Wedding Bells...

No new updates until next week, folks. I'm off to Sellersville (just outside of Philadelphia) for my best friend's wedding!

Have a great 4th of July! Until next week...

June 27: Entertainment Briefs

Town Talkers

Thursday: The American Shorts Reading Series will examine the topic of "Sex." Featured readers are Michelle de la Reza and Peter Kope of Attack Theatre reading "The Kugelmass Episode" by Woody Allen and singer Christiane D. reading "Secretary" by Mary Gaitskill. Pittsburgh Filmmakers will present a sampling of vintage sex shorts circa 1940. Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Shadyside, 7:30 p.m. $4 (blankets and picnics encouraged). 412-578-2464.

If you have an interesting speaker you would like to tell us about, send us a fax at 412-263-1313 or e-mail us magazine@post-gazette.com. [Post-Gazette]

June 27: Post-Gazette Rundown

Chillicothe Paints at Washington Wild Things
Venue: Falconi Field
Date: Monday, June 27, 2005
Time: 7:05 p.m.
Ticket price: $5-$10
Ticket contact info: (866) 456-WILD

Spanglish
Venue: Carnegie Library - East LIberty branch
Date: Monday, June 27, 2005
Time: 9 p.m.
Ticket price: Free

2005 CITIPARKS COMCAST CINEMA IN THE PARKS.

Spanglish
Venue: Carnegie Library - East LIberty branch
Date: Monday, June 27, 2005
Time: 9 p.m.
Ticket price: Free

2005 CITIPARKS COMCAST CINEMA IN THE PARKS.

Tim Easton
Venue: Club Cafe
Date: Monday, June 27, 2005
Time: 7 p.m.
Ticket price: $10 - $12
Ticket contact info: 412-323-1919 - Ticketmaster

Advance tickets: All Ticketmaster Outlets

June 27: Tim Easton at Club Cafe

What your ears have here is... the latest album by Tim Easton; Break Your Mother's Heart which definitively stakes his place in the first rank of contemporary rock troubadours. Tim's natural talent is in full view and the songs are expertly played and sung. Sonically, the warmth and feel of the past is evoked. It's the kind of record that just doesn't come along every day.

It's all about the songs. Songs so solidly written they could be textbook examples; like the opener, Poor Poor L.A. for instance, an ode to the city of angels with a rapid-fire lyric that you?ll want to memorize so you can sing along: "Not too many years ago there were hippies killing people/a mile away from the Marlboro Man/Now there's sandpaper pants/on the gutterpunks/and lowriders with their heads in the trunks/or walking in fours and kicking in doors/cutting it up and filling their cup ? You don't have to break your mama's heart to change the world"; Black Hearted Ways is a classic, catchy folk-rocker; The Hanging Tree sports a melody so infectious it'll be stuck in your head for days; Amor Azul is all dreamy and late night, slurred words sort of spilling out of Tim's mouth as if by accident; Then there?s Watching The Lightning, the album's epic with a multi-level lyric, one part dealing with the death of a friend; And on it goes.

Certainly Tim's singing has never been better recorded, and a good part of the credit is due his co-producer John Hanlon, a West Coast engineer/producer whose credits include Neil Young, Grandaddy, and the Beach Boys. Nearly all of the ten songs were cut in one or two takes, with Tim playing guitar and singing live in the same room as the band.

Break Your Mother's Heart features Tim on acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, mandolin, keyboards, and percussion. He is accompanied by a close-knit trio of skilled session players led by master drummer Jim Keltner whose 40-year career spans sessions with everyone from John Lennon to Randy Newman. Keltner locks in seamlessly with the deep melodic bass lines of Hutch Hutchinson (longtime member of the Bonnie Raitt band) and the exhilarating keyboard work of Jai Winding (most notably an alumnus of Jackson Browne's group). read on...

The Lowdown:
Doors Open At 6PM
$10 in Advance / $12 Day of Show
Tickets available through TicketMaster
Charge by phone 412-323-1919.
clubcafe.com

Art Preview: Flattering Close-Ups

The Silver Eye Center for Photography’s Pittsburgh NOW show isn’t the first attempt to capture on film a moment in the city’s history. But while the exhibit’s documentation of cultural and everyday minutiae frequently hits home, it’s also marked by missed opportunities.

Silver Eye approached nine local photojournalists and “documentary-style photographers” to record Pittsburgh’s multidimensional identity through its people, places and events. The project echoes Lewis Hine’s “The Pittsburgh Survey,” in 1907, and the way that mid-century international photography “eyecons” including Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith, along with local legend Charles “Teenie” Harris, recorded a city in transition. Co-curator Linda Benedict-Jones describes Pittsburgh NOW as “a rich and searching tapestry of images, encompassing the descriptive breadth of legendary photographers of the past as well as the fervent hopes we collectively share for Pittsburgh’s future.” read on...
[Pittsburgh City Paper]

The Lowdown:
Pittsburgh NOW continues through Aug. 20. Silver Eye Center for Photography, 1015 East Carson St., South Side. 412-431-1810.