by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The highlight of last night’s Beach House concert at The Waiting Room: 50 people packed into the venue’s pinball room with 13.6 seconds left in regulation of the NCAA men’s basketball finals. It was like a beer commercial, the booths crammed with fans (mostly guys) glued to the plasma, praying for a miracle while across the cavernous venue on stage roared one of indie’s best dream-pop bands. As the shot tipped off the rim and into a Duke player’s hands, a groan of disgusted frustration drowned out the hall, and within seconds the crowd of sports fans joined the rest of the throng, not thinking of music but of what could have been.

I felt a bit guilty spending the first half of their set watching basketball, but then I figured, hell, I paid for the ticket, I can do what I want. And besides, there wasn’t much to see on stage. Beach House pretty much played in the dark, with just a couple of the spots glowing. The staging consisted of huge silvery diamonds that rotated during their set, lit by ground spots that also made the band glow. Silver streamers were draped from the rafters. Meanwhile, the band’s guitarist and drummer played seated (not on a drum riser) and couldn’t be seen above the crowd. Frontwoman Victoria Legrand stood behind her keyboard in the back of the stage and never moved except to shake her long, flowing hair. Visually, a boring show.

Sonically, however, Beach House was nothing less than amazing. The sound couldn’t have been better; every note of their chamber pop echoed and glowed as they played all the songs from Teen Dream. Between numbers, they talked about Malcolm X and the Omaha Beef and 311, dedicating songs to each of them.

The show was a sell-out (finally), and the place was packed. When I got there a little after 9 opening band Bachelorette already was almost done with her one-person lap-top-driven set of dense, plodding electronic dance pop. I was told that Beach House had asked to start the show at 8, which of course wasn’t possible as the tickets were sold for a 9 p.m. show. Regardless, the whole evening was over by 11:15, which was a blessing for those of us who had to go to work the next morning.

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The Omaha World-Herald is reporting that Omaha jazz legend Luigi Waites passed away early this morning at the age of 82. I’d seen him play a few times at the Dundee Dell, but my favorite memory of Luigi was chatting with him after he opened for The Good Life at Sokol Underground back in 2003. We stood next to each other, leaning on a table back by the sound board, and he told me how much he loved playing with Omaha’s “new bands” like the Good Life and The Faint. Those bands and their fans loved him right back. He will be missed.

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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.

Here’s a random thought about tonight’s Beach House show… During that meeting with MAHA Festival organizer Mike App (read about it here), we tossed around ideas for bands to play this year’s festival. I told him that the nature of indie music (which, as you know, I cover) is that it’s not terribly popular. You and I might think that indie bands are the cat’s pajamas, but the great unwashed masses don’t give two shits about them, especially since they’re not heard on the radio. So the idea that an indie festival loaded with College Music Journal (CMJ) bands could sell out Lewis and Clark Landing (with its capacity of between 5k and 6k, according to App), seems far-fetched.

Case in point, Beach House has had the No. 1 album on the CMJ charts for weeks, only recently giving up the top spot. It’s one of the most popular indie albums so far this year. And as of right now, tonight’s Beach House show at The Waiting Room, priced at a mere $10 (now $12 DOS), has yet to sell out. Surprising?

Let’s look at the March 24 CMJ top 10 Radio Chart:

GORILLAZ Plastic Beach
HOT CHIP One Life Stand
YEASAYER ODD Blood
JOANNA NEWSOM Have One On Me
BROKEN BELLS Broken Bells
BEACH HOUSE Teen Dream
SPOON Transference
LOCAL NATIVES Gorilla Manor
LIARS Sisterworld
VAMPIRE WEEKEND Contra

Spoon is probably the biggest band on that list (and is the headliner for MAHA ’10), but their new album is still below Beach House. Spoon would quickly sell out TWR and Slowdown, and so would Vampire Weekend, but how about Yeasayer? They’re coming to TWR April 24 and that show also hasn’t sold out yet. Of the rest of the list, Gorillaz, Broken Bells and maybe Hot Chip would sell out TWR or Slowdown… eventually. I would have said that Beach House was the sure quick sell out, and I would have been wrong (as per usual). So why hasn’t that show sold out?

