Better known as Pittsburgh’s Little Italy, Bloomfield is more than just a place for pasta lovers. It’s a cultural hotbed, great restaurant destination and one of Pittsburgh’s most charming neighborhoods. Whether you’re looking for pierogies, Thai, Japanese or chicken parm, Bloomfield’s got you covered. This close-knit community prides itself on its working-class status, which becomes most evident during their annual “Little Italy Days” celebration, as well as frequent holiday parades along Liberty Avenue. We had a chance to visit ten of our favorite Bloomfield places. From hair salons, to bakeries to tattoo shops, here’s what we did.

The first stop on our Bloomfield tour was a business that just announced last week it will be closing its doors for good. We’re sad to see Dreaming Ant go, so we stopped by to give them a respectful nod and a case of Iron City Amber. Loyal patrons are hip to Pittsburgh’s premier spot to rent Indie, Foreign or LGBT DVDs at a place that has won numerous awards from the readers of Pittsburgh City Paper over the years. From their unparalleled customer service to their convenient location inside Crazy Mocha, Dreaming Ant will surely be missed by many, especially the residents of Bloomfield.

Next up, Armature Tattoo Co., a two-part custom tattoo shop consisting of owner/artist Ross Kennedy and artist Kati Zmenkowski that prides itself on giving each visitor the “best” tattoo experience possible in a clean environment. Ross’ signature style is known for containing robots as a predominant subject, but his years of training and tattooing make him well equipped to tackle a tattoo with any subject. To view shop renovations and portfolios of Ross and Kati’s work, make sure to visit their website! And to learn more about Ross, read an interview our pals at Touchfaster did with him last summer.

The Big Idea Bookstore & Cafe has been around since 2001 and has grown from a small space on S. Millvale Avenue to its current location, a swankier, larger space in the heart of Liberty Avenue. This is not yo mama’s bookstore. Big Idea strives to “provide literature that is multicultural, women-positive, queer-positive, class-conscious, anti-militaristic, and that promotes a sustainable world and community”. Their cooperative is operated utilizing a democratic, anarchist model and is a place to explore radical ideas in a safe environment.

Open for 12 years now and going strong, BoxHeart Gallery represents the artwork of emerging and mid-career artists from all over the world working in a wide variety of medias and artistic styles. In addition to providing a gallery space, BoxHeart offers event rentals, archival, custom framing services, art consulting and a unique art rental program that was designed for businesses interested in using original fine art to bring their spaces to life. Their latest exhibit by Tate Hudson, premieres tomorrow, April 2 and runs until the 27th.

Donatelli’s Italian Food Center is a family-owned specialty food store that offers a wide array of imported and domestic Italian products. They pride themselves on providing quality service at great prices, but what’s truly special about this place are their homemmade offerings. Everything from Italian sausage, fresh pasta, raviolis, grandma’s sauces and lasagnas, to biscottis, pizzelles, and other Italian baked goods can be found here. And it all hits the spot.

If sushi is your thing, consider visiting one of Bloomfield’s newest restaurants, Fukuda, whose master chef Matt Kemp once worked at Tamari, another spot known for excellent sushi, and the now-defunct Emilia Romagna. Fukuda serves up a variety of Japanese delights such as ramen, robotayaki, okonomiyaki and other raw delicacies. During the weekends, they offer “Bento Brunches” and cater to the late night crowd, staying open until 2AM. Their pop-up sushi bar has been the talk of the town ever since it emerged last summer to give patrons a taste of what to expect at Fukuda, who often imports their fish from Tsukiji Market in Japan.

The Paddy Cake Bakery has been in business for over 25 years. They offer a wide range of products to suit a variety of budgets and tastes. Everything from traditional and wedding cakes to donuts, danishes, tortes, brownies and cupcakes can be found here. Their charming, take-a-number style of operation makes it easy to slip in and out in a hurry to satisfy your sweet tooth. Rumor has it their glazed donuts are top notch!

Chic, stylish and affordable Salon Bella Mia sits on the other end of Liberty Avenue towards Shadyside and is the “perfect blend of high end meets the comfort of home”. Their inviting atmosphere and friendly, courteous staff make this a great place for a haircut or manicure and there’s usually always plenty of parking on that end of Liberty. They offer a variety of professional hair care products for purchase and a range of services including hair extensions, coloring, updos, waxing and more.

