by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m as curious as you are about what the “new” Reader will look like. I haven’t a clue what we’re going to see when publisher John Heaston and his team reveal the new design down at Sokol Underground at 3 p.m. this afternoon. It will no doubt be the beginning of a new era for a publication that’s survived as a weekly for the past 20 years.

Heaston also will be unleashing a new version of thereader.com. I’ve seen it and it is, indeed, an improvement over the current website, though it should be stressed that the new web design is only V 1.0, and that John says we’ll see even greater improvements in design and functionality in the near future.

Anyway, you’re all invited to the big reveal from 3 to 6 p.m. today. In addition to free copies of the new publication there will be free tacos, (some) booze and what’s been described as a “20 Year Maze” that walks people through the past 20 years of The Reader. No idea what this is, but it should be plenty weird.

If that wasn’t enough to set your curiosity ablaze, this first issue of the newly designed Reader will contain my annual Music Predictions for the Coming Year article — always a real crowd-pleaser.

See you this afternoon at Sokol Underground…

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Faint at The Waiting Room, Dec. 28, 2014.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Faint concerts are becoming a rite of the holiday season, like putting up a Christmas Tree or anxiously figuring out what you’re going to do on New Year’s Eve (and always getting it wrong).

The crowd last night at The Waiting Room was a one-eighty from the crazy biker AARP crowd at last week’s Ritual Device/Cellophane Ceiling show (which, if you missed it, was reviewed right here, posted on Saturday). We got there early again to get a seat and were surrounded on one side by a mother and her high school-aged daughter (though that couldn’t be because I saw her drinking a wheat beer) and the other by a father and his teen-aged son (clearly too young to drink, spending most of the pre-Faint time fiddling with his cell phone).

Other than the stools along the ledge off stage right and a few around the soundboard, The Waiting Room staff had cleared the hall of tables and chairs, making as much room as possible for the sold-out crowd and what had to be a monstrous guest list. It would end up being a smart decision though at 8:15 when the opening act was on stage — a guy with a laptop and a microphone who mumbled over head-splitting drone beats — the room looked empty despite a hundred or so youngsters mulling around the floor.

Sucettes at The Waiting Room, Dec. 28, 2014.

It picked up by 9 when Sucettes took the stage. Dave Goldberg’s new band (first reviewed here) continues to be the embodiment of pre-psychedelic ’60s rock, a mash-up of Nuggets and surf driven by Goldberg’s flashy drumming (and organ playing). There is a childlike quality to their music, simple and happy and smiley-faced and fun, and downright innocent compared to the evil dance noise of The Faint.

As I write this I’m forced to recall the first time I saw The Faint at The Waiting Room, back in 2007, three days after they opened the place, before they tore out the ceiling when the club felt like a dive bar with a big stage in the back. I spent that night standing on a tiered ledge across from stage right above everyone, with a bird’s eye view of the mauling crowd below, hot with giddy aggression, chaos and dance frenzy. The bass at that show was pummeling; it was the loudest rock show I’d experienced since the last time I saw Bob Mould eviscerate ear drums at The Ranch Bowl. The bass was so loud and deep and disturbing that it rattled your internal organs, forcing you to wonder if something was being damaged inside your body. It was an exquisite performance.

In comparison, last night’s show was tame but still ferocious by modern-day Omaha rock show standards. The set was plenty loud, but not scary loud. The band left its orgy of lighting effects home for this gig, instead leaning on colored floor lights and smoke machines, a throwback to the very early days of The Faint when that was all the band could afford. As a result, the staging naturally felt stripped down, as did the performance.

The Faint at The Waiting Room, Dec. 28, 2014.

And unlike the Sokol Auditorium shows earlier this year, I noticed the lack of the band’s fifth member. Bassist/guitarist Joel Petersen left The Faint a few years ago, to little or no fanfare, and the band continued well without him, but last night early in the set, his absence left a void on some of the songs. Guitarist Dapose spent the first half on bass instead of guitar, and there were times during older material that something was missing. The four-man line-up sounded best playing Doom Abuse material, which was created with this specific line-up.

And then midway through, for a stunning version of “Animal Needs,” Dapose switched to electric guitar and all was right with the world. I assume the bass was coming through either programmed tracks or a keyboard, and it sounded fine, as Dapose scorched the earth with his axe.

As for the crowd, from my vantage point, they didn’t really get into the set until the last half, erupting in the usual bounce-bounce-bounce fashion for the greatest hits, but jumping along admirably to some of the new material, specifically “Evil Voices” and “Help in the Head.” And of course during the encore and set closer “Glass Danse” that had the entire sold-out crowd bouncing.

The Faint at The Waiting Room, Dec. 28, 2014.

You can check it out for yourself tonight, when The Faint do a repeat performance at The Waiting Room. Who knows when we’ll see this band again. With this leaner, meaner four-piece ensemble, writing music would appear to be quicker and easier. Will they put out another record this year? Who knows. Without new material, future shows would merely be a repeat, which would be just fine for most of last night’s crowd.

