I’ve been following Milemarker for years, having reviewed both 2001’s Anaesthetic (Rating: No) and 2002’s Frigid Forms Sell (Rating: Yes), both on Jade Tree. It was the latter album where the band really hit its stride. They’d release the moribund Satanic Versus later in ’02, before disappearing from the music scene altogether — which is discussed in the interview (read it here). It was during those Jade Tree years that Omaha became something of a regular stop on the band’s tours through Nebraska, even opening for Desaparecidos’ CD release show back in January 2002 (surprisingly, none of their shows were One Percent gigs, until now). Starting over means going from playing rooms the size of Sokol Underground to the more intimate O’Leaver’s — a switch that frontman Dave Laney is happier about, realizing that the band couldn’t draw a crowd big enough to fill anything larger. We’ll see. There are a lot of Omahans who remember this band and hopefully will show up next Tuesday.

And if you’re wondering, no, I didn’t go to the Ween show last night. Anyone who did, please be kind enough to grace us all with a brief review on the webboard…

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Well, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get Ween to do an interview. Not this time, said their tour guy/publicist person. In all honesty, I’m not sure what I would have asked them. I’m one of those people that never got into the band, which says more about me then about them. Though I’ve heard that they deplore jam bands and the whole jam-band aesthetic, Ween and its horde of followers has a lot in common with Phisheads, Deadheads, Widespread Panicheads, etc. Without the help of radio, Ween has managed to garner a sizable following of fans who travel from town to town to hear their heroes, thanks for the most part to their stage shows that draw from a wildly diverse catalogue of music and styles. And because they’re funny. So as background for you Weeners and non-Weeners who are braving the arctic cold to attend tonight’s sold-out festivities, here’s some recent Ween articles to study:

For weird’s sake — Dirt, Boulder, Colorado, Nov. 28 — A good backgrounder about the band and this tour, written in support of Ween’s three-night stand in Boulder that concludes this Saturday. Writer Andy Stonehouse (a more appropriate name for a writer of a Ween article I could never think of) describes the band as “Sophomoric. Ridiculous. Homophobic. Asinine. Puerile.” And he’s being nice.

Vegoose has flown — The Rebel Yell, University of Nevada, Nov. 3 — A review of the Vegoose Festival featuring Ween, Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire and Widespread Panic. A snapshot of the crowd: “All the lead singer had to do was say ‘Ween,’and then all the weirdos in the crowd immediately began to howl, conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs, which left all the sane people in the vicinity stricken with fear.” Look for the same reaction tonight.

Order from Chaos — Metro Newspapers, Bay area, CA, Nov. 2 — A piece about Dean Ween side project Moistboyz, who One Percent should try to book when they go on tour this winter.

Ween Radio — A website that does nothing but stream Ween music. You can request a song and find tour info… from as recent as 2002.

The Official Ween site — The usual stuff.

Look for a feature on Milemarker here tomorrow, and a column that recaps the past year of columns on Thursday…

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It seems unfair to make any comments about Civicminded’s set Wednesday night at O’Leaver’s. The sound couldn’t have been any worse. Look, everyone knows that O’Leaver’s has an inferior PA, but some nights bands sound pretty damn good (bordering on great). Wednesday night wasn’t one of them, at least not for Civicminded. I was curious about these guys after hearing their song on the one.one First National Bank comp. I know that they do a lot of gigs in the West Omaha club world. Their stage presence reflected this. Not that there’s anything wrong with the frontman saying “How’s everybody doin’ tonight?” halfway through a song, it’s just not what I’m accustomed to at indie shows. Most indie bands slouch onto the stage, plug in and play their entire set without acknowledging that there’s anyone else in the room. A common question during an indie band’s set “Who are these guys?” No one seems to know, and you usually don’t find out until after the set, when you can ask the frontman (and he might even tell you). That wasn’t a problem with Civicminded (or the headliner, for that matter). The frontman announced, “We’re Civicminded, thanks for coming out,” after almost every song. Again, nothing wrong with that, it’s just something I’m more used to hearing at The Ranch Bowl or from a cover band.

