PROBLEMS, Mesa Buoy, Healer, Jaime Wyatt Saturday…

Category: Blog — Tags: , , , — @ 7:33 am January 26, 2024

PROBLEMS drops by O’Leaver’s Saturday before heading to New Zealand.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Just for giggles, I took a look at what was happening music-wise last year at the end of January and believe it or not, it was even quieter that this year. The biggest gig was that weird, improv, jam performance by Conor Oberst at the B-Bar where boy genius sang news stories from random magazines backed by an all-star band that included MiWi La Lupa, Cubby Phillips and The Sydney’s Zach Schmieder, among others. I was not in attendance, but it’s an example just how desperate we can get for entertainment during the darkest nights of January. 

Needless to say, things ain’t that bad this year. No, there’s nothing happening tonight, but Saturday you got choices. 

Top of the list is a barn burner at fabulous O’Leaver’s headlined by former Nebraskan now Chicagoan Darren Keen a.k.a. PROBLEMS as he prepares to head down under for a tour of New Zealand. Joining Darren at the Club Saturday night is guitarist Jim Schroeder’s project, Mesa Buoy, which in the past has featured such notables as Kevin Donahue, Colin Duckworth, Patrick Newberry, Michael Overfield, Megan Siebe and David Nance. I have no idea who’s playing with Jim for this gig, but if he only gets a few of those folks, we’re in for a treat. Opening the evening is Dan Brennan’s noise-rock project Healer that features Rick Black and John Svatos (of Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship) and Joe Mickeliunas (of Back When fame). Old-fashioned start time of 9 p.m. and cost $10 to get in. 

Also Saturday night, Reverb Lounge is hosting so-called West Coast country artist Jaime Wyatt. I say “so-called” because I’ve been listening to her latest album, Feel Good (2023, New West), and it falls closer to retro-soul or roots/blues rock than C&W, which is a nice way of saying I didn’t get car sick listening to it (as I do with country music). If you like Natalie Prass you might dig this record. (But I can’t say the same about her previous album). Connecticut country-folk dude Joshua Quimby opens at 8 p.m. $25.

And that’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend. February is just around the corner…

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Live Review: Titus Andronicus; Protomartyr, Healer tonight…

Category: Blog,Reviews — Tags: , , — @ 7:26 am March 29, 2023
Titus Andronicus at The Slowdown, March 28, 2023.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What to say about Patrick Stickles a.k.a. Patty Stax and his band, Titus Andronicus, who played a crushing set last night at Slowdown Jr.? In the four times or so that I’ve seen them, this was my favorite set. It also was their shortest set. Titus Andronicus sets used to be notoriously looooong; so long, in fact, after 90 minutes or more I would find myself hoping the next bludgeoning ballad was the last, but no, there was always another…

Performing last night as a five-piece, Titus Andronicus played a tight one-hour set that included a few new songs off their latest album along with a handful of their classics, which they packaged at the end in a sort of medley that included “Four Score and Seven,” “A More Perfect Union” and “Titus Andronicus Forever.” Those fist-pump almost-Celtic-flavored anthems were in stark contrast to the songs from their new album, The Will to Live, which had more in common with the Stones or Cheap Trick, complete with scorching guitar solos. 

And as much as I liked the three-song epic closer, my favorite moment was a rousing version of “Tumult Around the World” off 2019’s An Obelisk, which sounded like a hyper-active version of “Sweet Jane” played by Thin Lizzy.  Actually, every song felt like a high-voltage energy buzzsaw, with Stickles lighting the fuse from one explosive rocker to the next, backed by a rock solid band of brothers. I get a sense that, from one town to the next, whether playing in front of 50 like last night or 500 or 15, Stickles and Co. always bring the same manic perfection and will from now until the end of time. 

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Protomartyr at French Legation Park / Pitchfork Day Party at SXSW 2014. The band plays tonight at Slowdown Jr.

Tonight, it’s back to The Slowdown for the return of Detroit post-punk legends Protomartyr. Their last full length was 2020’s Ultimate Success Today (Domino Records), but they’ve got a new one waiting in the wings called Formal Growth in the Desert, slated for a June 2 release on Domino. 

According to the one-sheet, “Formal Growth In The Desert is a testament to conflicting realities — the inevitability of loss, the necessity of finding joy through it and persisting — that come with living longer and continuing to create. It begins with pain but endures through it, cracking itself open into a gently-sweeping torrent of sound that is, for Protomartyr, totally new.

