Briefly for I have zero time: Fromanhole is playing a special gig tonight at Bemis Underground, 12th and Leavenworth, with Chicago band Gemini and Ladyhawke. Bands begin at 8 and it’s free. While you’re downtown, One Mummy Case is also playing a show at Ted & Wally’s. That one starts at 10. Have a fun Halloween.

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They had a lead singer who’s quivering voice was a strange mix of Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Cat Stevens and Tricky, a bass player/guitarist who looked like Jason from Saddle Creek, a drummer who looks like James Cameron, a second guitarist who looked like he belonged in Gang of Four circa 1981, a keyboardist who struggled to balance a tower of keyboard on his lap. Each song had something interesting and unique woven within its arrangement. You could argue that they’re progressive, but you’d probably lose the argument to someone who insists that they’re angular traditionalist indie miracle workers. I fancy them as straight-on purist songwriters who aren’t afraid to inflict layers and layers of rhythms into the center of any song. Tim Putnam has a subtle quality that isn’t coy or treacle, Jay Clarke’s keyboards are assertive, adding a broken-hearted counter that, at times, reminds me of Vince Guaraldi in their tonal range. Neither Putnam nor the second guitarist (whose name doesn’t seem to appear on the new CD’s liner notes) ever seem satisfied with a run-of-the-mill rock guitar approach. Highlights included the guitar counter on “Little Green” (played by bassist Rob Oberdorfer) that cut-syncopated against the Putnam’s vocals. Another was the lovely, amber “Hills Above,” that featured a gorgeous chiming piano line and Putnam singing broken “When I left home they said you’re a helluva disaster / So I moved fast but disaster moved faster…” This was special. Too bad nobody saw it.

It’s a shame that there were only about 25 people on hand to see one of the coolest bands to come through town, playing some of the coolest music I’ve heard in a long time. It’s depressing to hear someone pull out an amazing chord progression and then look back at an empty room. It seems to be happening a lot lately (Last week’s remarkable Dios Malos show comes to mind). Blame it on the holiday or the costume party that was going on upstairs. Blame it on the sheer volume of indie shows that have come through here in the past month. Or blame it on the scene’s unwillingness to take a risk on a band they just don’t know much about. At least I got to see and hear it.

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I wrote blurbs for The Reader this week for a couple upcoming shows. One of the blurbs was for tonight’s show at Sokol Underground headlined by The Standard with The Mariannes and The Close. In the words of Mariannes’ frontman Matt Stamp: “Very few people around here are familiar with The Standard. They are really f***ing good. Equal parts jazz, art rock, folk songwriting, ambient experimentation. Wounded, introspective lyrics.” Matt should know. He’s their biggest fan. In fact, he’s been hounding us for months to hype this show. It’s our pleasure. The Close is a tight pop rock band from Atlanta “worth the price of admission just to see their bass player dance.” Thank you, Mr. Stamp. It does sound like a fun show, especially for a mere $7. And a costume isn’t required. Meanwhile, upstairs at Sokol Aud, The Jazzwholes is hosting their CD release show/costume party w/Sarah Benck and The Robbers. The Jazzwholes, who gig for free at The Goofy Foot every Sunday night, sound like the sort of combo that would play during commercial breaks of a late-night TV chat show. They promise an “exciting, diverse, large scale production.” It better be for $15.

Saturday night is dominated by costume-related shananigans, the most interesting of which is The Lude Boys, a Social Distortion tribute band, and 138, a Misfits tribute band, at The Brothers. Something tells me a lot of the patrons’ costumes will involve leather, and yes there will be a contest at some point in the evening. $5, 10 p.m.

I wrote this blurb about Sunday’s Broken Spindles show at Duffy’s w/The Golden Age: Broken Spindles is a project spearheaded by Joel Petersen, better known as the whirling-dervish bassist in Omaha No Wave band The Faint. Here, Petersen takes center stage on keyboards and vocals, and instead of the usual AV gear he’ll be backed by a full band that includes Faint cohort Dapose, Garaldine Vo, and Javid Dabestani of Lincoln’s Bright Calm Blue. They’ll be performing songs from Inside/Absent, Petersen’s latest long player on Saddle Creek Records that’s part noodling-keyboard-spider-web-tinkling spook and part thump-thump-thump electronic pulse. You’ll either dance or be very afraid. Lincoln band The Golden Age’s downbeat folk-rock should provide a jarring contrast. $5, 9:30, no apparent costume requirement, though I’m sure there will be plenty to go around.

