by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

In case you missed it, there was an update posted yesterday (which you can read here) that talked about MAHA local showcases and McCarthy Trenching and Big Harp, etc. Read it if you haven’t.

Tonight at The Waiting Room, it’s the return of The Thermals. The Portland band (was signed to Sub Pop, and now to Kill Rock Stars) has been coming ’round these parts for years. Opening band Morning Teleportation also hails from Portland and has a jangle-indie sound that borders on chamber pop. Also opening is local heroes Little Brazil, back in town smack-dab in the middle of tour. All three for $12. Show starts at 9.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by TIm McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I swung by The Barley Street Tavern last night for Orenda Fink/McCarthy Trenching, and it was (as expected) a packed house, which means there were more than 50 people in the bar’s “music room,” where folk stood along the wall in the back and women sat on their boyfriends’ laps. Another 20 or so people were pushed into the main bar area, content with watching the performance on the security monitor-style camera above the bar.

Yeah, it was crowded, but had you wanted to see the show, you could have. I caught the last few songs by Whispertown’s Morgan Nagler, one of which was accompanied by Fink and another two accompanied by Omaha ex-pat Jake Bellows. Nagler had an innocent, some might say childlike, flair to her simple acoustic ballads. Bellows took over right after her set and played five or six solo acoustic tunes, sounding better than ever. He remains one of Omaha’s best lonely-heart crooners, like an Elvis lost on a desert island.

Dan McCarthy came on at around 11, taking advantage of the Barley’s house piano, which he said was made in 1917 and last tuned in 1918. Despite that, the rustic keyboard sounded perfect for his style of Randy Newman-meets-Chuck Brodsky-meets Tom Waits folk balladry, which included a few Scott Joplin rags. A couple members of hot new band Gus & Call joined him in the middle of the set (playing stand-up bass and that piano) when McCarthy picked up an acoustic guitar. He eventually made his way back to the piano and was still at it when I left at midnight, too tired to wait for Orenda (unless, of course, she played before Whispertown, which I do not know). The crowd had a hipster wedding reception feel to it, consisting of members of the Saddle Creek Records family and their friends and colleagues, all out to “welcome back” Orenda and Todd Fink to Omaha.

* * *

The folks at the MAHA Music Festival took a decidedly smart turn in how they picked the bands for their local stage this year — three of the five bands were chosen by folks involved with hearnebraska.org (including myself as an HN board member, though only one of the three bands chosen were on my list). As a requirement for accepting the local-stage gig, each band was tasked with curating one pre-festival showcase, where they would play along with two or three other bands of their choosing. Last Friday MAHA announced the line-up for these showcase events.

Strongest of the three is the showcase curated by So-So Sailors at Slowdown July 28. Playing along with SSS will be power-punk band Millions of Boys, the more traditional indie stylings of Fortnight, and one of the area’s best punk/garage/new wave rock bands, Digital Leather, who (one could argue) should have been in consideration for one of those three MAHA local stage spots.

The other Omaha showcase will be held June 22 at The Waiting Room, curated by Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship. Joining them will be New Lungs, a new trio featuring Danny Maxwell of Little Brazil on guitar and vocals, drummer Corey Broman and bassist Craig Fort. Think Polvo meets Dinosaur Jr. meets Mission of Burma meets classic ’90s Linoma punk. Also on the bill are noise rockers Ketchup and Mustard Gas.

And finally, there’s the Lincoln showcase curated by The Machete Archive to be held at Duffy’s Tavern July 1. Joining Machete will be Her Flyaway Manner, Irkutsk and Powerful Science. Brendan McGinn’s HFN has been around for years playing brutal, Fugazi-inspired punk. I can’t say as I know a thing about the other two bands.

All three showcases are all-ages events and absolutely free, so you best mark them down on your calendar.

There’s still one more MAHA local stage spot up for grabs, which will be determined by a public-vote talent competition as part of the OEA Summer Showcase July 8-9 in Benson.

