Column 127: Out of the Spotlight
Omaha’s ‘New Seattle’ days are gone

Who remembers the good ol’ days when Omaha’s music scene glowed white-hot in the spotlight of the national media?

Back then, just a few years ago actually, you couldn’t scan a newsstand without seeing an article — complete with glossy color photos — stating that Omaha was ground zero for the national indie music scene. Time, Rolling Stone, SPIN, The New York Times, The Associated Press, the list goes on and on. I mean, you couldn’t go to The Brothers lounge without bumping into a reporter from Filter or Heckler sharing a table with Saddle Creek label executives Robb Nansel and Jason Kulbel and a handful of loaded local musicians.

Well, those days are gone, it seems. The last time I remember seeing Omaha lifted on the shoulders of a national publication was the recent Kurt Andersen story in New York Times magazine, but even then, the focus was more on the city’s art scene and the new Film Streams theater than on music. Could this shift in attention be hurting Saddle Creek Records?

Certainly the label’s biggest releases aren’t moving off the shelves the way they used to. Cursive’s Happy Hollow, arguably the band’s best release since Domestica, has suffered disappointing sales. Bright Eyes’ Cassadaga — the label’s most anticipated release of ’07 — jumped out of the gate at No. 4 on the Billboard charts, and then seemed to drop off the map.

Kulbel isn’t complaining. “Cassadaga has done very well,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s done as well as I expected it to do, but I’m not bummed about it. It’s probably sold around 140,000 copies or so.”

Meanwhile, the label’s smaller bands — such as Ladyfinger, Criteria, Eric Bachmann — seem to be selling fewer CDs than new bands did just a few years ago. This hasn’t discouraged Kulbel and Nansel, who say they’ll continue to release those bands’ CDs regardless.

“People just don’t buy as much music anymore,” Kulbel said. “That’s become more apparent all the time.”

He said the old tried-and-true methods of getting records into consumers’ hands no longer apply. “You have to get involved in this new media bullshit — blogs, MySpace, YouTube. It’s so hard for me not to just dismiss it entirely and say that we just need to keep doing the things we’ve always done — traditional retail and bands on the road. But I have yet to totally denounce MySpace. I don’t have a MySpace page. I’m the last person in the world who doesn’t have one.”

Nansel, on the other hand, has a MySpace page (though I couldn’t find it online). “I did it as an experiment to see how easy it was to use,” he said. “I only have one MySpace friend — Tom.”

Kulbel said a band’s MySpace “friends” could equate to the people who go to their shows. “There are a lot of people that pay attention to that,” he said, wearily. “It’s really a new form of a mailing list.”

But with literally hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of bands crowding MySpace, getting people’s attention in a world of information overload can be difficult. It’s a problem that didn’t exist when Saddle Creek Records opened for business more than a decade ago.

Kulbel said he wouldn’t start a record label today. “I would know how; I just wouldn’t consider it. It takes so much time to build. When we started Saddle Creek it seemed like there was nothing stacked against us. There are so many things stacked against a new label.”

Still, starting a new label might make sense for someone who has a killer band or group of bands to build around, Kulbel said, but… “Doing all those new media things take so much man power. You can have someone sift through blogs 80 hours a week. I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

Nansel is less pessimistic. “A band like Coyote Bones, who are doing their own marketing, are acting as their own record label. They’ve hired people to do press and radio.”

“I could see a band doing that,” Kulbel replied, “but not a couple people and a computer starting a label.”

With little or no fanfare, Saddle Creek announced last month that it will be releasing debuts by two new artists — Washington D.C.’s Georgie James and Orenda Fink’s new band, Art in Manila. The rest of the ’07 Saddle Creek release schedule includes a Two Gallants EP and LP and a new Good Life CD. Neva Dinova’s Saddle Creek debut will have to wait until ’08.

Nansel said for years the label was sensitive in its decisions as to which new bands to add to their roster. “We felt like the public perception would be weird for a new signing. They would expect it to be the next Bright Eyes or Cursive,” he said. “The last couple of years we got more comfortable not feeling that pressure. Lately, we’re more into putting out records that we like that aren’t necessarily going to be these huge things.

“The public perception of our next signing isn’t what it was three years ago,” he added. “The Omaha press blitz — the media blitz — is over. We were putting people in the spotlight. I feel that the spotlight is off us now.”