The Whipkey Three

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Matt Whipkey takes compliments with suspicion.

When told that the new Whipkey Three album, Two Truths, sounds like “a Whipkey record,” he immediately raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a negative thing? Does that mean it’s stagnate? That there’s been no development?” he said over Sunday morning coffee at Caffeine Dreams.

It’s only after it’s been explained that having a distinctive style — like Springsteen or The Rolling Stones or Tom Petty — is a good thing that he begins to get the gist of the comment.

“My girlfriend was digging on me last night about how I take criticism,” Whipkey said, “but I think it’s different for musicians.”

He better get used to it. Very few Nebraska artists have such a well-defined musical style and unique voice as Whipkey. Within a few measures of any song, those familiar with his material instantly recognize the booming, golden-hearted power chords touched with a hint of twang, and Whipkey’s Nashville-by-way-of-Benson “southern” drawl that injects each phrase with his big-sky, Heartland roots.

It’s a style that he’s been defining for more than a decade as a solo artist and leading man in a handful of bands including The Movies, Anonymous American and now The Whipkey Three, a band whose name is more of a misnomer. Defined as Whipkey on guitar, vocals and harmonica along with veteran drummer Scott “Zip” Zimmerman and bassist Travis Sing, the new record also features producer J. Scott Gaeta on Hammond B3, piano and keyboards on almost every track. So when The Whipkey Three takes the stage for their CD release show Saturday night at Stir in Council Bluffs, skip the head count.

“If it was up to me, I’d have six guys on stage,” Whipkey said. “The songs work well as a three piece, but in the studio I felt free to indulge, and that can be your own worst enemy. There’s no more than 24 tracks on any given song. We didn’t bring in a Baptist choir.”

The Whipkey Three, Two Truths (self-released, 2012(

But most of the album simply highlights the trio, with Gaeta’s whirling Springsteen-esque Hammond glowing in the background on songs like high-flying rocker “Wasn’t Thinking” and CD-closing back-beat ballad “Reagan Era.” Always at the center is Whipkey’s pure rock sensibility distilled from years of listening to American FM radio. He may be a true indie artist (the album is being self-released), but there’s nothing indie about his style. Whipkey’s songwriting is unapologetically straightforward, un-ironic and ultimately familiar to anyone who grew up listening to arena rock.

At age 31, he says his career goals haven’t changed since his early solo days. He’s managed to make a sizable mark on the local music scene, but has only rarely strayed outside the state lines, despite his efforts to break through to a bigger market.

“I’ve done the college radio thing. It’s a joke,” Whipkey said. “But what else do you do? I wish someone could tell me. I’m back to handing flyers to people I meet. Maybe that’s the best thing you can do. Is it all about who you hang out with? I think it is. I don’t know. Someone tell me. I know how to write songs and perform them, and we do it very well.”

He also knows how to teach, augmenting his income with a day job giving private guitar lessons at Dietz Music. When asked if he still harbors dreams of being as big as Ryan Adams he says, “You have to,” but quickly adds, “You can let those ideas destroy you, because they can make you feel like a failure.”

Instead, Whipkey’s content letting it all hang out on stage and making his own records, right down to meticulously hand-stamping and constructing the cardboard holders for his new CD. “If I give you one, you better listen to it,” he said. “We’re not getting 1,000 jewel-case copies. We pressed 300, and we’ll sell them all.

“This is what I do, it’s who I am,” he said. “Between teaching and playing and performing, it’s my livelihood, my career, and I take it very seriously. I get more out of making music now than I ever did.”

The Whipkey Three plays with The Big Deep Saturday, May 12, at Stir Live and Loud, 1 Harrah’s Blvd., Council Bluffs, Iowa. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $7. For more information, call (712) 328-6499 or visit harrahscouncilbluffs.com.

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In other news…

If you didn’t pick up your ticket for The Faint’s return show at The Slowdown Aug. 18 at The Slowdown you’re out of luck, because it’s already sold out.

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One of the reasons I’m checking out Universe Contest tonight at The Waiting Room (actually thee reason) is that the band is managed by Jeremy Buckley.

Buckley is the guy behind the annual Lincoln Calling Music Festival. Needless to say, he’s seen and heard just about every decent local band in the area. The fact that he’s chosen to take on the rather thankless job of managing Universe Contest is a testament to his confidence that they have what it takes to become big, fat rock stars. To my knowledge, UC is the only band that Buckley ever managed. You can check out their new four-song EP at their website, universecontest.com. Something tells me these guys have a few Modest Mouse albums loaded on their iPods.

Opening for Universe Contest are local heroes Dim Light and Lincoln proto-punkers Ideal Cleaners. All for a mere $7. Show starts at 9.

Also tonight, Brad Hoshaw is playing at The Barley Street Tavern with Ashley Raines. $5, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Last year the Maha Music Festival was something of a sausage party. No matter what organizers tried, they couldn’t book a main stage band with even a single female member let alone a frontwoman. This year, Maha is practically a Midwestern Lilith Fair, with co-headliner Garbage (with frontwoman Shirley Manson) and now the all-woman Sub Pop post-punk rock band Dum Dum Girls, announced last night along with Delta Spirit and Eli Mardock. Add to that Icky Blossoms headlining the local stage featuring the sultry vocals of Sarah Bohling (along with rumors of another female-fronted band on the local stage) and holy moly it’s Maha Girls Rock.

So did Maha go out of its way to book a more diverse lineup?

“It wasn’t our overarching concern, but it certainly was a focus,” said Maha main stage organizer Tre Brashear. “(We) wanted to make sure we secured some female performers at the beginning of the lineup process so we didn’t end up getting burned like last year with unavailability when it came time to finish out the lineup. I know it sounds simplistic, but last year the list of available performers that came back from our inquiries didn’t have as many females. This year, there were more choices that we thought would be appealing to Maha fans.”

