Work has been crazy lately, which is why there was no update yesterday. Had I updated the blog, I would have told you to go to the Bruces/Mayday/Neva show at TWR or go to the Joe Budenholzer show at PS Collective (with Dereck Higgins opening) or head to Lincoln for Day 1 of two days of new music showcases at Box Awesome.

I definitely would have reviewed the Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship/Paria show that took place at TWR Thursday night. Here’s what I would have said: There’s been a lot of chatter about Noah’s over the past few months. The whole time I’ve been scratching my head, wondering why an instrumental rock band that sounds like Mogwai was garnering all the attention. Then someone pointed out that the Noah’s Ark now performing is nothing like the band I saw over a year ago at Sokol Underground. This version is a trio — with vocals — and now resembles a lot of the pre-grunge post-punk rock bands that I remember from the late-’80s and ’90s, including Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Pavement, Polvo, Blonde Redhead, Archers of Loaf, etc. The difference being a deeper low-end to Noah’s music, in fact, a deeper sound altogether. Vocals range from screaming/yelling to forceful singing. The whole thing was dissonant art rock with a groove. I need to track down a copy of their disc…

I spent most of Thursday night sitting next to one of the city’s music legends who has an encyclopedic knowledge of ’80s-’90s rock. He was the one who originally suggested the Sonic Youth comparison, which I didn’t hear at first, but figured out after I got past all the low end (SY was never that bassy). He wondered how these youngsters knew so much about the ’90s. I said that maybe they thought they were inventing a new sound — not likely. This guy next to me also was a metal expert, which came in handy for Paria. Other than Slayer and Motörhead, I don’t have a lot of experience with metal. Coming off a performance at the OEA showcase a few weeks ago at The Barley Street (which convinced the organizers to put them on stage for next Thursday’s Holland show), Paria has a rather massive buzz going on around town. I’ve talked to people who know nothing about metal and never listen to the genre who told me how great they were — that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Before their set, my metal expert told me that Paria was the real deal. “You can tell good metal from bad metal in about 10 seconds,” he said. “These guys know what they’re doing.”

Just a guitar, bass and drummer, Paria took the stage and launched into one of their explosive, propulsive metal “songs.” To the uninitiated (i.e., me) the music was all about the drums. Huge drums, precise and hyper, they controlled everything happening on stage — the guitar and bass merely played off the drummer’s direction. With no vocals (purely instrumental), the drums became the central focus on proggy, jittery noise concoctions that seemed to change direction every 32 bars or so. Yeah, it sounded complicated, and you had to wonder how the band knew when to start and stop, but after a while, the math equation that underlies the compositions began to show through. It’s pretty hard not to marvel at the musicianship. The guitarist was making some high-level, high-speed noise while the bassist kept it going underneath. But to me, it was all about the big-shouldered drumming. Other than one slower, more melodic number in the middle of the set, most of the songs sounded the same — you could drop in at any point of any one of them and it would sound like the one before it. I mentioned this to the metal expert, who just shook his head.

“You’re not a metal guy so you’re not going to get it,” he said. “There are subtle nuances that differentiate one song from another, and one section of the song from the next. The guys out there in the audience who follow the band know what’s going on and know what to expect. That’s the cool part about this — to the uninitiated it may sound like unstructured noise, but if you listened to this again and again, you’d spot how these songs never differ from night to night. They’re not just improvising noise.”

To really understand Paria, he said, I needed to see them more than once. If I only saw them once, I probably wouldn’t get past the noise (it was hugely loud). He said metal is like country music — if you don’t like country music, it’ll all sound the same to you. But each song is really different. Metal’s the same way. With metal, he said, melody is replaced with rhythm — those beefy drums — and the guitar is the accompaniment, the accoutrement. It all made perfect sense, and before long I felt like I was talking to the Yoda of metal. Maybe I was.