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Column 48: Digging Through the Stack
A round-up of worthy recent releases

Dipping through my stack of CDs, here’s a handful of recommendations to check out at your local record store. The keyword here is “retro,” as in “tribute” or “influence” or “return of a style” or “art repeating itself” or “there is no such thing as ‘original’ anymore.” Oh well. Rock’s been eating itself since before Bo Diddley and will continue gnawing away at its own foot long after the kids from Smoosh (rocking from the age of 8) are finally put to bed.

Ester Drang — Rocinate (Jade Tree) — Think Avalon-era Roxy Music with a touch of The Sea and Cake and Flaming Lips and you’re halfway to this Oklahoma band’s summer-breeze vibe. Tracks like “Hooker with a Heart of Gold” and “Great Expectations” sport a cushion of lush strings, brass and piano that would make Burt Bacharach blush with admiration. Jazzy and carefree, it’s hard to believe this was released on post-punk label Jade Tree, home to such angst brutes as Girls Against Boys and Onelinedrawing, and Omaha’s own Statistics.

Early Man — Closing In (Matador) — I profess to rarely listening to metal of any stripe these days. Sure, I dug Queensryche and Iron Maiden as much as the next guy, but that was back in my younger, stupider days (he said with a sniff). Then along comes Early Man, and suddenly I feel like a 17-year-old again, riding around in my brother’s El Camino cruising for chicks and booze. Fist shaking. Bloody nose. Angry for no reason. Angry because it rocks! Sure, it sounds like the riffs were lifted directly from 1) Black Sabbath, 2) Judas Priest, and 3) Metallica (not necessarily in that order), but there’s no denying the pure head-bangin’ extravagance of rippers like “Death Is the Answer,” complete with Bobby Beers a.k.a. Steel Dragon falsetto intro. Could they single-handedly bring metal back from the dead? If it all sounds like this, I sure hope so.

Eagle*Seagull — Self-titled (Paper Garden) — I’ve already proclaimed that these swinging Lincolnites as being Nebraska’s version of red-hot Canadian “It” band The Arcade Fire. Why? Could be because Eli Mardock’s breathy moan resembles AF’s Win Butler’s, or that both bands have a penchant for jaunty non-traditional arrangements on a grand scale (“Your Beauty is a Knife I Turn on My Throat” sounds like it came straight off Funeral). Still, the comparison ain’t fair. Too often E*S’s debut veers headily away from AF’s Bowie worship, especially on tracks like the momentous “Lock and Key,” with its late-song waltz that creates a majesty uniquely its own. Ambitious, and good too.

Acid House Kings — Sing Along with the Acid House Kings (Twentyseven Records) — Like the last Kings of Convenience album, Sing Along… sports a falling leaves / Simon and Garfunkel texture thanks to its gliding strings, chiming acoustic guitars and twee vocals. Add more reverb to the guitars, hand claps and some sweet West Coast harmonies and you’ve got a modern-day version of The Association. Elevator music for a new generation.

Sufjan Stevens — Come on Feel the Illinoise (Asthmatic Kitty) — Like listening to a choir of indie slackers led by a Little Prince in a Cubs hat whose voice is a morph of Art Garfunkel and Ben Gibbard singing lullabies to Jacksonville, Decatur and Chicago. Fans of Greetings from Michigan will find it all too familiar (In fact, if you weren’t paying attention, you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate between the two). Can there be too much of a good thing? I don’t think so. On the other hand, it could get pretty tired if he repeats it over the next 48 states (albums).

My Morning Jacket — Z (ATO/RCA) — Am I the only one who thinks that the CD’s first single, “Off the Record,” with its Hawaii Five-O guitar riff and trippy reggae beat, sounds like a laid-back Who track circa Who’s Next? Maybe it’s because of how they’ve made Jim James sound like Robert Daltrey or the fact that there’s so much reverb throughout the album that it feels like it was recorded from the bowels of whale… or the back of a smoky arena circa 1972 haunted by the memories of Neil Young, Alex Chilton and Joe Walsh.