Civicminded seems to be somewhere between being a radio-alt band and something different, something better. They’re teetering on the edge of heading different places than the run-of-the-mill alt-band. A couple of their songs (the one.one track, for instance) wander from the typical radio formula to more interesting territory. It’s their rhythm section that seems to be in limbo. Most of the time, the bass and drums were playing atypical heavy-metal backbeat rhythms a la cover bands. This music, especially the guitars and keyboards, demand something more creative than that. Too often the compositions seemed formulaic, as if someone came up with the riffs and everyone else nodded and smiled and thought “Oh, it’s one of those songs” and then went into auto pilot. That style — that straight-on alt rock/bar rock style — is exactly what 85 percent of a typical bar audience wants to hear. They want the familiar. They want Pearl Jam. That won’t cut it with the 15 percenters who are used to hearing more unique (or oddball) stuff that typifies college/indie music. But then again, I have no idea where these guys want to go. Maybe they’re targeting the FM alt-radio crowd. And that’s fine, too. But if they’re interested in doing something more creative (and better), the potential is most definitely there.

It’s impossible to comment much further because of the horrible, muddy, cluttered mix. Civicminded is a five-piece that features a frontman (who only sings, he plays no instrument), two guitars (one guy also plays keyboards), bass and drums. Rarely could you make out the second guitar line in the fog of noise. The vocal pick-up was worse than bad — at moments the guy sounded like he was blowing out the stage-right amp with his voice (He has classic rock frontman tendencies that don’t lend themselves to O’Leaver’s RadioShack microphones). The proof in the pudding lies in how they would sound on a better PA…

The inferior sound system was no problem for Summer Birds in the Cellar. They spent about 15 minutes dragging a mountain of amps onto the stage and stacking them under, then in front of, the plasma TV. The additional firepower made all the difference. But even then, there were problems. Thing kept getting unplugged to the bass head, and someone would constantly have to lean over and plug stuff back in. Despite the technical glitches, these guys were pretty amazing, with a sound that combines dance rhythms with Cure-style drone guitars and intricate, repeated riffs that pulled songs out with extended, jammy endings that you didn’t want to stop. The frontman introduced the last song with “I hope we win the war on terror, because I hate it,” or something like that. About halfway through, however, the bass head apparently fell off the stack of amplifiers. Once they lifted it back onto the stack, they declared that the bass head was blown, fiddled around with some wires, and started the song over from the beginning, declaring it was the first encore they ever performed. Great set, great band. I should have bought a copy of their CD that night.

As for the weekend: For me it’ll probably start at The Brothers tonight since there’s no shows to speak of. There might be a show at O’Leaver’s but who knows? They quit updating their calendar again and sending out information on their e-mail list. I do know, however, that they’ve got a hot show tomorrow — Bad Luck Charm with The Black Rabbits — this one will be packed. $5, 9:30 p.m. And that about does it for the weekend. Blame the holiday for the lame schedule.

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Column 52 — Be Thankful for Nothing
Omaha’s music scene has no one to thank but itself.

About two weeks ago, the editorial staff at The Reader approached me and the other writers to lend a hand on this issue’s cover story based on the question: “What are you thankful for?” I was given a list of local musicians and important figures from the music scene, which I was assigned to call or e-mail asking them what they’re thankful for during this holiday season.

My reaction: This has got to be the lamest idea I’ve ever heard. Look, I’m not going to pick up the phone and call Simon Joyner or Marc Leibowitz or Tim Kasher and waste their time by first, asking what they’re thankful for and second, explaining why The Reader thinks their comments are relevant to anyone outside of their immediate family, close friends or whatever deity they worship.

Beyond the basics — their health, and the health of their friends and family — what could they possibly say that would be interesting? What curveball could they throw that would be “good reading” to the guy or gal sitting at O’Leaver’s or The Blue Line or your local convenient store or any other place where The Reader is stacked? “Dude, I’m thankful for my sweet, sweet Electro-lux Flying V with duo pick-ups and flaming starburst finish.” Right on.

Yeah I know, I flew off the handle, as per usual. I’m sure the story, which is tucked somewhere inside these pages, is absolutely riveting. And upon reflection, the local music scene and its participants do have a lot to be thankful for. But once you get past thanking the obvious — the venues, the labels, the promoters, the recent national attention, and, of course, their natural talent — there’s not much left to be thankful for.

