by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

There’s not much going on news-wise.

Saddle Creek today announced that Land of Talk’s sophomore record, Cloak and Cipher, will be released Aug. 28 (They’re playing at Slowdown Sept. 23). Azure Ray’s first new album in seven years, Drawing Down the Moon, will be coming out Sept. 14 on Creek, and Maria and Orenda are headed out on tour, including a gig at Slowdown Nov. 3.

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There’s a longish interview at Wired this week with Tommy Boy founder Tom Silverman (online here), where he talks about the continued downward spiral of the music industry, how the “long-tail” model is bunk, how social media is useless for selling CDs, and his vision for how artists and labels can make money in harmony. His vision:

“The model that looks most promising is to set up an LLC, just like a movie company — they set up an LLC for each movie. Every artist is a business, and has its own corporation under this model, and all of that artist’s creative equity goes into that — not just music, but everything they do. Whether it’s live, or merch, or whatever, their brand goes in there. And the investors who are investing and trying to promote on the other side — they own half. So it’s more like a business. An equity partnership.”

How is that different than the 360-degree record deal, where the label controls publishing, merch, the record, and touring? “The 360 deal is a traditional adversarial record deal of the old fashion,” Silverman said in the interview. “You get 12 points, or 14 points, and we recoup everything. ‘Here’s your check at the beginning — you’re not going to get paid again.’ Everything I said that was wrong with the business is still included with the 360 deal. Plus, they take a grab of 20 to 30 percent of touring and merch.”

Add to that some depressing numbers: “In 2008 there were 17,000 releases that sold one copy,” Silverman said. “Last year, there were 18,000 (that sold one copy), and something like 79,000 releases that sold under 100 copies. Under 100 copies is not a real release — it’s noise, an aberration. In any kind of scientific study, it would be filtered out. It’s like a rounding error. That 79,000 number represents almost 80 percent of all the records released that year.”

Yikes. Read the entire interview here.

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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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Mercy Rule at The Waiting Room, Lincoln Invasion, July 9, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Lincoln Invasion organizer Jeremy Buckley e-mailed late yesterday to say that bands who took part in this year’s festival took home $80 each vs. $30 each at least year’s event — quite a bump in pay. Yeah, I know, $80 ain’t much, but at least it’s something, especially considering that the bands had to make the drive from Lincoln — most of them in gas-guzzling Econolines. Ain’t nothing wrong with getting paid…

Column 279: Attack from Star City!!!!

Live Review: Lincoln Invasion, Pt. II

Another Lincoln Invasion has come and gone. And so the question begs to be asked: Which city — Omaha or Lincoln — has the better band roster?

But before we get to that, Lincoln Invasion organizer Jeremy Buckley chimed in to say that last Friday night’s “festival,” featuring more than 20 Lincoln bands at six Benson venues, was a moderate success. “The attendance numbers will be impossible to calculate completely accurately, but if we assume that every patron paid $8 to attend ($5 got you into one venue) then we had about 326 paid,” he said. “So that would be the low end for overall attendance. For last year I’d have to guess but I’d bet we had about 300 paid over the course of two days. So yeah, better all around. Here’s to hoping next year we have even better luck, though this year was more than we could’ve expected.”

Fewer bands but higher attendance should have translated into more money per band — that’s right, unlike the OEAA Benson festivals, bands actually get paid to play Lincoln Invasion via a split of the overall door take — a novel idea. Here’s my recap:

Singer/songwriter Ember Schrag closed out the early bill at Benson Grind. With her ’70s chop haircut and plaid skirt, Schrag reminded me of one of the Tuscadaro sisters — Leather or Pinky, I’m not sure which — but sounded like Regina Spektor backed by a bass player and Omahan Gary Foster on drums. Her easy-going acoustic ballads had the rural flair of Basia Bulat and the sophistication of Suzanne Vega, though Schrag sings as well or better than either of them. Too bad an ever-present buzzing from the PA effectively killed my buzz throughout her set.

Next up down at The Barley Street was Shipbuilding Company, a five-piece with keyboards and wobbly voiced frontman Mike Elsener (ex-Head of Femur) on acoustic guitar. Their music seemed to target a slacker / Pavement / low-fi crowd, and most of the time just missed the mark as it wandered over a baroque landscape that was a bit too frilly for my taste. That is until their finale, when the keyboardist pulled out a melodica and it all came crashing together on a roaring indie pop rocker that I’d like to hear again right now.

