Where’s this year’s holiday reunion show(s)? Omahype announces holiday “throwdown”…

Category: Blog — Tags: — @ 2:18 pm November 21, 2011
Mousetrap at The Waiting Room, Dec. 29, 2010.

Mousetrap at The Waiting Room, Dec. 29, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Usually by now there has been at least one “holiday” reunion concert announcement centered on the fact that expatriate band members are back in town for Christmas visiting their families. Last year it was the Slowdown Virginia/Polecat reunion show at Slowdown Dec. 23 and Mousetrap at The Waiting Room Dec. 29. The year before it was Mousetrap and Mercy Rule (with a Conor Oberst performance thrown in the same week). Two years ago it was a pair of Faint concerts at Sokol Aud.

So far this year, nothing. But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. There’s plenty of time for something to be pulled together — will someone please get in touch with Tim Moss and the rest of Ritual Device? That reunion is long overdue. Or how about a Fullblown or Cactus Nerve Thang or Commander Venus reunion? Come on, guys…

Anyway, there was a holiday concert announcement last week, though it doesn’t involve any reunions. Omahype is celebrating the completion of its one year anniversary with its second annual “Holiday Throwdown” at Slowdown Dec. 11. The lineup for the show, which begins at 5 p.m., includes Honeybee & Hers, Laura Burhenn (of The Mynabirds), McCarthy Trenching, Brad Hoshaw, All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, Great American Desert, Jasong Mountain, James Maakestad, Sean Pratt, April Faith-Slaker and more. There will also be a rock shop, comedians and food. More info here at Omahype.

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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.

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Column 342: The (Online) Calendar Hung Itself — a look at local music calendars; Gomez tonight…

Category: Blog,Column — Tags: , , , — @ 1:15 pm September 21, 2011

Column 342: The (Online) Calendar Hung Itself

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Before we get started, full disclosure: I’m on the “board” of hearnebraska.org. Not that it matters — I’m not involved in the website’s day-to-day activities, and have little or no input on things like website content or fundraising events. But I don’t want you to think I’m cheerleading when I make this statement: Hearnebraska.org has emerged as the best resource for local rock show schedule information on the web. I say “among the best,” because this here newspaper’s website, thereader.com, (Full disclosure again: I write for The Reader, as you, uh, know) also has stepped up its online music schedule/calendar. Meanwhile, one website I’m completely unaffiliated with, omahype.com, continues to plug away with its comprehensive arts-focused online calendar.

SLAM Omaha logoThe “news” here is that the ol’ tried and true go-to place for all things local musicwise — slamomaha.com — has fallen on hard times, especially when it comes to its show calendar. In its heyday a few years ago, SLAM Omaha was the first click of the evening when looking for rock show data, mainly because: 1) It was the only game in town; and 2) The calendar was updated by the bands themselves, who were looking for someplace/anyplace to promote their wares. The fact that the site’s simple design has never been updated turned out to be an advantage, because SLAM Omaha still has the cleanest, easiest-to-navigate calendar of any local entertainment website. Linked off its homepage, it merely lists dates, bands, venues and times, with brief descriptions and prices. Nothing more, nothing less.

But apparently all this new competition for online music news, as well as the rise of Facebook, has distracted bands from SLAM Omaha. Look at its calendar this week and you’ll find very few events listed, despite the plethora of nightly shows.

As part of maintaining this website, Lazy-i.com, I check all the online calendars daily, so I can list the best shows happening every evening (Lazy-i ain’t comprehensive, and was never meant to be). With that research in mind, I can declare that the new go-to resource is hearnebraska.org’s calendar, thanks to its small army of underfed, overworked interns. Unfortunately, finding the site’s calendar(s) can be … confusing. The website doesn’t have a small homepage “portlet” or section that lists the evening’s hot shows. Instead, users have to “hover ” their mouse over the “SHOWS” rollover link. Skip the wonky, incomplete “Today’s Shows” listing and go straight to quicker/easier to navigate “Calendar” listing.

Before getting to the evening’s lineups users must scroll past the month’s outdated past shows, then sort through the double listings. I’m assuming most of those hungry interns live in Lincoln, because there’s a preponderance of Lincoln shows listed, and usually one or two hidden-gem Omaha shows missing. HN’s calendar would be more useful if it segregated Omaha and Lincoln shows for those who won’t be driving to Lincoln anytime soon (and vice versa). Despite design flaws, HN’s calendar is the most up-to-date and comprehensive, thanks to its unique music-only focus.