Yesterday’s announcement also adds diversity from an age demographic perspective. Maha was on the verge of becoming an indie legacy festival, with Guided by Voices and Superchunk in years past and Garbage and Desparecidos this year — a veritable tribute to past decades. Yesterday’s announcement changes all of that. Dum Dum Girls, who will be coming off an appearance at this year’s Lollapalooza Fest, and Rounder recording artist Delta Spirit, are among the hotter new indie acts on tour, while Icky Blossoms is an emerging post-punk-dance-rock dynamo.

Fans seem to like the lineup, if strong early ticket sales are any indication. “We are running 80% ahead of 2010, so, yes, very strong considering that we have traditionally gotten 10-20% of our sales on the day of show,” Brashear said. “VIP tickets are also going well, especially with the out-of-towners. (We) sold one in Australia last Friday.”

For Maha to “sell out,” it would need to nearly double last year’s attendance. “We will treat ourselves as sold out at 6,000 GA tickets,” Brashear said of Stinson Park’s capacity. “(We) could likely sell more for that space, but don’t want to overwhelm ourselves and want to make sure that we create a good experience for everyone attending with space to spread out, parking, etc.” Tickets to the Aug. 11 concert, held at Stinson Park, are $35 and available at mahamusicfestival.com.

Maha announcements aren’t over yet. Look for one more announcement in the near future to round out the festival’s lineup. Can the multi-million dollar Red Sky Festival match up to Maha? Guess it all depends on how much you like C&W and hair metal. MECA just announced three of its four headliners: Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and Def Leppard. Yee-hawwww!

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Drums at The Waiting Room, May 1, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Just how big was Record Store Day last weekend for Homer’s. Let’s just say sales were at “historic” levels, said Homer’s General Manager Mike Fratt. “We are extremely thankful for all the customer support and all the excitement they create,” he said. “It’s very enjoyable to see fans come out in such large numbers.”

RSD has become a marketing phenomenon of unequaled proportions. The only thing you can compare it to is, say, Black Friday or when Apple launches a new iPhone. It’s huge, not only for Homer’s but for every independent record store in the country. “But with that comes considerable risk as purchases of RSD exclusive product can amount to tens of thousands of dollars, and it’s all sold one way. No returns,” Fratt said. “It is amazing how big an event Record Store Day has become, and it continues to spread internationally. Europe, Asia, South America, Australia. And the indies did this. It dominates Google trends in the week prior, is covered by all major media, and generates positive karma for music and the music business.”

To give you an idea of the enormity for Homer’s: “We brought in more product this year than the last three years combined,” Fratt said. “(It) freaked us out how much we bought, but it turned out well. We sold 66 percent of what we brought in, and have been able to reload on some titles we sold out of since then.”

Among the huge sellers was The Flaming Lips’ Heady LP, which Fratt said not only sold out quickly in Omaha, but sold enough copies that it would have charted in the top 40 on the Billboard charts, and we’re talking about a vinyl release. The key phrase in the last sentence is “would have,” because Fratt said Soundscan somehow didn’t properly report sales on RSD.

“Soundscan showed many cities reported none (of the Lips record) sold (including in Omaha), although we sold all 30 of ours,” Fratt said. “In LA, Soundscan showed just 183 sold when all stores there reported selling all they had, which would have sent the number into the hundreds. Soundscan showed sales in Detroit of negative 400.” Yeah, you read that right.

“Not only did it damage reporting on the three or four titles that would have hit the charts, it also ends up unreporting total impact of RSD, by probably enough to push overall weekly sales up another percent or two — a significant achievement on the part of the indie sector.”

It’s a fuck-up literally of national proportions at a time when the record industry — and indie music stores — can ill afford one. But was Soundscan’s misreporting just a one-time thing or a symptom of a systemic problem? Fratt said the indie music coalition is meeting in LA next week to address the problem. “We are not only concerned about RSD, but ongoing reporting errors,” Fratt said. “Could this loss of reporting move the total national year to date sales up 1 or 2 percent? That is significant if true. No one really knows yet.”

Regardless, there’s no denying that last weekend was wildly successful. Cold hard cash does not lie. “The Indie Retail community saw a 40% increase from last week,” Fratt said. “The overall business conditions were up 3% from last week – which is cool because mass merchants were about even and digital scans were down about 4%.” If that isn’t proof that vinyl is making an impact, nothing is.

While I have your attention, Fratt wanted to pass along some upcoming special events at his store, including in-store performances by My Darkest Days on May 22 and Tech n9ne on May 27, along with listening parties for Beach House and Best Coast May 14 and Sigor Ros May 28.

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Craft Spells at The Waiting Room, May 1, 2012.

Briefly… I am a sucker for ’80s electronic music a la Factory Records bands such as Joy Division and New Order. So last night’s show at The Waiting Room clearly was right up my alley.

Opening band Part Time set the mood with a micro-set that lasted less than a half hour. So shortcthat it was hard to absorb what they were doing on stage. Add to that the fact that they seemed to just want to get it over with didn’t help matters.

They were followed by Craft Spells, who sounded like, well, a cross between New Order and Joy Division. It was all there in the oh so familiar guitar lines, synth parts and up-tempo rhythm section that was straight off of Brotherhood. It’s one thing to be derivative of a style, it’s another to wholly embody it. There’s no question what these guys were trying to do, and they did it well, though I couldn’t tell you a word of what the frontman was mumbling into the microphone during their short set. I can tell you they were the best band on stage last night.

Here I was thinking I might get home by 11, but The Drums put on a long, if not adventureless, performance. With a sound that undoubtedly has its origins in the ’80s, it hinted at something slightly more modern (as in The Strokes). Blond frontman Jonny Pierce spent most of the set sashaying around the darkened stage vocally emulating Bono. In fact, their music tried to harken back to very early U2, but lacked that band’s anthemic hubris.