Something Borrowed Boutique carries new bridal and special occasion dresses for purchase or for rent. This is a new concept for women and enables them to get the outfit of their dreams at affordable price. Just as men rent tuxedos for special occasions, Something Borrowed gives women the opportunity to look fabulous without breaking the bank. From evening wear for proms, bridesmaids, balls and more, to wedding dresses fit for a queen, consider choosing Something Borrowed Boutique the next time you’re in the market for a gown.

Tattoo Noir, voted by the readers of Pittsburgh City Paper as “Best Tattoo Shop in Pittsburgh” last year, features artists Mike Galone and Josh Suchoza, as well as piercing specialist Ashlee Hagan. Appointments for consultations are highly suggested, as their walk-in hours are limited. They’re also the team behind Art Attack, a recurring event that raises money for selected charities. Their most recent event raised close to 1K for the Western PA Humane Society’s Angel Fund. Be sure to keep an eye on NakYouOut for details on the next Art Attack!

We aren’t here to get all religious on ya, but we can provide you with an excuse not to go to church on Easter Sunday. Sorry if that’s disrespectful to some, but there’s some heavy partying to be had Saturday night at Hot Mass’ special “Oh Christ!” edition featuring Underground Quality artists Fred P and Jus-Ed. Local Jose Luis opens the evening, which begins at 11, a detour from the usual Hot Mass start time. $15 bucks will get you in until the party stops around 6AM. Show up after 4 and it’s only $10. You crazy night owls!

You might remember Jus-Ed from the Humanaut End of Summer BBQ at Millvale Riverfront Park a while back. His talent as a House DJ and impeccable skills as an MC put him into the “mainstream of underground music”. He runs the Underground Quality label, has a weekly internet radio show on Wednesdays from 7-9PM and is a resident of the legendary Panorama Bar in Berlin. Drop everything you’re doing and get down.



And then there’s Fred P. If you’re familiar with Humanaut’s quality curation then all you need to know is that he’s been on their wish list for years and will be delivering a mind-blowing set that your friends will be talking about for weeks…until they bring in another kick ass artist and fill your ear holes with so much incredible sound you might have to move out of Pittsburgh to escape all this awesomeness in one place. That or go to rehab. It could go either way. Fred P tours like a monster and his dark, nasty and funky sets reflect that of a well-versed DJ who knows how to turn up the dancefloor action to heights that would make even the most weathered of attendees blush.



Save your repentance for another day, hell even another life, and get your ass to Oh Christ! Saturday. Wake up Sunday just in time for Easter dinner. It will taste better with all that shame on your lips!

This weekend marks the end of an era as the Shadow Lounge hosts its final two events Friday, March 29 and Saturday, March 30. For close to 13 years, the East End’s epicenter of diversity and nightlife has brought together Pittsburgh visitors and residents as they celebrated music, poetry, spoken word, open mics and other cultural affairs. We paid homage to the legacy of the Shadow Lounge back in September with our spur of the moment #WeLoveShadow event. Now it’s time for the Lounge to go out in its own unique fashion with a tailor-made “Legacy Series” featuring performers who have helped shape the Shadow Lounge into the place it’s known as today – a community of talented, progressive, and vibrant individuals. It’s time for them to give patrons back some of the love they’ve been shown throughout the past decade.

Since our parent company Nakturnal began, Shadow Lounge has been a home away from home for us. Nakturnal founder, Kellee Maize, hosted some of her very first performances there. We have hosted New Year’s Eve Parties, Block Parties, and concerts there, and it’s one of our favorite places to see live music in Pittsburgh. Wiz Khalifa also hosted some of his earlier performances at the Lounge, and so, it seems fitting that his label, Rostrum Records, is presenting the occasion.

Tickets are $20 each night or $30 for both and can be purchased here. Shadow isn’t that large, so advanced purchase is highly encouraged! Doors for each night are at 6:30, with performances beginning at 7. Each artist will fill a 10-30 minute slot, with Sonji headlining Friday night and Eviction Notice headlining Saturday. For a full schedule of times, list of performers and samples of their music, visit our event page.

We hope to see you at the Lounge’s last weekend, in which they claim to be, “not closing, just pausing and moving on”. Here’s to a bright future, Shadow Lounge!