Next in line is thereader.com, which received a much-needed site redesign this year. Like HN, The Reader also lacks a homepage portlet displaying today’s hot shows. Users must click on a “Calendar” tab. From there, they have to click on an almost invisible “Music Listings” sub-tab, after which a poorly formatted events page is displayed with date headings. The good news is that it’s a (somewhat) comprehensive list (from an Omaha perspective), including shows at smaller venues like The Hole, The Sandbox and O’Leaver’s. Unfortunately, the design is surrounded with outdated news content. Stay away from the page’s confusing sub navigation (today’s events/latest events/choose by day), unless you want to get lost.

The most attractive online calendar is Omahype.com. Omahype, boasting coverage of all things arts and entertainment with a “youth-oriented” spin, is cool and clean, with spiffy fonts and big photos and graphics. But while the Omahype team does a fine job gathering information, clicking on the “Music” tab gets you a hodgepodge of content displayed in no particular order. A music review is followed by an outdated calendar listing, followed by a download link followed by a photo essay followed by a show listing for something that doesn’t happen for a couple weeks. The information you’re looking for is there … somewhere.

Let’s not forget the great, grey Omaha World-Herald. For a newspaper with a multi-million dollar payroll, Omaha.com is one of the worst designed news websites on the www. The hard-to-navigate homepage looks like the Yellow Pages blew up all over it. Stories are interspersed with Husker-related “news,” vapid reader polls and garish click-me-now advertising. Yeah, I realize they have to generate money to cover that multi-million dollar payroll, but they shouldn’t do it at the readers’ expense. Perhaps they purposely made the website ugly to force readers to buy their newspaper? Once found, Omaha.com’s calendar lists a few big events, such as Qwest Center concerts, and ignores small-room shows, making it useless for anyone trying to keep track of the bustling indie music scene.

At the end of the day, despite all the new media, finding rock show information online is still a crapshoot. With so many websites now vying for the same sets of eyes, there’s no way all of them will survive. But until someone can come up with a clean, easy, complete listing of shows like SLAM Omaha used to have, the field remains wide open.

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Missing from the above discussion is Facebook, which though rather ubiquitous and a nice tool for bands and promoters to have in their toolbox, is far from the final answer. Especially if Facebook keeps fiddle-dicking around with its design. As you’re probably already aware, Facebook pushed out yet another “update” this morning that again shuffles how you view wall posts. If you’re like me, you don’t want a robot telling you which stories are “important” and which aren’t. You want Facebook to merely display wall posts in the chronology in which they were posted, and let us decide what’s important.

But I digress… Facebook event invitations are a good way to tell your “friends” that you’ve got a show coming up. On the other hand, people who aren’t your “friends” will never see your announcement. So if you’re only interested in communicating to your predefined social network, go for it. However, if you rely solely on Facebook to get the word out, anyone outside that network will be left in the dark. At this point I get so many Facebook event invitations that I ignore them. If I depended on Facebook to show me everything that’s going on musicwise, I would miss a wide swath of gigs.

If you hear about a show but aren’t sure of the specifics, the club’s website is usually the most accurate place for times and prices. Onepercentproductions.com is another go-to website for high-profile indie shows. Bookmark it now.

By the way, I loved SLAM Omaha. I miss its up-to-date calendar; I miss the conversations that used to take place on its Music Message Board. I wish-wish-wish it could return to what it was just a couple years ago…

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Speaking of One Percent Productions, they’re putting on another high-profile show tonight at The Waiting Room when Gomez returns with Kopecky Family Band. Gomez is on the road supporting Whatever’s On My Mind, their latest LP released on ATO Records this past June. $20, 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Lazy-i

Omahype is live, launch party tonight (Mynabirds, Bear Country, UUVVWWZ, etc.); Bill Hoover album release show Saturday…

Category: Blog — Tags: , , , , — @ 3:10 pm December 17, 2010

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Just a few minutes ago, the all new Omahype.com went live. Go check it out. Congratulations to the cyber team at Secret Penguin, along with Laura Burhenn and Will Simons. Better yet, congratulate them in person at tonight’s “soft launch” party at Slowdown. The show also is a 7-inch release party for The Mynabirds new single, “All I Want Is Truth (for Christmas).” Joining Laura Burhenn and Co. are “members of” Bear Country, Conduits, Flowers Forever, Honeybee, Talking Mountain and UUVVWWZ. When they say “members of,” I assume they mean solo sets or a mish-mash match-up. Of course we all know what happens when we “assume.” I do know that UUVVWWZ will be playing with reduced staff, as will be Talking Mountain. Since the show is free you’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about. The fun starts at 9.