Watching Pierce skip and sway through his set without engaging the audience made me remember what made Bono such an incredible frontman back in U2′s glory days — he brought his audience along with him on every song. He was mesmerizing, nearly confrontational, determined to make everyone in the audience care about what he was singing about. Pierce could have been singing words out of a telephone book, which is a shame because The Drums lyrics deserve more effort than that.

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Snake Island headlines a show tonight at The Waiting Room with Lightning Bug, Dim Light and  Swamp Walk. $5, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again when Django Greenblatt-Seay (G-S for short) and his band of merry pranksters heads out across the wilderness to capture the best and brightest up-and-coming indie bands livin’ and lovin’ along the Eastern Seaboard.

Of course I’m talking about the Love Drunk 2012 Tour.

The map and list of bands are right there at the top of your screen. We’re talking 17 days, 14 cities, 8 people in one very smelly van.

The Love Drunk Team, photo by Daniel Muller.

Actually, the trip has been split into two tours of duty, with four of the eight splitting time between two legs of the tour. It breaks down like this: G-S, Ben Semisch and The Normans (Angie and Andy, the dynamic duo behind Hear Nebraska) will be along for the full tour. Matt Hovanec and Andrew Roger will be on for the first leg. At some point they will be swapped out with Brendan Greene-Walsh (of O’Leaver’s/So-So Sailors fame) and superstar photographer Daniel Muller (who I refer to as Omaha’s Anton Corbijn).

Like last year, I haven’t heard of many of the bands they’re filming on the road, which G-S said he found via friends, friends in bands and “Facebook trolling.” However, we all know that Cymbals Eat Guitars just got off the road with Cursive; and Spinto the Band opened for Basia Bulat at Slowdown a couple years ago. Beyond that, G-S tells me that Laura Burhenn of The Mynabirds suggested Jukebox the Ghost. Sarah of Millions of Boys suggested Nelsonville. And Spinto came by way of Love Drunk regular Arrah and the Ferns.

So what’s Love Drunk? It’s a live, one-shot music video project that’s featured a number of the better indie bands from around Omaha, including It’s True, Little Brazil, Conduits, Digital Leather and so on. The videos are housed at lovedrunkstudio.com, of course. Read this 2011 column that outlined last year’s tour. Or read my new column about Love Drunk, which will appear in this week’s issue of The Reader.

Love Drunk continues to see its viewership grow. The site’s 73 current videos have been getting a total of 18,000 views per month so far this year, about a 25 percent bump over 2011. Not bad. But we all know imitation is the greatest indicator of success; and just a few weeks ago the Omaha World-Herald began their own version of Love Drunk called Guest List, created by paid staff rather than volunteers. G-S ain’t worried. He says there’s room for two (or three or four) different music video projects in Omaha.

Speaking of money, this year’s Love Drunk Tour is being funded by a couple sponsors — Proxibid and Havana Garage. They’re ponying up much of the $5k needed to make thing work. But G-S still wants more, which is why The Sydney in Benson is hosting a fundraiser for Love Drunk Thursday night featuring Honeybee and Hers and Bazooka Shootout. It’ll be your last chance to say goodbye to the Love Drunk team, as they’ll be hitting the road on Friday…

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The boys in Desaparecidos announced a few more tour dates this morning, including Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle and SF, all in mid- to late-August. Check out the sched at their website. Will there be a new vinyl release soon? Keep your fingers crossed.

In addition, Conor Oberst announced some solo dates, including a string in late July out east. Those dates are listed here on his website.

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Finally, Red Sky announced today via its Facebook page that it will name names for its 2012 “festival” next Monday, May 7. Ho-boy, can’t wait for that one…

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Tonight red hot Brooklyn band The Drums plays at The Waiting Room with Craft Spells and Part Time. $15, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Brent Crampton. Photo by Randy Powell.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

While listening to Neon Trees at SXSW, one of their lyrics jumped out at me, a lyric that I can’t find online (maybe it was made up on the fly?): Paraphrasing: “Anyone who can play a record calls themselves a DJ.” Frontman Tyler Glenn sung the line with a certain amount of venom — odd when you consider that a band like Neon Trees would seem to want to court DJs. Regardless, Glenn’s attitude reflects a lot of people who think that DJing is far from an art form and is no more difficult than playing good music (not necessarily records) in a logical sequence.

That idea was at the center of an interview conducted with DJ Brent Crampton Monday night, and is the theme behind this week’s column, which you can read in The Reader or online right here. Brent answers my inane question: What exactly is a DJ? Most of his answers are in the column; but some didn’t make the cut due to space. Among the edits is Crampton’s response to those who diss DJs as being nothing more than highfalutin stereo operators. “I think a lot of criticism comes from DJs who get put on the same level as bands, and the two are different things,” he said. “Personally speaking, being a DJ I only have to deal with myself. A band can have four, five, six members, and half the battle is just staying together.”

Being a one-man shop can make DJs a more affordable option. “I feel like dance music is recession-proof,” Crampton said. “There will always be a need for people to dance, especially when things are tough. During the recession, I was getting more gigs than ever, and there were house parties every weekend. People are living more poor. You can buy a six-pack and hang out with friends until who knows when, and dancing is free.”

He also pointed to the history of DJing going back to the disco era of the ’70s when DJs began to replace live music. “The gay rights movement really came out during that era, and disco was the tugboat that pulled it out of the closet,” Crampton said. White America took out its homophobic fears on disco in the form of stadium events where piles of disco records were literally blown up. But DJs lived on.

