Getting blown off for interviews isn't my extra-special double-plus-good favorite thing, but it happens. OK, I hate it. Apparently, Geddy's too busy living in the limelight -- either that or Live Nation couldn't be bothered to set up the interview -- but something tells me that won't stop a sea of air-drumming fans in Rush T-shirts from showing up at Post-Gazette Pavilion on June 25. Hell, I'll still go ... if I can find something suitable to wear. Hmm ... the "Moving Pictures" reissue shirt or the "Live in Rio" commemorative design?
Speaking of getting blown off, I'd planned on running a profile this week of local R&B group Crave, reportedly in Miami recording an album for Pretty Ricky's Atlantic Records imprint. But ... Crave's representation at Meanstreet Entertainment made it clear that they're only interested in a cover story. Because ... Wiz Khalifa was on the cover, and Crave is blah blah blah. Hey, whatever works for you. You can catch Crave on July 21 at Mellon Arena, as part of WAMO's "Summer Jamz 2007" concert, featuring Lil' Wayne, Jeezy, Paul Wall and others.
Far from that madding crowd, local avant-singer-songwriter Daryl Fleming is perhaps not rewriting history, but he is using history to rewrite his own. Last year, Fleming, of Water Shed 5tet and OPEK, among other notable groups, launched a historically saturated folk project with backing band The Public Domain. About one-third of that group's material was old songs that had gone into, yes, the public domain; when he decided to try his hand at a still-copyrighted tune now and then, Fleming assembled The Private Sector. "It's my 'rock band,'" he jokes, "something I've never done in such a straightforward fashion." The group features Fleming on vocals and electric guitar, along with Evan Knauer, Erin Snyder and Kip Ruefle. The Private Sector debuts at Thunderbird Café on June 23 with The Lobster Quadrille (see preview on page XX).
Also on the local experimental tip, the June 16 Downtown edition of FLUX featured a wide range of out-there groups, from Pittsburgh original Tommy Amoeba to P-funkt. The multimedia art space above Brooks Brothers on Smithfield Street was unreasonably muggy, but the two men of electronic post-rock outfit Discuss still managed to seem chilled-out to the max. With them looking nearly identical and poised behind matching laptops, it was a kind of anti-spectacle that nonetheless seemed to suit the mechanical rhythms, warped synths and, yes, occasional saxophone solos. Good stuff.