Masses at The Waiting Room was an endurance test. The guitar-heavy four-piece launched its set with some spacey, trance-y stuff that quickly shifted into catchy math. But it was all downhill after that, as the instrumental-only outfit poured it on way too heavy, and turned into a messy cacophony of noise where everything blurred into everything else until you began to wonder if they knew what they were doing. Did I mention it was loud — thunderously, painfully loud? People escaped onto the sidewalk in front of the club holding their ears, catching a break from the throbbing, raw din that rolled and rolled and rolled always at the same plodding, Excedrine headache pace. How about some dynamics, boys? Without it, you’re just making intricate, painful noise. The set became a sonic wrestling match between the band and the crowd, and by the end it felt like a bully standing on your neck, testing to see how much more you could take.

After the feedback cleared, the crowd slowly funneled back into The Waiting Room for legendary ’90s band Mercy Rule. What can I say that hasn’t already been said about the trio other than their sound never seems to age? Earnest, stoic working-man guitarist Jon Taylor hasn’t lost his angry touch, nor his love for ear-bleeding volume.  So just like every other Mercy Rule shows from back in the day, lead vocalist Heidi Ore’s delicate crooning was lost and buried beneath the guitar-fueled tonnage — and it’s still a shame.

The band took the opportunity to try out a few new songs that were harder and harsher than anything from a catalog that spans 20 years. But it was the old familiar songs that the crowd fully embraced and none more so than set closer “Summer,” where Heidi belted out the tune’s signature line, “I love summer when it’s HOT, HOT HOT.” Mercy Rule continues to be one of Nebraska’s most dynamic and fun bands (and most photogenic, thanks to their trademark floor-mounted flood lights). Their heroic anthems are as relentless as a semi-truck barreling down on you, growing ever larger in the rear-view, about to crush everything in its path. If we’re lucky, it’ll never slow down.

Last stop was at The Barley Street Tavern where punk duo Once A Pawn closed out the evening. Drummer/frontwoman Catherine Balta’s voice kinda/sorta reminded me of Gabby Glaser of Luscious Jackson belting out her punk rants in a slightly atonal caterwaul, while guitarist/co-pilot Eric Scrivens gleefully spun in circles like a dog chasing its tail. As cute as they were angsty, the duo’s Achilles heel was the similitude of their compositions — after awhile, they all began to sound the same, but I guess you could also say that about The Ramones.

So which music scene — Omaha’s or Lincoln’s — has the better collection of bands? These days, Lincoln has the upper hand when it comes to sheer variety, especially when Omaha seems content with its ever-growing parade of Americana folk bands. I guess we’ll have to wait until after this weekend’s Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards Summer Showcase before we can deterimine a real winner.

* * *

Moments after posting yesterday’s blog update, the listing for the $299 “buy now”-priced pair of Concert for Equality tickets on ebay disappeared. I guess the seller must read Lazy-i or the tickets sold. Then this morning a different pair went up on ebay (here), this time for a buy-now price of $315!

* * *

Earlier this year (or maybe it was late last year?) Singer/songwriter/musician Brad Hoshaw shared an idea with me: To create a musicians’ hostel out of his Benson apartment where out-of-towners could find a cheap, clean, safe place to sleep while in town on tour. If Benson is going to become Omaha’s version of Austin’s 6th Street, there has to be a lodging option besides asking from stage if anyone can spare some floorspace, or spending precious tour revenue on a hotel room located miles away.

Well, months later the Benson Musicians Hostel is open for business. Located at 6051 1/2 Maple St. Apt. #2, the hostel has bed-space for six people, though more can crash on the floor if need be. The price is $10 per bed or $40 for your entire posse. Amenities include a kitchen, stereo (w/turntable and records), an empty “mini-bar” and, of course, a full bathroom.  Judging by the photos on the hostel’s Facebook page, the place looks rather cozy. Sayeth Mr. Hoshaw: “Other than providing a convenience for those that bring art/entertainment into our city, my hope is that the bands will linger in the mornings and spend money on Maple St, before they leave town. Thus helping the retail shops, restaurants, auto mechanics, grocery stores, etc.”

Bravo! To help get the ball rolling, a fundraising concert is beind held tonight at The Barley Street Tavern to raise cash to cover some basic operational expenses and add amenities such as a washer/dryer and WiFi. The cover is $5, and there will be a donation jar on the bar.

