The Blurgh

Given that today seems like a beautiful, if crisp, day, I think I’m going to see if I can get some folks together tonight to cut a rug at a bar/restaurant in Bloomfield called Manic Attic. It’s a small place (as all places in Bloomfield are), but they have a house band that plays music that’s not too in-your-face, but also not drowsy. The kind of place where it’ possible to sit at the bar and talk to friends or get down on the dance floor, and it’s all good.

One of my favorite parts about the place, though, is the welcoming atmosphere. Most dance places, especially in other towns, have a real “screw you” attitude towards their clientèle–if you’re not hot and/or a great dancer, you don’t belong. Those kinds of places feed a common perception people have that they have to be good at something before they even try it, lest they embarrass themselves.

What the hell kind of BS is that? Manic Attic doesn’t buy into that sort of self-defeating and elitist drivel, and the way they counter it is with leading by example.

Although I don’t know the folks personally, I heard that the place was started by a group of friend’s who were fed up with how the dance scene was so non-inclusive, so they started their own place. Some of them are there almost every night, and they just rock out with reckless abandon. It’s hard to see them having fun and not want to join in, and that’s usually what ends up happening, even for the hard nuts to crack. It also doesn’t hurt that the band is totally rockin–live music makes a HUGE difference!

Last weekend, Gretchen and I were lucky enough to score tickets to The Tubes concert, and it was awesome. Neither of us have seen The Tubes since they made it big nationally and, as I’m sure you know, tickets were not easy to come by. It just so happens, though, that they recorded their first album at Washie’s, so my dad was able to pull some strings to get us in.

The Tubes have a great 80s/funk fusion kind of thing, and they somehow find a way to incorporate an accordian into almost every song they play. I also can’t imagine a better place for them to play in than Venue 13. It’s on 13th and near Sarah in the South Side in this crazy old police station. There was a big fire in it that gutted the place decades ago, and it was abandoned for a long time. When things started happening in the South Side, a clever investor bought the property for practically nothing, and over several years renovated it into an intimate but large venue. It’s great because it attracts national acts but still has the feel of a small club.

My Dad told me that he remembers sneaking into the building before it was sold and goofing around with his friends. It tried to get more details on what exactly he meant by “goofing,” but when I asked, he suddenly remembered he had something to do that was “very important…”

Since I’ll be starting an internship at Community Recycling and Renewables (CRR) in a few weeks, my days at the Castle are coming to an end.  It’s been awesome, and I’m going to miss the money a lot…I don’t know if you knew this, but there is quite a pay differential between bartending and interning!

It’ll actually work out all right, because starting in January, the Castle will be undergoing some renovation and expansion into the adjacent store.  Because of that, a large part of the bar will be unavailable, so they are cutting back on the number of people working every night.  I will miss it though, and I might try to start working there a few nights a week again after the semester’s over.  By then all the work will be done, so they’ll definitely be in need of people.

And I have to admit, I’m a little proud of myself–one of the main reasons that the owner decided to expand was to increase the capacity of the theatre and stage, and that’s largely due to the overwhelming success of the Rocky Horror night back on Halloween (my idea!).  The owner is planning on sponsoring an Indie movie night at least every week and also booking some bigger local bands as well as national acts to come play when the new and improved stage is done.

If you ask me, that’s something that Oakland desperately needs.  The South Side, Lawrenceville, the North Side and other neighborhoods already have big venues, but Oakland hasn’t had anything since Laga closed over 20 years ago (at least that’s what my Dad said).  He told me a story about sneaking in there to see P-Funk play when he was 16 or something…that must have been fun.

It’s been common knowledge for quite a while that there are several very accomplished arts programs at the universities in the area. Each school has their specialty, but overall, a lot of quality art, music, dance and theatre emerges from these programs every year.

Five or six years ago, a couple graduates from the various programs in town got together and had a great idea. Most of the various classes related to the arts have performances/shows as their final projects, but most of them are sparsely attended and largely ignored by the rest of the student body and surrounding community. To change this, the graduates used various connections in their respective schools and organized competitions between related disciplines to take place in the stead of multiple small performances. From the outset these have been wildly popular, and they’ve gone a long way in creating better connections between the universities and the communities that surround them.

Last night was the first in this series of competitions, and it was in music and dance. What I loved about this is that instead of holding separate music and dance performances, the organizers decided to combine them both. This not only drew a larger crowd, but also encouraged more internal cooperation between the music and dance departments within schools. And who prefers canned music over live, anyway?

There were several performances that covered many genres of music and dance, and they were all awesome. My favorites were Point Park’s Modern Dance to classic Pittsburgh Jazz and the Pitt African Drumming Ensemble. In the end, I voted for Pitt (I guess I do have some school spirit after all!), and they ended up winning the show!

It was a sweet performance, and I’ve enjoyed coming to the performances every finals season…which hasn’t been particularly helpful grade-wise! Later on this week I’ll tell you about the other competitions and how they went.

When Andi called me the second I turned off my work computer and gathered my November-cold clothing (scarf, but a light one; coat, but not a parka), I was ready for whatever she was going to throw my way.

“You wanna go to Murphy’s? 9 o’clock?”