I’m not sure what they’re talking about, although it might have something to do with frontman Joe Casey’s “period of colossal transition” that took place with the death of his mother.  The band just wrapped up four days at South by Southwest, where (like Titus Andronicus) I first saw them play in 2014, where I described them this way:

“The Detroit-based punk band is fronted by a guy who looks like an insurance salesman, complete with a sensible haircut and full-on business attire, but who has a singing style akin to Husker-era Mould or The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. Deadpan anger, straight-faced disgust, like an upset father with a controlled rage and a back-up band that is pure Gang of Four post punk.”

Hopefully nothing has changed. Opening tonight at Slowdown Jr. is Dan Brennan’s band Healer, a local supergroup that includes two members of Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship — Andrew Gustafson on guitar and John Svatos on bass — and two members of UUVVWWZ — David Ozinga on drums and Jim Schroeder on bass VI and Rhodes. Or at least it did the last time I saw them. 

Show starts at 8 p.m., $22, and you may want to get tickets now because this one could sell out. 

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Live Review: Spirit of the Beehive, Healer…

Category: Blog,Reviews — Tags: , — @ 12:36 pm May 11, 2022
Spirit of the Beehive at Slowdown, May 10, 2022.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I went in with the worst expectations for last night’s Spirit of the Beehive show at Slowdown Jr. based on their critically acclaimed most recent album, released by Saddle Creek Records. Instead, I was knocked on my ass by a band that’s poised to take it to the next level.

Live, SofB’s sound is more conventional, more sleek and, frankly, more rocking. The guitar-fueled five-piece shared lead vocals among three members, but was mostly held down by “frontman” guitarist Zack Schwartz whose vocal style vacillates between Frank Black and David Gilmore. Just as vital to the sound is fellow lead vocalist Rivka Ravede, who owned on bass; and power-angry-psycho vocalist synth dude Corey Wichlin.

Without the clutter and droopy/weirdo effects heard on the recordings, the band is white-knuckle tight on rock songs that have the spirit and energy of early Pixies or Sonic Youth. Fans of the wonky samples and noise effects littered throughout the last album take heart — the band grouped the cluttered noise between songs, playing the prerecorded tracks while they busily tuned instruments or changed gear.

Driving home from the gig, I listened again to Entertainment, Death thinking I might have misjudged the record, but no. It’s just as acidic and distressingly ugly as I thought it was. Give me a live recording of this band over their records any day. The only time last night that they slipped into art-prog territory was late in the set, closing with fan favorite “I Suck the Devil’s Cock” followed by a fantastic version of “Fell Asleep with a Vision” from 2018’s Hypnic Jerks album (Tiny Engines).

Healer at Slowdown, May 10, 2022.

Opening was local super-group Healer fronted by sound engineer/musician Dan Brennan (Ladyfinger), who performed seated behind an iPad and notebook, making me wonder why more bands don’t play sitting down. Their heavy set was punctuated by a sweet tribute to recently passed-away local musician John Klemmensen.

John covered a Ladyfinger song at The Sydney. He actually did fucking better than us,” Brennan said. “God bless you, John. You’re up there somewhere,” he added before the band ripped into the cover of Ladyfinger’s “Dark Horse,” that was a set standout along with the song that followed it, a ripper in many parts.

Solid crowd of (guesstimate) around 75.

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Spirit of the Beehive, Healer tonight at Slowdown…

Category: Blog — Tags: , — @ 7:06 am May 10, 2022
Healer at The Slowdown, May 15, 2015. The band returns tonight opening for Spirit of the Beehive.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Spirit of the Beehive is one of Saddle Creek Records’ most lauded recent signings. The band’s last studio album, Entertainment, Death, released in April 2021, was a PitchforkBest New Music” selection. The review in Exclaim! sums it up better than I could after having gotten through it a couple times: “Spirit of the Beehive’s unsettling compositions are not for casual listening. On Entertainment, Death every fragmented idea is thoughtfully ripped apart and stitched back together with the gusto of a delirious genius.

This is complicated music that takes great effort to listen to (endure), and is designed as such. I would describe it with the same word I’d use to describe Black Midi’s music — challenging. BTW, it was announced yesterday that Black Midi will be playing Slowdown Oct. 8 in the big room. Quite a get. It’ll be interesting to see how well that show draws.