The performance line-up:

9 p.m.: Chad Wallin
9:30 p.m.: All Young Girls are Machine Guns –
10 p.m.: Doug Flynn (Comedian)
10:15 p.m.: Brad Hoshaw (Brad Hoshaw & the Seven Deadlies)
10:45 p.m.: Jake Bellows
11:15 p.m.: Justin Lamoureux (Midwest Dilemma)

Midnight: Cass Brostad (Cass Fifty and the Family Gram, Traveling Mercies)

12:30 a.m.: Andrew Bailie (It’s True!, Riverside Anthology, The Wholes)

* * *

The new 2 a.m. closing time for Omaha bars begins tonight. As I reported earlier, One Percent Productions has no intention of pushing band start-times back at its shows. Only time will tell if their approach will also make sense for less-savory places like O’Leaver’s (where I definitely could see shows going later) or fancy-smancy Slowdown (very unlikely  — they rarely run past 12:30 now). In the end, it’s much ado about nothing, at least for me.

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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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The review of Friday night’s Lincoln Invasion fest will be online in tomorrow’s column (w/pics), so check back. My only other “music experience” last weekend involved a West Omaha bar where a cover band rumbled though a selection of ’80s hair metal songs while grossly overweight people sat on broken picnic tables outside in a grassy knoll surrounded by chain-link fence smoking cigarettes and watching as cops arrested a young perp on a DUI bust. Slumming? Maybe…

* * *

A couple follow-ups on last week’s blogs: I’m told the Concert for Equality Deluxe tickets, which went on sale Saturday morning, sold out in less than an hour (despite problems with the One Percent Productions website). Deluxe ticket holders get access to The Waiting Room for an after-concert concert that will include the Lullaby for the Working Class reunion and some other surprises which I’ve been told would be “well worth my $50 per ticket.” We shall see. BTW, some jackhole is selling a pair of deluxe tix on ebay here for a buy-now price of $299 a pair (another individual ticket has been bid up to $81 with 7 days left on the auction). The $20 general admission tickets, which get you into the outdoor concert, are still available, but I’m told that they’re going fast.

* * *

When I ran into Justin Beiber at Westroads the weekend before last (blogged here), I had no idea that I was witnessing the genesis to an urban music masterpiece. Bieber has since immortalized his trip to the mall in a toss-off hip-hop recording called “Omaha Mall,” which has been a trending topic on Twitter for the past couple of days. You can hear this thought-provoking musical journey, with such “fresh” lines as “I’ve been to LA, New York I’ve done it all / But none of it compares to the Omaha mall”  here on YouTube. Thanks to reader @collinmatz for the head’s up.

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Saddle Creek Records announced last Friday that it’s releasing the debut solo album by Two Gallants’ Adam Haworth Stephens, We Live on Cliffs, Sept. 28. Produced by Grammy Award Winning producer Joe Chiccarelli (Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Shins), the album features guest musicians including Patrick Hallahan and Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails), Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace), Cody Votolato (Blood Brothers / Jaguar Love), Mike Daly (ex-Whiskeytown), Petra Haden (Decemberists), Andy Cabic (Vetiver) and current band members Jen Grady, Matt Montgomery and Omar Cuellar. Stephens is playing at The Bourbon in Lincoln Aug. 11 with Blitzen Trapper.

Meanwhile, the other half of Two Gallants, Tyson Vogel, has his solo project, called Devotionals, coming out today on Alive! Records. Vogel puts away his drum set, picks up a guitar and plays with violinist Anton Patzner, who’s worked with Bright Eyes.

* * *

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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

A reminder and a warning for anyone interested in attending the Concert for Equality July 31 in beautiful downtown Benson: Tickets are scheduled to go on sale online at 10 a.m. this morning at onepercentproductions.com — and tickets are, indeed, limited. Only a few thousand of the $20 general admission tickets will be available; and only a fraction of that number will be available of the $50 tickets that will get you into The Waiting Room for a special “concert after the concert.”

Last night, One Percent Productions announced that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings has been added to an already crowded bill that includes Bright Eyes, Cursive, the long-awaited reunion of Desaparecidos, and the even longer-awaited reunion of Lullaby for the Working Class. And that’s not all. More artists could be announced that will make this an even bigger event. News of the concert has been burning up the blog-o-sphere over the past week, and you better believe an army of out-of-towners has decided to make the pilgrimage to Benson.

All money from tickets sales will go to ACLU Nebraska’s fight against Fremont’s “Anti-Immigrant” Law. In late June, by a 57% to 43% margin, Fremont voters approved a city ordinance that seeks to limit the renting of homes and apartments to people who are not in the country legally. It also seeks to require employers to verify the legal residency of people they hire in the city.

