For those who didn't know, I am one of three Pittsburgh writers who launched a space on Substack last month. It all started when Scott Mervis, until recently the music critic at the Post-Gazette, was not hired on by the paper's new owners. He was talking to Manny Theiner, a Pittsburgh fixture who has been putting on shows for ages and also knows his way around a descriptive phrase. (He wrote for InPgh and Pittsburgh City Paper much like me.) The two of them started hatching ideas about starting a "super blog" and my name got pulled into the conversation. I wasn't going to say no to another chance for my writing to get out into the public. The power of three is always a good thing. Being a Libra, I'll keep things balanced too.
On May 13, Sonic Pitt made its debut. If you want to check it out, here's a good place to start. Please like some of the articles and considering subscribing, There are both free and paid subscriptions. The more we have, the better chance we have of thriving.
So that has taken up quite a bit of time lately, in the best possible way, of course. There's a show coming up? Hey, I can preview it, for the first time in a while! With Scott's pull, I might even get some new eyes looking at my articles too, hopefully checking out music.
While all that has been happening, though, I have been thinking that I want to keep this blog alive as well. Granted the traffic isn't quite as heavy - though the number of readers for my last few posts is kind of high, so thank you all for that - but I still feel like this is a valuable outlet, writing about new albums that deserve recognition, reporting on live shows and the occasional post about some record I picked up recently and why you should care about it.
That being said, it's time to do some catching up. For that, I'll begin several weeks back, before even Sonic Pit was a reality.
On the last weekend in April, the NFL Draft took place in Pittsburgh. I'm not a fan of such hoopla so it was just another weekend for me, albeit one where the city was expecting huge throngs of people to descend on our city. Apparently they did, but local businesses didn't see the spike they were anticipating.
I mention all this because, despite being right on the edge of the area where the draft was happening (on the North Side), Government Center still hosted a show, which featured the Ithaca, NY band Material Objects (pictured above). The 54D bus stops pretty much outside of my house and passes within a block of Government Center, so it was a good night to utilize public transit and check out the action.
Locals Bat Radar and Ampersandband opened the show. I've seen and played shows with the former band many times but hadn't seen the latter before, and hope to again. Material Objects had kind of a thick, somewhat droning guitar sound (somewhere in the lineage of Mission of Burma songs like "Dead Pool," sans tape loops), accentuated by the use of cello. Their CD In Revision sounded a little more to my ears like Chicago post-rock, with the cello underused or mixed low, but still cool.
A few days later, the New Pornographers came back to town, for the first time since 2017, I believe. They were back at Mr. Small's Theatre, having played Stage AE last time. As I was driving into Millvale to the show, I saw a guy standing on a corner who looked a bit like NPs bassist John Collins. Luckily I was able to find a parking spot right there and ran up to the fellow before he had a chance to walk away. Sure enough - it WAS John Collins. (Full disclosure - John mixed a few songs by my previous band, the Love Letters, and he's a really nice guy to boot.) Always good to catch up with musical acquaintances.
The show opened with a solo set by Will Sheff, one-time (maybe in perpetuity) singer of Okkervil River. His band opened for the NPs in town many moons ago, and some friends of mine weren't taken with what they considered scenery-chewing, Nick Cave-inspired dramatics onstage back then. Me, I thought he was fine. Tonight there was none of that, just a man and his guitar, playing some songs that were dramatic but pretty arresting too. On top of that, Sheff's current look was reminiscent of Abbey Road-era John Lennon too.
A question loomed in my mind that night: what kind of set would the New Pornographers deliver? The new album, The Former Site Of, is pretty strong, but has a noticeable lack of guitars, except for maybe rhythm parts. (It also had a lyric sheet, which might be a first for them, and a very welcome addition.) Further, who would be in the band tonight?
The personnel onstage included longtime member Kathryn Calder (above) on keyboards and vocals. Neko Case was not there but the other vocal chores were handled skillfully by Jess Nolan, who was on the other side of the stage, flanking Carl Newman (below).
The set was a great mix of tunes from the new album along with classics like "The Laws Have Changed" and "Testament to Youth In Verse," the latter written by off-and-on member Dan Bejar, and handled ably by everyone in his absence. Finally, the group totally slayed me by including "The Bleeding Heart Show," one of my favorite songs across the board. The climax of it got me hopping around like I was at a tent revival, which probably looked a little goofy but at that point, I didn't care. The music took over.
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