“Historically, rock very much has had a thing against DJs from the get go,” Crampton said. When it comes to comparing live performances to DJs “really they’re apples and oranges,” he said. “We need both. There’s a need for what we do.”

Also not in the article, Crampton’s take on where DJing is headed. “History tells you it’s going to follow the technology,” he said. “You’ll get more and more away from traditional forms of DJs. It could be a blend of other people’s music and live mixing. On the flip side — that element of technology could go so far that purists will go back to vinyl. There’s something magical about vinyl. People are just blown away by the skill level it takes to mix two records together. All kinds of things can go wrong.”

Finally, we talked about the current financial state of House of Loom, the club that Crampton operates with partners Jay Kline and Ethan Bondelid. “I’m pleased with what’s happening,” he said. “It was a very difficult process. None of the partners had owned a bar before. With our heads to the ground we fumbled from one point to the next. There were some humbling moments. I don’t think I was expecting it to be as difficult as it was. And I’m surprised I didn’t get as much warning from my friends in the business.”

Crampton and Co. had an advantage over other start-up clubs — six years’ worth of branding built up from the Loom concept. “It wasn’t like we had this idea from scratch, there was a lot of groundwork,” he said. That groundwork is paying off, but it’s a lot of work…

Like I said, the full story is in The Reader, which you can read here. The column supports House of Loom’s Friday Afternoon Club program, of which I will be the central participant this Friday from 5 to 8 as the club’s guest “DJ” or “non-DJ” as Crampton is calling us. His description is accurate. I am not a DJ. And as a result, there (probably) won’t be any dancing going on at Loom Friday afternoon, but it could still be a good time. Details here.

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Tonight at The Slowdown it’s a four-band bill headlined by Skypiper and featuring The Big Deep, The River Monks and Great American Desert. Early 8 p.m. start, $7.

And speaking of DJ gigs, Darren Keen’s Good Speakers series continues at House of Loom tonight with Bad Speler (Keen), DJ Kobrakyle and Kethro. The real deal. Check out Bad Speler’s latest Illegal Art track “Superman,”  below or at the Illegal Art website. 10 p.m. and free.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Icky Blossoms

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Here’s the story: Icky Blossoms is headed to SXSW next week. They’re driving. The distance from Benson, Nebraska, to Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas, is roughly 770 miles the way the Google flies. Gas currently costs around $4 a gallon. They’ll be driving a van that probably gets (if they’re lucky) 10 miles a gallon. If you use the above numbers:

770 / 10 x $4 = $308

That number does not include the cost of roadside junk food and other assorted “necessities” to make the 14-hour non-stop drive tolerable. Nor does it include the cost of lodging (substantially more than $308 if they’re staying at a hotel) and meals needed while in Music City.

Icky Blossoms just returned from Los Angeles where they recorded their debut album with TV on the Radio’s David Sitek to be released on Saddle Creek Records in early July. If you’ve ever been to LA and know how expensive its pleasures cost, than you know the band very likely is tapped out.

That’s where you come in. This is an early heads up for this Saturday night’s Icky Blossoms show at The Slowdown. In an effort to generate as much money as possible to cover costs, the band has moved the concert from Slowdown Jr. to Slowdown’s big stage.

Icky Blossoms needs you. Change whatever you had planned for Saturday night. Buy your tickets now. $7, here. You will be watching the birth of Omaha’s Next Big Thing.

To entice you even further to come to Saturday’s show, Icky Blossoms’ guitarist/vocalist Nik Fackler offered to answer some questions about the new album, touring and the future of the band.

What did Dave Sitek do to improve these songs? Did he act more like an engineer or as a traditional producer, and what’s the biggest change we’re going to hear in these songs from what we’ve heard in the past?

Nik Fackler: Sitek produced a creative, experimental and pro atmosphere for us to work in. I personally haven’t worked with many music producers, so for me he was kind of like a film director. He orchestrated the flow, experimented with ideas, created beats and analogue synth sounds and kept us all on schedule. He had an ear for what would work on the dance floor and kept a continuity between all the songs. The biggest change to previously released songs is quality, clarity and bigness.

Did you guys write any new material in LA for this record? Will we hear new songs on Saturday? What is the scheduled release date for the new record?

Nik: We wrote three new tunes when we were out in LA and we will be playing all three at the show on Saturday. The record is going to come out in early July.

What’s the lineup for Saturday night’s show? Is it the regular “live band” lineup?

Nik: The live lineup has shuffled a bit. Saturday’s show will see Saber Blazek (Machete Archive) on bass, Clark Baechle (Faint, Depressed Buttons) on drums, Nik (Fackler), Sarah (Bohling, keyboards, vocals), and Derek Pressnall (lead vocals, guitar) take stage.

How is Derek going to tour with: 1) a new baby in the house, and 2) Tilly and the Wall releasing a new record (and, presumably, touring as well)? Is that going to limit the amount of touring that Icky will be able to do this year? 

Nik: We are planning on touring and promoting the record as heavily as we can. How much that will actually be will be determined in the way the record is received and what kind of offers come in. If all goes well it definitely will be a balancing act, but not one we can’t handle. Our main focus right now is to continue to make our best songs and as many of them as we can so we can build a fan base. Scheduling stuff can always be worked out.

What about your schedule? If funding comes through for one of your major film projects, won’t you have to put Icky on hold? Does one project (music or filmmaking) take precedent over the other?

Nik: Creation is my soul.  The goal for me is to never limit the amount of things I can create. I think we live in an age where artwork like film and music can be accomplished quickly. The digitizing of the world has removed some of the hands on aspects of art, but created the ability to produce things more quickly and with just as much quality. Right now, I am in a mode of work. Trying to forge a path for myself where I can do everything and not have to put anything on hold. Right now, it’s about coming up with a balanced and positive process to execute all these different ideas I have.