According to WOWT.com, Nebraska State Senator Charlie Janssen, whose district includes Fremont, said he will push for immigration reform at the state level. Janssen says the “lopsided” vote in favor of the immigration ordinance is a signal that immigration is an important issue that voters want addressed.

The law is a bookend to Arizona’s SB1070, which allows police in Arizona to challenge any member of the public who they suspect of being an illegal immigrant to prove their status officially. That’s right, folks, “Show me your papers.” Oberst has written a number of “open letters” — including one that was published in the current issue of The Reader — that explains how he believes such legislation will only lead to the creation of race-centric police state, or as he put it in a letter published on billboard.com: “The only thing, clearly, that these people care about is Money and Power, that and the creation and preservation of an Anglo-Centric Police State where every Immigrant and Non-White citizen is considered subhuman. They want them stripped of their basic human rights and reduced to slaves for Corporate America and the White Race. They are engaged in blatant class warfare. It is evil, pure and simple.”

This is a divisive issue even in a liberal enclave like Benson, which maybe ain’t so liberal after all. When the dust settles from this concert, there’s a story that begs to be written about Midwestern youth’s attitude toward race, immigration and city and state rights.

Anyway, get your computers primed in ready for 10 a.m. CT. Good luck.

Most of Lincoln’s best and brightest bands are coming to Benson tonight for the second annual Lincoln Invasion festival.  The line-up:

Barley Street Tavern – 2735 N. 62nd St. (21+)

09:15 – Shipbuilding Co.
10:05 – Husbands
10:55 – The Renfields
11:45 – Once A Pawn

Benson Grind – 6107 Maple St. (all ages)

06:30 – No One Conquered, Wyoming
07:15 – Amy Schmidt
08:00 – Smith’s Cloud
08:45 – Ember Schrag

Burke’s Pub – 6117 Maple St. (21+)

09:30 – Diamond Kazzoo
10:30 – Manny Coon
11:15 – Amalgamators

Louis Grill & Bar – 5702 NW Radial HWY (21+)

09:05 – Ron Wax
09:50 – Dirty Talker
10:45 – Pharmacy Spirits
12:00 – If Only He Had The Power

The Sydney – 5918 Maple St. (21+)

09:10 – Tie These Hands
09:55 – Orion Walsh
10:50 – The Vingins
11:50 – The Machete Archive

The Waiting Room – 6212 Maple St. (all ages)

09:00 – Shaun Sparks & The Wounded Animals
09:55 – Masses
10:45 – Mercy Rule
11:40 – Kris Lager Band

Your $8 will get you into all participating venues all night. If you’re only interested in hanging at one venue, you can pay $5 for that single admission.

Louis Bar and Grill is an addition to the festival and has two of the better bands slated to play, but I have no idea how you’re supposed to get there from Maple Street. Your best bet may be to cross Radial Highway at 59th St.

Last year’s “invasion” was a success, except for one thing: Very few musicians who make up the Benson (and Omaha) music scene were on hand. Who knows why (Jealousy? Stuck-up-ishness? Boredom? Ignorance? Fear?). There’s nothing else going on tonight, so there’s really no excuse. Here’s hoping for a better showing of musician solidarity this year — from one scene to another.

Trying to see all those Lincoln bands could be exhausting, which is good because there ain’t much else going on this weekend. Tomorrow night, the countdown to the end of The 49’r continues with a two-band show featuring tribute acts Surfer Rosa (Pixies) and Brave Captain (fIREHOSE). $5, 9 p.m. Sunday night, Brad Hoshaw and The Seven Deadlies plays at O’Leaver’s with highly recommended St. Louis band Theodore and Zack Lagrue. $5, 9 p.m.

It’s a slowwww news day, folks…

As if Darren Keen (The Show Is The Rainbow, Bad Speler, High Art) didn’t have enough to do, he announced today that he’s opening the It Are Recording studio in his basement. Photos and gear specs are posted on the Star City Scene website. Keen self-engineered and produced a number of TSITR albums, including Radboyz ONLY!!!, Gymnasia, and Wet Fist —  the last two of which were mixed with Joel Petersen of The Faint at Enamel studio in Omaha. “My rates are $100/day, which is very fair,” Keen said. “Sure, it’s a shitty basement, but I have great equipment and a ton of experience.” Discuss it with him tonight at The Waiting Room, where his band, High Art, is opening for Yard Dogs Road Show, which looks like a rip off of the Jim Rose Circus. $15, 9 p.m.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Landon Hedges of Little Brazil confirmed that the Desaparecidos reunion July 31 at the Concert for Equality will be an old-school full band event featuring all five original Desa members: Hedges, Conor Oberst, Denver Dalley, Ian McElroy and Matt Baum. For fans and followers of the Omaha indie music scene, this will be an historic event, especially when you factor in the Lullaby for the Working Class reunion.