It’s the utter complexity of their compositions that makes the notion of these bands’ live performances intriguing. Beehive live could be either startling in its creativity, or irritating after long-term exposure. The fans say there is a method to their madness, whereas the uninitiated may only hear noodling and forced “art.” I suspect I fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless, it’s great to see Saddle Creek taking risks.

Opening is Healer, local supergroup helmed by former Slowdown sound engineer Dan Brennan with two members of Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship — Andrew Gustafson on guitar and John Svatos on bass — and two members of UUVVWWZ — David Ozinga on drums and Jim Schroeder on bass VI and Rhodes (or at least that was the line-up the last time I saw them). I would pay $18 just to hear Healer, which is the ticket price for tonight’s show. This is a small-room show and starts at 8 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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Lazy-i

Omaha Gives (to Hear Nebraska); Live @ O’Leaver’s data disaster explained; Peach Kelli Pop tonight…

Category: Blog — Tags: , , , , — @ 12:50 pm May 25, 2016

Peach Kelli Pop plays tonight at Reverb Lounge.

Peach Kelli Pop plays tonight at Reverb Lounge.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Omaha readers already know that it would be a good idea to stay away from social media today, as all channels are being flooded with Omaha Gives solicitations.

Every year for one day every non profit in Omaha comes to Facebook and Twitter with hand in hat begging for cash to get them through the year. Fact is Omaha Gives is an effective way for them to raise money. Look, would you rather have someone asking for donations just once a year or all year long?

My advice: Jot down your list of favorite charities, bite the bullet and make your donations. Then step away from the chatter for the rest of the day. Kind of like turning off NPR during their semi-annual fund drives (after you’ve made your pledge, of course).

That said, if you’re a music fan and you’re looking for a good 501(c)(3) organization to give to, you’d be hard pressed to find a better organization than Hear Nebraska. I say this not only because I’m a founding board member of HN, but because no other non-profit does more for local music than Hear Nebraska.

HN’s sole purpose is to promote Nebraska bands and music. That’s it. If you’re in a band, consider HN your personal PR agency. It’s there to help you get people to come to your shows and buy your music. It does this through hearnebraska.org — a website that covers local bands and musicians with in-depth feature articles, interviews, videos and photos taken at performances (lots of them). The site also has the most comprehensive gig calendar for Omaha and Lincoln you can find anywhere online. HN also organizes a shit-load of programming featuring Nebraska bands all year long throughout the state.

Has Hear Nebraska ever:

— written about your band?
— covered one of your shows?
— posted photos from one of your gigs?
— promoted your upcoming concert on its calendar?
— booked your band to play one of its many programming events?

Or have you ever gone to an event sponsored by, organized by — or that you heard about from — Hear Nebraska?

Then, come on, take a second and click this link and donate to Hear Nebraska during Omaha Gives. Minimum donation is $10 — less than the price of a single movie ticket. That donation will help HN continue to promote Nebraska bands and musicians.

Do it.

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Screen Shot 2016-05-25 at 12.49.13 PM
This morning Live @ O’Leavers announced via Facebook the reason why they haven’t released any new live recordings lately. The reason:

“...during an electrical storm, we happened to lose both our main and backup drives which we thought were safe as they were stored at separate locations. This means nearly everything from July to February has been lost.”

Well, not lost entirely. The data still may exists, but it’ll cost just north of $900 for a data recovery outfit to try to get the sessions back.

Among those lost sessions are live recordings of performances from Cursive, Beach Slang, Lithuania, Mike Schlesinger, Bib, Bus Gas, So So Sailors, All Dogs, Whispertown, The Subtropics, Wet Nurse, The Ridgeways, Super Moon, The Vahnevants, Brilliant Beast, Bellum Boca, Sucettes, Lithuania, Ex-Breathers, Boytoy, Eagle Seagull, Megafauna, Lineman’s Rodeo, Sean Pratt and The Sweats, Sharkmuffin, The Olympics, Tara Vaughan, MXMW, Ecstatic Vision, Pleiades and the Bear, The Sunks, Hag, Ocean Black and a ton more. As many as 85 sessions.

That’s a massive chunk of live recordings. O’Leaver’s doesn’t charge listeners for the service, so there ain’t no money to pay for the data recovery. What money they do have to invest in the Live @ O’Leaver’s project has gone toward making sure this kind of massive data crash never happens again.