Ex Models music is a hard pill to swallow. Very noisy, very chaotic, to many it’ll sound only like noise. Writing this feature (read it here) was reminiscent of writing the Public Eyesore article a few weeks back, where I had to find the method to the madness. Ex Models Shahin Motia is very aware that he’s going to alienate fans of the older, more danceable version of his band, but he figures that’s just the way it goes. I asked him if he thought the methodical shift from album to album to becoming a more “noise-based” band was what also drove down the band’s numbers from four to just two guitarists. “Yeah,” he said. “For me personally, I feel like Other Mathematics (their debut album) was very rhythmic, and we spent a lot of the time creating these bizarre drum patterns and threading the guitar and bass through them. A lot of that was simplified on Zoo Psychology (their follow-up) through raw power. At the end of that tour, I felt like I personally had grown tired of it. We were going into rehearsals with very little creative energy and I knew what the four of us were capable of, and it wasn’t a good feeling. I was convinced personally that I didn’t want to deal with drums anymore; I didn’t want the beat to be the thing anymore.”

Motia went on to say it’s been tough learning to play live as a two-piece. “We have played 100 shows since February and have figured out what we want to do and what we like about it,” he said. He divides the band’s audience into three groups: Those who are familiar with their old stuff who turn up and say “What the hell is this?”; another third who like the old stuff and think the new stuff is great; and another third who will have seen this incarnation of the band before and have come back for more. “The U.S. is the only place we’ve toured as a two-piece twice,” he said. “So now there are those who have seen it who were never into our older stuff. That’s cool.”

Tonight it’s Statistics and Little Brazil together at one show at O’Leaver’s. The gig is a warm-up for the bands’ upcoming joint tour, where Little Brazil will actually be acting as Statistics’ backing band. Should be a rousing good time indeed. $5, 9:30 p.m.

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Yesterday morning was spent writing a feature on The Ex Models (online tomorrow morning) and a column’s worth of CD reviews (online Thursday morning) and recovering from a weekend of shows (see Oct. 22 and 23 entries). A full week of shows begins tonight at O’Leaver’s with what essentially is a Hot Topic tour, featuring The Forecast with tourmates Lorene Drive and My Epiphany. The Forecast is a straight-up indie rock band with male and female vocals. They’ve got a new CD coming out on Victory — the king of bland pop-punk labels. Sacramento’s Lorene Drive is the kind of band that is thrilled to be opening for an act like Yellow Card, and signs their e-card “See you in the pit” even though no self-respecting punk would ever listen to their music. My Epiphany has a new CD out on Eyeball Records and has a lead singer with one of those yearning emo voices (Dashboard Confessional?) that can only be described as “unfortunate.” This should have been an all-ages show somewhere, as the bands clearly fall into the high school or younger demographic. Still, it’s three touring bands (as lame as they may be) for $5. If you feel like going out anyway, you might want to check out Kyle Harvey and Reagan Roeder at Mick’s. It’s free. I’ll be at home, watching Game 3.

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I went to see Swords last night. I left discovering Dios (Malos). Swords weren’t bad. The six-piece band that included two drummers (one of whom also fiddled with electronic noises), a keyboard/violinist and a couple guitarists had way too much going on and the result was muddled and unfocused. Their music actually sounds bigger and more thought-out on CD. Live, it’s a bit too fey and yearning for my tastes. One guy described them as sounding “pretty.” Another patron complained “Could they sound anymore like Death Cab?” Well, other than the lead vocalist’s upper-register voice, they sounded nothing like DCFC, not nearly as catchy or interesting. Maybe they just didn’t have it last night. O’Leaver’s small size can be either intimidating or disappointing to bands, even if its full as it was last night. Their set seemed like it lasted about 20 minutes and was over without a flourish. “Are they done?” the guy in front of me asked. Looks that way.

I had zero preconceived notions about Dios (Malos). Like I mentioned yesterday, I got lost on their website and never found any music files online. After last night, I don’t think I’ve been turned on by a band as much since maybe The Smithereens’ first album. No, Dios doesn’t sound anything like The Smithereens. They do have a similar aesthetic regarding traditional song structure. But the comparison ends there. Dios also has a relationship with My Morning Jacket in that giant-sized singer/guitarist/keyboardist Joel Morales uses a huge amount of reverb and delay in his vocals, which make them sound — appropriately — big and haunting. You knew it was going to be special when, during the pre-set sound chec,k Morales improvised piano fills to New Order’s “Temptation” which was playing on the juke box. Their first song played off the opening organ chords of Led Zeppelin’s “All of My Love” before turning into a Dios original, sort of (I think it was merely a warm-up exercise). Whereas everything seemed lost and confused with Swords’ mix, the sound couldn’t have been any better for Dios — they did have an unfair advantage in that drummer Jackie Monzon would make my top-five “best of” list for drummers seen and heard at O’Leaver’s — unbelievable stuff. So were the songs, whose So Cal sensibilities and nod to retro supersede any indie rock labels, though they certainly are an indie band. Uber-engineer Phil Ek produced their just-released eponymous CD on Star Time that captures the band’s crisp take on laid-back rock. A pleasant surprise.

