Randy Zotter announces challenge to Darlene Harris for District 1 City Council seat
Carpenter and community organizer Randy Zotter officially announced his candidacy for Pittsburgh city council this afternoon, the second candidate to announce a challenge against sitting councilor Darlene Harris. Zotter, who lives in the Mexican War Streets, has served “for the past 30 years” in positions including director of the Northside Community Development Fund, President of the…
New Pittsburgh Humanities Festival Announced
Four-day festival in March to feature writers, artists and more
Chevy Woods releases Gangland 3 mixtape
Listen free via DatPiff
Listen to this week’s issue in Listen Up!
Listen to tracks from Antibalas, Donora, Pig Destroyer and many more.
Update: New report on fracking violations
Environmental group’s report finds violations to be commonplace
Foxygen, Pete Rock and Slum Village, Screaming Females among new concert announcements
Also new: Primal Scream comes to Small’s; Doyle comes to Altar
Lynn Cullen Live 1/27/15
Video Archive Lynn and Suz discuss 50s party games. European vs. American meteorology. Is all the medical testing necessary? The Orthodox Sex Guru sees women in the Hasidim in NYC. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Toby Lightman at Club Cafe, Jan. 27
Toby Lightman brings her fourth album of soul-revival to Club Cafe on Jan. 27.
MP3 Monday: Douglas Lowell Blevins
Douglas Lowell Blevins is a local singer-songwriter who recently released a new EP, Cruel Variations. He next plays live on Thu., Feb. 12 at Club Cafe with Miss Tess and the Talkbacks; today, he’s our MP3 Monday. Listen to his track “Hit the Lights,” and if you like, check him out on Bandcamp. To download,…
Speakers’ series continues with healthy-eating panel tonight
Four local food experts will share what they know at the Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Corp. series. The program, about healthy eating and farm-to-table dining, includes a moderator-led discussion and an audience question-and-answer session. Panelists includes TenPenny executive chef Anthony Hruska; Leah Lizarondo, creator of The Brazen Kitchen blog; Meredith Mileti, author of Aftertaste: A…
Fundraiser for Homestead Fire Victims this Saturday
A fundraiser will be held this Saturday for victims of a 6-alarm fire that left nine people homeless and five buildings damaged in Homestead’s business district. The estimated cost of damage is $2 million.
Lynn Cullen Live 1/26/15
Video Archive Abe Lincoln’s hair sold at auction for 25,000. Study shows where are anxieties lie in concern to sex. Fire in Homestead set by a mentally ill arsonist. Dorsey McConnell writes a pastoral letter on race. Scientists discover what they believe to be an extraterrestrial “ghost particle”. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio…
Trailer for Sale or Rent: Mortdecai
This film was not screened for critics locally, so we took a look at the trailer. Film: Mortdecai Opening Date: Fri., Jan. 23 Stars: Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany Necessary Info: An art-theft caper Trailer Analysis: All four leads are working with fake and/or ridiculous accents. The plot actually is still in…
Trailer for Sale or Rent: The Boy Next Door
This film was not screened for critics locally, so we took a look at the trailer. Film: The Boy Next Door Opening Date: Fri., Jan. 23 Stars: Jennifer Lopez Necessary Info: A high school teacher gets it on with one of her students; obsession ensues Trailer Analysis: If you have half an inkling to see…
District Attorney Zappala withdraws charges against Leon Ford
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala announced Friday afternoon that he is withdrawing all remaining charges against Leon Ford, a motorist who was paralyzed when he was shot by a City of Pittsburgh Police officer following a traffic stop in November 2012. Ford was acquitted of aggravated assault charges in September but still faced charges…
Lynn Cullen Live 1/23/15
Video Archive Deflate-gate. Food service stories about what could happen when you are rude to a waiter or waitress. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
New South Side Gallery Holds Opening Reception
Gallery — Very Fine Art, a new venue in the South Side Works, opens its debut show with a reception tomorrow. The group exhibit will feature works by 16 artists in media ranging from oil painting and photography to pottery and assemblage. The gallery is run by artist Barbara Page, who says in a press…
Lynn Cullen Live 1/22/14
Video Archive Lynn’s smart phone is tracking her movements! Mean girls in nursing homes are just as bad as the ones in middle school. A staycation in Pittsburgh. ISIS still holding Japanese hostages Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
CP Weekend Podcast – Jan. 23 – 25, 2015
[audio-1] This week on the CP Weekend Podcast: Crawl through some art, warm up with Weather Permitting, and get wild with S&M-themed punks.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