I can think of two other bands that also are ripe for reunions — Commander Venus and Slowdown Virginia. Why not? They’re all going to be there…

* * *

Column 278 is a rehash of recent blog fodder, including the Concert for Equality announcement (that news broke right at deadline), and the It’s True break-up announcement (with one added comment: I don’t think you’ve heard the last of It’s True’s songs. Hawkins isn’t going to stop playing music; but he may stop playing it with other people, and what started out as a solo project could end up that way).

And one other thing: I was at Westroads Saturday afternoon picking up a new pair of flip-flops when I had a brush with this generation’s Donnie Osmond. As Teresa and I were leaving the DSW we heard high-pitched screams — a cross between fear, pain and orgasm — coming from the second floor of the mall. The cause of the turmoil was gliding down the escalator right in front of us, surrounded by an entourage of bodyguards and white-shirt security — teen heartthrob Justin Bieber and his bangs, looking like any other 16-year-old spending an afternoon at the mall.

Bieber looked bored and disinterested as flocks of teen-aged girls clustered just out of arms’ reach snapping photos with their cell phones. Yes, there were tears.

As the screams faded down the hallway I imagined a distraught Conor Oberst walking through the crowd, hands covering his ears, headed in the other direction, lost in thought trying to solve the problems of Arizona, Fremont and the state of civil rights in these United States, the whole time being completely ignored. Ah, Conor… it could have been you.

* * *

Tonight at Slowdown Jr., it’s Maps & Atlases with Drink Up Buttercup and The Globes. M&A’s latest, Perch Patchwork (Barsuk), is uptempo indie-pop with an acoustic flair, though it in no way resembles modern folk. Nothing twangy about these guys. Seattle’s The Globes plays trippy math rock that can slide into psychedelic. Mesmerizing. $10, 9 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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Kansas at Memorial Park, July 3, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The above photo isn’t of the main stage at Friday night’s Grampa-rock-fest at Memorial Park. In fact it’s a photo of the south side of the park — the overflow crowd that couldn’t find a place to stand in the park’s west bowl where the main stage was actually located. The organizers wisely set up a large, high-def screen that projected live footage of the bands playing just over the ridge, and even that area filled to capacity. The published crowd estimate was 80,000. How someone came up with that number is a mystery. I will say that the crowd was larger than the estimated 50k supposedly on hand a few years ago for 311 (and about 79k more than were there for last year’s Gomez concert). Omaha does love its arena rock, even if the bands are 40 years old.

We walked to the park at 6 to see Kansas with the intention of turning around after their set, walking back home for dinner than returning for the fireworks. We ended up seeing most of Styx and more than enough of Foreigner’s set. Of the three bands, Kansas sounded the most authentic, pulling out songs that I haven’t heard in 20 years. Other than “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind,” Kansas isn’t heard much on your favorite classic rock station these days. Styx got the best crowd response because Styx had the best songs. Without Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw has become the band’s ad hoc frontman, for better or worse (mostly worse). Looking like a bleach-blond, bearded trailer park woman, Shaw has managed to maintain a pretty good voice over the years. But despite Styx having one of the larger catalogs of hits from the ’70s, the crowd was subjected to at least one Damn Yankees song, I’m assuming on Shaw’s insistence — proof that he could make it without Styx, even though that was the band he was fronting that evening. The guy filling in for DeYoung wasn’t awful — he certainly could win a karaoke contest — but songs like “Lady” underscored his, um, lacking abilities. Foreigner got the headliner slot, and was the weakest band of the evening. Without Lou Gramm the band has become a glorified tribute act, and a weak one at that. Hits like “I Want to Know What Love Is (the dangling participle song)” and “Hot Blooded” sounded limp and old. The whole evening was very casino, and so was the crowd. It was a white trash fantasy camp, where shoes were most-definitely optional despite a sidewalk littered with broken glass, snot and other bodily fluids. The crowd in front of the stage seemed genuinely focused on their arena heroes, and to be fair, even a large portion of the rest of the audience had their head bobbing to “Sweet Madame Blue.” As the sun began to set, out came the glowsticks-on-a-string, like carny jewelry lighting up an army of unwashed, tattooed necks. The next morning, small piles of the milky-plastic cartridges gathered along the curbs like empty drug vials. Their glow was fleeting, and you could say the same thing about these bands, except in Omaha where decades after their fame has passed, they continue to burn brighter than any other star, 80,000 fans strong. Either that, or everyone was there for the fireworks.