Tonight: Fromanhole at O’Leaver’s with Landing on the Moon and touring band from Minneapolis, Self-evident. Just added to the bill: self-proclaimed rock/blues/death metal band Black Horse.

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The night started out on the wrong foot. I missed the two opening bands, and then was told that earlier in the evening, a member of Metric was pissed at the headline used in The Reader story (He didn’t understand why the media keeps getting hung up on the whole “metric system” thing… it might have something to do with the fact that the band is named Metric). Apparently the same Metrician was overheard making a colorful comment about our fair city. “We went downtown this afternoon. Sucks!” I guess when you’re from Toronto, Omaha’s Old Market is going to be somewhat lacking. Hey, you know what? It’s all we got. So whatever love I had for the band was slightly tarnished by the time they took the stage at around 11. Despite all the hostility, I gotta admit that they put on a pretty good show. If you read their one-sheet you’d think they were symbiotically tied to Goo-era Sonic Youth (In fact, their soundguy played “Kool Thing” over the PA right before their set), but the way they were mixed last night, they seem more like descendants of Depeche Mode or The Cure. The kick-drum was so amped that you could feel the thump-thump-thump shake your insides to Jello — it was huge. So huge that it overpowered the rest of the mix. Instead of an experimental noise rock band, Metric has turned itself into an electro-clash dance band, someone you might hear opening for The Faint. A number of songs started off subtly, pretty, toned with edgy keys or echoing guitar, but once the drums came in, all you got was THUMP-THUMP-THUMP. If you were there to dance, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it killed Jimmy Shaw’s gorgeous, shimmering guitar lines and overpowered pretty Emily Haines’ too-thin vocals. A few times they reached some sort of equilibrium (or maybe I just channeled out the kick drum) and created an unstoppable dance vibe. Shame that so few people in the crowd picked up on it (Come on, we all know that nobody dances in Nebraska!). The 150 or so in the crowd did what they usually do — stood and stared as Haines and bassist Josh Winstead tried to get their groove going. They didn’t succeed until the encore — the two best songs of the set, neither of them recognizable from the new CD. Ten minutes into the last song, during a killer guitar solo drenched in reverb, Haines coaxed part of the crowd on stage. It wasn’t easy, in fact she had to ask three or four times and practically drag them up. After the first couple got up there, though, 20 or so more slowly came up and did their thing with the band. I have no doubt that Metric could easily jump to the next level if they got on the right tour (Yeah, they would be perfect opening for The Faint). Instead, they may be satisfied playing their string of sold-out Canadian shows scheduled through the end of October. Something tells me the downtown scene is cooler in Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon.

I mentioned to a couple people last night that I’m probably going to pass on the sold-out Decemberists show at Sokol Underground and head to Swords at O’Leaver’s. No one’s heard of the Portland-based six-piece, apparently, though their new CD, Metropolis, on Arena Rock Records has gotten accolades from The Boston Globe, Magnet and Time Out New York, among others. I dig it. Fred Mills from Magnet called it “chamber music for post-rockers” and that sums it up well. The title track, for instance, reminds me of brooding early Genesis with vocals as light and airy as Lindsay Buckingham’s. They have a big sound, maybe too big for O’Leaver’s. We’ll find out tonight. They are not the headliners — apparently Dios Malos is. Trying to figure out something about that band, I got totally confused and lost on their website. I did find the Startime Records site, where you can download their cover of Beck’s “Asshole.” Nice. $5, 9:30.

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The weekend starts with an all-Canada showcase at Sokol Underground, headlined by Toronto band Metric and opening acts The Most Serene Republic, a Milton, Ontario, six-piece who sound heavily influenced by Death Cab/Postal Service, and The Lovely Feathers, who sound like a strange cross between Two Gallants and Pavement. 9 p.m., $10. If that doesn’t trip your trigger, check out The Terminals with Austin’s The Midgetmen and Lincoln’s Ideal Cleaners at O’Leaver’s. $5, 9:30 p.m. Also tonight, the Sixth Annual “Sisters Doin it for Others!” all-girl revue at Mick’s featuring Goodbye, Sunday and Sarah Benck, among others. It starts at 7:30, and all donations go to the Lydia House, a shelter for battered and abused women and children.