Neither takes precedent over the other. In a way I see them as all part of the whole.

How many times is Icky going to perform at SXSW? I know of only two gigs currently scheduled.

Nik: We are playing three shows. Thursday: The Waterloo Records Party, Waterloo Records Parking Lot, 2 p.m.; Friday: Saddle Creek Showcase at Lamberts BBQ, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday: Mad Decent/ Check Yo Ponytail/ Fool’s Gold Super Party at Emo’s East, Noon.

Opening for Icky Blossoms this Saturday at Slowdown is Midtown Marauders and Pony Wars. 9 p.m. $7. See you there.

And this just in: Rolling Stone is featuring the first track off the new album, “Babes,” right here. Or download it here.

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Midwest Dilemma at Slowdown Jr., March 7, 2012.

Last night saw a much stripped-down version of Midwest Dilemma at Slowdown Jr., at least compared to the last time I saw Justin Lamoureux’s band, where there were something like 16 people on stage. Last night MD played as a 4-piece with Lamoureux on guitar backed by cellist, flautist and brass player (tuba, bass trombone). I know he likes the big ensemble (hey, who doesn’t want to be surrounded by their friends?), but I much prefer this slimmed-down format which strips the songs to their bare essentials with just enough unique accoutrement for added flavor. Years of performing have aged Lamoureux’s voice like a fine Bordeaux. He’s discarded any vocal affectations (at times in his career he used to sport an Oberst bray) and now sings with a purely unique folk voice that would be appealing to anyone who likes, say, M. Ward’s style of music. Among the highlights was an ode to The 49′r and Lamoureux’s pre-song take on the role the bar played in his life (spoiler alert: booze). He hinted that a new album could be ready to go in a couple months, but quickly added that he’s been saying that for the past four years. Maybe it’s time we all put a collective boot up his ass?

Headliner Water Liars came on at around 10:30 to play a short set in front of about 10 people (including myself, bar staff and Lamoureux’s bandmates). Despite the lax crowd, their songs sounded heartfelt and full for a duo in the classic guitar-and-drums design. I love this guy’s voice, which reminded me of Will Johnson on songs that reminded me of Will Johnson as well. Gorgeous stuff.

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Tonight at House of Loom it’s the homecoming of nefarious hip-hop artist Buck Bowen, returning from California and places beyond. Hear Nebraska has the story of where Buck’s gone and where he going, right here. His hop-hop set tonight is part of Loom’s Midtown Marauder Showcase, which runs from 9 p.m. to 2 and costs $5. More info here. Bowen also will be manning the turntables at Loom Saturday night for a DJ set. Info on that showcase is here.

Also tonight, a live performance by KMG and Birthday Suits — I have no idea who these dudes are, but it don’t matter cuz the show’s at O’Leaver’s, which means it ain’t nothing but a party. $5, 9:30 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Released Feb. 21 on Saddle Creek Records, Cursive’s I Am Gemini is more than your typical concept album, it’s a full-blown 2-act play – or more specifically – a 2-act opera, whose plot would have been right at home performed either in ancient Greece or as an episode of The Twilight Zone.

The “official interpretation” via the record label: “I Am Gemini is the surreal and powerful musical tale of Cassius and Pollock, twin brothers separated at birth. One good and one evil, their unexpected reunion in a house that is not a home ignites a classic struggle for the soul, played out with a cast of supporting characters that includes a chorus of angels and devils, and twin sisters conjoined at the head.”

The album comes with a Playbill-style lyrics booklet that reads like a script complete with stage direction. But even if they follow the album’s lyrics word-for-word, fans will come up with their own interpretation of the album’s meaning. For example, this intrepid reporter was reminded of the schizophrenic 2010 Darren Aronofsky film “Black Swan.”

“Black Swan is a good example of how stories of duality are told,” said Cursive frontman and songwriter Tim Kasher over a PBR at the Old Dundee Bar & Grill a couple weeks before the band headed out on tour. “I hadn’t thought of ‘Fight Club’ as an example until an interviewer brought it up, but that’s essentially it. Those are stories about one person split into two.”

Cursive, I Am Gemini (2012, Saddle Creek)

At first, I Am Gemini feels like a departure from Kasher’s usual navel-gazing lyrical content. The band’s landmark album Domestica, for example, allegedly focused on Kasher’s painful divorce; 2003’s The Ugly Organ was an exploration in creative self-loathing, while Kasher gave us his views on organized religion on 2006’s Happy Hollow. By contrast, I Am Gemini, with its good-and-evil twins and sisters with conjoined heads, seems like complete fiction… or is it?

“It’s important to note that it is really personal and based on a self-referential story,” Kasher said, “In the past, the lyrics were so literal or so thinly veiled to the obvious. This time it was a lot of fun to expand into something more fictionalized.”

But can a concept album this tightly drawn, where each song is dependent on the other to tell a cohesive story, be successful in this singles-driven iTunes era? Can songs on I Am Gemini stand on their own, out of context, without the rest of the album, and is Kasher confident that listeners will take the time necessary to sit down and absorb the album in its entirety?

“I’m not confident of that at all,” he said. “A lot of this is my personal interest in tackling a full story in an album, and I’m still scared having done it, but I’m glad I pushed myself a little further. A really small percentage of people will really appreciate it, and I really appreciate those people. I’m glad they’re there to take it on. But I think (the songs) can still be presented separately.”

Kasher said he considered each song as a self-contained short story, but added, “It’s been troubling releasing (songs) out of context of the album for premieres. I feel like they’re part of a whole, which goes counter to what I’m saying about them being able to survive on their own.”

There are indeed tracks that can stand in isolation. The album’s first leaked track, “The Sun and Moon,” taken completely out of context can be read as a love song of sorts. “A Birthday Bash” has one of the better guitar riffs Cursive’s ever put on tape. Still others act more like bridges between ideas, such as “The Cat and Mouse.”