* * *

Well the big show that everyone was talking about last week is now official. One Percent this morning announced the “Concert for Equality” July 31 in Downtown Benson. And it’s a Saddle Creek Records all-star line-up featuring a reunited Desaparecidos, Cursive, Bright Eyes, and a reunited Lullaby For The Working Class, and that’s just for starters. Don’t be surprised if a gaggle of Conor Oberst’s pals also show up. All proceeds go to the ACLU Nebraska’s effort to repeal Fremont’s “Anti-Immigrant” Law. Tickets for the Concert for Equality will be available July 10 — this Saturday — at onepercentproductions.com. General admission is $20. There also is a limited number of Deluxe Tickets available for $50 that includes access to an additional show inside The Waiting Room the night of the event.

I’m not sure how something like this sells out, but if it can, it will.

* * *

Speaking of big shows… there’s one going on tonight at The Slowdown when The Hold Steady take the stage with The Whigs. Their performance the April before last was rather flat (see review), but I’ve been told by a number of their local mega-fans that it was just an off night. Too bad I won’t find out if that’s true (as I’m not on the list this time!). $18, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers are playing at The Waiting Room with Brad Hoshaw and Vago. $15, 8 p.m.

* * *

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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i

Son of 76 and the Watchmen at The Waiting Room, July 1, 2010

Son of 76 and the Watchmen is one of those bands that plays spot-on renditions of the music on their CD — impeccably, almost note-for-note. They can do this because they’ve got some of the most talented musicians in the area — seasoned pros backing Mr. Sixer himself, Josh Hoyer, who held court last night at The Waiting Room like a guy who has been singing these songs for years instead of just for the past few months. If I had a quibble with their set, it was with the relentless mid-tempo pace of every song and the generally unchanging arrangements, which didn’t lend themselves to a lot of dynamics — the end result could be a lulling effect, with me anyway. Not, apparently, with the rest of the 120 or so on hand — a “blues crowd” I’m told, which I guess means it was a lot of people from the Omaha blues scene. Whether what Hoyer and Co. were playing was blues or not, they all were digging what they were dishing out, and a few were even swinging in front of the stage. If you missed it, you can catch the band Saturday night at Stir Lounge. $5, 9 p.m.

* * *

The streets of Benson were abuzz last night with talk of an upcoming benefit concert for the ACLU. I can’t give any details because the details aren’t set in stone. But I can tell you that one of the artists involved is Conor Oberst, who has taken a very visible stance against immigration laws passed both in Arizona and, more recently, Fremont, Nebraska.

In an open letter written to Charlie Levy, the owner of Stateside Presents, an independent concert-promotion company based in Phoenix, posted on Billboard.com (here), Oberst references the Fremont law, saying he’s “outraged, saddened and embarrassed for their town and my state,” and mentions that he’s in the process of organizing  the fundraiser. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

“Just this past week, the little town of Fremont Nebraska passed a very similar, almost more radical, city ordinance.  It was co-authored and championed by Kris Kobach of Kansas who helped write SB1070.  I was outraged, saddened and embarrassed for their town and my state.   I am already in the process of organizing a fund-raiser for the NE chapter of the ACLU who is suing the town of Fremont.  Our situation requires immediate legal action and a campaign for public awareness (there has been very little press on this).  Charlie, I promise you, if this Fremont law had been passed Statewide instead of in a rural town of 25,000 people, I would be the first to call for a boycott of my home state. This way of thinking and legislating is so dangerous, and such a threat to our basic ideals as Americans and Humans, that we cannot stand by and do nothing.  We cannot play on as if nothing is wrong.  This is not just about Arizona.  I am not just skipping a tour date.  This is not going to be easy for anyone.”

Read the whole Billboard article — including the full text of the letter — here. Among the rumored performances at this benefit is a reunion of one of Oberst’s former punk bands. I’m sure we’re going to be getting all the details in the next few days.