Our music scene was built on hard work. Not luck, not fortune, not the good will of some omnipotent rock god. The bands that have made a name for themselves did it by busting their asses in the studio, in the clubs, on the road. Beyond that, I can only image what they could be thankful for:

A good van
A better mechanic.
Cheap(er) gas.
Free booze at gigs.
A quiet place to throw up after all that free booze.
Getting away with it.
Getting caught by the right people.
The decision to not press charges.
Staying together, because it makes sense.
Breaking up, because it makes sense.
Just getting rid of fly in the ointment.
Thinking through every possible consequence before saying no to a groupie.
Those times when you said yes.
Catching the flu on off nights.
Being able to fake it when it catches you.
Staying away from the wrong drugs.
Surviving those time(s) when you weren’t smart enough to avoid them.
Making that one last phone call.
Sending that one last e-mail.
Making and sending one more after that.
Listening to the right people.
Ignoring the wrong ones.
Not giving a shit either way.
Being clever enough to come up with the right riffs,
The right fills,
The right lyrics
At the right times.
And most importantly, doing things the right way when tempted time and time and time again to do it the easy way.

This is getting preachy. And trite. And it’s just the kind of thing I wanted to avoid by not participating in that article in the first place. What do the fans and musicians and everyone involved in the Omaha scene have to be thankful for? That there is an Omaha scene at all. And who can they thank? Themselves.

I e-mailed Jason Kulbel the day I noticed the heavy-moving equipment touch down at the Slowdown site, figuring he would regale me with stories of a fireworks-laden ribbon-cutting ceremony, tales of how he and Robb Nansel and Rachel Jacobson — decked out in business suits and hardhats (with their names printed on them) –grinned as they pushed their gold-painted shovels into the half-frozen November soil while a small crowd of poorly dressed Creek staffers and well-dressed Kutak Rock “friends” clapped with enthusiasm. Maybe Robb made a speech in his usual acerbic style that captured the moment in everyone’s hearts, the totality of which was “Thanks for coming” and a half-wave. On hand for the occasion, of course, would be Mayor Mike Fahey with his usual leprechaun grin, strongly shaking the Creek crew’s hands, their arms waving like wet noodles. “I just love you goddamned kids! But tell me, why Slowdown? I figured you’d want something more up-tempo, like The Rock House or Shakers or something like that.” Robb would quietly reply with, “Well, we thought about those names and all the other ones you e-mailed us, Mr. Mayor, but Slowdown… well… it would take too long to explain…” Fahey’s face would remain a frozen grin as he moved on to talk about the real meaning of Election with Alexander Payne…

Instead, Jason replied to my e-mail with: “we wanted to have an official groundbreaking ceremony but nansel lost all of the shovels. no, there was nothing official. a lot of people told us we should have one, but it seemed a bit over the top. we’re just happy to finally see something happening down there.” (Note the lack of capital letters — this is a Saddle Creek correspondence trait, reflecting how the writer is way too fatigued to push the Caps key.) I’m sure Fahey was disappointed. I know how much he likes to wear a hardhat. Anyway, they tore out the sidewalk along the west side of the property yesterday, and steamshovels (or whatever they’re called) are eagerly digging away at some sort of foundation. It won’t be long now.

Noteworthy show tonight: Ladyfinger at The Rock (now there’s a cool club name) in Papillion along with The Atlas and emo bands Renee Heartfelt and Leaving Lafayette. $7, 8 p.m. Ladyfinger is probably playing early…

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The day after I wrote the Nov. 18 blog entry I woke up and couldn’t move my fingers without lightning bolts of pain shooting from my wrist, up my arm to my elbow. Any pressure on my right hand created tiny sparks of agony. It’s only now that I can type, and even then it’s a bit of a struggle. No, I didn’t break my wrist, more like sprained it (It never swelled up). So, as this medical report would indicate, I missed all the weekend shows. Driving was out of the question. Ah well, there will be other weekends. It also means there will be no column this week (the deadline was last Friday). More tomorrow. I promise. And if anyone went to any of the shows this weekend, give us a bit of a review, will you?

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I write this in a broken and battered state, having fallen flat on my ass on some icy stairs. My back and ass are sore but fine, my hands are two bloody stumps, which is why you’re not reading a review of last night’s Eagle*Seagull/Benck/Neva show. Anyone who did go, please leave us a brief review on the webboard. My personal agony, however, will likely not deter me from attending the weekend highlights, which start tonight at O’Leaver’s where Brimstone Howl, The Terminals and Autodramatics will be performing. Brimstone Howl, if you didn’t know, was formerly known as The Zyklon Bees before the Anti-Defamation League stepped in and gave the band some one-on-one sensitivity training. This is the CD release show for Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! or as I call it Seven Bangs! or Bang! x 7. released on Speed! Nebraska Records. $5, 9:30 p.m..