So far, critics have been split on whether or not the concept worked. Indie taste arbiter Pitchfork called it “the weakest Cursive album by a disheartening margin” and summed it up as “Kasher talking to himself,” while AV Club called it “forceful; a demanding rock-driven opus” and Paste said, “Musically, the band is at their most adventurous, albeit not their most accessible.”

All agree that I Am Gemini is the hardest Cursive album since Domestica. It is brutal, but even more than that, it’s proggy — proggy enough to make the members of King Crimson and Roger Waters blush. At the very least, it’s an about-face from the apparent convergence music-wise of Cursive and Kasher’s other band, the more singer-songwriter based The Good Life. Kasher agreed.

“The last couple records, we were trying to marry those different styles and make a more diverse record,” he said. “This time around at the very onset of this album I thought ‘I’m going to do a Cursive album.’ It was right for this time in my life and for the other guys in the band. We decided if we’re going to do it, let’s do it full on. Let’s write something that fits into the rock category, something to listen to on a Friday night.”

Those “other guys” are Cursive’s core members, bassist Matt Maginn and guitarist/vocalist Ted Stevens, along with drummer Cully Symington and keyboardist Patrick Newbery, who played horns on the last two albums, but switched when Kasher once again moved away from less traditional instrumentation as he did when the band stopped using cello after The Ugly Organ.

“When we moved away from cello, it was a taste decision,” Kasher said. “At an early point, I thought cello would be a really good thing to have. By the end of it all, it was so overdone and we needed to move onto something else. Along those lines, we’ve done horns for the last couple records, and it felt like we’d done enough of it. It’s nice to not have to be bound by these additional instruments.”

Something tells me fans won’t be missing them when the band hits the road.

And despite the theatrical nature of I Am Gemini, Kasher said he has no intention of recreating the opera on stage by performing it sequentially. “We respect the ticket holder,” he said. “We’re still playing under the name Cursive, and that implies our full catalog. We’re happy to play the proper hits and some fun, deeper cuts, what we garner as the taste of the avid Cursive listener.

“We’ll be playing ‘The Martyr’ on this tour every single night, just like we have for the past 12 years,” he added. “It’s a moment in the set where we’re feeding off the energy of the people that are excited to hear it.”

Cursive plays with Ume and Virgin Islands Saturday, March 3, at Slowdown, 729 No. 14th St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $13 advance, $15 day of show. For more information, call 402.345.7569 or visit theshowdown.com.

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Laura Burhenn of The Mynabirds is part of a panel that will be discussing “women in performance” this evening at House of Loom. Also on the panel are Susann Suprenant of ætherplough, Felicia Webster (aka WithLove) and actor Kirstin Kluver. The band Howard will be performing after the panel. The free event starts at 5 at House of Loom, 1012 Howard St.  For more info, go to houseofloom.com.

So-So Sailors, from left, are Alex McManus, Dan Kemp, Chris Machmuller, Brendan Greene-Walsh and Dan McCarthy.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Those who wonder what spawned Omaha indie band So-So Sailors’ thoughtful, piano-driven rock need look no further than frontman Chris Machmuller’s other band, Ladyfinger.

Tucked toward the end of Ladyfinger’s last collection of rowdy screamers titled Dusk is a chugging rocker called “Plans” that sports a gorgeous, arcing piano line. The rather wordy song features Machmuller doing something he rarely does on other Ladyfinger songs – Machmuller sings, clearly with notes and everything.

“’Plans’ could have been a foreshadowing of what was brewing in my subconsciousness,” Machmuller said over drinks Saturday afternoon at The Leavenworth Bar with drummer Dan Kemp and bassist/vocalist Brendan Greene-Walsh.

“The Ladyfinger stuff has a purpose and a plot, but it can be more ambiguous,” he said. “Lack of ambiguity makes So-So Sailors more compelling. It’s hard to convey sentiment when you’re screaming.”

There’s no screaming on Young Hearts, So-So Sailors’ debut EP, which is being celebrated at a release show Friday night at Slowdown. Though only six songs long, the album stretches over 32 minutes, thanks to tracks like the nearly 5-minute opener “So Broken Hearted,” a grand, elegant number that starts with a sentimental Machmuller singing over soft piano chords, “Lost out on love / Or so it seemed / A useless thing is the pain you hold onto…” moments before the rest of the band breaks through in classic E Street style.

The song is a story about a bartender wooing a broken-hearted patron in a club not unlike O’Leaver’s, where Machmuller tends bar and Greene-Walsh has been known to run the soundboard. “You could place that song in any bar across the country,” Machmuller said, “but in my mind, that’s where I picture it.”

Other EP standouts include “Broken Glass and Blood,” a cinematic rocker about a dirt-poor boy trying to hold onto a woman who’s skipped town for an East Coast college, conjuring up images of The Graduate and Goodbye Columbus. While the album’s gorgeous title track recalls an instructor/student love affair thick with warning and regret. Machmuller belts out the lines “But when it comes to us / I probably shouldn’t write the stuff  / My heart wants to put on the page” just before breaking into a massive alto sax solo. With its strong central melodies and sentimental showmanship, Young Hearts is more ’70s arena ballad than modern-day indie, and is better  for it.

The band formed in the fall of 2009 when Ladyfinger was on a break from touring. Machmuller said he started working on some new material, which he bounced off friend and “very capable piano and keyboard player” Dan McCarthy.

“I’d already talked to Brendan and Dan (Kemp) about forming a new project,” Machmuller said. “Then I gave (guitarist) Alex McManus a call, and he was aboard from the get go.”