Tonight’s show starts again at 8. Openers are Ramona and the Slim Dudes and Feel Tight. $20 tickets are still available as of this writing…

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A reminder that you can win a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2014 compilation CD — it’s the special 20th Anniversary Edition. The collection includes songs by Courtney Barnett, Sun Kil Moon, Tei Shi, Protomartyr, The Faint, Stand of Oaks, The Lupines and a ton more.  The full track listing is here. Entering has never been easier: To enter either: 1. Send an email with your mailing address to tim.mcmahan@gmail.com, or 2) Write a comment on one of my Lazy-i related posts in Facebook, or 3, Retweet a Lazy-i tweet.

Hurry, contest deadline is midnight Jan. 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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Ritual Device at The Waiting Room, Dec. 26, 2014.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m surprised to this day, 20 years after they were really a band, that Ritual Device continues to divide the music community.

On one hand, you have those who think the band not only was the ultimate product of Nebraska during its day in the ’90s, but think Tim Moss and Co. may be the best band that ever emerged from the Good Life State. I was told last night that people had made exoduses to The Waiting Room from as far away as Minneapolis and, of course, Kansas City, where Ritual Device played often back in its heyday. I even traveled down I-29 one summer in the ’90s and saw them tear apart a used record store somewhere on the edge of Westport. Unlike local bands today who seem to play every weekend for reasons I’ll never understand, Ritual Device shows were something of a rarity back then. I can remember the band playing only a few times in Omaha, usually at The Capitol Bar & Grill. So rare were their shows that they became events.

On the other hand, there are those who never “got” Ritual Device, who felt they were a “performance thing” or a gimmick, Tim Moss being little more than a circus geek who instead of biting heads off live chickens showered his crowds with pig ears and other raw meats, a demented circus barker tied up in microphone chord, spitting vitriol and mucus into an adoring crowd that could never get enough of either. I talked to a half-dozen people inside and outside the club last night who planned on leaving after Cellophane Ceiling’s set. Strike that — there were a few who wanted to see “what the fuss was all about,” who could barely remember Ritual Device in their later years but never bothered to see them at The Capitol or wherever they were playing.

I have never been on the fence when it came to the band. Those who malign Moss have their reasons — either they were turned off by the violence of the songs or the crowd that followed them. So be it. But even the most cynical who viewed the band as “an act,” who also have a modicum of interest in punk or metal, have to acknowledge the band’s talent. Strip away Moss’s histrionics and you still have some of the most memorable rhythms and riffs from an era in Nebraska music defined by rhythms and riffs. Mike Saklar was — and is — a top-notch guitarist; Jerry Hug, a genuine groove master, and then there was the preppy-looking guy behind the kit, the secret engine that made the band what it was on stage and on recordings — Eric Ebers — who gets lost in the conversation even though his throbbing drumming is the guidepost to every Ritual Device song.

Anyway… We got there early last night because Teresa didn’t want to stand up for three hours, and we weren’t alone. At 8:15 p.m., an hour and 15 minutes before any band would take the stage, all the tables already were taken by folks who looked older than me, all apparently with the same idea of finding a place to sit down for what would be a long night. Like a bloodhound Teresa found two stools along the ledge 10 feet from the soundboard squeezed behind a table of people that was a mix of biker-looking dudes and their soccer-mom wives. All around us were late-middle-aged couples and overweight guys in 20-year-old concert T-shirts. It didn’t so much seem like a wedding reception as a reunion of retired Hell’s Angels who long ago threw away their leathers.

Nightbird was joined by Pat Dieteman, center, for a handful of Cactus Nerve Thang songs.

Nightbird didn’t make it on stage until 9:30. By then the entire back end of the club was a mass of boozed up AARP members who clearly were not prepared for what they were about to hear. Nightbird is a stoner-rock band in the Sabbath / Sleep vein, maybe not that plodding but certainly not exactly an uplifting listen. As frontman Lee Meyerpeter ripped into the first song, backed by bassist Jeff Harder and drummer Scott “Zip” Zimmerman I leaned over and yelled into Teresa’s ear, “This one will last 20 minutes.” The set? she asked. No, the song.

And sure enough, it did — 20 minutes of exquisite, plodding, riffage broken into stanzas and brazen guitar solos and Meyerpeter’s raspy, guttural vocals that recalled Kurt Cobain if Cobain could hold a note without shrieking. Nightbird’s debut last July at The Sydney was hit and miss, almost experimental in its take on stoner rock. Last night they sounded like a stadium stone-metal band thanks to The Waiting Room’s far superior sound system and five months’ worth of gigs that honed their sound.

That first 20-minute song was followed by a second, pushed along in the same plodding, stoner pace. And then Meyerpeter welcomed former Cactus Nerve Thang drummer Pat Dieteman to the stage to join the band on some Cactus numbers for what would be a two-thirds reunion. Original CNT bassist Brian Poloncic apparently has hung up his bass for good, refusing to step away even for one night from his current life as a fine artist and author (btw, a large Poloncic print hangs proudly on the wall in Teresa’s home office).

No matter, Harder handled the bass and Dieteman joined in on guitar and vocals for a handful of CNT songs including “High” and “Sunshine” off their infamous Sloth CD recorded in ’93 at Junior’s Hotel in Otho, Iowa, and released on Grass Records. I’d forgotten how many good songs were on that record. The band sounded better than the last time I saw them play, which I think was on a sun-drenched deck outside Sharkey’s for a one-day music festival sometime in the mid-90s.

