by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A look back at St. Vincent’s performances in Omaha as the setting for last Monday night’s sold out show at The Slowdown is fodder for this week’s column in The Reader, which you can read it online here at thereader.com. Annie Clark, St. Vincent’s frontwoman, is bucking the one-hit-wonder trend that plagues today’s indie scene, where bands make a big splash with one record and then spend the rest of their careers frantically waving their arms while bobbing up and down in the vast sea of talent that makes up today’s music industry. I guess it helps to be unbelievably talented. And gorgeous. And talented. So is she the next PJ Harvey? Read on…

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Trey Lalley, everyone’s favorite bar owner and proprietor of The Brothers Lounge, sent a heads up about the big Rebates reunion show next Saturday night (May 26) at Brothers. The band is considered by some to be Omaha’s first punk band, whose members included Dave “Stinky LePew” Wees, who would go on to become a member of Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys. Stinky, who now lives in S.F., is headed back home where he’ll join fellow Rebates Steve Warsocki and Tim Drelicharz (later of The Click) for the Brothers gig, which is a warmup for a show the following day (May 27) at The Joyo Theater in Lincoln with Pogrom/Ex-Machina, The Spastic Apes, Sacred Cows, Informed Dissent, Lon’s Garden and Battle Ship Gray, according to Chris Aponick’s report in this week’s issue of The Reader (right here). Joining The Rebates at Saturday’s Brothers gig is Bullet Proof Hearts and The Bob Garfield Experience. It is, as they say, kind of a big deal. More info here.

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Matt Whipkey also sends a head’s up that The Whipkey Three’s new album, Two Truths, is streaming for free right here on Soundcloud. Check it out.

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The Love Drunk Tour 2012 continues as, according to the schedule, the band is in Knoxville, TN, today filming that ever-elusive band that goes by the name TBA. Regardless, check out their latest video from the tour (for “Somebody” by Jukebox the Ghost) and get a status update right here.

Tonight at The Waiting Room it’s Quintron and Miss Pussycat. According to good ol’ Wikipedia:

Quintron is a multi-instrumental one-man-band. During performances, Quintron utilizes a custom-made Hammond organ/Fender Rhodes synthesizer combo, which he has had custom outfitted to resemble the body of a car, complete with working headlights and a Louisiana license plate which reads “Quintron.” Quintron is often accompanied by The Drum Buddy, a rotating, light-activated analog synthesizer, one of many which he has created and manufactured himself. Quintron is regularly accompanied by his wife Miss Pussycat, who sings backup and plays maracas.

Sounds like quite a spectacle. Opening is Vickers and the always amazing Solid Goldberg, who by himself is worth the  $10 ticket price. Starts at 9 p.m.

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Tomorrow: Big news about Hear Nebraska. Bring your pocketbooks and/or wallets.

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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Last night’s sold out St. Vincent show at Slowdown was spectacular. Show of the year? It is so far. Look for a full review (as part of this week’s column) in The Reader, which will be online at thereader.com tomorrow. Until then, below are a handful of photos taken from my usual perch just off stage left. I fear more people are beginning to discover my secret standing spot. Please, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

Not mentioned in the column is show opener Shearwater. This band is a long way from the original that was co-founded by Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. That band was a quiet, introspective indie folk act. Sheff no longer is with Shearwater, and the band on stage last night was anything but quiet. They had a big indie-rock sound that I guess you’d expect from a Sub Pop band (with Americana roots). Nice stuff, though ultimately forgettable in this environment. And a strange pairing for a brash New Wave-esque 4AD band like St. Vincent. I’m sure they had their reasons.

Shearwater opens at The Slowdown, May 14, 2012.

St. Vincent at The Slowdown, May 14, 2012.

St. Vincent at The Slowdown, May 14, 2012.

Moments after her stage dive, at The Slowdown May 14, 2012.

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There are no shows happening tonight (that I know of), so why not stop down to the Saddle Creek Shop for a listening party featuring Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? It’s part of the store’s ongoing Record Club @ Shop promotion, where fans get together, listen and talk about a classic album. The needle drips at 7, followed by robust discussion. BTW, it’s free, and a good chance to pick up some new vinyl releases.