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I was 13 when I went to my first concert at the Civic Auditorium. The band was Kansas, who was out on one of its later, post-peak tours, but still had the same core talent that released Leftoverture. What do I remember? Hmmm… I remember there were green lasers lights everywhere — something I hadn’t seen before. I remember the stink. Concerts at the Civic Aud were the closest things to hippie scenes that I ever witnessed first-hand — teen-agers on the concrete floor sitting Indian style passing around a doobie while Frisbees flew overhead across the smokey auditorium (yes, kids, you could smoke in auditoriums back then). All seats were general admission, so fights were common when people stole each other’s seats. It was hot and dirty, and most of the people were pigs, but it was fun, especially if you were 13 and without your parents. And yeah, as proggy and cheesy as they were, I dug early Kansas back then.

Of course the band that calls itself “Kansas” that’s playing this evening in Memorial Park isn’t the same band that played at the Civic all those years ago — no Kerry Livgren, no Rob Steinhartd. Still, Steve Walsh continues to sing with them, so most people won’t notice, and of the three legacy acts playing tonight, Kansas will probably sound closest to the original. Styx, on the other hand, no longer has Dennis DeYoung; and Foreigner is without classic frontman Lou Gramm. But considering the crowd, I doubt anyone will notice that, either.

Anyway, after the fireworks, once you’ve finished packing up your blanket and get back to the car, you can head on over to The 49’r for The Filter Kings, Killigans and Ron Emory (TSOL). No idea on the price, but probably around $5, and starting at 9 p.m.

Saturday night Honey & Darling play with Everyday/Everynight and Cat Island at The Waiting Room, $5, 9 p.m.

And them comes the Fourth of July. At The 49’r, Simon Joyner and the Parachutes play with Hubble. Joyner and his crew are getting ready to head out on the West Coast leg of their tour. $5, 9 p.m. Also on the Fourth, O’Leaver’s is hosting a “Salute to America” featuring Peace of Shit, Mosquito Bandito and Lite Lion. $5, 9 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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Son of 76 and the Watchmen

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Bicentennial Man: Son of 76 and the Watchmen

Son of 76 and the Watchmen celebrates Shangri-La.

Lincoln’s Son of 76 and The Watchmen is not a blues band, not that there’s anything wrong with playing the blues.

The Son of 76 himself, Josh Hoyer, sees some advantages to being aligned with the genre. “If you’re called a blues band, blues fans will come out to see you even if you don’t play the blues,” he said.

Conversely, there are those who go out of their way to avoid blues bands, having been burned too many times by the army of Blues Hammer (i.e., “blues rock”) acts that have eroded the genre to something that just barely crosses the line from being a cover band.  Hoyer quoted a friend who summed it up this way: “What went wrong with the blues world is that a bunch of old white guys with day jobs put on bowling shirts and began playing the same Stevie Ray Vaughn covers,” he said. “Blues is a pretty vast genre, but the majority of guys around here are stuck in that world.”

It was my own close-minded take on blues that almost kept me from discovering Hoyer’s band at last year’s Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards (OEAA) summer showcase. Someone had told me they were a straight-up blues act, and I nearly left before they hit the stage. Luckily, I didn’t.

While there are blues overtones to some of their music — thanks in part to Hoyer’s throaty, deep vocal delivery — Son of 76 has more in common with classic American rock acts like Warren Zevon and Springsteen. On their new album, Letters from Shangri-La, the band sways through a plethora of genres, from the piano-driven rock of “She’s the Kind of Woman,” to the Celtic-flavored ballad “Annie’s Heart,” to the NOLA style of the title track, to the doo-wap of “The Moon,” to, yeah, the blues grind of “‘Til She’s Lovin’ Someone Else.” It’s Hoyer’s voice — which lies somewhere between Tom Waits, Dr. John and Elvis — that ties the styles together into something uniquely cinematic, original and thoroughly authentic.

Born in 1976 in Lincoln, Hoyer is a veteran of a number of bands including The Magnificent Seven and Electric Soul Method.  While he lived most of his life in the Star City, the music on Shangri-La was inspired by travels throughout the South. “I took a trip down Highway 61 and went to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and a lot of small towns in Louisiana,” he said. “Instead of taking pictures, I remembered what I’d seen and put it into the songs and lyrics.”

But not all of his songs are based on his travels. With the lines, “Well that coward was never a man / Just a scared little boy, with a gun in his hand,” the elegiac “Starkweather Son” has obvious local origins.