Meyerpeter is something of a sonic chameleon. I’ve now heard him play in punk, country, heavy-metal, post-punk and now stoner rock bands. He is one of the more versatile and prodigious musicians and songwriters Nebraska has produced in the past 20 years. I was told one of his electric guitars – one he played with Cactus Nerve Thang 20-odd years ago – was being retired after last night’s show, to be displayed in The Reverb Lounge “until they find something better to hang up there” — though I can’t imagine what that would be.

Cellophane Ceiling at The Waiting Room, Dec. 26, 2014.

Next up was the main attraction for a large part of the audience, the reunion of Cellophane Ceiling. I scoured my memory for the last time I saw the band. During the interview a week or so ago, I mentioned to frontman John Wolf that it was probably at The 49’r and he just shook his head. “We rarely played there,” he said. “You’re probably thinking of Bad Luck Charm.” At one point BLC, a band that also included Meyerpeter, was practically the house band at The 49’r, playing there what seemed like every weekend. If I had seen Cellophane it was probably at the Howard Street Tavern or maybe the Capitol, two other long-lost bars in the annuls of Omaha music history.

I also have no copies of Cellophane recordings. It appears the band pre-dates my interest in Omaha music, and when Wolf and his band took the stage, the only song I recognized was the single “Don’t Play God,” and only because the video on YouTube. But there was a familiar quality to Cellophane’s music that would pop up in Bad Luck Charm and, with the heavier numbers, could be traced as influences to Ritual Device.

What makes Cellophane stand out from the rest of the late-’80s early-’90s punk rock bands is Wolf’s vocals, which have a sort of trucker slur to their delivery, almost a forced, ironic twang as if to say “We’re hicks from Nebraska, you got a problem with that?” It’s a style that would live on in BLC.

Wolf is anything but a hick. He looks, sings and plays exactly as I remember him in BLC. One old Cellophane fan told me his guitar work sounded better than it did back in the day. An ageless precision attached to an ageless rock fury. But maybe not ageless after all. Wolf displayed evidence of his age in the form of his 14-year-old son who joined the band on a half-dozen songs, looking like a well-dressed young punk in his shirt and tie, and more than able to keep up with his old man.

Why Wolf isn’t in a band these days, I do not know. Maybe his life and his family and job keep him too busy to play in bands on the weekends. It’s our loss.

Ritual Device’s Moss and Hug center stage, The Waiting Room, Dec. 26, 2014.

Finally, Ritual Device. Tim Moss climbed on stage in an untucked long-sleeved dress shirt, jeans, boots and a ZZ Top-style beard, ready for action. Maybe not ZZ Top. Moss with beard looks more like an R Crumb comic-book hippie, a middle-aged San Francisco Mr. Natural but with shoulder-length hair, neither foreboding nor threatening as he briskly strolled around the stage pulling microphone cords in various directions, grabbing the front stage mic and announcing, “We’re Ritual Device from Omaha, Nebraska” as the band kicked into the first number.

I had pushed my way up toward the front, near stage right, just a dozen steps from what would turn into a pseudo mosh pit and launching pad for Moss’s relentless stage dives that were more like stage lurches, leaning forward onto extended hands that pulled him into and above the crowd while he continued to speak-howl lyrics about serial killers and bizarre sex. Midway through the first melee the older and more timid members of the crowd began peeling off and heading toward the sides or back to their tables with frightened smiles pressed on their faces.

Moss’s stage thing hasn’t changed at all in 20 years. He continuously lurched at the crowd as if begging them to hurt him before he hurts himself… or them. During the second song he pulled out a brown paper grocery sack and began flinging raw pigs ears into the crowd; fans either kept them as souvenirs or threw them back at the stage — all except one Manson-esque looking dude who leaned against center-stage shaking a pig’s ear in his teeth, wagging it at the band.

The rest of the guys looked down at their instruments and smiled while old man Moss continued to get groped in the crowd. Saklar, urban chic in black dress shirt, leaned over his Fender in focused concentration while across the stage was Hug, dressed in a black T-shirt looking like a cross between a fitness instructor and hip Loyola English Lit professor as he shredded his bass. Behind them was the ageless Ebers dominating the sonic landscape with relentless, frenetic yet precise drumming — drumming that, when combined with the riffs and breaks and Moss’s insane mumble-howl, created the tense energy that defines this ageless band.

Ritual Device is indeed the band that time forgot, except of course for Moss, whose crazy beard and shoulder-length Jesus hair has turned him into an angry, crazy grandpa complete with weird, black tiger-stripe tattoos up and down his forearms. Even when he was a clean-shaven lad in the ’90s there was something sinister about his stage presence, a far cry from the person he is in real life.

For those keeping score, the band played all the favorites including “Charlie Jones” and “What You Got.” They did, indeed, sound as good as I remembered them sounding 15 or 20 years ago. And while the frenzy in the middle of the crowd continued until the end, it never got out of hand. There are few modern-day local (or national) bands that bring the level of energy to the performance that Moss does (The closest that comes to mind for sheer weird chaos is probably Worried Mothers).

Reunion shows are precarious things. By their very nature they distort fans’ memories of who the bands were and what they sounded like the last time they played, which may have been decades ago. The risk is that whatever climbs on stage will be a weaker, sloppier and obviously older version of their former selves. That was not the case last night. All the bands did their legacies proud.