From Studio Ghibli and Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies) comes this hand-drawn animated film, an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, sketched out like a series of exquisite watercolors. An elderly bamboo-cutter finds a mysterious tiny child in the stalk of a tree, and raises her to be a princess. But the lively girl…
The Wedding Ringer
In Jeremy Garlick’s bromance, a hapless, friendless groom (Josh Gad) hires a professional best man (Kevin Hart), plus groomsmen, and discovers: Money can buy intangible things; women are a bunch of shriek-y killjoys; and there is nothing quite as fulfilling as living life as a perpetual adolescent with a bunch of idiotic man-buddies to back…
Despite sexual-assault allegations, Bill Cosby’s Pittsburgh show will go on
Bill Cosby is still coming to Pittsburgh. The legendary comedian, who is accused of sexually assaulting more than two dozen women beginning in the 1960s, is scheduled to appear at Heinz Hall Feb. 21 for a show that “transcends age, gender and cultural barriers,” according to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s website. And while some of…
Flow Tribe brings New Orleans funk to town
FLOW TRIBE 9 p.m. Thu., Jan. 22 Thunderbird Café 4023 Butler St. Lawrenceville $10-12 412-682-0177 or thunderbirdcafe.net If you’ve been lamenting an apparent drought of funk and groove in Pittsburgh, you can quell those lamentations, at least for a night, and take note of Flow Tribe at Thunderbird Café on Thu., Jan. 22. Skeptical that…
“Passive house” standards bring an old YMCA back to life
“This is amazing to me,” says Anne Messner. On a January day, she’s laid her hand on a wide, tiled window sill on the first floor of McKeesport Downtown Housing, the low-income facility where she is property manager. “Feel it. It is 7 degrees out or something,” she says — yet the tile feels indistinguishable…
Torn and Frayed returns, two decades after winning the Graffiti Rock Challenge
TORN AND FRAYED EP RELEASE with SUISIDEBURNS 10 p.m. Sat., Jan. 24 Excuses 2526 E. Carson St. South Side $5 412-431-4090 Old friends are the best friends, and the members of Torn and Frayed know this is true. The beloved local rock ‘n’ roll heroes have taken some hits, suffered some heart-wrenching losses, broken up,…
Mike Seate makes his living exploring a motorcycle subculture, on TV and in print
On his 16th birthday, as soon as he legally could, Mike Seate bought his first motorcycle. It was a Yamaha 750 that the Wilkinsburg kid “instantly” attempted to customize. “I had no idea what I was doing,” he says today, laughing. More than three decades later, Seate’s still all about remaking motorcycles. But it’s on…
The Love Letters release a debut effort with help from a New Pornographer
LOVE LETTERS DOUBLE 7-INCH RELEASE with GREAT SILENCE 10 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31 Club Café 56 S. 12th St. South Side $7 412-431-4950 or clubcafelive.com Mike Shanley has long been a New Pornographers fan; he knew from the get-go that he wanted to incorporate influences from the group into his current band, The Love Letters,…
Savage Love
I’m a straight 18-year-old girl in my first sexual relationship. Things are a little awkward, and I could chalk it up to inexperience, but here’s what I feel conflicted about: I have a vore fetish. It was a fascination for me as a young child and became a sexual thing around the time I hit…
Critics’ Picks, Jan. 22-28
[PSYCH ROCK] + FRI., JAN. 23 Locals Shaky Shrines will host a public birthday party at Cattivo for the band’s songwriter, Braden Faisant. Oh, and the psychedelic-rock revivalists will also debut some music from a brand-new EP. They’ve already released “Sun Hypnotic” — an 11-minute, self-described “boozie doozie” — which indicates that the band’s prolific…
Short List: January 22 – 29
FREE EVENT: Fri., Jan. 23 — Festival Regulars at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s free quarterly Gallery Crawl will find a couple of new wrinkles Downtown on Jan. 23. One is a new series called The Soul Sessions. The inaugural installment features vocalist Aaron “AB” Abernathy, a nationally touring funk, soul and R&B artist. Abernathy and…
New Releases
The Commonheart Cannonball (Self-released) The Commonheart is a band of notable locals — members of bands like Silencio and Velvet Heat — headed up by the velvet-voiced Clinton Clegg; Cannonball is the group’s debut. Smooth organs and a laidback rhythm section establish a Southern-soul base, and Clegg’s Otis Redding-via-Ray Lamontagne vocals seal the deal with…
Winter Guide 2015
Snowy owls, like the one above, don’t retreat from cold weather, and neither should you. So spread your wings — after dressing warmly, of course — and head out. Our staffers have rounded up plenty of local happenings through March that you can give a hoot about. ART The under-renovation Westmoreland Museum of Art is…
High Priority: Why your choice for the Pa. Supreme Court may be the most important vote you cast all year
On a particularly cold morning last week, more than 50 people filled the gallery of the Allegheny County Courthouse where Common Pleas Judge Dwayne Woodruff announced his plans to run for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Former Pittsburgh Steelers (Woodruff’s old teammates) stood shoulder-to-shoulder with local lawyers and politicians. Others pushed their way to the front,…