Also tonight, O’Leaver’s is hosting Rock Paper Dynamite with The Fergesons and Lightning Bug. $5, 9:30 p.m. But the show is merely a precursor to tomorrow’s big Chili Cookoff at noon at O’Leaver’s. $5 gets you a pint of beer and all the chili you can cram down your cramhole. The full details are right here. You know, I really should enter this contest as I make an amazing beanless beef brisket chili that would destroy all competition, but I’ve got enough trophies lying around the house…

Saturday night’s big event is the Bill Hoover album release show at the all new Side Door Lounge, 35th Ave. and Leavenworth St. (across the street (east) of Family Dollar). Hoover’s new record, Here We Go, is being released by The Antiquarium’s Grotto imprint. Also on the bill are McCarthy Trenching and James Maakestad. The show is free and starts at 7:30. I would suggest you get there early, as I’m told The Side Door has a somewhat limited capacity.

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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.

Lazy-i

Column 301: The Return of Omahaype; MECA announces Red Sky Festival (and MAHA has nothing to worry about)…

Category: Blog,Column,Interviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — @ 6:01 pm December 16, 2010

Column 301: Omahype Returns

The notorious music blog takes on a new life…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Sometime in March 2009, a quiet sadness swept over the Internet when Andrew Bowen and Ian Atwood grasped firmly and pulled the plug on one of Omaha’s more original websites: omahype.com.

Omahype enthusiastically chronicled the local music scene through Bowen and Atwood’s acerbic music news bits, live reviews and leaked mp3 files that one assumes had to be illegal. The website had a wonderfully subversive streak running through it, and carried on an outsider’s tradition, giving voice to Hotel Frank, Slumber Party Records artists and the Antiquarium record store, powered by the duo’s uncanny good taste in music. Over the course of a couple years, Bowen and Atwood managed to make a small but significant mark, providing a fresh, young perspective that this scene was — and is — sorely in need of.

Now, almost two years later, omahype.com returns, but without Bowen and Atwood at the helm. Instead, the Internet domain has been acquired by two other local music insiders — Will Simons and Laura Burhenn. Simons, who sings and plays guitar in local indie band Thunder Power, has been in the music news business for years as a writer for the now-defunct Omaha City Weekly. Washington, D.C., transplant Burhenn is the singer/songwriter behind Saddle Creek Records band The Mynabirds.

The duo acquired Omahype.com through local “youth branding agency” Secret Penguin, who count among its clients skateboarders, The Faint and Jim Suttle. “(Bowen) gave those guys the domain name,” Simons said. “It was Laura’s idea to get the whole thing rolling. She asked me earlier in the spring if I wanted to help with it, while Secret Penguin built the site.”

Burhenn had been rolling the idea of a local arts and music website around in her head for well over a year. “I got the idea from a friend in D.C. who runs a website called brightestyoungthings.com,” Burhenn said. “It’s a curated events calendar where you can find anything you might want to know about what’s going on in D.C.” Omaha, she said, had nothing like it.

Like brightestyoungthings.com, Omahype.com will cover more than just local music. “It’ll include everything from lectures to art shows to indie films,” Burhenn said, “any event that would be interesting to the youth culture.”

But what exactly is “youth culture”? Burhenn said it’s anything that’s inspiring about living where you live. “‘Youth’ is anybody from a teenager to who knows how old,” she said. “It’s not an age thing at all. It’s the creative, adventurous minds in Omaha.”

Simons and Burhenn said they’ll begin by scouring other online calendars for events to include in Omahype, along with (they hope) reader submissions. “We’ll start with events and editor’s picks, and it’ll grow,” Burhenn said. “We also want to be a blog aggregator, a jumping-off point for people to find out who’s doing things around town.”

Their site will be joining an already crowded webspace for local online event calendars that includes the new, improved Reader website at thereader.com; the music-focused hearnebraska.org, which launches Jan. 24; towncommons.com, which provides a “personalized guide to events in Omaha;” the lilting underground-omaha.com; the Omaha World-Herald‘s Omaha.com; the bar-focused omahanightlife.com; local news/events website omaha.net, and, of course, good ol’ slamomaha.com, which has been in the art/music events calendar business for more than a decade. And don’t forget the ubiquitous role of Facebook in keeping people up to speed with what’s happening around town.