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A reminder to all you Omaha peeps, don’t forget to vote…

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The Whipkey Three at Stir at Harrah's, May 12, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m looking over my notes from Friday night’s debut performance by Cooper Moon’s new band, Dark Wave, a band we’ve all heard about for months. Well, the build-up worked, as the Barley Street was respectfully packed with curious music lovers wondering what exactly Cooper and this other band, that includes Tom Barrett (also in DM), Chad Gregerson and Mike Ivers, have been up to.

The answers (for me, anyway) and general impressions were typed into my iPhone in the following order:

Deep, dark well.
Cooper strangling the mic.
Barrett’s keyboard = dark electronic.
First song pure Joy Division.
Bauhaus dance party.
S&M bondage club. Should be played in a black hole bar.
Kill the Christmas lights, kill all the lights.
Goth played by bikers. Biker goth.

Dead Wave at The Barley Street Tavern, 5/11/12.

Any time a new band hits the stage, the first thing anyone does is draw the inevitable comparisons. Mine included Joy Division, Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, The Chameleons and The Church, and on the opening song, Joy Division. I’m not sure why Barrett referenced The Jesus Lizard the other night. After the brief six-song set, one well-schooled local musician/music fan compared them to early Christian Death, which may be too poppy for this rather dark dance stew. That same person pointed out that the one cover song played during the set was a very obscure Echo and the Bunnymen song that Cooper told him had only been played once by John Peel and was never captured on a “session,” but rather was a bootleg recording that Cooper, an avid Bunnymen fan, just happens to have.

That’s enough background to give you an idea where this band is coming from. Other than the post-punk, goth metal inflections, the highlights were Barrett’s keyboard textures and Cooper’s vocals, which were more “musical” than his Dim Light vocals — more range and more sustained moments. Cooper cannot merely bark the lines with this stuff, he has to use his voice to provide another texture layer, and a rather course texture at that. It’s taken almost a year to get them to play one six-song set, which concerns me as other bands in similar situations disappeared after one show. Let’s hope that isn’t the case with Dead Wave.

* * *

As Matt Whipkey said from the Stir “Live and Loud” stage Saturday night, I guess all the press worked, as the club was full during the opening of his two 45-minute sets, when he played many of the songs off his new LP, Two Truths, including personal favorite, “Maria.”

It was your typical Whipkey show, as Omaha’s best haircut made all the right moves to get his crowd of loyal followers (as well as a handful of hardcore gamblers) eating out of the palm of his hand.  In that context, he’s something of a throwback to a simpler time, before the advent of slumped-shouldered, indifferent indie hip-stars who go out of their way to ignore the audience with dollops of you’re-lucky-we’re-even-performing contempt. Whipkey, on the other hand, is the ultimate stage performer, not satisfied if even one crowd member isn’t “into it,” whether it’s on Stir’s tiny lounge stage or at Stir’s mammoth Concert Cove amphitheater. Whipkey was born for an arena, whether he ever makes it there or not.

* * *

Tonight will be the fourth time that I’ve seen St. Vincent. The first time was at The Waiting Room in July 2007, where I said Annie Clark was going “to be bigger than PJ Harvey. Maybe bigger.” Two months later she played a solo set opening for The National on Slowdown’s big stage. The last time was almost two years ago on June 3, 2009, when Clark and her band played at Slowdown Jr. It was fantastic.

Tonight we get her again on the Slowdown big stage, this time with her band. No tix? That’s a shame, because tonight’s show is sold out. Opening is the amazing Shearwater, who has recorded for Misra, Matador and with their latest, Animal Joy (2011), Sub Pop. The fun starts at 9.