Calling themselves So-So Sailors, the band played its first show opening for The Mynabirds’ CD release party at Slowdown May 2, 2010. The debut was something of a surprise to those who had only known Machmuller as the screaming guitarist in Ladyfinger. With So-So Sailors Machmuller emerged as a crooner seated behind a keyboard, his scratchy voice fully exposed for all to hear for the first time.

Later that year the band began recording with engineer Ben Brodin at ARC Studios. The 12 songs produced from those sessions clocked in at over an hour — too much to include on a vinyl LP, a format the band prefers. Instead, they proposed releasing some of the material as a CD EP. After Saddle Creek Records – Ladyfinger’s record label – passed on the project, the band decided to release it themselves in the U.S., while the EP is being released digitally in Europe in January on No Dancing Records.

The longterm plan is to include a few of the songs from Young Hearts along with new material on a vinyl LP to be released sometime next year. In the meantime, the sailors will support the EP with limited local large-market touring, while they continue to try and line up something even more elusive than a record label – a booking agent. Machmuller said despite being signed by a well-known label like Saddle Creek, Ladyfinger never was able to sign with a national booking agent.

“If you have a booking agent, it’s a lot easier to secure a record label,” Greene-Walsh said. But landing a booking agent during an era when the music industry continues to spiral downward is akin to winning a lottery.

“The odds are a thousand to one,” Machmuller said. But even if they never get a break outside of Omaha, he said he and the rest of the band will continue to make music together.

“There’s something inside you that keeps you going,” Greene-Walsh said. “I took a couple years off from playing and severely missed sitting in a room with creative minds and bouncing ideas off each other, and then having the space to create something new.”

“Being in a band is almost like being back at school,” Kemp said, “and I miss school, to be honest with you. I’d be super drunk all the time if I didn’t do music.”

“I wouldn’t hang myself if I didn’t play music,” Machmuller said, “but there’s a compulsion. I’ve been writing songs since I was 15 years old, and (today) I’m not a rich man or a veteran of world tours, but I’m still doing it.”

So-So Sailors plays with Sam Knutson and Kevin Pike & John Kotchian Friday, Dec. 9, at Slowdown, 729 No. 14th St.. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $10 and includes a copy of the new CD. For more information, call 402.345.7569 or visit theshowdown.com.

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Tomorrow’s column: The 7-Year Itch

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Speed! Nebraska posse circa 2006, from left, are Mike Tulis, Gary Dean Davis, Jesse Render and LIncoln Dickison. Photo by Bill Sitzmann.

Column 349: Speed! Nebraska Turns 15

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

When the invitation went out via Facebook for this Friday night’s Speed! Nebraska 15th Anniversary rock show at The Brother’s Lounge, the first thing that went through my mind was: Has it really been five years since we did that Speed! Nebraska 10-year anniversary cover story in The Reader?

That story, published June 28, 2006, recapped the history of the vinyl-loving record label that’s home to a handful of the area’s best local bands, including Ideal Cleaners, The Filter Kings, Domestica, The Third Men, Students of Crime and label chief Gary Dean Davis’ band, The Wagon Blasters.

In that article, Wagon Blasters drummer (then Monroes drummer) Jesse Render declared that it was The Golden Age of Speed! Nebraska Records. Five years later and Davis says that Golden Age continues.

“Not much has changed,” Davis said over the phone, while one of his three precocious children made noise in the background. “At that time I was feeling good about the fact that there were a lot of bands on the label. The amazing thing is that in five years, that’s continued.”

In many ways Davis and his label cohorts have always been ahead of their time. Since its first release — a 7-inch by long-defunct band Solid Jackson called “Fell” b/w “In a Car” — the label has focused on releasing vinyl. Except for punk fans and audiophiles, vinyl was viewed as a novelty and a waste of money… back then. Today, almost every mid-major indie band — along with a number of major-label superstars — releases music on vinyl as CD sales continue to decline.

“Vinyl may be back, but it never left for us,” Davis said.

Regardless, he added that the so-called “vinyl renaissance” hasn’t had much of an impact on Speed! Nebraska’s sales. “If you can get a turntable into someone’s home, that’s in our best interest,” he said, “but I don’t know if it’s filtered down to what we do.”

But it’s never been about sales. Having music released on vinyl is “the musicians’ dream,” Davis said. “Talking to the guys in our bands and others who have not had vinyl releases, it’s the ultimate. Elvis put out records. Johnny Cash put out records. In a sense having a record puts you on the same level as those guys. The reason you got involved with music was from listening to records.”

He pointed out that today, fewer people are even releasing CDs thanks to the impact of digital downloading. “If you’re going to do a release and make it download-only, you could put out a new record every day, right?” Davis said. “It’s a watering down of what it means to be a musician. The time involved with putting out a record — recording and mixing and mastering and sending it to the plant and waiting for them to come back and then doing the cover — there’s a lot of stages to that finished project vs. the general immediacy of the times we live in.”

Davis equated it to the difference between getting a letter in the mail and receiving an e-mail — or between receiving a birthday greeting on your Facebook wall and getting hand made birthday cards from his students at St. Stanislaus, where he’s the principal. “A Facebook happy birthday is nice, but a handmade card — I mean, I keep those,” he said. “Someone spent time and thought enough to do it. There’s something more special about that.”

So don’t even bother asking Davis about Spotify. He doesn’t know what it is and doesn’t care enough to find out. It isn’t because he’s some sort of neo-luddite anti-technology snob; he just thinks making vinyl records is, as Wilford Brimley used to say, “The right thing to do.”

And keep doing it he shall. This past year, Speed! Nebraska released a new CD by Ideal Cleaners, Far As You Know, and the tasty 10-inch vinyl compilation Speed! Soapbox Riot 300, which included a song by every band currently on the label’s roster. Davis said future plans include a possible 7-inch by The Filter Kings, more by Ideal Cleaners, and a full-length by Domestica, while Davis’ own band, The Wagon Blasters, is currently writing songs, though they’re in no hurry to put something out.