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One final bit of news: Judging by their Facebook fan page, it looks like Big Harp, the husband-and-wife duo of Chris Senseney (Baby Walrus) and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney (The Good Life, Consafos) are the latest “signing” by Saddle Creek Records. They’re still not listed on the Creek site, but I’m sure that’ll come any day now. It’s good to see Creek continuing to sign new talent in this era of music industry decline…

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The classic Cursive lineup, from left, Matt Maginn, Clint Schnase, Ted Stevens and Tim Kasher.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This is what I wrote back in March 2007 when I found out that drummer Clint Schnase had left seminal Omaha rock band Cursive:

Schnase is probably the most under-rated and under-appreciated musician in the Omaha music scene. His drumming is at the core of Cursive’s explosively rhythmic music, the bedrock along with Matt Maginn’s bass on which all of Cursive’s bombastic sonic freak-outs are built. He won’t be easily replaced, and those of you who never had a chance to see and feel his white-knuckled stickwork live on stage are the lesser for it.

I thought that was the end of Schnase in Cursive. I was wrong.

This week the folks who run the MAHA Music Festival announced that Schnase would be returning to Cursive for one night only, for the band’s festival performance Aug. 13.

Schnase said the opportunity to rejoin his comrades was a matter of timing.

“When MAHA announced that Cursive was playing I sent a text to Matt to say congrats on getting the invite,” Schnase said. “He mentioned to me that Cully (Symington, one of the drummers who replaced Schnase along with Cornbread Compton) was not going to be able to play and asked if I wanted to fill in for the night. I don’t think he believed me when I said yes. He had offered me a show here and there over the past however many years and the timing just wasn’t right. This time it has just fallen into place.”

But anyone who has ever seen the shock-and-awe power of Schnase knows that he couldn’t just pick up where he left off four years ago; it would be like Michael Jordan walking off the golf course and strolling onto the court to rejoin the Bulls without so much as a practice under his belt (and the Bulls could have used Jordan last night). Muscles must be rebuilt, power must be restored.  Schnase knows this.

“I have been playing in a cover band (the Weezer tribute band Pinkerton with another former Cursive member, Steve Pedersen) for three months now,” Schnase said. “It has been so much fun! I told the guys after our first practice that it felt like I had just played yesterday when in reality it had been three plus years. We have a show at The Waiting Room coming up on June 11.”

No doubt Schnase will be ready, but is this really just a one-and-done show with Cursive?

“Yes,” Schnase said. “(I’m) not ready to jump back into the whole touring world. Don’t know that I ever will be. I enjoyed nearly every minute I got to tour and share music with people, but I think that chapter is closed. I stepped away from it to start a family and settle down. I have a two-and-a-half year old girl (Eleanor) and she is my world now. I stay home and take care of her. I’m in a great place.”

Still, it must have been as weird for Schnase (as it was for me) seeing someone else playing drums with his former band. Schnase said it did feel “strange, but it thrills me to no end that the boys are still out there making music and touring. We had an amazing run but I think you can expect even better things from them in the years to come.”

* * *

Speaking of MAHA, festival organizers announced yesterday that local electronica band Somasphere has been added to the local stage.

* * *

Now, onto the three-day weekend…

Tonight at The Hole (located behind Subway, via the alley entrance, in Benson) it’s Bullet Proof Hearts, Baby Tears, Dads, and Scratch Howl. If you haven’t checked out this new all-ages venue, tonight’s the night. 7:30, $5.

Meanwhile, over at O’Leaver’s, it’s Techlepathy, Qing Jao and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Out west at Shamrock’s, 5338 N 103rd St., Ragged Company headlines a show with Traveling Mercies and The Fergesens. 9 p.m., no idea on the cover.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) Hot Shops is hosting a fund raiser from 3 to 10 p.m. that will feature music from Matt Cox, Southpaw Bluegrass Band, Whiskey Pistols, a DJ set from The Faint’s Jacob Thiele with Depressed Buttons. Find out more at the event’s Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=204013532959380

Also Saturday night Fortnight plays with Blue Bird and Betsy Wells at Stir Lounge at Harrah’s Casino. $5, 9 p.m.

At O’Leaver’s, Snake Island plays with The Spook Lights and Sleepers. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And let’s not forget Primus playing in Benson outside The Waiting Room Saturday night with The Dead Kenny G’s. $32.50 adv/$35 DOS. Starts at 7:30.