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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Before we dive into the weekend, a big thank you to Conduits front woman Jenna Morrison for the sweet shout-out in her recent interview in Ghettoblaster Magazine (Check out the answer to No. 18). I think that’s the first time anyone has said something nice about the website in print! Keep a lookout for some Conduits performance news very, very soon…

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And now, the weekend…

I’ve been hearing about Dead Wave for what, over a year? The new band features among its players Cooper Moon and Tom Barrett of Dim Light. Between sets at Wednesday night’s TWR show, they told me that Dead Wave will finally make its stage debut tonight at The Barley Street Tavern. Their style: a cross between Joy Division and The Jesus Lizard, says Barrett. Now I got your attention. Also on the bill are Minnesota band Daymoths and Chromafrost (featuring Lincoln Dickison). Debuts are always special. Don’t miss this one. $5, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Millions of Boys returns to O’Leaver’s stage for the first time since front woman Sara Bertuldo got back from a rather lengthy tour of duty with Conduits when that band opened for Cursive on their last tour.  Also on the card, Everyday/Everynight, Love Songs for Lonely Monsters and Howard. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Saturday night’s big event is The Whipkey Three CD release show at Stir Live and Loud at Harrah’s in Council Bluffs. Opening is The Big Deep. $7, 9 p.m.

Also Saturday night, Landing on the Moon plays at fabulous O’Leaver’s with The Kickback and The Seen. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, over at The Barley Street, Snake Island plays with Madison band Tiny Riots. $5, 9 p.m.

And then Sunday night it’s the return of Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, with Dinosaur Feathers and Whispertown, featuring Omaha expat Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova). Whispertown’s front woman is featured in a funny new video on Will Ferrells Funny or Die website called “Get to Know…Morgan Nagler,” that also features a lot of familiar faces, including one Omaha golden boy. Check the out video here and make sure you rate it “Funny.” $12, 9 p.m.

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Universe Contest at The Waiting Room, May 9, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Maybe 40 on hand for last night’s Omaha debut of Universe Contest, which is either evidence of how hard it is to get people out on a Wednesday night or the dominance of this week’s Big Omaha event (though I doubt any of those techno-nerds would have come to this show anyway).

By 10 first opener Ideal Cleaners already had cleaned house. Second opener Dim Light came on next and blazed through a set of minor key tribal rock dirges sung in a style that got my mojo risin’ (Get it?). One of Omaha’s most magnetic (and cool) frontmen, Cooper Moon laid down his vocals with dollops of delay like a 10-foot-tall biker vampire performing an exorcism on an abandoned Stuckey’s. His guitar was bright and bluesy, but it’s the rhythm section of bassman Tom Barrett drum legend Boz Hicks that cannot/will not be ignored.

Next, Universe Contest. The Lincoln five-piece (two guitars, bass, keyboards and drums) has had comparisons to early Modest Mouse hung around their necks thanks to their recordings. The resemblance is hard to ignore, but on stage, the Modest Mouse comparisons don’t wash. UC is more calculated. More backwoods. More proggy. And, yeah, more tuneful.

The Modest Mouse thing comes from the wonky, scratchy vocals a la Isaac Brock, who (regretfully) smoothed it out on MM’s more recent records. Take away the Modest Mouse overhang and they’re harder to pin down. As the name implies, they’re spacey, but not shoegaze spacey or Bowie spacey. Spacey like a group of Midwestern hillbillies who got ahold of a stack of Popular Science magazines and figured out how to build their own spaceship from abandoned grain silos, Case tractors parts and the cockpit from a hollowed-out ’73 Maverick. I can see them now sitting on the launchpad in their overalls, their hippie hair sticking out of their gold-painted football helmets. 10.9.8.7…

Best moment of the night was the set closer with the almost whispered line “…breaks my heart.” It sounded like a weird, spacey, bluesy combination of Uriah Heep and Soundgarden, and nothing at all like Modest Mouse. They finished their short set by midnight to cries for more. If they can get past the Modest Mouse thing, watch out.

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In this world of instant media; does it really matter who says what first? Who has the scoop? Who tweets it first? Or rather, does it matter who says it better? That’s the essence of this week’s column in The Reader, which you can read online right here. I’ve been trying to find a better name for the column than “Beyond Lazy-i,” which was the publisher’s idea. So I’m trying a different name every week until something sticks. This week it’s called The Moleskin Diaries. Who knows what it’ll be called next week. I’m open to your suggestions.

* * *

Tonight at Slowdown Jr. it’s the psychobilly sounds of Koffin Kats with The Hooten Hallers, The Blacktop Ramblers and Video Ranger. Early 8 p.m. start time. $12.

