Thursday, May 24, 2007

Well, howdy, News Herald and Derrick readers. Thanks for coming by. If I knew you were coming I would have redd up a little, but you know how it goes... The entry you're looking for is here, but why not stick around a while?

For those of you not coming from today's article, both papers gave some sweet love to this weekend's Oil City Indie Fest, and mentioned my little puppet show as well.



Wondering who you'll see at the festival? A quick look at two artists to help you better plan your day:

Matt Read (onstage at 10:30 am) writes songs almost exclusively about the bridges of Pittsburgh and is working on an album, Still Life With Bridges.

Download his song Postcard at his MySpace page.


LaTrobe (onstage at 2 pm) Was born and raised in Lancaster, PA before moving to Oil City in 1996. "I've always been fascinated and influences by many different types of music. And this is reflected in my style of playing and my writing... My philosophy is that one word can change a person's life...As my lyrics have grown so has my love for the music of the 40s, 50's and 60's particularly Jazz and Blues. To me this was the last great movement in music. My two main influences are Tom Waits and Wes Montgomery. . . .the musical envelope always needs to be pushed. But it needs to be pushed in a way that makes musical sense - not just pushing the envelope and making noise."

"I also enjoy the poetry and writings of the beat generation particular Jack Kerouac. Not the romance that is Kerouac but how he approached writing proses - spontaneous and to duplicate the rhythm of bebop jazz. William Blake is also one of my literary heros. Right now, I play solo for community and university functions but also very enjoy playing with "Thimble" a group comprised of Jermore Wincek - bass , mandolin, and vocals, Lisbet Searle-White - Violin and vocals, David Perry - keyboard and percussions, and Carrie Forden - percussions. We do everything from Thelonious Monk to Jerome Wincek originals."

Take a listen to Latrobe's music here.

I'll finish up the profiles tomorrow, so make sure you come back. Really. Wait, that sounded needy didn't it? Oh man, now you're never going to come back. I don't know what got into me...It's just that, I mean....I love you...


In even more incredible arts news from the OC via The Derrick , The Oil Valley Center for the Arts and Oil City's downtown arts revitalization effort put together the funding to buy an entire established arts center and move it to the city's National Transit Building and its yellow annex along Seneca Street:

The supplies will allow the art center to offer classes in areas including ceramics, fabric dying, weaving and papermaking. Ceramics materials include kick wheels, four kilns, a slab roller, glazes and dozens of tools.
Other items include wooden looms, tables, chairs, shelving, 40 assorted easels, canvasses, oil paints, water color paints, acrylic paints, crock pots, dyes, vats, mirrors, beadwork materials, drawing materials, plastic molding masks, texture tools, and clay - among scores of other items.


I had heard that this was coming, but the scope is just so amazing, and, to use a word that probabaly hasn't been applied to the region since 1912: progressive. It really feels like we might be ready to stop looking backwards and see what we can create now as a region.


The Photomedia Center announced a Call for Artists for their 2007 Open Juried Exhibition. Open to all artists internationally working in any photographic media-including collage, digital, traditional and alternative processes, and new media. There is no restriction on subject matter. Selected works will be exhibited online at the Photomedia Center during the month of September 2007. Five Juror's Awards will be exhibited at Glass Growers Gallery in Erie, Pennsylvania. For additional details and to download the full prospectus and application form, visit their web site. Any questions regarding the show or entry process, please contact mailtp:info@photomediacenter.org.


Look for a statue of Mr Rogers on Pittsburgh's North Shore in 2008.





Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, profiled in this very blog months ago, is currently negotiating a major-label deal with Warner Bros. Ah, the sweet siren sound of the major label meat grinder.

Industrial percussion pioneer Z'EV will be in Pittsburgh on Monday.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival starts this Tuesday and runs until June 4th.

Sure, a trans-atlantic flight is expensive, but what kid will ever forget her visit to a Charles Dickens theme park?

Visitors will find themselves stiffening, in a very English way, at the interactive approaches made by the 60-odd costumed Victorian "characters" who patrol the main courtyard, behaving in typically Dickensian ways. There's a rat-catcher, a schoolmaster and a policeman, but, sadly, no Beadle - presumably because his life would become a nightmare of small boys saying, "Please sir, I want some more."



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