Finally Sunday, perhaps the most under-the-radar show of the weekend, Orenda Fink plays at The Barley Street Tavern with Whispertown (solo) and McCarthy Trenching. How the Barley will pull this off with its limited capacity is anyone’s guess. This is a “do not miss” show. $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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Column 324: Love Drunk Measures Success One Perfect Take at a Time

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It starts with a tight close-up on a perfectly lit guitar or keyboard, cropped to the strings or the hands or the ivories. The camera is steady, but moves oh so slightly, just so you know that there’s a pair of worried hands holding it. And then someone says in the background, “Whenever you’re ready,” and the song begins.

Maybe the most effective type of music video is one that simply captures a band performing. If it’s done right, you leave the experience three or four minutes later not only knowing a band or performer’s song, but what they’re feeling while they play it. And maybe — just maybe — you’ll be so taken by the music and the images that you’ll seek out more.

It’s a simple premise that drives Django Greenblatt-Seay, the mastermind behind Love Drunk Studio. Don’t call it a company. Greenblatt-Seay (or just G-S as he’s listed in production credits) prefers to call it “a project.” But what started as an experiment in sound and light and technology has become one of the hottest grassroots music “projects” to come out of Omaha in years.

The idea of creating one-take performance music videos started almost by accident. “I was experimenting with my home audio recording studio, trying to get a better understanding of how to use the equipment,” said G-S, who also plays in bands Down with the Ship and Midwest Dilemma. “I asked my good friends in the band Flashbulb Fires to record a song in one take. They had a friend filming it with a flipcam and I had a crappy point-and-shoot. Afterward, I thought maybe we could edit it all together into a one-take live music video.”

He liked the product so much, he wondered if he could “get it to look good on purpose,” so he lined up his first real video shoot with Portland singer-songwriter Nick Jaina. That was June 8, 2010. Almost a year later and G-S and his merry band of Love Drunk videographers (as many as 30 volunteers) have shot 43 sessions, 20 of which were for Nebraska artists including It’s True, The Machete Archive, Gus & Call, Sarah Benck, Conduits, Honey & Darling and Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship. You can see and hear all of them online at lovedrunkstudio.com or the studio’s affiliate website, hearnebraska.org.

After awhile, shooting local bands became old hat. “All the gear is mobile, so we didn’t have to stay in Nebraska,” G-S said. “We decided to hit the road for the same reason that a band hits the road. If we didn’t try to make this regional or national, it would eventually devalue the videos and no one would give a shit anymore.”

So he scheduled some vacation time from his corporate communication gig at OPPD, and asked for volunteers to come along on tour. Angie and Andrew Norman (who run hearnebraska.org), photographer Daniel Muller and fellow videographer Andrew Roger (who runs Ingrained Video) all took the challenge — to shoot 15 bands in 13 cities in 15 days. The Love Drunk Tour started in Kansas City April 29 with indie band Everyday/Everynight, and concluded in Chicago May 13 with indie band Holyoke. In between the crew traveled throughout Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island and Michigan.

Highlights include Arrah and the Ferns performing on a Philly rooftop, electro-dance band Quitzow playing in a New Paltz, New York Laundromat, and punk rockers The Menzingers playing at the Ava House in south Philly. The day of the Menzingers shoot, the band signed a three-record deal with Epitaph.

G-S said he choose the bands based on personal preference, geography and recommendations. None of the bands said no, and why would they? Love Drunk videos cost them nothing but time and one perfect take (and yes, they’re all really done in a single take). G-S said the videos are a way of giving back to bands who often are asked to perform for free for fund-raisers and other events. “On the other hand, no one ever does anything for free to benefit the bands,” he said.

While bands can receive copies of the video files to post on their websites and YouTube pages, G-S asks that they point users to lovedrunkstudio.com “so that people that watch the video can be a couple clicks away from finding other videos we’ve done. If they like them, maybe they’ll be enticed to buy some of their music.”

Think of it as sort of a video version of Daytrotter and its famous recording studio in Rock Island, Ill., where some of the best bands in the world drop by for a couple hours to record sessions that wind up on daytrotter.com. Since it launched, users have downloaded songs more than 21 million times from Daytrotter.

G-S said Love Drunk videos have received about a thousand views each on his site. The Menzingers’ video is the most popular, with nearly 6,200 views. “It’s very important to get music bloggers to re-post our videos,” G-S said. “We’ve had videos picked up by dozens of blogs, including punknews.org.”

While a fund raiser helped cover some of its costs, G-S personally dropped around $2,000 on the tour, mainly for hotels. Though they were offered places to stay 14 of the 15 nights, travel logistics often made those offers impossible to accept.