Also tonight, Skypiper plays at The Waiting Room with Betsy Wells and I Heard a Lion. $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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Whipkey Three

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Matt Whipkey takes compliments with suspicion.

When told that the new Whipkey Three album, Two Truths, sounds like “a Whipkey record,” he immediately raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a negative thing? Does that mean it’s stagnate? That there’s been no development?” he said over Sunday morning coffee at Caffeine Dreams.

It’s only after it’s been explained that having a distinctive style — like Springsteen or The Rolling Stones or Tom Petty — is a good thing that he begins to get the gist of the comment.

“My girlfriend was digging on me last night about how I take criticism,” Whipkey said, “but I think it’s different for musicians.”

He better get used to it. Very few Nebraska artists have such a well-defined musical style and unique voice as Whipkey. Within a few measures of any song, those familiar with his material instantly recognize the booming, golden-hearted power chords touched with a hint of twang, and Whipkey’s Nashville-by-way-of-Benson “southern” drawl that injects each phrase with his big-sky, Heartland roots.

It’s a style that he’s been defining for more than a decade as a solo artist and leading man in a handful of bands including The Movies, Anonymous American and now The Whipkey Three, a band whose name is more of a misnomer. Defined as Whipkey on guitar, vocals and harmonica along with veteran drummer Scott “Zip” Zimmerman and bassist Travis Sing, the new record also features producer J. Scott Gaeta on Hammond B3, piano and keyboards on almost every track. So when The Whipkey Three takes the stage for their CD release show Saturday night at Stir in Council Bluffs, skip the head count.

“If it was up to me, I’d have six guys on stage,” Whipkey said. “The songs work well as a three piece, but in the studio I felt free to indulge, and that can be your own worst enemy. There’s no more than 24 tracks on any given song. We didn’t bring in a Baptist choir.”

The Whipkey Three, Two Truths (self-released, 2012(

But most of the album simply highlights the trio, with Gaeta’s whirling Springsteen-esque Hammond glowing in the background on songs like high-flying rocker “Wasn’t Thinking” and CD-closing back-beat ballad “Reagan Era.” Always at the center is Whipkey’s pure rock sensibility distilled from years of listening to American FM radio. He may be a true indie artist (the album is being self-released), but there’s nothing indie about his style. Whipkey’s songwriting is unapologetically straightforward, un-ironic and ultimately familiar to anyone who grew up listening to arena rock.

At age 31, he says his career goals haven’t changed since his early solo days. He’s managed to make a sizable mark on the local music scene, but has only rarely strayed outside the state lines, despite his efforts to break through to a bigger market.

“I’ve done the college radio thing. It’s a joke,” Whipkey said. “But what else do you do? I wish someone could tell me. I’m back to handing flyers to people I meet. Maybe that’s the best thing you can do. Is it all about who you hang out with? I think it is. I don’t know. Someone tell me. I know how to write songs and perform them, and we do it very well.”

He also knows how to teach, augmenting his income with a day job giving private guitar lessons at Dietz Music. When asked if he still harbors dreams of being as big as Ryan Adams he says, “You have to,” but quickly adds, “You can let those ideas destroy you, because they can make you feel like a failure.”

Instead, Whipkey’s content letting it all hang out on stage and making his own records, right down to meticulously hand-stamping and constructing the cardboard holders for his new CD. “If I give you one, you better listen to it,” he said. “We’re not getting 1,000 jewel-case copies. We pressed 300, and we’ll sell them all.

“This is what I do, it’s who I am,” he said. “Between teaching and playing and performing, it’s my livelihood, my career, and I take it very seriously. I get more out of making music now than I ever did.”

The Whipkey Three plays with The Big Deep Saturday, May 12, at Stir Live and Loud, 1 Harrah’s Blvd., Council Bluffs, Iowa. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $7. For more information, call (712) 328-6499 or visit harrahscouncilbluffs.com.

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In other news…

If you didn’t pick up your ticket for The Faint’s return show at The Slowdown Aug. 18 at The Slowdown you’re out of luck, because it’s already sold out.

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One of the reasons I’m checking out Universe Contest tonight at The Waiting Room (actually thee reason) is that the band is managed by Jeremy Buckley.

