Review: All Good Music Festival, July 8-11, 2010
Throughout the four days of All Good Music Festival last weekend, many of the 20,000 hippies, hipsters, bros, flower children, aging vacationers, ravers and college folks were seeing things. They just weren’t sure if it was the psychedelics or the heat. Aside from a late afternoon shower on Friday, the festival, held on wildly remote…
Unseam’d Shakespeare’s Mad Honey
“It’s a terrible thing to hate someone you love so much.” The honey of this play’s title is literally an hallucenogenic, potentially toxic stuff that first one character,then a second, nicks from the Iliad. But this is an Amy Hartman play — a darkly comic, tragic romance — so “mad honey”is also a metaphor for…
Local music blog alert: Draw Us Lines
A few weeks back, a fellow named Jim emailed me about the new music blog he was launching. As we (still) don’t have a blogroll here (yet), I figure I should pass that information along to you in a post! The blog is called Draw Us Lines. Like so many local music blogs, it cuts…
MP3 MONDAY: Yours Truly
This week’s MP3 Monday comes right from local alt-pop rockers Yours Truly. The track, “The Crown,” starts out with some Strokes-like rhythmic guitars before throwing in some horns and transitioning into a more Jason Mraz-sounding track. You can check out music editor Aaron Jentzen’s review of the band’s EP in this week’s City Paper. Aaron…
Staycee Pearl Dance Project at the Kelly-Strayhorn
The company’s debut got stronger as the brief but intense July 9 program, titled PUPA: new … again, proceeded. The title work, the first of four segments, featured some interesting insect-like movement by the six dancers, and some nice duets and group sequences. But it still felt a little underdeveloped (pun intended). A large projected…
Ibex Moon Records Fest at Belvedere’s SATURDAY night
Maybe it’s fitting that a city associated mainly with a huge tragedy would manage to put forth one of the world’s more famous death metal bands? Incantation is a long-lasting legend of metal that hails from Johnstown, a town not so far from here that’s known mainly for a killer flood caused by rich people.…
On controversial Marcellus Shale issue, Pennsylvania may be jumping into the pool
Exactly a month ago, I wrote about the controversial subject of “pooling” — a legal mechanism whereby natural-gas drilling companies may be able to remove gas from beneath your property without your consent. The issue promises to be controversial in Pennsylvania, where gas deposits in the mile-deep Marcellus Shale are attracting considerable interest. At the…
Mia Madre Trattoria
The pleasure of Italian comfort food undercut by poor service
Short List: Week of July 8 – 15
Fri., July 9 — Dance Local choreographer and artist Staycee Pearl premieres works from her new company Staycee Pearl dance project. Pearl co-founded the troupe with husband and sound designer Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl to combine contemporary dance with experimental sound and video. Today, at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, the six-member company gives two performances of…
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Stephenie Meyer’s popular teen-loves-undead-dude series gets its third trip to the big screen, this time under the direction of David Slade. Newbie alert: The story kicks off where last year’s New Moon left off, with the ongoing feud between vampires and werewolves, and a nasty vampire seeking revenge.
Eclipse is livelier (and shorter) than the…
The Square
It’s as if the characters in Nash Edgerton’s gritty noirish thriller have never seen … well, a gritty nourish thriller. It’s bad enough that Ray (David Roberts) and Carla (Claire van der Boom), neighbors in a small Australian community, are having an affair. But when Claire sneaks home from an assignation and spies her brutish…
The Last Airbender
In this M. Night Shyamalan’s new feature, two teens from the Air Nation rescue a tattooed, bald-headed kid named Aang (Noah Ringer), whom they believe is the “avatar.” The avatar is a semi-spiritual figure able to bridge the nations of air, water, fire and earth, ensuring cross-elemental harmony. Which is not happening now: The Lord…
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
I’m not a huge Joan Rivers fan, but I’m fascinated by a performer who has so fiercely defended her career — over decades, and in a business that is brutal even to its golden boys, and especially harsh on women. Love her or hate her, Rivers is a survivor.
Documentarians Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg…
Despicable Me
It took me 15 minutes or so to warm up to this French-produced digitally animated family film. I was initially disheartened by the gratuitous use of “Sweet Home Alabama,” the addition of an MSNBC newsman and a joke about Lehman Brothers — I feared another too-snarky film tripping over itself to be “cool.” But I’m…
Micmacs
After getting a bullet lodged in his head, Micmac’s indomitable protagonist, Bazil (Dany Boon), joins a coterie of artists and eccentrics who live in a sort of tunnel-factory under a mountain of junk at a scrap yard. Together they hatch a convoluted plan to bring down a pair of arms factories (including one in which…
‘S Wonderful
Patter songs, ballads, love songs, list songs, novelty numbers … everything zooms by at a breakneck pace, with no nuance or depth.
Proof
You can plumb Proof as deep as you want to go for meanings and nuances.
Yours Truly offers groovy modern rock on debut EP, The Colorage
Justin Portis’ fiery, almost Latin-sounding leads are a frequent feature, such as the blazin’ solo on “In the Friscalating Dusklight.”
Long-running ensemble Salsamba releases its sixth album, Mojito Blues
Of the two interpretations of the music of saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Salsamba’s take on “Fall” manages to feel both loose and groovy.
This Just In: July 8 – 15
Highlights from the local TV news: Death in the Fast Lane
Drill at the ‘Mill?
Gas drilling in a nature preserve? It could happen. Gas concerns have been scouring the state for property owners willing to sell rights to the natural gas stored a mile below ground, in what is known as the Marcellus Shale. And among those who might be interested is the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which…
Black and White Issue
Duquesne official accused of referring to black prof as ‘token’
Critical Condition
West Penn notice leaves community, workers in limbo
Rail Splitting
Land dispute makes it hard for Strip development to get on track
Poet Terrances Hayes shines in his new collection, Lighthead.
Hayes is perhaps at his best when evoking the surreal clarity found on the edge of sleep or dizziness.
Katie’s Kandy
609 Amity St., Homestead 724-413-0309 Katie’s Kandy could become your kid’s new favorite store … and your dentist’s worst nightmare. The candy shop, which opened in May, is located in Homestead across the railroad tracks from the Waterfront shopping center. Selling everything from ice cream and prepackaged candy to fudge and piñatas, Katie’s offers…
Mark Garry wants to borrow your band’s album
Garry is looking to use the album art as part of a larger examination of the musical process, and how geography shapes it.
Minus the Bear go for sleek and funky on new album Omni
As David Banner’s swinging Gatorade ad suggests, you’ve got to evolve.
Escape from Pittsburgh — and into your mind — at the All Good Music Festival
“You arrive to the Mountaintop and the rest of the world goes away.”
A Conversation with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo
“Stop having babies.”
Savage Love
My husband confessed to wanting to watch me with another man. I found a guy, and he agreed to a full STD screening — at our expense — so we wouldn’t have to use condoms. My husband loved every minute of it — a little too much. My husband had sex with me after our…
Congo/Women documents the sufferings of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This, we understand, is Amandine’s life story — a faceless castaway, waiting, gazing into oblivion.