Tomorrow night’s hot show is the sold-out Decemberist concert at Sokol Underground with opening band Cass McCombs. So mad should that house be that I will probably instead go running to O’Leaver’s, where Swords is opening for Dios Malos (I’m going for Swords). $5, 9:30 p.m

The weekend winds down on Sunday, again at O’Leaver’s, with Fromanhole, Landing on the Moon and Minneapolis band Self-evident. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Look for live reviews here all weekend…

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Column 47 — Biography of a Digger
Zero Street is more than a store, it’s a way of life

Mike Garber is a reformed digger.

No, I’m not talking about a guy who makes a living preparing final resting-places. Diggers are record collectors (not CD collectors) who think nothing of flipping through a few thousand pieces of vinyl at record shows, garage sales or places like Zero Street Records at 65th & Maple in Benson — Garber’s new shop — to find that hidden, elusive side that’s been haunting them all their lives.

Garber’s quite familiar with the digger’s lifestyle. He was one for years. He speaks of his early record collecting days like a reformed junkie recalling a bleary-eyed life on the street desperately looking for a fix, living off Ramen noodles to save every dime he could scrape together. Not for drugs, for more records.

“I scored some great stuff back then,” Garber said from behind his store’s counter. “Every penny I had went to pay off records. A thousand dollars for one 45 meant nothing to me. I loved owning this stuff. I recognized the beauty and value in it.”

So much so that after earning his degree in Fine Arts at UN-L, Garber dashed any thoughts of a career in graphic design when he was offered ownership of his first record store, Lincoln’s original Zero Street Records, named after Alan Ginsberg’s poetic dig on “O” St., where the store was located. Growing up in Omaha, Garber spent his youth digging through stacks of sides at The Antiquarium. He wanted Zero Street to be Lincoln’s version of that classic record store, selling not only used, but new music.

So dedicated was he that he gave up one of the most important things in his life — his record collection. “I sold it at market rates and took the money and invested it in the store and the building it was in,” Garber said. “I recognized life is more than a record collection.”

But it only took five years of sitting behind a counter all day and trying to keep up with stocking new music before Garber burned out on Zero Street. He closed the Lincoln store last August, and just like he’d done before, someone stepped up and reopened it — but it didn’t take long before the store closed for good.

Garber spent the next year traveling to record shows and buying private collections. One New Jersey collection of fewer than 100 records set him back six grand, but included two ultra-rare singles — one by a ’70s Connecticut punk band called Tapeworm, another by a Texas punk band called The Rejects. Never heard of them? Neither had I. Regardless, each fetched more than $1,000, thanks to the wonders of eBay, the 21st Century diggers’ hunting ground and Garber’s new field of dreams.

So why open another store? Garber said he got tired of the road and being stuck in his apartment eBaying all day. “I wanted that social interaction again that I got from running a record store,” he said. After considering Chicago and Minneapolis, he was drawn back to his hometown and the low-rent storefront in the heart of Benson.

Things are going to be different this time, however. Zero Street sells no new records or CDs, only used vinyl. Step inside and there’s not much to see — freshly painted blue walls, shiny aluminum heating ducts, and lots of waist-high wooden crates filled with record albums.

“Half the people who come in to check out the store think it’s a novelty,” Garber said. “When you walk in, it doesn’t look like much, but if you’re a record person, you’ll recognize it. If you’re a digger, you’re gonna come in and think there’s some really great records here.”

The proof was right before our eyes. While chatting, a mustachioed guy worked his way through a stack of rare R&B 45s, playing them on a small turntable behind the counter before buying about 50 bucks’ worth. Meanwhile, another guy laid a 2-inch-thick stack of albums and singles on the counter — again consisting mostly of R&B sides — which ran him well over $100.

As important as guys like these are to Zero Street’s success, Garber says there’s one clientele even more important, and it could include you: It’s people cleaning out their apartment, house or garage looking for a place to sell those old records that have been sitting around unplayed for so many years.

“The only way this store will survive is if people sell me their records,” he said. “I won’t last long without them.”

Spoken like a true digger.