DJ Spaed
“Come face to face with underground hip-hop and electronic music and realize yinz been wrong all along!”
Petra Haden
In Haden’s music there’s a tension between the humble interpreter of others’ music, and the quirky creator of her own unorthodox sound.
Bullet Points
Just the other day, I ran into my old sidekick and walking partner down in the Strip. (A walking partner is the guy who walks laps around the yard with you in the joint). We kicked the bobo for a few minutes, and he told me that last week he got bagged for doing 35…
Blindsider
With the dual male/female vocals in place, the band’s high-energy, riff-heavy sound has taken shape.
All Grown Up
Twenty-one is a benchmark age that denotes a certain maturity, and for its 21st outing, the annual Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival stretches its boundaries even further. Oh, there are still the saucy comedies and same-sex romances that festival-goers enjoy kicking back at. But this year, the PILGFF has linked several screenings with…
The Melvins
“There’s a lot of people who think we’re nothing more than a two-mile-an-hour Black Sabbath train to nowhere.”
The Good Body
According to Eve Ensler, from the moment of birth women are taught that something is “bad” about them. And in developed countries, at least, that judgment manifests itself in body image.
Pagliacci
I shudder to think of the truckloads of cash the opera must have shelled out. But whatever it cost, it was worth it
Muses and Monsters at the Black Sheep Puppet Festival
Local puppet festival includes exploration of Alice in Wonderland.
Political Exorcise
Bill Peduto’s head did not turn 360 degrees on his neck on Oct. 15. Nor did the Pittsburgh City Councilor unleash a torrent of demonic obscenities — or green-pea soup — at the audience in East Liberty’s Shadow Lounge. But you couldn’t blame them for expecting it. After all, Peduto was sharing the stage with…
Tigers By the Tale
How can you not love a baseball team that came off a 2005 record of 71-91 — only to dominate the league for most of the following season? A franchise that is in the playoffs after posting three 100-loss seasons in the past decade: 1996, 2002 and 2003? Those are just a few reasons to…
The Steps of Pittsburgh
Aunt Rosie descends the Rialto steps (a good mile) to East Ohio Street, walks River Avenue to Lutz & Schramm where she packs pickles. Round trip five days a week. in spite of legs bowed from rickets, Saturday nights Rosie performs polka steps Heel and toe, hop and go on the dance floor at the…
A Conversation with David Nasaw
The last full-length biography of Andrew Carnegie was written in 1970, during the swan song of the steel industry he built. But biographer David Nasaw has compiled a new 800-page tome on the Pittsburgh industrialist, due out Oct. 24. Nasaw’s Carnegie is better and worse than the one we know: a vertically challenged capitalist who…
Frontlines of Healing
Afghanistan, the nearly forgotten first front in the “War on Terror,” is still suffering from more distant wars, such as the Soviet invasion (1979-89). “Green parrots” — air-dropped plastic winged landmines the size of cigarette packs — have created “an army of maimed children,” says Dr. Gino Strada. “And in my mind those are clear…
Novel Tease
This year’s design-awards program from the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Architects presents an intriguing blend.
Under the Wire
“WSG Soundbytes” pamphlets recently appeared on countertops citywide. No, they’re not for Soundbytes, the CMU a cappella group, nor for the social event sponsored by the Pittsburgh Symphony. This Soundbytes is actually a series of indie rock bands and electronic artists playing all month, every Friday and Saturday, at the Wood Street Galleries. And it’s…
Mirror, Mirror
I’m not good at telling jokes, and I heard this one from my seventh-grade history teacher, but here goes: A father has two sons. One’s a complete pessimist, the other an unswerving optimist. To learn whether he can inculcate a more balanced worldview, Dad decides on an experiment. He gives the pessimist a pony, and…
Lunacy
Lunacy is a depiction, the filmmaker tells us, of the extremes of complete freedom and utter repression.
Hill May Face Mountain of Development with New Group
Members envision the Greater Hill Development League as a unifying voice on housing and economic development.
Flags of Our Fathers
What constitutes a hero? Is it a specific action, or simply surviving? Is living a “heroic” lie for the greater good an admirable sacrifice?
Marching To Prevent the Prevention of Marching
A local activist contends police are wielding “potentially deadly force against non-violent protesters to scare people out of protest activity.”
A Conversation With TV Scribe Javier Grillo-Marxuach
An interview with a CMU grad who’s spent the past 11 years as a television writer and producer, for critically acclaimed and cult-hit TV shows.
CD reviews: Mary Celeste, Microwaves
What Mary Celeste does best is flirt with trends while staying grounded in older post-punk and hardcore styles.
Fuel & Fuddle
Fuel & Fuddle serves up good food and good times in an atmosphere that is clever without being condescending, themed without being imagineered.
Machine Nation
Victoria Berdnik hands long strips of paper to two women training to work the polls on Election Day. These fresh recruits have never before supervised voting on Allegheny County’s electronic voting machines, which replaced lever machines at May’s primary election. Here in the Westin Convention Center Hotel Downtown on Oct. 10, they’re getting a two-hour…
This Just In: Oct. 19
A deeper look into the life of a man who “lives in filth” … send your holiday cards now!
