There’s not very much that’s astounding about “Listen,” the one-song debut from Reno soul quartet MELK, released yesterday on streaming services. That is, there’s not very much that’s astounding about it, aside from the initiation of it all. “Listen” is pretty much a straight-forward, 4/4 Stax soul romp, complete with genre-pitch-perfect, reverby guitars and a…
Review: Roley Yuma – S/T
Well, it took a couple decades, but it looks like Dayton, ground zero for bands as notable as The Breeders, Brainiac and Guided By Voices, has unearthed its answer to Philadelphia’s Latimer. Twenty fours years after LP Title, Latimer’s debut full-length, hit streets, the band Roley Yuma has released its second full-length, the self-titled successor…
Profile: Spotlights (2019)
The band Spotlights played its first show in Pittsburgh in 2017, opening for Melvins at Rex Theater in South Side. At the time, the group – husband and wife team Mario and Sarah Quintero – lived in Brooklyn. On Tuesday, July 16, the band will make its latest appearance in Pittsburgh, headlining Black Forge 2…
Review: Aaron Myers-Brooks – “Energetic Bursts”
Guitarist-composer Aaron Myers-Brooks constructs mathy, even obtuse, metal for listeners who appreciate the genre’s technical virtuosity but take issue with its faux-evil strutting and testosterone-jacked theatricality. There you have it. But to call the Pittsburgh underground musician a thinking man’s Dave Mustaine or Kevin Hufnagel is derivative. (He’s always been more Orthrelm than Dysrhythmia, anyway.)…
Profile: Deutschtown Music Festival (2019)
Almost a decade ago, Cody Walters and Ben Soltesz saw a transformation on the horizon in Pittsburgh and they wanted to make sure their North Side neighborhoods were in on the boom. “I go to see a lot of live music,” says Soltesz, of Spring Hill. “I just started asking bands I liked – ‘We’ve…
Review: Deaf Club – “Bright Side of Death”
Justin Pearson’s Twitter profile used to read, appropriately, “I give good headache.” Well, San Diego record label Three One G today released a video online today from Deaf Club — Pearson’s latest super-group blast of hardcore punk – and, while it hints at the glory days of The Locust, it doesn’t just mimeograph them. Yes,…
Profile: Wild Kindness Records relaunches
Wild Kindness, the Pittsburgh label that once defined the city’s alt-pop aspirations through records by Andre Costello and Chet Vincent & The Big Bend, is back. Chief operating officer Jeff Betten relaunched the dormant label June 12. Betten, a 10th-generation Pittsburgher who flirted with a City Council run this spring, became general manager of Misra…
Profile: David Mnemo (2019)
At a Pennsylvania house party around 2007, Penn State students John Dubosky and Eric Goeller heard a sound that blew their minds. “There was this infectious bass line coming from the first floor,” said Dubosky, 33, of Polish Hill, then the drummer in State College, Pa. band Electric Lemonade Stand. “Eric discovered it and introduced…
Review: Spheruleus – “Light Through Open Blinds”
Fifteen years ago, the definition of ambient music, even the initiation to ambient music, was very different. But, even by the standards of the day, Untitled was an odd duck. Crafted by experimentalists Jon Mueller, Bhob Rainey and Jim Schoenecker, the four-“song” outing, sealed in an orange jacket adorned with a drawing of a toaster,…
Review: The Austerity Program – “Bible Songs 1”
I’m not sure which version of the King James Bible Thad Calabrese and Justin Foley are thumbing through, but I don’t remember the incantation “You motherfuckers!” appearing in the Book of Isaiah. The Biblical interpretations might shoot from the hip a bit (God bless ‘em) but that’s the only thing that’s loose about Bible Songs…