Buckley is the guy behind the annual Lincoln Calling Music Festival. Needless to say, he’s seen and heard just about every decent local band in the area. The fact that he’s chosen to take on the rather thankless job of managing Universe Contest is a testament to his confidence that they have what it takes to become big, fat rock stars. To my knowledge, UC is the only band that Buckley ever managed. You can check out their new four-song EP at their website, universecontest.com. Something tells me these guys have a few Modest Mouse albums loaded on their iPods.

Opening for Universe Contest are local heroes Dim Light and Lincoln proto-punkers Ideal Cleaners. All for a mere $7. Show starts at 9.

Also tonight, Brad Hoshaw is playing at The Barley Street Tavern with Ashley Raines. $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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It would be easy to pile on to the mountain of complaints about this year’s Red Sky Music Festival.

Held at the massive Ameritrade Ballpark and launched with so much withered promise a year ago, Red Sky announced three of its four headliners yesterday over the lunch hour.

MECA, the folks behind Red Sky, is like a group of out-of-touch parents planning a senior prom.

Scratch that. Try again.

Unveiling the Red Sky lineup is like unwrapping a Christmas gift from your grandmother.

OK, waitaminit…

MECA, contemplating Red Sky...

The Red Sky lineup has about as much artistic merit as a Thomas Mangelsen ‘Bad Boys of the Arctic’ polar bear photo.

Hold on…

Red Sky is so ugly…

Look, I could go on all day with the metaphors.  The fact is MECA’s underwhelming choices should be a surprise to no one.

The combination of Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and Def Leppard is about as far away from a “progressive concert lineup” as anyone could imagine. I get carsick just thinking about it. But here’s the thing. As crappy as those bands are, each night of Red Sky easily will outsell the amazingly diverse Maha Music Festival. Easily.

It’s not about art. It’s about commerce. As I’ve said so many times in the past: You could add up every album sold by every artist on Saddle Creek Records and it wouldn’t equal the sales of one Paisley or Leppard or Rascal Flatts album. Indie music is more interesting, more intelligent, more artistic, more daring than anything produced by this year’s RS bands, which is exactly why it’ll never be as popular.

So let Red Sky be Red Sky. They were never targeting you in the first place. They were targeting your parents or your boss or your typical Lee Terry voter. Conservative. Dry. Old-fashioned. Boring. Visionless. You weren’t invited, but that’s OK. You didn’t want to go to their party anyway…

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Hey MECA, there’s still room for one more Red Sky headliner, and I can’t think of anyone more straight-laced and conservative than Bloodcow. When these guys aren’t doing volunteer work at the local VA, they’re busy leading bible study classes and hosting Republican party get-togethers at Applebees. Their style of wholesome, feel-good pop music is exactly what your typical Red Sky ticket buyer is looking for. Don’t believe me? Then check them out tonight when Bloodcow headlines at The Waiting Room with Bible of the Devil, Leeches of Lore and The Matador — nice, upstanding Christian boys one and all. $7, 9 p.m. Bring the kids!

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Last year the Maha Music Festival was something of a sausage party. No matter what organizers tried, they couldn’t book a main stage band with even a single female member let alone a frontwoman. This year, Maha is practically a Midwestern Lilith Fair, with co-headliner Garbage (with frontwoman Shirley Manson) and now the all-woman Sub Pop post-punk rock band Dum Dum Girls, announced last night along with Delta Spirit and Eli Mardock. Add to that Icky Blossoms headlining the local stage featuring the sultry vocals of Sarah Bohling (along with rumors of another female-fronted band on the local stage) and holy moly it’s Maha Girls Rock.

So did Maha go out of its way to book a more diverse lineup?

“It wasn’t our overarching concern, but it certainly was a focus,” said Maha main stage organizer Tre Brashear. “(We) wanted to make sure we secured some female performers at the beginning of the lineup process so we didn’t end up getting burned like last year with unavailability when it came time to finish out the lineup. I know it sounds simplistic, but last year the list of available performers that came back from our inquiries didn’t have as many females. This year, there were more choices that we thought would be appealing to Maha fans.”