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra‘s “Composer of the Year”, the esteemed Mason Bates, is making his return to Pittsburgh in a very non-traditional format. His project, Mercury Soul, combines orchestral compositions with electronic music and takes place in a night club, rather than a seated theatre. This experience allows attendees to roam freely and engage at whatever level they please. Collaborators include members of the PSO, CMU’s School of Drama and Visual Director Anne Patterson, who created a custom lighting and set design for the performance. Mercury Soul also marks the world premeire of Bates’ PSO-commissioned The Rise of Exotic Computing. In order to learn more about this talented man, we asked him a few questions in anticipation of April’s event and even managed to score a few tickets to give away!

Kymbo Slice: Most individuals familiar with Mason Bates know of your orchestral collaborations. How does planning and executing an event with an orchestra in a traditional setting differ from your Mercury Soul project?
Mason Bates: The orchestral space is unlike almost anything else we have : a huge acoustic space devoted to the thoughtful consumption of music. I like the focus that comes with the symphonic space, the chance to tell big stories and move through strange worlds. Sometimes a traditional space like this can, in the midst of a rapidly changing world, become almost revolutionary. I do think that orchestra concerts provide a special respite from our multi-tasked world.
But when Mercury Soul comes to town, we revel in musical multi-tasking. The entire 5-hour event unfolds without a single break, with DJ sets morphing into classical sets and back. This music can withstand the changes in cabin pressure from concert hall to club; it just takes some adventurous travelers.

KS: How do your influences differ as a composer and a DJ/producer?
MB: Composing classical music and DJing electronica used to be separate worlds for me; now they are happily coexisting. Both of these musics involve rich, imaginative sonorities and intricate rhythms and harmonies. Electronica is one of the few realms of popular music that has no vocal line, and the resulting tracks are a wonderful spin on what was once known as ‘instrumental’ (ie non-vocal) music.

KS: You are one of the youngest-ever recipients of a Heinz Award. What was that experience like?
MB: Few foundations offer such generous support to individual artists, a species of human that needs time to develop ideas. The Heinz Foundation’s support will allow me to continue to focus on writing music. On the stage with scientists, environmentalists, and educators, I’ll admit to feeling less immediately useful to society! But thankfully the Heinz recognizes the arts as the critical communal force that it is, and I am very honored to have received their nod.

KS: Some would call you a pioneer of your field. Can you speak to the success you’ve had with engaging younger audiences in this type of music?
MB: My interest in fusing orchestral textures and electronica grew from the pregnant musical possibilities they presented. But it has certainly been invigorating to see so many young people drawn to this. The orchestra is, after all, the world’s greatest synthesizer, and there’s no reason young people can’t rock out it!

KS: What’s next for you in terms of career goals or upcoming projects?
MB: A cello concerto for the Seattle Symphony, a new piece for St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, an psychedelic ‘animal suit’e for the Chicago Symphony.

Mercury Soul takes place Friday, April 5 at Static in the Strip District. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here. If that’s too steep for your pocketbook, don’t fret. We have TWO pairs of tickets to give away to this unique event, so why not enter and experience this one of a kind production! To enter, simply follow the Rafflecopter instructions below. Winners will be notified via e-mail and must respond within 24 hours to confirm.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What would you say to walking across the country, sleeping on the ground each night, and living off the land, all for the sake of your art? Well, that’s exactly what Crystal Hoffman will be doing for her Poetry Pilgrim Project. Beginning March 25th, she will embark on a 2,550 mile journey where she will write poems for people that she meets along her path after interviewing them. Each poem will reflect that individual’s “hero’s journey” or personal narrative. Then she will type each one (with an Olivetti 32 typewriter) onto slips of card stock, string it with ribbon, and gift it to them. She has been refining this process of participatory composition with her group The Typewriter Girls Poetry Cabaret for the past three years.  She will also be composing creative non-fiction essays about her experiences while walking and the process of collecting these individual’s stories, as well as posting writing prompts and transcripts of interviews at www.poetrypilgrim.com. You can help her with her journey by donating to her Kickstarter campaign. We had a chance to interview Crystal about this unique excursion and her inspiration behind it.