Phoenix’s last album only recently fell off the top-20. That band just played Slowdown last September (it didn’t sell out until a couple weeks before the show). Now Phoenix is coming back, this time to play the Stir Cove concert series along with a handful of dinosaur acts. Would they have been a good addition to MAHA? Probably, but I think they would draw, at the most, maybe fewer than 1,000 people.

Alright, so how does Pitchfork Music Fest in Chicago do it? Look at the headliners: Pavement, LCD Soundsystem and Modest Mouse. The festival isn’t until July, and the $90 3-day passes have already sold out. It’s kind of a head scratcher. Of those three bands, only Pavement seems like a bulls-eye winner. While LCD Soundsystem is nothing less than awesome, I don’t know how it would do in Omaha. Modest Mouse has sold out Sokol Aud in the past, but hasn’t released an album in awhile (I assume they must have something coming up or else Pitchfork wouldn’t bother with them). It all boils down to the fact that 1) it’s Chicago, 2) the headliners, and 3) the undercard, which in this case includes Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Broken Social Scene. Incidentally, none of those Pitchfork headliners are in the CMJ top 20.

Anyway…So tonight is Beach House at The Waiting Room. Tix are still available for $12. Opening is Bachelorette (another good band). Show starts at 9.

Also tonight (which you could argue is the reason why Beach House hasn’t sold out, but which I would argue is a different crowd), Black Lips play at Slowdown Jr. (that’s right, the front room) with Box Elders and Brimstone Howl. $12 (also still not sold out), 9 p.m.

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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

All jokes aside about looking like an Islamic terrorist, Kyle Harvey and his new beard wowed the crowd of around 50 last night at The Barley Street Tavern, playing a rather slim set of eight songs in support of the release of his new CD. I think I’ve heard him play all the painfully tortured tunes before, many of which I’m told are on that record (instead of buying a copy, I bought one of his iron-on T-shirts that bears an almost-invisible “Kyle Harvey beard” logo). The funny thing is that Kyle is a funny guy on stage in the face of these songs about personal torment, betrayal, extreme drug and alcohol dependency and general heartbreak and self-loathing. He finished each pained melody with a smile and the occasional guitar histrionic (EVH tap technique guitar playing made inaudible on acoustic, behind the back-of-the-neck ax strumming, etc.). The CD is out on Kyle’s very own Slo-Fidelity Records, and hopefully you’ll be able to find it at one of the fine local independent record stores, eventually. If not, contact Kyle through the Slo-Fi myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/slofirecords).

A handful of acoustic singer/songwriters opened the show. The one that stood out the most was Nick Carl, a guy who looks like a young version of Drew Carey that played a handful of really well-written folk songs that you won’t find anywhere because he hasn’t recorded them, yet. Carl told me afterward that he’s planning on doing a record in the near future, which will come out on Slo-Fi.

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This holiday weekend is heavily bottom-loaded. Tonight might be a Brothers night, as the only interesting show that I’m aware of is Satchel Grande at The Waiting Room (with The 9’s). $7, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night looks busy. Down at Slowdown Jr., Little Dragon is playing with VV Brown. LD is a modern Swedish alt-indie/dance band that plays dense, atmospheric pop that recalls bands like Ladytron, Saint Etienne and Portishead. Trippy and fun and well worth $10. Starts at 9.

Also tomorrow night (Saturday) Pharmacy Spirits has its Omaha CD release show at O’Leaver’s with Talking Mountain and The Yuppies. $5, 9:30.