Regardless of the cost, G-S said he’s planning another Love Drunk tour next year, perhaps down south. Meanwhile, he continues to shoot bands right here at home, including recent shoots with members of Little Brazil and The Show Is the Rainbow. The videos have become so popular that bands are now approaching him for shoots, a situation which can be awkward.

“If your band isn’t putting out a new album, isn’t touring or is otherwise new, we’re probably not going to be able to help you,” G-S said. “We want thousands of people to watch these videos, but if you’re not working hard to create momentum on your own, then it’s tough to get that kind of mileage out of our work. If you’re writing really great music and if you have worked hard to build a buzz, then you’re probably already on our radar. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. But if we call you, fucking call back. Jesus.”

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Tonight at Slowdown Jr. Underwater Dream Machine opens for Lincoln band Cool It, Action, along with The Betties. $7, 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

So what’s going on at Team Love Records, the label started by Conor Oberst and Nate Krenkel whose roster has included Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Craig Wedren, Dave Dondero and Berg Sans Nipple? When it was announced that Nik Freitas’ new album, Sunday Night Underwater, was going to be released on a different label (Freitas has been with Team Love since 2008’s Sun Down) eyebrows were raised in suspicion. Than word began going ’round that the new Tilly and the Wall CD also may be released on a different label. Tilly’s Wild Like Children is TL01 — the first release on Team Love back on June 29, 2004.

So had the ever-decaying music industry finally dragged yet another label down? Not at all, said Team Love label exec Matt Maginn.

“Due to the economy and a decline in sales in the industry Team Love has decided to significantly reduce its number of releases and new signings,” Maginn said. “The plan since late last summer has been to slow down and conserve cash in an effort to be able to do our usual proper promotion for whatever we release. So basically keep the promotion the same but just much fewer releases.  Our current roster gets priority and of course since they were our first release Tilly is at the top of that list.  With Freitas it was a matter of timing.  He was moving forward at a time when we were just pulling back the reins on expenses so it was best for him to stay on his schedule.”

Maginn said the label has released three records and a documentary in the last 10 months, including new albums by Berg Sans Nipple, Dave Dondero, and Refried Ice Cream.

“There was sort of this initial ‘The sky is falling’ reaction to our financial crunch last year,” Maginn said, “but the plan we have put in place seems to be working and we plan to continue releasing music and maybe even more documentaries, too.”

Maginn added that Team Love would love to release the new Tilly record once it is completed, “but as always, we only do one-record contracts so it is up to them to decide what is the best fit for their record,” he said.

Since I had Maginn’s attention, I asked what he thought about moving to a vinyl-only w/download format — i.e., no CDs. A few touring bands have told me that their fans only request vinyl on the road, and I must admit that I’m also a sucker for vinyl when it’s available.

“I like the digital and vinyl avenue, but it is a little tricky,” Maginn said. “We sell a ton of vinyl at shows but (as part of) total sales it only accounts for about 20 percent when you take in digital and physical CDs at stores, etc. Vinyl is the best but the problem for labels and bands is that there is very little profit in them.  You basically have to sell 80 percent of the product before you can break even. Vinyl costs five to eight times as much as CDs, depending on quality and packaging.”

* * *

Maginn, btw, also plays bass in Cursive, as you’re all aware. And it just so happens that the biggest news so far of this year’s festival season is that Cursive drummer Clint Schnase will return to the band to perform for one night only — during the MAHA Music Festival Aug. 13. Schnase will talk about his return to Cursive here at Lazy-i Friday.

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room it’s a free show featuring Lonely Estates, Brad Hoshaw, Moscow Mule and Clock Ticks Late. A five-piece, Lonely Estates currently is recording an album with revered local producer A.J. Mogis. Worth checking out, especially at that price. 9 p.m.