Yesterday’s announcement also adds diversity from an age demographic perspective. Maha was on the verge of becoming an indie legacy festival, with Guided by Voices and Superchunk in years past and Garbage and Desparecidos this year — a veritable tribute to past decades. Yesterday’s announcement changes all of that. Dum Dum Girls, who will be coming off an appearance at this year’s Lollapalooza Fest, and Rounder recording artist Delta Spirit, are among the hotter new indie acts on tour, while Icky Blossoms is an emerging post-punk-dance-rock dynamo.

Fans seem to like the lineup, if strong early ticket sales are any indication. “We are running 80% ahead of 2010, so, yes, very strong considering that we have traditionally gotten 10-20% of our sales on the day of show,” Brashear said. “VIP tickets are also going well, especially with the out-of-towners. (We) sold one in Australia last Friday.”

For Maha to “sell out,” it would need to nearly double last year’s attendance. “We will treat ourselves as sold out at 6,000 GA tickets,” Brashear said of Stinson Park’s capacity. “(We) could likely sell more for that space, but don’t want to overwhelm ourselves and want to make sure that we create a good experience for everyone attending with space to spread out, parking, etc.” Tickets to the Aug. 11 concert, held at Stinson Park, are $35 and available at mahamusicfestival.com.

Maha announcements aren’t over yet. Look for one more announcement in the near future to round out the festival’s lineup. Can the multi-million dollar Red Sky Festival match up to Maha? Guess it all depends on how much you like C&W and hair metal. MECA just announced three of its four headliners: Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and Def Leppard. Yee-hawwww!

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Very quiet weekend. No national shows worth mentioning. The highlight likely will be tonight, when Icky Blossoms plays at Slowdown Jr. with Video Ranger and Mellow Mic. With no other notable shows going on this evening, has IB grown to the point where they could sell out the frontroom virtually by themselves? We’ll find out tonight. $7, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night, Sun Settings is playing at The Sandbox with Betsy Wells, Video Ranger and Sea Wife. According to this Facebook invite, start time is 7:30, and the show is $6.

Finally Sunday night, traveling troubadour Jeremy Quentin a.k.a. Small Houses plays Slowdown Jr. with Field Club and Howard. $7, 9 p.m.

And that, my friends, is all show wrote.

One more thing: The Maha Music Festival will announce more of its festival lineup Sunday at 9 p.m. This could wind up being the most balanced tickets in the festival’s history (and maybe its best).

Maha beats Red Sky to the punch once again, as MECA intends to announce the Red Sky lineup on Monday. What are my predictions? Well, as I said on an Omahype Facebook thread, I’m pretty sure we’ll see Sharon Van Etten, Spiritualized, Justice, Screaming Females, Wilco, The Oh Sees, M83, The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Nora Jones, Bob Mould/Sugar, and the reunited Smiths.

And Poison.

Do I really need to say “just kidding?”

* * *

R.I.P. Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch a.k.a. MCA. We’ll miss the humor, the beats, the music, the man…

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Love Drunk storm team is spending one last night in Omaha before the crew heads to the East Coast for their 2012 Tour. In addition to Tuesday’s announcement, you can read all about the tour and its fearless leader, Django Greenblatt-Seay, in my column in this week’s issue of The Reader, or read it online at The Reader‘s website, right here.

Before they hit the road, The Sydney in Benson is hosting a fundraiser tonight to help cover some of the tour’s costs. Featured bands are Honeybee and Hers, Jasong Mountain (Talking Mountain) and Bazooka Shootout. $5, 9 p.m. More info here.

And as part of this last day in Omaha, Love Drunk also is asking local bands and businesses to donate CDs, T-shirts and other promo material that they can distribute to each band they shoot on the tour, “providing just one more reason to add Nebraska cities to their tour schedule, and helping to build ties across the country.”

Bands and businesses can drop their shit off at The Sydney tonight after 6 p.m. More info about the merch collection here.

The fundraiser isn’t the only thing going on tonight.

Down at Slowdown Jr., Red House Records artist The Pines plays with Midwest Dilemma and Matt Cox. $8, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, over at The Barley Street Tavern, Millions of Boys plays with The ACBs and Ghosty. $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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.