Three otherwise unrelated shows at the PCA draw on storytelling for their power
STORYTELLERS: TRUTH BE TOLD!, ILLUSIONS AND CONSTRUCT continues through Feb. 1 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 6300 Fifth Ave. Shadyside 412-361-0873 or pittsburgharts.org Three unrelated organizations currently have exhibitions on view at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Though housed under the same roof and occupying the same span on the calendar, they are otherwise unconnected.…
Journalist Russell Gold explores fracking in The Boom
RUSSELL GOLD 7-9 p.m. Wed., Jan. 28. East End Book Exchange 4754 Liberty Ave. Bloomfield 412-224-2847 or eastendbook exchange.com About eight years ago, Wall Street Journal energy reporter Russell Gold traveled to Southwestern Pennsylvania to write one of the first major articles about the Marcellus Shale, the deep rock formation containing vast deposits of natural…
Stuff We Like
Justified. This excellent FX show just kicked off its final season Jan. 20. (Catch up online or on DVD.) Originally adapted from an Elmore Leonard short story, the show follows U.S. Marshall Rayland Givens (Timothy Olyphant) on the job in his small Kentucky hometown, where he frequently butts heads with colorful folks from his past.…
A Sudanese Lost Boy’s harrowing memoir
Paul Deng Kur uses the catharsis of memoir-writing to revisit his war-torn childhood. His book Out of the Impossible: The Hope of the Lost Boy, revolves around hope, he says, and what can survive because of it. “It was a relief in a way just to put it together,” Kur says. The self-published Out of…
Dorothy 6 Blast Furnace Café
Dorothy 6 Blast Furnace Café 224 E. Eighth Ave Homestead 412-464-9023 Hours: Mon.-Wed. 4-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 4-11 p.m. Prices: Appetizers, soups, salads, and sandwiches $5-11; entrees $16-23 Liquor: Full bar Well, it’s only taken a few decades of telling the world that Pittsburgh is not the Smoky City, nor really the Steel City anymore either,…
Comic Tommy Davidson is back in town
TOMMY DAVIDSON Thu., Jan. 22-Sun., Jan. 25 Pittsburgh Improv 166 E. Bridge St. The Waterfront West Homestead $20 412-462-5233 or pittsburgh.improv.com Comedian and actor Tommy Davidson has been making his way to Pittsburgh for 25 years. When his standup tour visits next week, for five shows at the Pittsburgh Improv, he’ll break out more than…
Brighten up winter with a citrusy cocktail
To most of us, winter cocktails mean something dark and warming. This time of year, tastes gravitate toward brown liquor and spirit-forward drinks — boozy concoctions that cut through even the bitterest of temperatures. These are all well and good, but they neglect one of the season’s great treasures: citrus. “This is the best time…
American Sniper
Clint Eastwood’s film American Sniper, about a real-life Navy SEAL sniper, Chris Kyle, who racked up more than 100 kills during the Iraq war, was always going to be polarizing. We’re not done as a culture sorting out what that conflict meant, whether one supported it or not, fought or stayed home. For the right…
Five Points Artisan Bakeshop opens in Squirrel Hill, with an emphasis on same-day-baked bread
Sitting on a small window ledge in his cozy new Squirrel Hill bakery, Geof Comings recalls the years of his professional life that were devoted to community development. “You can really work your ass off for months and year and never see a project happen,” he says of his experience. Then he gestures across the…
Blackhat
They say it takes a plumber to catch a plumber, and so it is with hackers. That’s the case in Michael Mann’s slick thriller Blackhat. In it, a “good” hacker (Chris Hemsworth) is sprung from prison and teams with the Chinese to take down a bad hacker, who has caused two problematic situations: a meltdown…
Against the Sun
Brian Falk’s drama recounts the true tale of three Navy fliers who, after crashing their plane during World War II, drifted in the South Pacific for more than a month. They had no food, water or supplies, and were confined to a 4-by-8-foot life raft. Falk faces some challenges wringing a narrative out of floating;…
Big Muddy
Jefferson Mineo’s slow-burning neo-noir finds trouble in the Canadian heartland, as various members of Saskatchewan’s demi-monde collide. At the center is Martha (Nadia Litz), a single mom and grifter, and the action plays out in bars, the horse track and run-down farmhouses perched on a beautiful prairie. It’s a new release that’s reminiscent of 1990s…
Lynn Cullen Live 1/21/15
Video Archive Obama comes out swinging in the State of the Union Address. White House publishes the speech before hand for the first ever. The free range children movement picks up. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer audio player.
Lynn Cullen Live 1/20/15
Video Archive How we talk about death and aging and how we are trying to soften the blow. Employee who feared the “mark of the beast” to receive full compensation from employer after being let go. Audio Only Archive Listen to the Audio Archives on with our new Apple and Android Apps or the computer…