Simons knows they’re entering a crowded room. “We don’t want to compete with other websites, we want to collaborate with them,” he said. “We all have the same goals in mind.” It’s a noble thought, but seems to ignore the fact that those other websites also have the goal of being Omaha’s “one-stop shop” — at least that’s what they’re telling potential advertisers and donors. Simons said somewhere down the road Omahype also will sell advertising space, but “our intention isn’t to make money; it’s to support the community.”

Burhenn said that partnering with artists, musicians and “progressive thinkers” to “put a new spin on an old story” is what will differentiate Omahype from the rest of the online herd. That new spin might include an artist creating a photo essay that explores the city from a different angle. “We want to be irreverent in nature,” Burhenn said. “We want people to join in the conversation and be honest with how they feel, but we want them to be positive. At the end of the day, I just want everyone to be nice.”

They both acknowledged the legacy of the original Omahype.com. “Omahype was great for what it was, a music blog,” Simons said. “We’re taking its spirit and expanding it to all the arts and creative communities. We’re not taking a hard-nosed journalistic approach. We want to have a fresh, youthful take on things.”

And while they will curate the site’s content, “I don’t want to be the person who says ‘This is what’s cool and this is what’s not,'” Burhenn said. “I’m interested in hearing from other people what they think is cool, and sharing it.”

Omahype.com’s launch is being celebrated as part of the “Holiday Throwdown” at Slowdown Friday Dec. 17. The free event, which starts at 9 p.m., will feature performances by members of Bear Country, Conduits, Flowers Forever, Honeybee, Talking Mountain, UUVVWWZ and, of course, The Mynabirds, who also will be celebrating the release of their new 7-inch single. Local artists and designers also will have their wares for sale, just in time for Christmas.

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Yesterday, MECA, the people who run the Qwest Center and the new downtown TDAmeritrade ballpark, announced that it’s hosting the Red Sky Music Festival July 19-24. MECA is working with Live Nation to book 50 bands that will perform in and around the ballpark. Kevin Coffey at the OWH has the entire scoop right here.

So the first question that comes to mind: How does Red Sky impact the MAHA Music Festival? In theory, it shouldn’t. Based on what Kevin reported and what I saw this morning on KETV Channel 7, MECA isn’t interested in booking indie-style bands for their All-American family-friendly ballpark. MECA guy said something along the lines of “We’ll be booking the same kind of entertainment that we book at the Qwest Center.”

MECA will likely be looking for the biggest drawing bands they can find to fill their stadium — and other than, say, Arcade Fire (and even that’s a stretch), those aren’t indie bands. I suspect you’ll see a strong top-40 and country line-up, sprinkled with touring pop acts. Think Lady Gaga, Garth Brooks, the American Idol contingent, and legacy stars like Kenny Rogers and REO Speedwagon, just some of the folks you’ll find on the Live Nation website. You’ll also find Broken Social Scene, Killing Joke, Bear Hands, and Wu-Tang Clan. So the opportunity will be there if MECA wants to try to deep-six MAHA by booking a day or two of top-flight indie bands during its 5-day bacchanal, but something tells me that’s not going to happen. At this point, it’s all speculation.

Red Sky does force MAHA to dig deep and define itself in a way that’s thoroughly unique in the festival world. Right now, MAHA is kind of/sort of a one-day outdoor rock concert that features at least one upper-tier indie act along with a sprinkling of up-and-comers and locals. It’s just a big ol’ one-day concert. If it wants to be branded as a truly unique destination concert/festival series, it has to be more than that. But even if it remains on its current path, MAHA will survive and only get bigger, especially after it decides to leave Lewis & Clark Landing behind.

Here’s an idea: What if MAHA became a 3-day festival that was also held in and around a ball park — but this time the ball park is located in Sarpy County? Werner Park’s cozy 6,500 fixed seats and 9,000 total capacity is perfect for upper-tier indie bands like LCD Soundsystem, The National, Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Yo La Tengo and Interpol — i.e., the good bands. Just a thought…

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Yesterday I asked who else other than Laura Burhenn was headed out with Bright Eyes on the tour supporting The People’s Key. Billboard published the answer today, right here — Clark Baechle and Andy LeMaster join Burhenn, Oberst, Mogis and Nate Walcott. Also included in the story is some insight by The Conor himself on the new record. I suspect we’ll be hearing a leaked track any day now…

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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.

Lazy-i