You better believe I wanted to go to Murphy’s at 9 o’clock. Murphy’s is this ridiculously odd little bar nestled between a furniture store and an art gallery on Federal Street on the North Side. It is unabashedly dedicated to all things 90s, which I find pretty hilarious. My mom grew up in the 90s and a few months ago, during one of her visits, I brought her there. The bar’s named for the guy who was mayor of Pittsburgh during most of the decade - some people like that, some people hate it, but the owners don’t really care. They just want you to have a good time. There are posters of bands ranging from Nirvana to the Spice Girls on the walls, the servers dress in their preferred 90s fashions (some people choose to invoke Cher from Clueless, others prefer the grunge look), and, best of all, they have only-90s karaoke on Monday nights.

I asked Frank if he wanted to come along, and he couldn’t resist. One of his fondest memories is of his mom and dad singing Salt N Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” at a neighborhood barbecue to the general mortification of Frank and his siblings, so he always sings that song at 90s karaoke. My signature song is Hanson’s “MMMBop,” in honor of my mother who had the biggest crush ever on Taylor Hanson back in the day. Andi’s parents had a thing for Oasis, so she always sings “Champagne Supernova.” And any songs that we don’t cover are sure to be done by the other people.

Anyway, it was just what I needed after a long day at work. I love going to these little bars in Pittsburgh, especially the ones that really fit in with their neighborhoods. The North Side is such a weird, funky place that it makes sense it would have a kitschy bar that you can goof off at next to a hoity-toity art gallery and a family-run furniture store. I freaking love it.

So last night I was hanging out with my Dad at his recording studio (it’s called Washie’s, btw, and it’s in East Liberty), and as the night went on, more and more random people just started showing up. I haven’t talked about my Dad much on this site, but he’s an interesting fellow–probably about as laid back as one can safely be. He knows a lot of people in the local scene here, and he’s done a lot to promote local bands and to help them with getting their albums cut. Only a couple of bands/performers he knows have gotten more than regional popularity, but as he says, it seems like every year he’s busier, and that every year there’s more stuff going on.

So as I said, all these musicians kept coming in, sitting down, and chatting with my Dad and the other folks there. Some of them brought instruments, which they started pulling out, and the ones who didn’t were looking at the instruments my Dad had lying around. My Dad always said that it’s dangerous to get into music, because soon you end up with a room-full of instruments and no money!

As the night went on, people started cautiously playing little riffs and licks on the instruments, and slowly, the music overcame the talking. By that time, there was a full-blown jam session going down. My Dad plays a little bit of everything, and as he was walking over to his favorite bass guitar, he looked at me and gave me a smile and a nod, which I knew meant for me to go to the recording booth. Since I never showed any real interest or special talent for playing music, my Dad taught me from a young age how to operate all the equipment in his studio, and every now and then I help him out with a recording.

There’s an understanding among all the musician’s in the area that you could always go into Washie’s and jam, but that recording light would probably be on at the time. My Dad has never done anything with the recordings, but a couple of the musician’s have come back to listen to them and incorporate some things into their songs. I’ve always respected how my Dad just started doing what he wanted to do, even before there was a real tangible “scene” in Pittsburgh…it’s kind of reminds me of a chicken and the egg kind of thing. Did the success of Washie’s help create the scene, or did the scene enable Washie’s to succeed? I guess it was a little of both…

The North Street corridor is a very happening spot if you’ve never checked it out. Yesterday there was a local film festival held at a place which just reopened called “The Garden.” My dad told me that back in the day it was a porno theatre, which struck me as hilarious, because now it’s a high-brow artsy theatre/gallery type of place. The inside was spectacular, and the films were awesome. Being that I’m a history dork, my favorite one was on all the craziness that was going on after the turn of the millennium, from the Y2K bug to 9/11 to Iraq to global warming finally getting the attention it deserved. That was one crazy-ass decade, and I have to say that I’m not too disappointed that I can’t remember any of it!

After that we went into the park across the street to see the street performers. There was one of those people who paints themselves in metallic paint and acted like a statue, there was a juggler, and there was a really impressive dance group from whereabouts unknown. We could have stayed longer and went to one of the clubs to catch a band, but we decided to skip out early and head home.

On another note, stuff at the Castle has been pretty good, and I finally convinced my manager to put on a Rocky Horror showing on Halloween. I totally promised him that there would be people dressed up and wild for it, which may be a hollow promise because I know absolutely no one at this point who would actually do it. If you have any suggestions, drop me an email!

Last night I decided I needed to kick the last weekend before classes off right, so I hopped on the Yellow train and headed to Cheeks in Uptown. If you’ve never been, Cheeks is pretty sweet—it still has that dive kind of feel, but it has a small stage, a decent size dance floor, and features a lot of local bands. They also only serve beers brewed in Western Pennsylvania, which kinda rocks my world. My family happens to be good friends with the owner, which is a good and a bad thing…and both come in a glass.

Being a bartender myself, you’d think I’d know better than to go all out on a Friday, but whatev. Gretchen couldn’t make it, but I met up with some folks who were already there. The band playing that night was kickin, they were a funky, jazzy, crazy fusion type of deal. The Bonobos I’m pretty sure they were called. Good Stuff. Highly recommended.