* * *

Tomorrow, an up-close-and-personal look at Love Drunk Studio.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

With nothing going on today, I thought I’d share the following…

I’ve always been a big fan of artist/cartoonist/philosopher R. Crumb, who you might know from such literary masterworks as Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural and the cover of Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills album. I subscribe to the R. Crumb newsletter (you can too at http://www.crumbproducts.com/), where in addition to some great offers on limited edition prints and other artwork there are links to R. Crumb news. The latest includes a link to Crumb on Others, Pt. 1, perspective from Crumb on famous people. I include herein two such perspectives:

On Tommy James and the Shondells:

Robert: “Yes! Last great proletarian rock n’ roll band. 1966 — My Baby Does the Hanky Panky, great record. That to me was the last year there was a bunch of good, proletarian rock and roll hits on the radio. After that it was taken over by the California psychedelic thing. I just didn’t find that as interesting. That was all very middle-class. Once the Beatles became famous, then the middle class began to embrace rock n’ roll and abandoned the kind of middle of the road sound of Bobby Rydell and Pat Boone and all that stuff. And when the middle-class embraced it, they cleaned it up, it wasn’t the same. But Tommy James was one of the last bands, and Sam The Sham, he was another one of the last ones: Wooly Bully and stuff like that.”

Alex: “Did you like (Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs’) ‘Little Red Riding Hood?'”

Robert: “Great, great masterpiece. [laughs] But after that, I started to lose interest in rock n’ roll. The golden age of rock n’ roll was in the ’50s and for me, particularly Rockabilly. I really liked that. A lot of the rockabilly stuff was really wild and kind of scared the bourgeois, scared them.”

Alex: “Like Jerry Lee Lewis?”

Robert: “Yeah, great! Great piano player. Little Richard too, excellent piano player but they’re showmen so you don’t get to hear enough piano. But going back to Tommy James, he made a psychedelic song called ‘Crimson and Clover.’ Remember that? I thought that was pretty good… ‘Crimson and clover, over and over…'”

On Bob Dylan (who is suffering his 70th birthday today):

Robert: “I hate his voice. I can’t stand to hear him sing. I thought some of the songs that he wrote in the mid-60s were kind of clever, with clever lyrics. But I just can’t stand to hear him or see him perform. And I think his heart is in the right place a lot of times, you know. Someone told me he was an aficionado of old 20s, old time music, and that he listens to the same kind of stuff I like. Someone told me that. But his own stuff, his own music never interested me that much. It used to irritate me in the mid-sixties when he was worshiped like a god. I thought that was really annoying. I thought his schtick with his whiney voice was really irritating.”

Read the rest, which includes comments on everyone from W.C. Fields to Obama, right 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Conduits at Dundee Spring Fling, May 21, 2011.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Ah, the joys of being an amateur meteorologist. The various and sundry weather services had warned all day that there would be thunderstorms Saturday evening, and lo and behold, the skies became angry just as the Dundee Spring Fling was about to erupt just past the rapture hour of 6 p.m. A glance at the radar indicated a line of hail-laden thunderstorms bearing north from Lincoln, so I sat tight and waited out Armageddon at home. I’m told the sky began falling about halfway through Gus & Call’s set. People ran for cover under the beer tents as pea-sized hail began to bounce off their heads.

The So-So Sailors at Dundee Spring Fling, May 21, 2011.

I arrived at Underwood Street at around 9 p.m., after the storm had passed… mostly. As So-So Sailors got ready on stage, streaks of lightning veined across the sky just to the north. SSS’s frontman Chris Machmuller looked a tad nervous, but said that the show would go on, and indeed it did. Unlike Jake’s Block Party last weekend, the sound system was unreal, just terrific sound, and SSS took full advantage of it, playing to a crowd of a few hundred booze-soaked neighbors. The band — which was back to its usual 5-piece configuration (only two keyboards this time, and no Laura Burhann) ran through their non-released hits one after another in sort of medley fashion, right up to the last tune, where Machmuller said something like, “If this is the Rapture, take me home Jesus” before the band exploded in rock ‘n’ roll bliss.

Before Conduits came on, Gus & Call was called back on stage to finish off their interrupted set. Dan McCarthy sang lead on one song that channeled The Band circa 1968/Big Pink. They closed with what’s becoming their signature tune, “The Other Side of Jordan,” played with the same energy as that night I first saw them play it at Slowdown. This is a band to seek out; a band that could break out if they could ever find the right balance between their fun rock stuff and their slow-stroll boot-gaze drone ballads.

Finally at around 10:45, Conduits lit up the stage sounding like a black-light Euro dance band, thanks to Roger Lewis’ pulsing drums. Yes, they are self-proclaimed shoe-gazers, lovers of the drone, but there was a bigger swing to their sound Saturday night, a righteous throb that enhanced the overall glow.