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Last minute reminder about tonight’s Good Life show at The Waiting Room. It’ll be butting up against the Huskers playing in the Whatever Bowl, so who knows what kind of crowd will be there. Opening is Oquoa and Big Harp. $13, 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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

It’s the 20th year for the annual Lazy-i comp. The cover reflects all the past years’ artwork.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This year’s Lazy-i Best of… compilation CD marks the 20th year that these collections have been made. The collection is my favorite tracks from 2014 pressed on CDR for friends and family. To commemorate the 20th anniversary, Donovan Beery designed packaging that shows all the cassette and CD artwork used since 1994 (starting with the Alpo cover). In addition, every copy includes a different “1994 Surprise Track,” taken from the original 1994 comp tape.

Here’s the track listing:

1. Avant Gardner – Courtney Barnett

2. Do You – Spoon

3. J Smoov – Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks

4. Sun Kil Moon – Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes

5. Forgiven/Forgotten – Angel Olsen

6. Maria – The Lupines

7. Mirror of Time – Twin Peaks

8. Archie, Marry Me – Alvvays

9. You Are Now – The Trouble with Templeton

10. Bassically – Tei Shi

11. Money Rain Down – Big Black Delta

12. Lie, Cheat, Steal – Run the Jewels

13. Tarpeian Rock – Protomartyr

14. Evil Voices – The Faint

15. You Can’t Help Me Now – The Both

16. It Falls Apart – Brad Hoshaw & the Seven Deadlies

17. JM – Strand of Oaks

18 – Cruel Sexuality – Le Roux

19 – ’94 Surprise Track

Want a copy? Enter the drawing! I’m making it oh so easy this year. To enter either: 1. Send an email with your mailing address to tim.mcmahan@gmail.com, or 2) Write a comment on one of my Lazy-i related posts in Facebook, or 3, Retweet a Lazy-i tweet.

Hurry, contest deadline is midnight Jan. 6!

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Well, you made it through another year, and as a reward this last weekend of 2014 happens to be one of the best weekends for rock shows.

It starts tonight with the big Cellophane Ceiling / Ritual Device show at The Waiting Room (read all about it here). As of this posting, $10 tickets were still available. If this doesn’t sell out, it’ll be darn close. Opening is Nightbird, who will be playing songs by Cactus Nerve Thang, another legacy band from the early 90s. It all starts at 9 p.m.

While that’s going on, just around the corner at Reverb Lounge Little Brazil headlines a show with Millions of Boys and Dumb Beach. $7, 9 p.m.

Down the street at the Barley Street Tavern Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies headlines tonight with Matt Whipkey and friends, John Klemmensen and The Party and Matt Cox. $5, 9 p.m.

And down at The Slowdown Satchel Grande holds court with special guest Buck Bowen. $8, 9 p.m.

Saturday night, The Good Life returns to The Waiting Room. This show has gotten very little hype, though it’s one of the bigger shows of the weekend. Joining Tim Kasher and Co. will be Big Harp and Oquoa. Expect another packed house. $13, 9 p.m.

Also Saturday night, Pyrate plays at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Chicago band The Howl. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And Brad Hoshaw opens for Two Drag Club and Civicminded Saturday night at Reverb Lounge. $7, 9 p.m.

Then comes Sunday and the first of two nights with The Faint at The Waiting Room. Sunday night’s show, with openers Sucettes and Ruby Block, is SOLD OUT. Show starts at early at 8 p.m. Tickets are still available for Monday night’s Faint show with openers Ramona and the Slimdudes & Feel Tight. $20, 8 p.m.

Also Sunday night, The Sweatshop Gallery is hosting a rock show with David Kenneth Nance & his band, Nathan Ma and the Rosettes, and Stomach. $5, 9 p.m.

Finally, Josh Hoyer and the Shadowboxers returns to The Slowdown Sunday night with All Young Girls Are Machine Guns. This is a super-early show, starts at 7 p.m. $8.

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Neva Dinova at The Slowdown, Dec. 23, 2014.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Is there a more beloved local indie band than Neva Dinova? I have yet to meet anyone who has met Jake Bellows who didn’t want to be his friend. Well, last night hundreds of those friends were at The Slowdown to soak in all the goodness that was — and is — Neva Dinova one last time.

It was not a sell out, but it was crowded. Neva came on at around 11 — the full band with Roger Lewis on drums. The set started a bit rough, but what do you expect from a band that hasn’t played live in six years? One of the three guitars was out of tune, or at least that’s what I thought I heard from my usual “big room” vantage point off stage left. Whatever it was fixed itself by the next song, and as the set rolled on, the band sounded tighter and tighter.

Neva Dinova always was fun to watch but I don’t remember them sounding this massive back in the old days. The band takes advantage of all those guitars, creating a mountain that Bellows can stand atop either with his vocals or his white-knuckle guitar solos. For every quiet sleeper of a song there’s also a fun shuffle and a monstrous epic.  Last night’s set list did a good job of varying the different styles and dynamics.

Conor Oberst joined the band for a handful of songs.

The addition of special guests also kept the hour-plus-long set rolling. Drummer Bo Anderson took over the drum set midway through for a couple songs, returning for two more songs during the encore. The Good Life’s Ryan Fox dropped in for one song, while cellist April Faith-Slaker added texture to a couple numbers including a rich version of “Tryptophan.”