I told Yoda that Paria was going to play at the OEA’s next Thursday. He thought that sounded cool, but not cool enough to attend. It just so happened that I took part in the first OEA awards night earlier that evening at The Scottish Rite. Awards were given in some of the arts, theater and music categories that there isn’t time for next Thursday. WOWT’s Sheila Brummer and I gave out awards for Achievement in Lighting Design and Achievement in Sound Design. There also were a few music awards given that night. The Song Remains the Same won for best cover band. Brent Crampton won for Best DJ/Electronic. And in a moment that recalled last year’s debacle where The Jazzwholes won for best jazz band, Forty Twenty took home the award for Best Bluegrass/Country.

No offense to Forty Twenty — they’re one of the better live bands out there these days — but they’re not a bluegrass band. Forty Twenty plays rock music that twangs (Yoda told me they’ve been known to play heavy metal covers at shows). One could make the argument that they’re a “country” band, I suppose, especially based on their Myspace recordings. But bluegrass, no way. The problem here is the category description — bluegrass/country. The two should never have been grouped together. Bluegrass has a very distinctive style and instrumentation that includes upright bass, fiddle, guitar or mandolin, banjo. Certainly no drums. Forty Twenty isn’t bluegrass, yet there it was in a category called Bluegrass/Country, up against acts like Black Squirrels and the Southpaw Bluegrass Band, and of course they won because they’re more popular than their competition.

Like I said last year when the Jazzwholes took the jazz prize — it’s not they’re fault if the unwashed masses don’t know the difference between rock and jazz. We’ll see more of these inconsistencies next Thursday at the Holland — inconsistencies that we suffered through last year that we were told were going to be prevented this year. Apparently not. It underscores the problem with these kinds of awards programs.

Tonight at The 49’r, it’s Little Brazil and No Action — should be quite a crowd — $5, 9 p.m. The Filter Kings open for The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash tonight at The Waiting Room — $10, 9 p.m. Meanwhile, down in Lincoln, it’s night two of Jeremy Buckley’s new music showcase at Box Awesome. Last night was UuVvWwZ, Spring Gun, Gold Lion, The Terminals and Aria Falls. Tonight it’s Ideal Cleaners, Domestica, Dean Arm Band, PaperPeople, and Columbia Vs. Challenger. A great line-up that starts at 7 p.m. I’m begging Jeremy to figure out a way to get all these bands to play in Omaha for a couple nights this summer in all the Benson bars — call it Lincoln Invades Omaha.

Hey, don’t forget to enter to win a copy of the coveted Lazy-I Best of 2007 Compilation CD! All you have to do is e-mail me (tim@lazy-i.com) with your name and mailing address and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Tracks include songs by Stars, Interpol, Rilo Kiley, Wilco, Les Savy Fav, Justice, Baby Walrus, Bright Eyes, The Good Life, The Monroes, The Third Men and many more. Details and track order are right here. Enter today! Deadline’s January 17.

–Got comments? Post ’em here.—

Here it is, the annual Year in Review article, complete with the usual list of favorite CDs and favorite shows of ’07. It’s also in today’s issue of The Reader, but you can read it here, now.
While you’re there, make sure you enter to win a copy of the coveted Lazy-I Best of 2007 Compilation CD! All you have to do is e-mail me (tim@lazy-i.com) with your name and mailing address and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Tracks include songs by Interpol, Rilo Kiley, Stars, Wilco, Les Savy Fav, Justice, Baby Walrus, Bright Eyes, The Good Life, The Monroes, The Third Men and many more. Details and track order are right here. Enter today! Deadline’s January 17.
A couple shows worth mentioning tonight: At The Barley Street Tavern, it’s She Swings, She Sways with Dublin’s own Robin James Hurt and The Black Squirrels. $5, 9 p.m. Meanwhile, up the street at The Waiting Room, it’s Bombardment Society with Ketchup & Mustard Gas, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship and Paria. $7, 9 p.m.
–Got comments? Post ’em here.–

Column 154: Listening Attention Disorder
The insidious disease is destroying the LP.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m developing Listening Attention Disorder (LAD). It’s a disease that’s sweeping the country (and the planet), brought on by an affection for iPods/iPhones and anything else that plays mp3 files.