The crowd looked like a typical packed night at The Waiting Room — a lot of familiar faces and fixtures of the local music scene. But in addition were the college kids, the big white bald guys, the backward hatters and the out-of-place high heels, the kind of crowd that you’d expect to see at a small-town street dance. And though these weren’t the usual cover bands and shallow pop acts that usually play at Dundee Days, the crowd still seemed into it. In some ways, this show was a dream come true — a showcase of some of Omaha’s best indie bands performing in the heart of the city, outside of both the bands’ comfort zone (i.e., not in Benson) and the crowd’s. Here’s hoping the fine folks at Amsterdam Felafel get another chance to book this event next year.

* * *

Tonight at The Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs it’s the Foo Fighters with Motorhead and Biffy Clyro. General admission tickets are $58.75 from Ticketmaster. Show starts at 7.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’ve been out of town all week on biz, but I’m back just in time for the good stuff, all weekend long.

It starts tonight with some tough choices. You’ve got:

— The amazing power-pop stylings of Omaha’s own The Third Men at The Barley Street Tavern with Chromafrost. $5, 9 p.m. (though I’ve never been to a BST show that started before 10:30).

— The chamber-pop stylings of Lincoln’s Floating Opera at The SIde Door Lounge, 3530 Leavenworth. Floating Opera’s lineup has evolved over the years. For tonight’s show the ensemble features Genni Bachinski, lead vocals; Sarah Korf, keyboard, trumpet, vocals; Tery Daly, bass, vocals; Scott Stanfield, acoustic guitar, vocals; Richard Rebarber, keyboards; Jon Korf, electric guitar; Alyssa Storey, cello; Thad Miller, violin, and Douglas Allyn, drums — that’s a lot of bodies for the tiny Side Door. Add to that the opening bands: Foam Form, Gabe Cahill, Electric Needle Room, The Golden Hour, Jessica Errett and Mint Wad Willy, and it could be crowded without anyone else showing up. 8:30, no cover.

— The amazing ukulele stylings of All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, celebrating a CD release show at The Waiting Room with Honey & Darling and The Betties. $7, 9 p.m.

— The charitable stylings of the Take Action Tour at Slowdown, a touring benefit concert featuring Silverstein, Bayside, Polar Bear Club, The Swellers and Texas in July. $20. Note early start time of 6:30, and…

— The indie rock stylings of The Benningtons at Stir Lounge with The Allendales and The Big Deep.

And if you’re in Lincoln, tonight is Day 1 of The Honeymoon Tour, featuring Darren Keen as The Show Is the Rainbow. It’s also a vinyl release show for TSITR’s new record, Tickled Pink, released on Keen’s own It Are Good Records, distro’d by Illegal Art. Also on the bill are Piss Poor, Powerful Science, Grabass and Bentone. More info on the Facebook event page. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207354125964728

According to this article in The Atlantic, the end of the world starts exactly at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, May 22. That means you’ll have plenty of time to hit up Dundee’s Spring Fling concert bash tomorrow night. Part of Dundee Day, in years past the concert (held on Underwood right outside of KFAB studio) was a craptacular collection of cover bands, bad local pop bands, generally just a cast of shit. But this year, the fine folks at Amsterdam Falafels have been put in charge of the booking, and the result is one of the best local band line-ups since last weekend’s Jake’s Block Party. We’re talking Conduits, So-So Sailors, Gus & Call, Dim Light. And yes, there will be face painting.

But it’s not the only concert going on in Dundee Saturday. Dario’s Spring Fling starts at 6:30 featuring The Bishops Rock Paper Dynamite, Ragged Company and Blue Bird, all for $5, plus Dario’s fine cuisine and selection of potent beers.

Meanwhile, at The Barley Street Tavern, Kyle Harvey’s celebrating the end of the world with rock. Joining him are The Lepers and Zombie Vs. Shark. Cover is $5, but if you dress up as a zombie, religious cult member, religious figure (nun, priest, etc)  you get in free! Show starts 9, supposedly…

Finally, Sunday, it’s Man Man at Slowdown with Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers. 9 p.m., $15.