And then out of nowhere — looking like a hitch-hiker who just stepped off the road — came Conor Oberst to relive a few tracks off the Bright Eyes / Neva Dinova split, opening with Bright Eyes song “Spring Cleaning” before joining in on a couple Neva numbers.

But the evening’s highlight didn’t come until that four-song encore. The band ended the evening with heart-rending revivals of classics “Clouds” off 2008’s You May Already Be Dreaming, and “Dances Fantastic” from their 2002 self-titled debut. You couldn’t ask for anything more, except maybe another reunion of this band next Christmas. If that doesn’t happen (and it’s unlikely that it will) there was no better way to put a bow on top of this band’s career than what we heard last night.

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Now it’s time to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and soak in my annual Year in Review article. Consider it my present to you. It also appears in today’s issue of The Reader and is also online right here. The tone starts off rather bleak, but it picks up later on. This also includes my annual “favorites” list of 2014 recordings and live shows. Enjoy.

2014: The Year in Music

The one word that comes to mind when looking back at the past year in music: Survival.

Or, more accurately, the question: How will musicians survive? It finally started to dawn on people about halfway through the year that Spotify is really fucking things up.

I don’t know how independent musicians are going to make money in the future. Income from album sales appears to be drying up, for everyone. It’s even hurting the major labels. When platinum-selling mega-nerd Taylor Swift said she wasn’t going to allow her music on Spotify, non-musicians started paying attention, and the issues surrounding music streaming services briefly became the fodder for network morning shows, painting a defiant Swift as a voice of reason in an era when artists have seemingly been forced to give away their wares.

A few fellow superstars followed Swift boycotting Spotify, but in the end, the streaming service kept bumbling along. Spotify truly is the poison apple in the Garden of Eden. We all know Spotify’s instant access to millions of albums is nothing less than a salt-block of evil. We know using Spotify probably contributes to killing off indie labels naive enough to release their artists’ music to the service. We’ve all heard stories about the bands that got a 27 cent Spotify royalty check in the mail.

And yet, we can’t help ourselves. We keep reaching for our smart phones, putting in our earbuds and taking a bite out of that shiny green apple. Who’s killing the music industry? We are. You and I and anyone who uses Spotify, Pandora, Songza and other music streaming services, but god help us, we can’t stop ourselves.

Spotify isn’t going away, so young bands can wave goodbye to substantial income from record sales. Musicians will have to survive off performance income and T-shirt sales. Merch. I’ve been told that’s the way it always was supposed to be, that the pre-internet years of records sales (where, in reality, only a handful of artists made big money and the labels took home the lion’s share) were an aberration. That the new music model revolves around musicians giving away their music to grow an audience that will come to their shows when they hit the road.

So says Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, a guy who already made his millions during better days. Grohl, as quoted in online music site Stereogum:

“You want people to fucking listen to your music? Give them your music. And then go play a show. They like hearing your music? They’ll go see a show. To me it’s that simple, and I think it used to work that way. When we were young and in really noisy, crappy punk rock bands there was no career opportunity and we loved doing it and people loved fucking watching it and the delivery was completely face to face and personal. That’s what got people really excited about shit. Nowadays there’s so much focus on technology that it doesn’t really matter.”

I wonder what “noisy, crappy punk rock bands” Grohl is referring to. Have you heard the new Foo Fighters record?

Anyway, for those musicians who never tour, making music is turning into a hobby — something to do on weekends, a reason to hang with your bro’s. If they’re any good, these hobbyist bands might play local shows where they’ll make enough money to pay off the evening’s bar tab — if they get paid at all. There are those who will still reach for bigger things, who contemplate getting “signed” or even touring, but fewer and fewer will ever make that leap regardless of how talented they are.

Why? It just costs too much money. Sure, recording music and putting it online is now within everyone’s reach, but touring, well, that’s expensive and time consuming. There is a handful of Nebraska bands talented enough to attract a national audience, but they never will because they’ll never tour. They’ll put their music online and wait for the phone to ring. Call them lazy, but the fact is despite their dreams they still need to feed themselves and their families. They need to survive.

Holy shit, that sounds bleak. And every year that I write these “year in review” articles it just gets bleaker, yet we’re all still here, listening to music.

Two good things to consider from 2014:

First, the number of music venues in Omaha continues to increase (supporting that idea that performance income is the only real musicians’ income). Classy Benson bar/music venue Reverb Lounge opened this past fall and joined an already crowded Omaha music venue population that includes The Waiting Room, The Slowdown, O’Leaver’s, Barley Street Tavern, The Sydney, 402 Collective, The Sweatshop, PS Collective, and good ol’ Sokol. In all my years I can’t remember there being more places for musicians to perform.

Secondly, while music sales continue ever downward, reaching out of the grave is old-fashioned vinyl records. It’s strange when more people are excited about the format of their music than what the format contains. Vinyl is everything, at least to serious music fans, but it’s still only a sliver of total music sales.

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported LP sales surged 49 percent last year and that factories are struggling to keep pace, but in the end, vinyl sales represent only 2 percent of U.S. music sales (*sad trombone*). To the great unwashed masses feverishly downloading the latest Taylor Swift teen-wank fodder, the trend toward vinyl has gone unnoticed. They don’t even know what a record player looks like, let alone how to use one.