Three hot shows on Sunday night:

— Down at Slowdown Jr., it’s The Low Anthem with Nathaniel Rateliff and McCarthy Trenching. Providence’s Low Anthem plays quiet, introspective alt-folk. Beautiful stuff, on Nonesuch Records. $12, 9 p.m.

— On the opposite end of the spectrum is Har Mar Superstar, who’s playing a special sexually-charged Easter show at The Sydney that includes an “after-show dance party” with sets by DJ Denver Dalley and Har Mar himself. $5, 9 p.m.

— Last but not least, Deerhunter is playing at Lincoln’s Bourbon Theater Sunday night with It’s True and Ideal Cleaners. Deerhunter is modern-day indie prog rock, a dynamic, artsy band that isn’t afraid to go to thunderous extremes. Tix are $13 now and $15 DOS. 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.

It was the first show ever for Paris When It Sizzles, a cute girl who played a solo set with electric guitar, which she looped and then played over and sang. Her first show. And the biggest problem was tuning — if you loop a guitar that’s out of tune, you’re only compounding the problem, repeating it endlessly and then playing out of tune over the out-of-tune loop. There was a certain unintentional charm about it. She struggled, but I think it’s a struggle for anyone who plays at PS Collective because it’s one of the worst sounding rooms for live music in Omaha. It’s no one’s fault — the place simply has the sonic depth of someone’s basement rec room, everything bright and bouncing and sounding hollow and sharp. Add to that a problem with one of the amp connections — a short that randomly resulted in a thunderous ear-piercing crunch — and you have less-than-optimum conditions for your first gig ever. She soldiered on, however, and now has it behind her.

Those conditions didn’t help the other bands last night, though it didn’t hinder them as much. Cleemann was a trio led by Danish singer/songwriter/guitarist Gunnar Cleemann with local genius Dereck Higgins on bass and former Preston Love sideman Gary Foster on drums. I heard someone compare him and his voice to Nick Drake, but I didn’t hear it, picking up more Lloyd Cole in the phrasing (but I’m always looking for Lloyd Cole). I liked his voice, and I liked his songs which had nuanced depth that lingered beneath the pop. If you listened to Cleemann’s Myspace page you were probably wondering who this guy was, because the music sounded completely different. Higgins and Foster have had a thorough effect on his sound. You can barely hear the bass on myspace, whereas the bass led the way on a number of songs last night. Higgins told me afterward that Cleemann worked closely with the rest of the trio on the arrangements, capitalizing on the talent he was working with. Smart.

For those who have never seen Dereck Higgins — no one plays bass with his level of dynamics, his impeccable touch, his awareness of where the songs are going. He knew when to be in the fray, when to lead, and when to pull back and get out of the way. That’s something I rarely (if ever) noticed from other bass players. If you get a chance to check him out, you really should. Actually, you have a chance tonight (if you’re not reading this too late) as Cleemann and the band are playing at the Clawfoot House in Lincoln tonight.

At around 11:30 Thunder Power finally got on the PS Collective stage (after much static/noise/pain). I like their music and their style, but I don’t understand the band’s frontwoman — it’s as if she’s singing in another language, a language that consists of bloops and bleeps and odd vowel sounds. I think I’d like her voice if I understood what she was singing, and if she looked like she was even remotely having a good time on stage instead of looking dour and upset (which was quite a contrast to the rest of the band, which looked like it was having a helluva time).

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Singer/songwriter and Benson fixture Kyle Harvey is having a CD release party tonight at The Barley Street Tavern. The album is titled Nightmares (of you and me by the sea). “This album is a bit more folky than the previous,” Kyle told me in an email, adding that it was recorded with Alex McManus (The Bruces). Harvey is a busy man these days. He says he’s already started working on his next album, and then there’s his role in local break-out band It’s True, which just got back from SXSW and has an album of its own coming out shortly. $5, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Murder By Death is playing up the street at The Waiting Room with Ha Ha Tonka and Linfinity. $12, 9 p.m.

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