As a professional music critic (Yes, I actually get paid for writing this column. Not much, but at least enough to fill my gas tank (for now)), I figured I was immune to LAD. Critics must have a keen ability to FOCUS on music, to hear its subtle nuances and hidden meanings. It is only through this Zen-like state that they can ascertain if something is “good” and worth your time and money, or just another hack job. Few are those who have this gift, and most lose it before they reach the age of 30. Some day I’ll make a holy pilgrimage to New York City and seek out my personal writing guru and spiritual mentor, Robert Christgau, who has been reviewing music for four decades (going on five). I’ll ask him how he’s managed to maintain his ability to “hear” music amid the ever-present static cloud that circles his mailbox. How has he been able to provide the same critical perception to both Dudes We’re No Angels (Columbia 1975, rating B+) and Battles Mirrored (Warp 2007, rating B-)? Christgau, who was “let go” from The Village Voice a few years ago (The fools!) is without peer, and now writes for Rolling Stone (among others).

But I digress. My modis operandi for reviewing music is to first download the material onto my iPhone so that I can take it with me to the office, to the gym, to the grocery store, to wherever it is that I can listen to it with my high-quality Bose ear buds (If you’re an iPod user and you’re still using those crappy white ear-buds that came with your Nano, you’re missing half your music. Consider this a holiday gift idea).

I hit play. I listen. I FOCUS. Even if the music initially stinks, I give it time. To breathe. Sometimes you don’t “get it” in the first 10 seconds (though 95 percent of the time, 10 seconds is all it takes). If it ain’t happening, I skip to the next song. And the next. And the next. Until I find something I like. Or don’t. And so on.

I have more than just music to be reviewed within the 1,400 tracks that litter my 8 gig flash drive. Most of my favorite albums are there, both new ones (Cat Power’s Jukebox) and ones that I’ve loved since high school (R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction).

But since I got my first iPod a few years ago, I noticed that I prefer to play music in “shuffle mode,” excitedly anticipating what little surprise Apple will cue up for me next.

It’s this shuffle mode that is the main culprit behind Listening Attention Disorder. It feeds our yearning for variety, the kind of variety we always wanted from our radio stations (Does anyone still listen to radio these days?). If you’re in shuffle mode and happen onto a song that you’re not in the mood for, you can merely press the >>| button and move onto something else. That hunger for variety is insatiable and is killing our ability to concentrate on any one artist or one album for more than a few songs.

I never thought I’d suffer from LAD. But recently, it crept into my psyche. I’ll begin listening to a complete album, but after four or five songs, I’ve had enough. Though I might like it, I get bored and want to hear something else. The idea of listening to, say, Pink Floyd’s The Wall in its entirety seems alien, though I used to do it all the time.

LAD didn’t exist before Compact Discs. Sure, in the vinyl days, we could always lift the tone arm off the record and skip to the next song. But that took ambition. Most of us were too lazy to get up, so we suffered through the flaccid out-takes and filler that never made it to the radio to get to the good stuff that ended Side A and precluded turning the record over. Track order, it seemed, was everything. When CDs came around, it was only a matter of time until the first 100-CD (then 300-CD) jukeboxes were made for home stereos, complete with “shuffle mode.”

Record labels figured out LAD a long time ago, which explains the recent emphasis on singles over albums. Kids can now download only the songs they like, leaving the fluff behind (along with some of the album’s best, yet unpopular, tracks). The experience of listening to complete albums is dying, right along with the Compact Disc. I recently spoke to a musician who said his band will now only record EPs, that kids these days don’t have the patience for LPs in this “age of shuffle play.” Neither, unfortunately, do most adults.

With the death of the album comes the death of an idea, of a concept, of a theme that lasts more than four minutes. Is convenience and variety really worth giving up artistic ideas that demand listeners make a commitment beyond the time it takes to use the bathroom? Whether we like it or not, the answer for most people is probably yes.