There is a third “good thing” to consider: The music itself. Here’s the list of my favorite albums of 2014. Notice I didn’t say “best albums”? These aren’t “the best” (whatever that means), they’re the ones I enjoyed the most, which means the new records by Beck, St. Vincent and U2 didn’t make the cut because, well, I didn’t like them.

Sun Kil Moon, Benji (Caldo Verde) — The best My favorite Mark Kozelek record, a collection of haunting personal elegies about living and dying (but mostly dying).

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Wig Out at Jagbags (Matador) — Continuing the smooth melodicism that Malkmus escaped to after leaving Pavement. Sublime.

Spoon, They Want My Soul (Loma Vista) — Laid-back indie rock from a veteran.

Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire for No Witness (Jagjaguwar) — Alt-country meets indie rock, an exquisite combination.

The Faint, Doom Abuse (SQE Music) — Local boys return to form. Where have you been, lads?

Strand of Oaks, Heal (Dead Oceans) — Raw reflections of nostalgia in the rock age.

The Lupines, Over the Moon (Speed! Nebraska) — From a Nebraska garage comes the wolfen.

Alvvays, self-titled (Polyvinyl / Transgressive) — Chiming indie pop is a salvation.

The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian) — There’s nothing wrong with imitating Dylan and Dire Straits when it sounds like this.

Future Islands, Singles (4AD) — More than just fancy dance moves, fancy synth moves.

Protomartyr, Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art) — Proto-punk with a bitter, bitter heart.

And then there were the rock shows. It was another great year for live music. Here are my favorite rock memories of 2014:

The Front Bottoms, The Waiting Room, Jan. 12 — Their sound was reminiscent of some of my favorite humor-inflected bands of the ‘90s and ’00s — Atom and his Package, Fountains of Wayne, Too Much Joy, Mountain Goats, Dismemberment Plan, The Hold Steady, The Decemberists — bands that write smart, funny, self-referential lyrics that anyone can relate to.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, The Waiting Room, Feb. 16 — It was like a mini Pavement reunion for an over-the-top rendition of “Unfair” off Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain that featured special guest Bob Nastanovich contributing his classic yelling. The rest of the show was almost as special.

Neutral Milk Hotel, Sokol Auditorium, March 29 — Fans I spoke to never expected to see this band play again, let alone play in Omaha. And here they were, playing their best songs spot-on with every nuance from the original recording.

St. Vincent, Sokol Auditorium, April 1 — It looked and felt forced and uncomfortable, purposely rigid and thoroughly counter to the loose-and-rough spontaneity of rock. Instead, it was more of an attempt at art rock, but without the limitlessness of a Laurie Anderson.

Warpaint, The Waiting Room, April 2 — Their sound was equal parts ethereal mood music and beat-driven dance fodder, with sweet vocals by all four musicians — and when all four harmonized, well, bliss.

Deleted Scenes, Slowdown Jr., May 1 — The highlight was that closing number, “You Get to Say Whatever You Want,” when Dan Scheuerman walked into the crowd and touched foreheads with a couple innocent bystanders, performing a mortifying rock ‘n’ roll mind meld.

Morrissey, Rococo Theater, May 20 — Needless to say, there were a lot of pissed-off people walking out of The Rococo after Morrissey refused an encore. While I would have liked to hear a couple more songs, the decision to play is squarely on his shoulders, and if he wasn’t feeling it, that’s the way it goes.

Conor Oberst, Sokol Auditorium, June 4 — Fueling the energy was Dawes, a masterful four-piece that gave every song heft and soul. The band sounded so much like early Jackson Browne you would have sworn that was David Lindley playing those guitar solos and Craig Doerge tapping out the glowing keyboard fills.

The Faint, Sokol Auditorium, June 12 — From the floor, it’s all about the dancing, or more accurately, hopping since no one’s really dancing. They’re bouncing or “humping” to the electro-throb. Those in the middle of the mob became part of the collective body grooving where the Sokol’s oak floor had (apparently) been replaced with a trampoline.

Matthew Sweet / Tommy Keene, O’Leaver’s, July 30 — It was nothing less than a dream come true for Matthew Sweet fans. There he was, literally steps in front of them, surrounded by a top-notch band playing all of his “greatest hits” one after the other in fine voice. As Sweet said, it was like playing a gig in someone’s living room.

Maha Music Festival, Stinson Park, Aug. 17 —  It was a good, though rather exhausting, day thanks to humid weather and a loaded line-up that made it hard to sneak away to re-energize.

Future Islands, The Waiting Room, Aug. 28 — You did not hear Samuel T. at his best. His vocals were ragged from the very start, often breaking down to choked whispers.

Sebadoh, Reverb Lounge, Sept. 28 — Barlow’s getting shaggy in his old age, with a big head of hair and a massive beard. His voice was as good as ever (when I could hear it). Loewenstein also was in fine form (especial on his personal anthem, “My Drugs”), despite suffering from a tooth ache. Ouch.

Iceage, Slowdown Jr., Oct. 27 — The performance seemed like a captured moment in time, and I felt lucky to be there. Iceage is a band burning brightly. But like all bright flames, how long will it last?

Twin Peaks, Midtown Art Supply, Nov. 25 — Twin Peaks’ music is rowdy up-beat rock that borders on garage surf, but there is a precision to it that puts it on another level.

