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Friday, 13 May 2011 12:17

Written by Scott Mervis

These are all more than one line, but you get the idea...

-- You may have heard Ryan Seacrest announce Thursday night that "American Idol" auditions would take place in Pittsburgh for the first time on July 15. (No location mentioned.) The city has already produced two stars through competitions: Christina Aguilera ("Star Search") and Jackie Evancho ("America's Got Talent"). Know any young singers who could nail this?

-- Stage AE's outdoor debut was a winner all the way on Wednesday. It's like the Pavilion-in-miniature with a city view, city convenience, cheaper prices ($4.75 for a 16-ounce draft) and, best of all, the freedom to roam the venue, front to back. General admission and no pavilion seats is agreat thing. Like I noted in the review, my only complaint is that Social Distortion could have played a little faster.

-- How weird is it to read a personal message to the fans from Bob Dylan? He posted a blog-type entry on his web site May 13 clarifying that he was never denied permission to play China and that the government did not censor his set list. My favorite part is, he writes, "...the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months." "There's no logical answer to that"! Classic!

-- Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek has canceled his show at Diesel Thursday to accept an award from the Polish government. The plan is to reschedule for fall.

-- Scrambling around to find two songs to play on WYEP next week, I flipped through dozens of new CDs, most of which were bland and forgettable, to uncover two absolute gems. The first is "The Demon and the Devotee," the new album from Arizona's The Love Me Nots, a brilliant female-fronted, fuzzed-out garage-rock band (which happens to feature drummer-producer Bob Hoag who's worked with The Breakup Society). The other album is "Mysterious Power" from Chicago's Ezra Furman & the Harpoons. If you like Violent Femmes, the Pixies, Pavement, Dylan, check it out. His lyrics grab you by the collar.

-- Rob Zombie isn't coming until July (with Slayer) but wanted to do the interview this week. One of the offbeat tidbits from the interview is that the rocker/cult horror filmmaker directed, of all things, a Woolite commercial. "You'd be surprised how many directors do that," he said, "because these commercials don't direct themselves...they just don't usually talk about it."

-- Talked to Weird Al on Friday about the whole mix-up trying to get permission to parody Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" as "Perform this Way." At first, he was denied by management, then Lady Gaga herself found out and was all for it. "I guess the lesson is," he said, "if you can talk to the original artist, that would be better, but unfortunately I didn't have Lady Gaga's home phone nunmber."

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written by Rusty Spanner, May 13, 2011 - 01:44 PM

I'm an outsider looking in, but it seems like the AI broadcast of the Pittsburgh auditions (1 or 2 nights on primetime Fox) is a great time to educate the nation to not only Pittsburgh's music history but also to the city's current music scene. I just pray trustworthy people are used by Fox to tell the story.

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