Column 153: GGBB
Sometimes the truth hurts more than words…

I first heard the term almost a decade ago at a show at The 49’r. The band (who shall remain nameless) had just finished playing on the Niner’s make-shift “stage” at the far end of the room, while I leaned against the wall by the bar’s only available space — next to the shuffleboard table — and talked with a musician about the set.

We both agreed that the band was, well, okay. Actually, we didn’t like the band at all. But we liked the people in the band, nice guys, all of them.

“Typical GGBB,” said the musician while taking a drag from a cigarette.

GGBB? Huh? “Good guys, bad band,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Haven’t you heard that before?” It was a term that had been around for years. It probably had been around in some form or other since the dawn of rock and roll, maybe all the way back to the swing era. Anyone who had followed even the periphery of a music scene knew bands that, well, sucked, but whose members were all super-nice guys who were really into their music, music that no one wanted to listen to.

GGBB became the unspoken theme to last week’s Omaha Entertainment Awards “Block Party” in Benson, where a selection of the bands nominated in various “best of” categories performed in venues up and down Maple St. It was a hoot.

For that one evening, I imagined what it must be like in Austin in mid-March when the South By Southwest Festival is in full swing, and music fans and co-eds on spring break stroll from one venue to the next along 6th St., trying to catch all the bands on their list, the bands they’d planned to see for weeks leading up to the festival, only to be met by long lines and velvet ropes, forced to crane their necks over the crowds in hopes of hearing a smattering of their favorite songs.

There were no long lines last Wednesday night. You could walk through the vicious cold right into any of the venues, show them your $5 wristband and grab a drink at the bar while the next band got ready for their 20-minute sampler set.

It was at one of those venues (which, again, shall remain nameless), after hearing a particular band that one of the city’s more notorious scenesters walked up, beer in hand, and asked what I thought of the last performance. I was brutally candid. “Well, they sound like Justin Timberlake meets Jamiroquai, but only because they’re trying to sound like Justin Timberlake meets Jamiroquai.”

If there’s one thing that’s unforgivable, it’s bands who purposely ape other bands’ sound. You can be the lousiest musician in the world, you can have a voice like a drunken braying mule, heck, you can even absentmindedly start and stop during a song, but if you try to sound like another band, well, that’s the deal breaker. That’s the one thing I just can’t stand.

“So you don’t like them, huh?” came his reply. “Because the lead guy is one of my best friends. In fact, they’re all great guys.”

Moments later, I saw him up at the stage, shaking hands with everyone in the band and telling them how great they were, even though he had admitted to me that there wasn’t an ounce of originality to their music. You do what you have to do, I suppose. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t pal around with the bands I cover. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to write about their music with a modicum of honesty. No friendship with any artist can survive negative criticism of their work in the cold light of day. They might tell you they appreciate your candor that night when they’re lost in a fog of Rumplemintz. But the next morning, those comments will generate only grating self-doubt and resentment.

The scene was repeated a few more times that evening. The showcase was designed to give the OEA academy (of which I am a member) a chance to hear as many nominated bands as possible. But there was a reason why I’d avoided seeing a lot of those bands before. A good reason.

Over and over again, someone asked what I thought of a particularly lousy band that sounded like whatever shitty alt-FM music is being played on the radio these days. That “someone” always seemed to be best pals with the drummer or the guitarist or the guy playing bass. I would hear how they’d grown up together and how they were the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. But only after I told them their friends’ band sucked.

It was the epitome of GGBB. Of course, those bands’ friends would never admit that to them, or to me. And that was fine. But I had to wonder how the GGBB factor would drive voting for this year’s OEAs. How many people would vote for bands because the members were great guys?

A few days later, while kicking back with a Rolling Rock at The Brothers, a member of that band I’d seen a decade ago at The Niner spotted me in the crowd and said hello. Turns out that he and the rest of the guys were playing a show this weekend. “It’s going to be great,” he said. “Are you coming?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said. “You guys rock. You always did.”