Ritual Device / Cellophane Ceiling, The Waiting Room, Dec. 26 — Two of the most anticipated reunions ever, straight out of Nebraska’s first Golden Age of indie rock.

First published in The Reader, Dec. 23, 2014. Copyright © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Have a Merry Christmas. See you Friday at The Waiting Room…

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m simply reiterating what I posted yesterday: tonight is the Neva Dinova reunion show at The Slowdown. If you’re a fan of the band (or even if you’ve never heard of them) you should go there for this one-and-done show that may never be repeated.

It’s a big show: Opening is Twinsmith, The Both and Outlaw Con Bandana. With most of us having tomorrow off, you have no excuse for not attending. Plus, it’s only $10. Starts early, 8 p.m. And this is the last big show until after Christmas.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the annual Year in Review entry (which also appears in this week’s issue of The Reader), which includes my list of favorite albums from 2014 and favorite shows. See you then…

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Neva Dinova circa a long time ago (but not that long). The band reunites Tuesday night at The Slowdown.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Somewhere in the past few years, Christmas week became thee time for local rock band reunions. I’m not sure when this began. The concert poster on the wall in my office is for a show dated Dec. 26, 1993, featuring Ritual Device, Mercy Rule, Secret Skin, Frontier Trust, Clayface and End Crowns All (holy shit, six bands), all of which were very much active and not “reuniting” in 1993.

This week, we’re all going to see and hear Ritual Device reunite on The Waiting Room stage, exactly 21 years to the day of that amazing concert at the Capitol Bar and Grill.

But before that, tomorrow night (Tuesday) we’ll all be at a reunion of Neva Dinova at The Slowdown, which isn’t really a reunion, because I’m not sure Neva Dinova ever officially broke up. They’re still listed as “active” on the Saddle Creek website. And Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows confirmed the band never did really call it quits.

“Our last show was in December 2008,” said Jake just before band practice last Wednesday evening. “We never issued a press release about breaking up. Everyone had other important things going on. They were trying to sort out careers that would provide enough money to raise babies. We just couldn’t afford to be in a band anymore.”

That date on that show poster — 1993 — also was the year Neva Dinova first started playing together, but the line-up that’s performing Tuesday night first came together in 1999 at a now infamous gig at Grandmother’s Restaurant on 84th and L streets. You can read about that show (which included guest drumming by Conor Oberst, and Todd and Clark Baechle) in this 2001 Lazy-i interview with the band, written shortly after their self-titled, self-released album came out.

That line-up is back: Bellows, bassist/vocalist Heath Koontz, guitarist Tim Haes and guitarist Mike Kratky. Drummer Bo Anderson (who was tending bar at Grandmothers that fateful night in 1999) also will play Tuesday night on a handful of songs, along with most recent drummer Roger Lewis (The Good Life, Oquoa). Both Anderson and Lewis are credited on the 2004 Neva Dinova/Bright Eyes split, One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels (originally released on Crank! but reissued years later by Saddle Creek).

“We’ve been looking for an excuse to play together again for a long time just for fun,” Bellows said. “Since everyone’s going to be in town, it seemed to make the most sense. We needed to make time to practice because we knew we were gonna need it.”

Bellows said Haes has the most rust of any of the band members… literally. “The strings on his guitar were literally rusty,” Bellows said. “I think he does all his playing in the rain.”

Bellows said for this gig the band has been thinking of itself as a Neva Dinova cover band. “The nature of this show is unusual,” he said. “Before, we just played what we wanted to play. In this case, the whole point is to get back together, and we felt like we should play songs people want to hear that we haven’t played or didn’t want to play before.”

That meant coming up with the quintessential Neva Dinova play list. “We’ve got 20 songs on the list, maybe 25,” Bellows said. “We’re kind of deciding what we think sounds cool.”

I threw out “Tryptophan” and “Supercomputer” as two possibilities; Bellows verbally nodded his head. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they make the cut.

Those who might wonder if this is the beginning of something bigger, Bellows assured me the show is a one-time thing. He’s called Echo Park in central Los Angeles home for four years. “LA is fine,” he said. “I miss everyone back home and come back five or six times a year.”

As for his solo career, Bellows said he has a bunch of new songs that will either be on a Jake Bellows record or recorded under a different band name. “Naming a band after yourself is weird,” he said.

Tomorrow night’s show is rather big in scale. Playing with Neva Dinova is the latest addition to the Saddle Creek Records roster, Twinsmith, along with local faves Outlaw Con Bandana and hip-hop act The Both. This 8 p.m. show is happening on Slowdown’s big stage. Get your $10 tickets here.

Son, Ambulance at O’Leaver’s Dec. 20, 2014.

Saturday night’s Son, Ambulance gig at O’Leaver’s wasn’t a reunion, though it felt like one (maybe because Dereck Higgins was back on bass). The band had a new sway in its step, a pronounced swing that it lacked in its prior, more stoic form in year’s past. Their set included old and new, but all of it sounded new to me. I credit a more relaxed Joe Knapp, the band’s mastermind, songwriter and frontman. In the old days, Joe always looked nervous — or at the very least tense — on stage, as if he was expecting something to go wrong at any moment.

Saturday night Joe looked and sounded like a guy having a good time playing his music with a large group of friends, despite the technical glitches that hampered the first three songs (including a keyboard that refused to play).

