Video: Sonic Youth on Jools Holland

Free Summer Shows

Photo - Cat Power among the crowd at Hartwood Acres in 2006: HughShows

With Jennifer O'Connor and Donora set to play a free show tomorrow night in Oakland, it seemed like as good a time as any to draw yer attention to the handful of solid freebies the coming months hold. While I think the Arts Fest speaks for itself, several other shows well worth the price of admission are peppered throughout the summer:

June:
20 - Delbert McClinton, Kittanning Riverfront Amphitheatre

26 - YEP Summer Music Festival, Schenley Plaza

28- The Old 97's, Hartwood Acres

July:
4 - Three Dog Night, Point State Park
17 - Steve Earle, South Park
26 - Los Lobos, Hartwood Acres

August:
7 - Foghat, South Park (Slow Ride, anyone?)
9 - Son Volt, Hartwood Acres

EDIT: Add one more to that list...

September:

6 - Rusted Root @ Hartwood Acres

Eels debut new video: "Fresh Blood"

Hombre Lobo will be out on June 2.

The unabashed plug: Action Painters

Cue the wiki:

Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.

A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme.

Fade in bio excerpts:

2006… Tom Haslow (guitar/vox)… Amit Wehle (drums)… Allison Zatarain (keys)… began rehearsing in a frigid Brooklyn basement… Joe Hankin [guitar]… Ray Heekin(bass).

[B]listering, irresistible tunes carried by Haslow's confident, Verlainian tenor, groove-punk rhythms, soaring choruses and deadly hooks.... art rock for the masses, pop you can love the morning after, played by art school nerds who grew up cool.

Their 2007 debut, Chubby Dancer, is solid all the way through, at times wearing post-punk influences shamelessly well, at others shedding them and showing off an original brand of sunny guitar pop that might have lingered and transformed in the night.

It's a sound that should resonate perfectly in the walls of the Southside's Lava Lounge, where they’re playing Thursday night with Triggers. You should go.

Meanwhile, download their new 3-song EP, Lay That Cable, at the band’s website or on iTunes.

Recent newsbites

- Dylan, Nelson, Mellencamp at CONSOL (P-G)

- Springsteen concert tickets up for bids to benefit Just Harvest (Trib)

- Acoustics were key to North Shore entertainment complex (P-G)

- Black Moth Super Rainbow gets a coat of polish from big-name producer (P-G)

- Human Quena Orchestra unleashes apocalyptic doom without the gloom (City Paper)

- 6 music services compared: Who can bust the iTunes monopoly? (ZDNet)

New masthead photo

In honor of the start of baseball season and the arrival of spring, we're switching it up again with a photo by Hugh Twyman, of HUGHSHOWSREDUX. Hugh bills his site as "Pittsburgh's Premiere Concert Phlogh" and that's right on. Every day he's got a new set of shots from shows in and around the area. Usually they're recent, sometimes he treats readers to a blast from the past.

This week he's featuring photos from Donora's video shoot this past Saturday at Brillobox, so stop by and have a look around. Plenty to see there.

Of course, if you have photos of your own you think we'd like, feel free to submit them to sitkot@gmail.com.