“Playing in a band is still fun and a nice thing to do, but if I have to do something with the kids…” Davis said. “All the guys in the band understand. We do this because it’s fun. There’s never any tension about it. Once we have enough songs, we’ll go into the studio.”

I ended that 2006 cover story by asking Davis where Speed! Nebraska will be in 2016. So it just made sense to ask him again if he thought the label would be around in five years.

“Oh yeah, definitely, whether I’m playing in a band or not,” he said. “I want to keep doing the label in some capacity, whatever it looks like. As long as we continue to have something to say in our records and music and the aesthetic and presentation, we’ll continue to do it.”

The Speed! 15th Anniversary Celebration is Friday, Nov. 11, at The Brothers Lounge, 38th & Farnam St., featuring performances by Ideal Cleaners, The Wagon Blasters, Domestica, Techlepathy and The Filter Kings. Show starts at 9 p.m., cover is $5. If you go, consider bringing Davis an anniversary card, preferably one that’s hand made.

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Debut performances by bands are always special events. And none more so than the one taking place tonight when The Lupines trot onto the “stage” for the first time at fabulous O’Leaver’s. The band consists of some local heavy hitters: John Ziegler of Brimstone Howl, the legendary Mike Tulis of The Third Men, Mike Friedman, who’s played alongside Simon Joyner, and Javid Dabestani of Bright Calm Blue and Broken Spindles. Opening the show is Detroit garage/psych/grit band Gardens (Alive Naturalsound Records). $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also tonight, down at Film Streams, it’s a screening of silent film The Adventures of Prince Achmed with a new original score performed live by Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova), Ben Brodin (Before the Toast and Tea, Mal Madrigal) and Ryan Fox (1989 Chicago Cubs, Our Fox, The Good Life). Tickets to the 7 p.m. screening can be purchased from the Film Streams website: $8 for Film Steams members, $10 for students, and $12 for the general public. Go!

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Future Islands. Photo by Mike Vorassi.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

How to describe Future Islands’ new record, On the Water (Thrill Jockey)? Well, if you’re Pitchfork, who gave the record a 7.7 rating, you say: “With the songs’ energy scaled back, the efforts of the other two band members come to the fore. Gerrit Welmers handles the keyboards and programming, bringing an evocative, setting-sun vibe to slowburners like “The Great Fire” (a soulful duet with Jenn Wasner of fellow Marylanders Wye Oak), while William Cashion’s guitars have the same low-end lurch of early New Order riffs.”

I picked the above quote because: 1) I agree with the New Order comparison, and 2) guitarist Cashion agreed to do a quick email Q&A, where he talks about that New Order influence (undeniable on tracks like “Before the Bridge”), the album’s concept (or lack thereof) and his love for The Faint.

Lazy-i: I hear what sounds like New Order in your music, as well as other Factory Records bands. Is that the music you listened to in your “formative” years? What other bands were an influence, and how do you balance their influence when you’re creating your own music?

William Cashion:  We’re definitely fans of Factory Records, and personally I’m more into their earlier releases.  There are many bands that we draw inspiration from.  When we were writing/recording On the Water, I was listening to Fleetwood Mac, Brian Eno, Durutti Column, and Cocteau Twins.  But our influences range from that side of things to Slayer to early ’90s hip hop.  I think we have found a balance in our music, but it’s not something we really talk about or do consciously.  Speaking of balance, in our song called “Balance” we used what Chester calls “disco” cymbals… and that was inspired by the Grateful Dead.

Future Islands, On the Water (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

When writing the music on On the Water, did you set out early create a concept album or did the concept emerge organically as the songs were written? Some writers need the concept up front to give them a structure to work with when it’s time to write the lyrics. Are you aware of the concept when performing live, or do you file that away for the sake of the evening’s show?

William:  When the album was written and recorded, we never thought of it as a concept album.  It’s actually not a concept album.  I think our one-sheet may have been misleading regarding the “concept.”  It’s a nautical album, for sure… But not your typical Ziggy Stardust kinda thing.

According to your history, the band formed while attending art school in North Carolina. Did anyone graduate, and, beyond music, are any still involved in creating art? How has that collective art background helped the band?

William:  I graduated with a BFA in painting & drawing back in 2006. Sadly I haven’t really worked on visual art much since then – I’ve devoted most of my energy to the band.  I do hope to get back into it in the future – sooner than later, fingers crossed!

Despite the internet and tools like Spotify, it’s getting tougher for bands (especially new bands) to get gain awareness in smaller markets like Omaha. How do you generate a crowd in a market without a decent radio station? A good review in Pitchfork will only go so far.

William:  We’ve always just toured really hard and tried to gain an audience “the old-fashioned way.”  Until the last few years, we never had a publicist or a label behind us, so touring was really the only way for us to get the word out there.  So I’m not really sure how to answer this…but I can say that we do have some pretty bitchin’ tour t-shirts that will only be available at our merch table!

Have you been to Omaha before? If not, what’s your preconceived notion of what Omaha is?

William:  We’ve never been to Omaha before, and we’re really excited to finally play there.  I was into The Faint around the time Danse Macabre came out, they’re my fave Omaha band.

Check out Future Islands’ “Before the Bridge” below:

Future Islands plays tonight at The Waiting Room with Ed Schrader’s Music Beat (Load Records). $10, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Real Estate is playing at Slowdown Jr. with Big Troubles (Slumberland Records). Real Estate’s new album, Days (Domino Records), got a whopping 8.7 in Pitchfork (here). $10, 9 p.m.

Too bad these two shows — which share the same potential audience — couldn’t have been held together at one venue.

Decisions, decisions…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.