“We have a better redundancy system in place now; multiple backups of each session spread across five drives placed in multiple locations and a cloud backup of the entire shebang. All told, we have over 11 terabytes of data since the February restart,” said Ian Aeillo, who does all the work surrounding Live @ O’Leaver’s.

Ian says new sessions could begin going online next week, hopefully. To whet your appetite, Ian posted the following recording from local super group Healer, recorded last October before the troubles, appropriately titled “Rainy Day Song.”

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Tonight at Reverb Lounge it’s Peach Kelli Pop. Read my 10 Questions interview with frontwoman Allie Hanlon from yesterday. Should be a high-energy show. Opening is The Way Out. $8, 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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Lazy-i

Live Review: The Rentals, Healer; Kevin Seconds tonight…

Category: Blog,Reviews — Tags: , , , — @ 1:14 pm May 18, 2015

The Rentals at The Waiting Room, May 15, 2015.

The Rentals at The Waiting Room, May 15, 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

We’ll start with The Rentals because it was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. Frontman Matt Sharp and his band were transcendent on a number of levels despite fewer than 100 people in the Waiting Room crowd, a testament I suppose of the fact that their hey day was almost 20 years ago and how hard it is to keep your memory alive in the internet age. It certainly isn’t from lack of quality. The Rentals new record, Lost in Alphaville (Polyvinyl, 2014), is as good or better than the rest of their discography. If you were a fan of the band or of good electronic pop rock, you’d love it.

They came out in white lab coats with Sharp dressed in black Nehru chic. The outfits only lasted one song before the band dropped their guises for their usual stage clothes, though there would be more “costumes” later.

You could say the Haden sisters were an integral part of The Rentals’ original sound. They invented those unique tight-pitched cooing harmonies, as anyone familiar with their band (That Dog.) can attest. The fact that current vocalists Lizzi Ellison and Patti King (who also performed in opening band Radiation City) were able to reproduce those harmonies is impressive, let alone bring their own style to this material. The duo are less mechanical, more earthy sounding than the Haden sisters, which lent itself well to the new material along with a couple covers, including a fetching low-key version of Whitney Houston’s “I Want to Dance with Somebody” that was a heart-shaped nod to the ’80s  (but that would get eclipsed during the encore).

Sharp is a consummate performer, a theatrical presence constantly moving and reaching out to the rather small audience that surrounded the front of the stage. You’ve heard this one before, but it didn’t matter if there were 60 or 600 in the room, Sharp gave an arena-style performance, as did his band.

Ghostbuster Matt Sharp vs. the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man at The Waiting Room, March 15, 2015.

Ghostbuster Matt Sharp vs. the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man at The Waiting Room, March 15, 2015.

For the encore, Sharp, Ellison and King walked onto the floor with a small Casio-type synth and sang the first song surrounded by the tiny crowd before returning to the stage to play the requisite encore song “Friends of P” with the full band. Prior to the end of the tune, however, Sharp exited stage right, leaving the band to finish the song alone. Something wrong? Nope. Out came Sharp onto the floor again, this time dressed as a Ghostbuster holding a marshmallow rifle, followed by someone dressed in a Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man costume. Hilarity ensued, along with a dead-on rendition of the Ghostbusters theme. Why not? Count yourself lucky if you were there to see it.

Healer at The Slowdown, May 15, 2015.

Healer at The Slowdown, May 15, 2015.

Earlier in the evening I caught the stage debut of Healer, the new supergroup that features members of Ladyfinger, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship and UUVVWWZ. Fronted by Dan Brennan, the band specialized in a style of indie that melds traditional rock that leans toward Mother Love Bone grunge. Unlike so many vibe bands in the scene these days, Brennan writes full-on songs with soaring vocal melodies sung over a very tight band. If there’s a quibble it was with Brennan’s uncertain vocals, which wobbled and faded at times. Chock it up to this being their first gig, performed in front of a sizable main-stage Slowdown audience.

And maybe the fact that the band was missing one players, Jim Schroeder, who is out on the road with Simon Joyner. Simon passed along some bad news yesterday via Facebook. Someone broke into the band’s van while they were in Oakland, taking off with some pedals, cymbals and computer equipment. Despite that, Simon said the show — and the tour — will go on…

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Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s, Kevin Seconds, the lead singer and principal songwriter of legendary American hardcore punk band 7Seconds, headlines a show that also features Ted Stevens (Cursive, Unknown Project) and Aaron Parker (Gordon). Come see a legend up close and personal. $8, 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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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