Author Archives: Natalia

Songs to listen to on your iPod …

while walking around in the Andy Warhol Museum.

warholDon’t ask me why, but I’m on a music kick lately! I found this fun playlist on this cute web site called “tiny mix tapes.” Someone by the handle Compulis compiled this list. IheartPGH – not only do we provide you with the quirks of this city, we also provide the soundtrack!

Compiled by: Cropulis

Note from Cropulis: Songs about the man, by the people he worked with and reflective pieces on the life of Warhol in a sort of mood piece.

01. Lou Reed & John Cale- “A Dream” (Songs for Drella)
02. The Velvet Underground- “All Tomorrow’s Parties” (The Velvet Underground & Nico)
03. John Cale- “Paris 1919” (Paris 1919)
04. The Rolling Stones- “Sister Morphine” (Sticky Fingers)
05. Lou Reed- “Street Hassle” (Street Hassle)
06. Brian Eno- “An Ending (Ascent)” (Apollo (Atmospheres & Sounds)
07. Secret Machines- “Girl From the North Country” (Road Lead’s Where It’s Lead)
08. David Bowie- “Andy Warhol” (Hunky Dory)
09. Bob Dylan- “Desolation Row” (Highway 61 Revisited)
10. Lou Reed & John Cale- “Hello It’s Me” (Songs for Drella)

Thanks to Mindy for pointing out this site. We also love:

– songs with unexpected swearing (including cake)
– songs to knit to (including night ranger, elliott smith, b&s, the
decemberists!)
– songs to eat cereal to (including mike doughty, blur, cornershop)
– songs for making pinky promises to
– songs for a person wandering nowhere in particular, gazing randomly
around, and not thinking about anything

Joe Grushecky – Rock’s best-kept secret

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) — Music critics place him among the best rock and rollers ever.

Over the past two decades, he’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for all kinds of causes, including headlining a sold-out (in 57 minutes!) “Flood Aid” benefit concert last December in Pittsburgh with his good buddy Bruce Springsteen.

He’s a musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, music arranger, recording artist — and he leads what’s been described in top music publications as “one of the best bar bands in America.”

Like Iron City Beer and the DVE morning show, the music of Joe Grushecky is known in every corner bar ’round these parts. Last year, CNN reported he’s rock’s best kept secret. He been rocking for years … all while teaching ‘developmentally disabled, physically disabled and emotionally disturbed kids’ at Pittsburgh’s Weselyn High School. How’s that for no bullsh**, blue-collar sensibility?

The band’s new CD includes collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, including the Grammy-award winning “Code of Silence.”

Mr. Grushecky and the (formerly the Iron City) Houserockers are playing a number of shows in the Pittsburgh area … see him before it gets to cold to party outside with your Ahrns. Check out the free downloads here, so you can sing along with all the more-intelligent-than-average Grushecky fans. The live links just sound fun.

Friday- September 1st
Johnston Folk Festival – Johnstown, PA

Saturday – September 2nd
Conneuat Lake

Sunday – September 3rd
Spot Bar – Steubenville, OH

Friday – September 8th
Mellon Park – adjacent to The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and along Fifth and Shady Avenues in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside area.
Joe Grushecky Solo

About A Fair in the Park
presented by The Craftsmen’s
Guild of Pittsburgh at Mellon Park
5:30-7:00 PM

Saturday – September 9th
Carnegie Arts and Heritage Festival
Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers
Showtime 10:30PM

Big Fun Part 2!

One more last minute addition to “Git Aht” …

If you’re still looking for something to do tonight, check out BIG FUN PART 2 at the Shadow Lounge tonight. What is this “Big Fun” I speak of? (CAPITAL LETTERS!!)