“Everyone in Lincoln has a Starkweather story,” Hoyer said. “I thought no one could write about it better than Springsteen.”

But then one night at a party during another round of Starkweather tales, Hoyer heard one that was hard to top. “This kid said, ‘My great uncle was Starkweather. I’m a Starkweather.’ He shared what it was like to grow up with the name,” Hoyer said. “He’d said that many of his relatives had been driven away and how hard it was to grow up in Lincoln, but that he wasn’t going leaving. He hadn’t done anything wrong. I knew it was a story that would make a great song.”

One of the best tracks off the new album, the song burns with a grim intensity, thanks to Hoyer’s band of local pros that includes Brian Morrow, bass; Nick Semrad, piano; Luke Sticka, rhythm guitar; Justin Jones on drums, and guitarist Werner Althaus, who also co-produced and recorded the album in his basement studio.

Hoyer said he met Althaus at an open jam and realized he was “the missing piece of the puzzle,” but was too shy to ask him to play in his band. “I finally got the nerve up,” Hoyer said. “For me, he perfectly finishes the songs I write by how he approaches music. He seems locked in on my ideas.”

Althaus, who sounds like a Midwestern Arnold Schwarzenegger thanks to a slight German accent, said that while Hoyer writes most of the music, everyone in the band gets involved putting the songs together and offering ideas. “Josh used to be much more controlling,” Althaus said. “In his previous bands, he told people exactly what to play. So this was a new thing for him.”

He said he doesn’t understand where the band’s blues tag came from. “I can hear the influence, but I don’t hear the blues,” Althaus said. “When people say I’m a blues player, I tell them that I’m not. I play what I want to play. I don’t listen to it or study the old masters, but if a blues vocal line fits into a song, why not?”

He added that the band’s musicians have a broad background in a variety of musical styles. “If someone takes it somewhere, we draw on what we know,” Althaus said. “We all have the basic vocabulary.”

“They’re all stellar players, and they’ve trusted me,” Hoyer said. “There have been times when I’ve written something that they’ve said is weird, but they’ll try it anyway.”

With a band that consists mostly of seasoned veteran musicians, Hoyer said touring may not be a realistic option. “We’re all adults,” he said. “Everyone except for Nick (Semrad) has a mortgage. Whenever I think about touring, it seems like a pipe dream. Maybe I’m killing the dream before it happens.”

For now, Hoyer is content booking local shows. “We sold a thousand copies of last album playing Lincoln and Omaha,” he said. “We’re building a crowd just playing at home. That’s pretty cool.”

Son of 76 and The Watchmen plays with The Kris Lager Band and Matt Cox, Thursday, July 1, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $6. For more information, visit waitingroomlounge.com.The band also is playing at Harrah’s Stir Lounge July 3 at 9 p.m. Admission is $5.

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It's True at Slowdown Jr., June 30, 2010

Just two months after releasing their debut album, It’s True announced that the band is calling it quits. The announcement came from stage at last night’s show at Slowdown Jr. “This is our third to last show,” said inebriated frontman Adam Hawkins without giving an explanation. “We have this show, and two others, and that’s it.” During the set, someone jokingly suggested to me that it was a publicity stunt. But something tells me the MAHA guys aren’t that brutally savvy — that’s right, the MAHA Festival July 24 would be the band’s last performance (not counting a rumored MAHA after-party), Hawkins said. Their second-to-last show will be in Lincoln tonight at The Bourbon Theater — that is if they are, indeed, breaking up. But something tells me it’s true, which is a shame.

Last night’s performance had all the charm of a drunken wake, with Hawkins taking double shots between songs. Despite proclaiming that he was “wasted,” he still put on one helluva show, calling his pals from Poison Control Center (the opening band) up on stage to join him for a couple songs. The set ended with a 15-minute guitar-noise-odyssey, with Hawkins kneeling with his back to the audience next to Kyle Harvey who was busy creating his own curtain of feedback on electric guitar surrounded by a couple girls on stage along with the PCC folks. The sonic melee didn’t end until after 1 a.m. when the house lights came up — a rare late-night at Slowdown. God only knows what the band has in store for tonight’s show in Lincoln.

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In addition to tonight’s Son of 76 CD release show at The Waiting Room and It’s True at The Bourbon, Dim Light is opening a four-band bill tonight at Slowdown Jr. with The Vingins, and Colorado bands Woodsman and Candy Claw, who have been described as ambient/minimalist/psychedelic rock. $7, 9 p.m.

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. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.