This project and your work in general seem to strive to create a new form of creative expression by actually discarding modern conveniences and ideals for what most would consider archaic practices. What is your underlying motive/philosophy to this angle?

I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily trying to invent new forms of creative expression, but rather attempting to revive old ones in a new context. I’m attempting to promote a kind of reawakening of cultural memory in order to assist in its integration and evolution. I’d like to keep the realm of possibility as dense as possible so that connections can be established, reawakened, and called upon easily, rather than going through the learning process again, as it’s often painful. Past technologies, past metaphors, past storylines are still present. They still exist within us and we have the opportunity as observers in the now to manipulate and learn from them within a new framework–kind of like what happens in dreams.

What would you say are the downfalls of modern conveniences for creatives and society as a whole?

A loss of appreciation for the true extremes of existence. A loss of solitude. A loss of appreciation for dark places. A fear of intense connection. A lack of empathy. When you read or write something on the screen you don’t take it into the material realm–drag it out of possibility and onto the page or embody it in your vocal chords. It’s barely even a part of you, so you don’t think about it much. You don’t think about it’s effects. I’m certain that the long term effects of technology will outweigh these losses in the long run. I know lots of people that use it for good, create meaningful connections, etc. I try to do so. I’m just working against the grain because someone has to and it feels right to me. That’s how we get all of those pretty patterns. That’s how we get creation.

What is it about typewriters that draw you to use them? You have the Typewriter Girls Cabaret, and you will be hiking across the country with a typewriter for this project, what do they represent to you?

Hard metal from the guts of the earth; ribbons laid in ink made from the ash of some large animal’s horns or tusks; dozens of arms with instruments to engrave magic symbols. Mostly I know how to fix them and they produce an immediate result that I can lay my hands on, put in my pocket, rip up or put behind glass if I so wish.

If you were to create your own hero’s journey, what would it be about?

It would look a great deal like a poem that my friend Margaret Bashaar wrote once, when I took her on a hike through the forests where I spent fifteen years of my life that was about to be strip-mined. The ribbons were already on the trees, marking which ones were worth taking.

Because We Ran Here With Bare Feet

She is a missionary who spikes trees,

lays her hands on them and cries,

tall like goldenrod, arms extended.

A soft thread that runs through and outside me,

she smells like an apple split down the center.

I wonder what is left of her bones,

what makes her eyes garnet,

if it is the same cedar root

that crawls into my bed at night,

that holds me close, blankets me in leaves.

We walk in grass up to our knees. Sharp from the sun,

it scratches the backs of them. There are fields of it

that spill away. She picks the longest blades she can find,

ties up bundles to dry in her closet,

make tea from in the winter to pour over our hands.

Still steaming, we collect thistles and dead beetles

to put in boxes and drawers with last year’s used corks,

cat whiskers, and typewriter ribbons.

The whole world use to be like this, she says,

wild and rolling away.

I fall belly first onto the rocks, spine like a lizard.

We try to summon Humbaba

and she is barefoot on stone, tells me

how she whispered promises to the cedars,

and I see giants behind the tree line, hard as gunshots.

She is speech, I am mind,

and we look for the body tangled

in treetops or covered in moss

softer than my hair, this mattress,

softer than anything made by man.

*

I’m using this, because it is the most honest. I don’t think we get to pick our journeys for ourselves. I don’t think that we’re capable of seeing ourselves as a unified story until we reach enlightenment. Others outside of us get to witness our actions, interpret it in context, resolve the contradictions by looking in our eyes and seeing what we’re really feeling, what we’re really trying to say and where we really want to go. That’s one reason that I am going on this walk. I want to be the witness for others.

You mention the need to release our notions of success? What notions should we be releasing and what should we adapt to instead?

The notion that you’re only doing well if your page has four hundred likes on Facebook. The notion that if you’re not making money from your work that you’ve failed. The notion that your creation needs more than one witness ever, in order for it to be worth your making it.

I’d rather see people asking themselves, agonizing rather, over whether or not their creation is honest. We can’t simultaneously be writing or producing work with the aims of receiving a wide audience and producing works which peel away the veil and reveal unity. Unity is terrifying. Living an ego-less state should scare the shit of you. It should confuse you. It should send you into nearly painful ecstasies. And it should never NOT leave a wound. That’s not going to be popular.