FRIDAY AUGUST 25TH 8:30PM-2AM
@ The Shadow Lounge BAUM BLVD. EAST LIBERTY,
OMAR-ABDUL AND THE LEAGUE OF YOUNG VOTERS HOST:
BIG FUN PT.2, “GET INVOLVED”
ADMISSION: 5$ ALL AGES

A NIGHT OF MUSICAL PERFORMANCES AND SOCIALIZING TO CELEBRATE YOUNG VOLUNTEERS AGES 18-35, IN THE FIELD OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND SOCIAL CHANGE, AND ENCOURAGE MORE YOUNG PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED IN POLITICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE. UP TO 100 VOLUNTEERS WHO HAVE BEEN REGULARLY ACTIVE FOR OVER TWO MONTHS WILL BE INVITED AS GUESTS TO ATTEND. THE VOLUNTEER RECEPTION FROM 9PM -10PM WITH CATERING, BEVERAGES AND COMMENCEMENT COMMENTS FROM LOCAL POLITICIANS AND SENIOR LOCAL ACTIVISTS INCLUDING DEMOCRATIC PARTY VICE CHAIR EDWARD GAINEY AND DISTRICT MAGISTRATE CATHY BUBASH.

FOLLOWING THE RECEPTION WE WILL CONTINUE THE CELEBERATION WITH MUSIC FROM SOME OF PITTSBURGHS MOST FUN AND ENJOYABLE BANDS AND DJS INCLUDING OMEGA LOVE, OMAR-ABDUL, EVICTION NOTICE, THE SOLEVIBE, AND DJ BUSCRATES.

Click more to see the flyer!!
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Girl Talk

Greg Gillis aka Girl Talk is a Pittsburgh DJ who put out his third full-length release Night Ripper this spring. The indie purists over at Pitchfork Media give Mr. Talk’s album a rating of 8.4/10 and those cats don’t like anything. The Washington City Paper describes Night Ripper as “the triple Salchow-double toe combination” of mash-ups.

(Yes, yes, it is supposedly the “soundtrack of summer,” so please forgive the fact that I haven’t gotten this post out until now. Look, there’s still a lot of back-to-school partying to do!)

Pitchfork’s new MP3 “Infinite Mixtape” blog can’t stop gushing:

“We’ve been bumping mashup maniac Girl Talk’s latest long-player Night Ripper pretty hard since our return from the Roskilde Festival last week. It’s an insane continuous mix squeezing literally hundreds of seemingly disparate tracks (top 40 pop bangers, dance anthems, indie classics, yacht rock flashbacks, 80s metal cuts, etc) into one colossal 40-minute block that brings the party like a warpspeed Diplo.”

Cooliosis. The bottom line: get these tracks while they’re hot! You can download two other free MP3s from the record review or just buy the whole album from the fittingly titled, Illegal Art web site. (I recommend the latter.)

Hey, check out the Pgh City Paper article too. 🙂 And support. local. musicians.

What’s a strength for our community to build on?

I recently found this Dec. 2005 discussion between the City Paper (CP), Wilkinsburg councilwoman Tracey Evans and three Mon-Valley mayors, including John Fetterman of Braddock, Betty Esper of Homestead, and Norma Ryan of Brownsville. I thought this interview provides a creative view of Mon-Valley strengths – it’s not all gloom and doom! (Links added by your truly. 🙂

CP: What’s a strength for your community to build on?

Evans: Definitely the housing stock. Just beautiful houses, the proximity to the city and the accessibility to the East Busway and Frick Park.
Ryan: Our assets are probably our potential for tourism and recreation. We’re right on the river, and we’re in two heritage zones, Steel Industry Heritage and also the National Road. We need to build on our heritage, and maybe bring people out of city life to experience rural life.
Evans: No, no! Keep ’em in the city!
Fetterman: This might sound strange, but I think Braddock’s asset might be its complete lack of assets. I mean, some of our buildings don’t have roofs! Maybe it can capture someone’s imagination. It’s small enough to make an impact, but large enough to get people’s attention.
Esper: I think the asset of Homestead is the history of Homestead, the steel industry.
Fetterman: As mayor of Braddock, I have to say, We’ve got steel!
Ryan: And guys, if it weren’t for the coal from Brownsville, how would you get steel?
Esper: We’re celebrating our 125th anniversary this year. You can’t talk to anyone who can’t talk to you about the history of Homestead. We had the 1892 strike!
Ryan: Are we just that throwaway society, is that what America should be known as? No. Southwest Pennsylvania — the steel capital of the world, the national road that opened the west — as I keep trying to promote, you can really tell the story of the making of America. It’s all here.