertainment industry and we have a great crew that is ready for work,” Keezer says. “The problem is we ran out of money in October and these great industry workers that we have here have been unemployed since January.

“There are 12 states that have an uncapped film credit and their people are working non-stop. This is a great move for the state and I think we have support on both sides of the aisle to get it done.”

The Pennsylvania film tax credit offers productions a 25 percent tax break if they spend 60 percent of their budget in the state. For example, last year’s Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise got the tax credit for spending a least 60 percent of its $60 million budget in the state. Pileggi says uncapping the credit will get people working and keep young professionals in the industry in the city. According to a release announcing the bill in 2011“Pennsylvania was the fifth highest-ranking state in terms of film-related employment, behind only California, New York, Florida and Texas. Also in 2011, film-related wages in Pennsylvania totaled $248 million.”

“The film tax credit is a strong tool for job creation generally, and it’s proven to be a tremendous way for Pennsylvania to fight ‘brain drain’ in particular,” Pileggi said in a release. “One of the reasons I’m introducing this bill is to help reverse the decades-long trend of Pennsylvania losing talented young people to other states.”

Not all films take the tax credit. Pittsburgh was just one of several locations for 2012’s Dark Knight Rises, and the $300 million film didn’t qualify for the tax credit (even though some public officials tried to make us think it did), but it employed local crew and even filled Heinz Field with 10,000 extras paying them each $7.25 an hour. A small portion of the extras were paid, however, the vast majority were treated to free food parking and prizes.

Keezer says the tax credit is very carefully accounted for. After a film ends production, it must submit a full accounting of its spending to the state Department of Revenue. Every dollar spent is accounted for and only after t is reviewed is the credit issued.

Among the projects the state lost last year was a television series for Disney and the David O. Russell film American Hustle, which chronicles the FBI’s ABSCAM operation of the 1970s.

“They were going to shoot that film in Philadelphia,” Keezer says. “But there were no tax credit funds available so they packed up and went to Boston.”

When Brad Pitt’s summer zombie spectacular World War Z comes out Friday, Keezer says it too will be another example of a film lost because of tax credit shortfalls. The film takes place in Philadelphia, but except for some opening shots, the entire film was shot elsewhere.

“We have 18,000 people working in the film industry and without the credit, we can’t get them working,” says Keezer. Keezer says that industry bulletins often report which states still have tax credit money available, but since the money dried up, so have the inquiries.

And as the end of the fiscal year draws to a close and a new one starts, the work will return, but for how long is the question. The $60 million this year is likely to go as fast as it did last year.”

“Pennsylvania is not new to the film industry, we’ve been doing it in Pittsburgh since 1914. We’ve spent years establishing our reputation,” Keezer says. “We have been untouchable since the tax credit gave us the lift we needed to be competitive.”

Robert King, one of Louisiana’s “Angola Three” inmates, speaks here Saturday about his 29 years in solitary confinement and his efforts to help others still trapped there.

The talk, titled “Solitary Confinement: Torture in Our Prisons,” is part of a program running 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and other groups.

Forty years ago, King, then an inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as “Angola”), was convicted of murdering another inmate. His conviction followed by a year the convictions of inmates Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, for the killing of a prison guard.

All three men maintained their innocence, and held that they were targeted for their political activism and membership in the prison’s chapter of the Black Panther Party. All three were sent to solitary confinement. King challenged his conviction and was finally freed in 2001. Woodfox and Wallace maintain their innocence but remain in solitary.

King, now in his 70s, will discuss his continuing efforts to highlight the injustices of the U.S. penal system against African Americans and poor people.

Saturday’s program will also include family members of prisoners now living in solitary confinement — imprisonment of 23 or 24 hours a day in cells as small as 6 feet by 9 feet, often with other restrictions associated with high rates of mental illness and suicide.

As documented in a new report by the federal General Accounting Office, http://solitarywatch.com/2013/06/01/gao-report-questions-widespread-use-of-solitary-confinement-in-federal-prisons/ solitary confinement has been rising in the U.S. for decades https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/05-7, and lately has come under increasing criticism http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/new-report-confirms-solitary-confinement-federal-prisons-largely-unchecked.

Saturday’s program — whose other sponsors include the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the PA Council of Churches and Amnesty International Group 39 — includes a light lunch and an author signing of King’s 2008 autobiography, From the Bottom of the Heap.

A free-will donation is requested. Registration is preferred; contact 412-315-7423 or [email protected].

East Liberty Presbyterian Church is located at 116 S. Highland Ave., in East Liberty.