Son, Ambulance’s Joe Knapp, left, and James Cuato.

Knapp always has reminded me of Elvis Costello at his most playful, but even more so now. Maybe his confidence comes by way of a solid band built on the bedrock rhythm section of Higgins and drummer David Ozinga. A bongo player also was crammed into one corner, though you couldn’t hear him. Dylan Strimple handled electric guitar, but the most arresting moments were between James Cuato on sax and flute and cellist April Faith-Slaker. Their layered interplay added a whole new dimension to the band.

BTW, if you’re counting, that’s six people crammed onto O’Leaver’s tiny “stage” area, and I’m told that wasn’t even the entire band — a few were missing, including Joe’s brother Daniel.

Everything came together for funky set closer “Copper Lady” with a back beat that bordered on blues rock. So hot was this number that the band brought it back for a crowd-demanded pseudo encore.

Rather than a reunion, Saturday night sounded like a rebirth for Son, Ambulance. The band has a new energy. I’m told they’ve got at least six new songs recorded and ready to go (including a version of that aforementioned “Copper Lady”). When and where those tracks eventually show up is anyone’s guess. Saddle Creek, who put out past Son, Ambulance records, hasn’t mentioned the band in regards to future releases, though I believe they’d be wise to welcome them back to the active roster.

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Only The Sons of Nakatomi Plaza… can drive somebody that crazy…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

‘Twas the weekend before Christmas and all through the clubs, not a creature was stirring except… the four assholes coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation…

OK, we’re not at Nakatomi Plaza. We’re in Omaha. And the weekend before Christmas in Omaha means rock shows. And believe it or not, there actually are a couple good ones happening this weekend.

Tonight, the best show in town is The Sons of Reverb opening for Bazille Mills at the Reverb Lounge in Benson. The Sons of… are always a good time. Bazille Mills I know nothing about, nor the other opener, The Talbott Brothers, but something tells me I’m going to find out about them tonight. $7, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Power Slop has its LP release show at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Swamp Walk and FLAK. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) it’s back to O’Leaver’s for the “Winter Solstice Celebration” headlined by none other than Saddle Creek Records band Son, Ambulance. Opening is hip-hop superstars M34N STR33T and The Renfields. Expect a full house. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Saturday night Reverb Lounge hosts a Sower Records showcase. Sower’s roster is “is a collection of artists fancied in the styles of American roots music.” I’m not sure where they’re headquartered (contact info is missing from their website) but probably somewhere in Nebraska, considering who’s playing the showcase: The Bottle Tops, Bud Heavy and the High Lifes, Jack Hotel, Matt Cox, Little Marais and Evan Bartels and the Stoney Lonesomes. $5, 9 p.m.

Finally, Sunday night Routine Escorts headlines at Reverb Lounge with Thinkin Machines & Forest Television. $7, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile it’s C&W night at The Waiting Room Sunday night with Clarence Tilton, The Electroliners and Matt Cox. Your $7 cover will go toward the Coat Drive for the Heart Ministry Center. This is an early 7 p.m. show.

That’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Merry Christmas, or as John McClane would say, Yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er! and to all a good night.

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The cover of this week’s issue of The Reader featuring a profile on Ritual Device, Cellophane Ceiling and Main Vein Productions.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

There was no update yesterday as I was buried writing a cover story for Thursday’s issue of The Reader about Cellophane Ceiling and Ritual Device, who are playing Dec. 26 at The Waiting Room. It’s a Main Vein Production (which is also discussed in the article). Huge show, huge reunion.

If you didn’t already know, Nightbird has been added to this line-up, and I’m told Lee Meyerpeter and his crew will be playing some Cactus Nerve Thang covers (Lee, as you know, was in Cactus) just to make this post-Christmas trip inside the Wayback Machine that much more authentic.

It’s great that we have all these reunion shows happening next week (Neva Dinova is next Tuesday at The Slowdown, for example) because there’s virtually nothing else happening around here (at least until Friday). I mean, holy shit, has there ever been a bigger drought in local news?

The hottest buzz is that Icky Blossoms has finished recording their new record, which is headed for a release on Saddle Creek next year. And Matt Whipkey informs me his new record is in the can, ready for a 2015 release.

And then yesterday Hear Nebraska reported (right here) that Denver Dalley of Desaparecidos, Statistics, Intramural and Two of Cups fame (as well as Har Mar Superstar’s sideman) has formed a new band with Pink Spiders frontman Matt Friction called Broken Bats. What that will sound like is anyone’s guess.

And finally, Darren Keen has chimed in from his new home in Brooklyn, New York, to say that he’s posted a couple new DJ mixes:

This is a worldy / tropical bass / club oriented type mix: https://soundcloud.com/darrenkeen/darren-keen-the-opposite-of-a-cold-snowy-city . This is a retro / synth / vocoder funk mix as my loose “DJ Tango Cash” pseudonym: https://soundcloud.com/darrenkeen/dj-tango-cash-waking-up-marcy

The DJ Tango Cash mix got me through my morning. I’m still trying to catch up with Darren to see what his plan is for conquering The Big Apple…

In case you were wondering, there are no shows going on tonight. Head over to The Barley Street Tavern for the Viva La Vinyl Christmas Party and buy DJ Brad Hoshaw a tall boy…

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.