See you at the show unless they I make the Rapture cut…

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

featurin

Man Man's Ryan Kattner

Column 323: The Silver Lining of Man Man’s Dark Cloud

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

If you look closely during Sunday night’s Man Man show at Slowdown, you might be able to glimpse the monster sitting on the edge of the stage.

It’s an insidious little guy who spends most of its time living inside Man Man frontman Ryan Kattner’s head. But when Kattner’s on stage with his comrades in arms, the monster is forced to make a brief exit, a momentary expulsion that frees the man also known as Honus Honus. It’s a public exorcism. But it’s short-lived. After the show is over, when Kattner climbs back into the van, the monster will be there with him. It’s always there.

Man Man, Life Fantastic (Anti- 2011)

I suppose you and I would call the monster “dread” or “anxiety” or “The Black Cloud.” It is what motivated the creation of Man Man’s just-released dark opus, the ironically titled Life Fantastic, a gruesome corpse deceptively packaged in a brightly colored box.

For instance, take a song like the rollicking staccato pop of “Dark Arts” a whirling carnival ride of keyboards that gallops along with a smile that masks lyrics like: “And I hate my head / So I bury it in the sand / If I razor cut some bangs / Will I forget who I am? / Staring at the man who’s in the mirror / And how the fuck did I live this long this way?” topped with the line “Mister dagger, meet mister back, inseparable, together at last.”

Then there’s the gorgeous, strutting title track, rife with strings and electric guitar, with Kattner growling the lines “And the scene, it turns so grisly / And the children, they are crying / You hand them black umbrellas / Tell ’em that the world is dying.” Macabre, a self-loathing nightmare, a salty dose of gothic reality. Kattner said it and the rest of Life Fantastic are the product of a dark period in his life haunted by personal tragedy, heartbreak, death and the IRS, a deep hole that drove him to a point where even music couldn’t provide a necessary escape.

“It’s funny, because in the past, I was able to take bad situations and turn them into something creative,” explained Kattner on his Myspace page. “This time I couldn’t at all. I felt nothing, which was worse than feeling miserable or depressed.”

After months of literally wandering homeless across the U.S., Kattner got his shit together and started putting it all down in his music. Now a year after cutting the tracks for Life Fantastic with local production genius Mike Mogis at ARC studios, Man Man is on the road again, the only place where Kattner said he can make the dark cloud go away.

“It’s lifted because we’re on tour,” he said last Sunday while driving up the West Coast toward Seattle. “Things are OK, but nothing ever really corrected itself. It’s just kind of easier. It was a lot to deal with, stuff everyone has to deal with most of their lives, friends passing away and long relationships ending, all at once. That’s the cool thing about this record — the songs’ impetus came from some dark place, but they can have a different effect on people that listen to them. Some songs come off as joyous, but there’s a dark, rich center.”

Kattner said without his music, he would have ended up “a dried out puddle, a love-stashed skeleton.”

The obvious question had to be asked: If the songs are the product of a dark time in his life, doesn’t performing them merely cause him to relive it all again, night after night?

“Good point,” Kattner said. “So do the other records. When I’m performing them, it’s sort of like an exorcism that gets it out of my system and sets it on the side of the stage. But when I’m not touring and playing shows, the monster stews.”

As witnesses can attest, Kattner’s nightly exorcism in Man Man is a spectacle. The five-man band comes out appropriately dressed all in white, wearing white warpaint, and takes their positions behind various instruments and noise makers. There they perform a concert that’s akin to a rock ritual.

Despite the gloom, Life Fantastic may be Man Man’s most accessible album in a history that stretches back to 2004’s The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face. But even during that record’s most dissonant moments, a lustrous pop center shines through. That luster is simply more visible on the new album. Some point to Mogis for this, but Kattner said the wizard who helped create some of Bright Eyes’ finest moments was more like a guide during the recording process.

“We went to Omaha with all the songs intact,” Kattner said. “Mike was great organizing the ideas.

“This is a deceptive album,” he added. “People think it sounds really polished, really studio-y, but it’s really sneaky when you listen to what the songs are about. It’s a real grower.”

He’s not concerned fans of the band’s earlier, rowdier stuff might think it’s too lush. “I don’t care if they do,” he said. “Every album has a narrative and story. You have to grow. I’m not going to write the same songs that I wrote when I was 22. I can’t.”