Meanwhile, downtown at Sokol Underground tonight it’s LA noise-rock outfit Mae-shi (5 Rue Christine Records), Lincoln’s The Show is the Rainbow and St. Louis’ So Many Dynamos (who AMG compares to Dismemberment Plan). $7, 9 p.m.

Saturday night it’s The Third Men (ex-The Sons of…) with the jazzy Iowa City combo The Diplomats of Solid Sound at The 49’r. $5, 9:30 p.m.

But perhaps the biggest show night of all this weekend is Sunday. Down at Sokol Underground it’s a four-band bill with Broken Spindles, GoGoGo Airheart, The Joggers and Flamboyant Gods, all for just $7 (Starts at 9). Meanwhile, at Mick’s, Kite Pilot takes the stage with Unwed Sailor. $4, 8 p.m.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go change the dressing on my wounds. Have a good weekend.

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I am occasionally asked by the very few who read this blog or my stuff in The Reader what’s hot these days. My answer for the last few months has been Lincoln’s Eagle*Seagull, a band to which I just posted a feature story about (read it here). My first question during our recent interview (which they drove all the way from Lincoln to do — I was touched!) was the traditional “stupid question”: What in hell does your name mean, and why the cock-a-doody asterisk (which is a pain in the arse to type)? The answer to the first half is in the story, the answer to the second was never really given. It had something to do with Google and the Internet. However if you type Eagle*Seagull into Google these days, the top result is a model airplane website, followed by a site selling decorative mobiles. For God’s sake, get rid of the asterisk!

What didn’t make it into the story? Frontman Eli Mardock’s reticence to explain, read and/or publish his lyrics, though he says he takes great pride in them. When I asked him what “Your beauty is a knife I turn on my throat” means, he hum-hawed. “I get self conscious about my lyrics when I see them printed out,” he said, avoiding the question. “Poetry is supposed to look good on the page. Song lyrics are about the song. Seeing any of my lyrics makes me cringe.” Fair enough. I guess it just means we need to listen to the songs more closely, and that ain’t such bad thing.

Tonight Eagle*Seagull opens for Neva Dinova and Sarah Benck & The Robbers at Sokol Underground, which means you must get there at the stroke of 9 p.m. You will not be disappointed. As good as their CD is, their live show is much better and really does deserve comparison to The Arcade Fire, whether the band likes it or it. $7, 9 p.m.

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Column 51 — Goodbye, Caulfield
Nebraska’s original indie label calls it quits

Before there was Saddle Creek, there was Caulfield Records.

It was 1988 — a time when the thought of Nebraska ever being the center of anything other than college football, telemarketing or insurance — let alone the indie rock music world — was insane. Record labels belonged in New York or L.A. (or maybe Seattle), certainly not Nebraska.

Then along came a 17-year-old Lincoln entrepreneur who conned his loving mother into cosigning a loan to finance the release of a 7-inch EP by his band, Peer Puppet.

“We actually changed our name after the record was pressed,” said the entrepreneur in question, Bernie McGinn. “We crossed out ‘Peer Puppet’ and stamped it with the new name, ‘Sideshow,'” McGinn told me the story from his new home in sunny, soothing San Francisco, California, where he moved seven weeks ago to pursue an offer he couldn’t refuse from CNET News.com. The move decidedly spelled the end of one of the most influential record labels in our scene’s rather young history. Caulfield Records and its roster of bands that included Frontier Trust, Mercy Rule, Christie Front Drive, Giants Chair, Opium Taylor, Mineral, The Sound of Rails, The Lepers and Her Flyaway Manner, were the predecessors to a phenomenon that would emerge a decade later called Saddle Creek Records. McGinn proved that you could run a successful, nationally distributed indie label out of your house and have fun doing it. Making money at it, well, that’s another thing altogether…

The label’s heyday was in the early ’90s. Caulfield grew from a regional label with local acts like Mercy Rule and Frontier Trust, to a national entity with the release of CDs by Denver’s Christie Front Drive and Kansas City’s Giants Chair, two bands that toured extensively. Things got so busy around the Caulfield offices that there wasn’t enough room for McGinn’s own band — Sideshow released their second LP on Flydaddy, a subsidiary of Sub Pop.