Man Man plays with Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers this Sunday, May 22, at Slowdown. Tickets are $15, show starts at 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Last night the fine folks at the MAHA Music Festival announced two more main-stage performers — J. Mascis and The Reverend Horton Heat — as well as three local stage performers — Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship, So-So Sailors and Lincoln instrumental-only proggers Machete Archive. They now have one main stage act and two locals left to announce. As it stands, unless Laura Burhenn joins the Sailors for their set, this is turning into a sausage party — and an older sausage at that — which makes me think that the MAHA folks are searching high and low for a young, up-and-coming female-fronted national act to fill that final spot. How hard can it be? Very hard.

Full disclosure: Hear Nebraska was responsible for picking the three local stage acts, and I’m on the board of Hear Nebraska, so I was asked my opinion. Needless to say, only one of the three bands chosen was on my short list. As much as I love Noah’s Ark, they played MAHA in year one. Hear Nebraska, which is officed out of Lincoln, wanted a Lincoln band represented this year (I’m now being told that it was the other way around — MAHA wanted a Lincoln band. Regardless of who’s idea it was, it was a good one). Anyway, that helps explain Machete Archive.

For the record, my choices were So-So Sailors, Icky Blossoms and Conduits. There’s still a chance that one or both of my two rejected bands could make the cut, but the odds are slim. One more local stage slot will be chosen by the MAHA board itself, and the fifth slot — the band who will open the festival on the side stage — will be a public selection chosen from bands participating in an upcoming Omaha Entertainment Awards talent show.

I’ve got to hand it to MAHA, though, for dropping their “battle of the bands” approach used for filling most of the local spots in years past. If you’re going to host a festival, you should have the chutzpah to pick your own bands, or at least find someone with the chutzpah to do it for you. The advantage to this approach will be obvious when we find out who plays on Red Sky’s local stage, all of whom will be selected via a battle of the bands process.

MAHA as a whole looks strong; any city would be proud of this festival’s line-up. If they can capture a new, young band for that fifth spot, they’ll have hit for the cycle.

Also, the three local bands chosen for MAHA each has been charged with putting together a showcase in the coming weeks. More on these showcases as the bands are named.

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By the way, Kid Rock was named yesterday as another main stage performer at the Red Sky Music Festival, making me 3 for 4 in the predictions category (but that will probably be the end of it). The one thing Red Sky has done right is to create a line-up that epitomizes every stereotype people have for our state. Folks in, say, New York will take one look at that line up, nod and say, ‘Well of course, it’s Nebraska.” Here’s another prediction: I foresee massive ticket giveaways in Red Sky’s future. They’ll have little choice if they want to fill that stadium. And besides, the tickets aren’t really free. Your tax dollars helped pay for them.

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Tonight at The Waiting Room it’s a benefit show hosted by Make Believe Studio (the former Baseline Studio) featuring Ketchup and Mustard Gas, Lightning Bug, Flesh Eating Skin Disease, Conchance, and DJs Kethro and Dojorok. All proceeds from the show will go directly to the Bikou-En Orphanage, located in the Aomori Prefect in Japan.  The orphanage houses 65 children and relies on private donation, since they receive no government support.  In the wake of the tsunami, their donations have dropped nearly 60 percent.

But there’s more. Make Believe has put together a digital-only compilation recording, and just look at the contributors: Little Brazil, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship, Conchance, Gus & Call, Landing on the Moon, Lightning Bug, Ketchup and Mustard Gas, Flesh Eating Skin Disease, Icky Blossoms, Sam Martin and Greg Elsasser from Capgun Coup, MC Reverie and Sun Settings.

According to Mike Gergen of Make Believe, all material is original to the compilation. “We made it a priority to have tracks that are not available elsewhere,” he said. “Everyone attending the show will be receiving a download card to get the songs through Soundtrax.  There is a limit of 500 download cards.  After that, it will be available through either Bandcamp or Pulley (pulleyapp.com).”

Gergen said he and three other folks at Make Believe created the compilation: Rick Carson, Jeremy Deaton and Brandon Herbel.  “We were helped along the way by a slew of people who allowed us to use their music, helped us with connections to other bands, helped us get the show through the Waiting Room,” Gergen said. “We contacted the bands, recorded, mixed and mastered them at our studio, found the orphanage and put together the downloadable package.”

Pretty friggin’ impressive. Show starts at 9 p.m. and minimum donation is $6.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.