Then over the course of ’95, Giants Chair, Christie Front Drive and Lincoln band Opium Taylor all broke up, just after Caulfield released those bands’ follow-up LPs. “Opium Taylor’s last show was their CD release show,” McGinn said. “For all intents and purposes, not having bands on the road was the beginning of the end.”

But McGinn soldiered on. In 1999, the label released the debut by Traluma, a project fronted by former Gauge guitarist Kevin. J. Frank. It was the first time McGinn had to work with a band’s independent publicist. It would prove to be a souring experience.

“I struggled with it for quite a while — do I want to make this my job or is this a passion or hobby?” McGinn said. “I did try, on a number of levels, to make it a record label by putting out music by (bands) Kolya and m.i.j., and working with people who weren’t part of my close circle of friends. Afterward, I decided that this isn’t fun and it isn’t the reason I started the label.”

Add to that the fact that by 2000 McGinn’s last band, Luck of Aleia, had folded, and he no longer was performing on stage. “That meant I wasn’t meeting new bands,” he said. “It just didn’t make sense anymore.”

Caulfield’s last gasps were releases by his brother Brendan’s band, Her Flyaway Manner, as well as The Lepers and The Sound of Rails. In May 2003, Caulfield released Fractions and Exaggerations, a compilation of material from ’90s noise-rock band Germbox. Catalog number 41 would prove to be the label’s final release.

“There was no official tent folding,” McGinn said of Caulfield’s demise. “It was an organic process of not putting out any records, in the same way that putting out records in the first place wasn’t an effort to start a record label.”

These days, McGinn and his wife, Tammy Childers, are busy enough just keeping up with their 3-year-old daughter, Stella. He says he’s still going to keep material in print that people want (You can find it at Caulfieldrecords.com), as well as make the catalog available on digital services such as i-Tunes, Rhapsody and Napster.

“It’s been an honor working with bands that I have been huge fans of, and being trusted to help get their music out there,” McGinn said. “That’s been the best part of it.”

Where was I yesterday? Writing a feature on Eagle*Seagull and a column on Caulfield Records, that’s where. Watch for them tomorrow and Thursday.

I never got a chance to talk about Saturday Night’s Mal Madrigal show at O’Leaver’s. It was a packed house. I stood by the door most of the night, which sucked. Nothing like being in somebody’s way all night, but what could you do? I don’t know what the deal was, but the place was filled… with women — unheard of at O’Leaver’s. I halfway expected some guy to walk in wearing a cop’s uniform and tell one of the women that “she’s under arrest” before throwing his hat across the room and unbuttoning his shirt to the throbbing beat of The Petshop Boys. Even the owner was perplexed by the number of women who came out to see Mal Madrigal. I guess it’s that sexy heartthrob Steve Bartolomei, this season’s Keith Partridge.

First up was Denton, Texas’ Shiny Around the Edges, a minimalist noise-rock trio with heavy Sonic Youth influence. Their music was tribal and rhythmic, featuring chant male and female vocals. Some songs were feedback dirges while others were gritty rockers (They opened with a gruelingly slow Neil Young cover). Quite a contrast to what was about to hit the stage. It’s been about a year since I last saw Mal Madrigal, and their sound hasn’t changed much. The band’s rural folk is centered around Bartolomei’s warm, almost-soothing vocals. Some songs were downright pretty; all were laid-back — at least all the songs I heard. After about five songs-worth of people constantly walking back and forth in front of me, I gave up and went home. Mal Madrigal may well have outgrown O’Leaver’s Saturday night. It will be awhile until we get a chance to see them again as Bartolomei is headed to Europe for a month to play in Mayday. I ran into drummer Corey Broman (Statistics, Son, Ambulance, Little Brazil) at the show — he’ll be on the same tour, playing for both Mayday and Orenda Fink, who are sharing the bill.

A brief mention that Saddle Creek Records’ Slowdown project apparently broke ground over the weekend. I saw tractors and other heavy equipment busy at work yesterday from my office window. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to get the hole dug before the ground froze.

Tonight, The Rachel’s take the stage at Sokol Underground with Invert and The Mariannes. The Rachel’s play incredibly droll, drawn-out found-sound instrumentals on their last CD Systems/Layers. It’s a tough listen and could be challenging to pull off on stage. $10, 9 p.m.

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