by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It’s been a long while since there’s been this kind of excitement surrounding Saddle Creek Records: Three releases over the course of the past two weeks: Hop Along’s Painted Shut, Twinsmith’s Alligator Years and Icky Blossoms’ Mask. Boom-boom-boom.

So far, the Hop Along release has received the lion’s share of press (but then again, it’s been out the longest). In addition to its massive Pitchfork rating (7.9), the album received a whopping 4-star review in the new issue of Rolling Stone. And the record is among the top-10 highest rated at review aggregator Album of the Year with a composite rating of 83 out of 100 (based on 10 reviews). Impressive.

Icky Blossoms, Mask (2015, Saddle Creek)

Not to be outdone, Pitchfork just reviewed the new Icky Blossoms record, giving it a respectable 6.8 rating. The review concluded with, “…a follow-up that finds Icky Blossoms letting their guard down and embracing the values of their music scene, where there’s no higher form of fashion than wearing your heart on your sleeve.” OK then.

I listened to the record over and over last night. The album trounces around with more unbridled energy than the band’s debut, relentlessly so. Mask isn’t so much a dance record as a rock album with a beat that leans closer to acidic psychedelic more than EDM or “electro-clash” (whatever that means). For my money, Mask has more infectious electronic hooks than the debut, which makes it more interesting, and more fun.

Sarah Bohling sounds like an altogether different vocalist, with a range that goes well beyond the deep, pronounced croak heard on the debut. Pitchfork noted this as well, saying about the band’s debut, “There were moments where the band’s primary singer Sarah Bohling in particular sounded as if she longed to emote, but she restrained herself, because genre protocol dictated she remain as dispassionate as the sequenced pulses behind her. On Icky Blossoms’ sophomore album Mask, Bohling recasts herself as a real, vulnerable human being.” Hear hear!

If there’s a criticism it’s that the album is too relentless, rarely letting up on the gas pedal. There’s nothing on the new record as campy or fun as “Babes” or as slinkly/slacker as “Perfect Vision,” though for sheer debauchery, nothing on the debut matches album highlight “Away from You” and the line “Let’s get together / There’s no afterlife.” Or the emotional punch of “Want You So Bad,” which starts off sounding like a lost Azure Ray track.

Allmusic.com — maybe the oldest online review site — came in with a 3-1/2 star review for Mask, pointing out: “…the inelegant use of compression that causes even the sweeter parts of Mask to slam like a digital hurricane becomes downright distracting, especially on the final two tracks which, consequently, are the most aggressive and harshest mixes on the album. Production missteps aside, there is some great material here and Icky Blossoms’ big new sound generally agrees with them.”

We’re still waiting for the Twinsmith reviews to come rolling in, though Allmusic has weighed in with a 3-star review, concluding: “…much of Alligator Years feels so familiar that it’s hard to distinguish them from the multitude of other generally pleasant bands working in this same milieu. Still, it’s a solid enough release by a talented young band who have the potential to grow into their own personality.”

Exciting times. And it’ll keep on rolling next month when the new Desaparecidos new record comes out on Epitaph the same day the new Digital Leather record comes out on FDH. I haven’t heard the Desa record yet. The DL record is a breakthrough of sorts for the band.

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Tonight at The Waiting Room, The Lone Bellow (Descendent) with Cereus Bright and Clarence Tilton. $15, 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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Matt Sharp of The Rentals navigates through a crowd. The band plays at The Waiting Room Friday night.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Matt Sharp of The Rentals (and formerly of Weezer) talks about his band’s latest project, working with the Haden Sisters (of remarkable ’90s band That Dog) and what it takes to get heard in these days when there are a million channels instead of just three. From the story, which is online right here:

…Sharp knows that times have changed, and getting heard has never been more difficult. “If you go back to the ’50s and Elvis, there were only a few channels for the entire country,” he said. “Everybody had such limited options; they experienced things together, like this universal experience of seeing The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.”

Today, with countless channels and outlets for media, is it possible for The Rentals to enjoy the kind of success that Weezer had?

“I severely doubt that,” Sharp said. “I don’t even think that’s in the realm of thinking because that was a different time. For those kinds of moments to happen everything has to fall into the right place.”

Read the whole story at The Reader here. I’ll be including portions of the interview in this week’s Lazy-i Podcast, which will (probably) go online tomorrow. In the meantime, READ.

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Fun times last night at The Waiting Room where I moderated a panel of music pros that included Orenda Fink, Mike Mogis, Matt Whipkey and CJ Olson. The room was packed and the time flew by as we discussed the art of songwriting, working in a recording studio and how to get noticed by a record label’s A&R guy. CJ talked about how Saddle Creek discovered and landed Hop Along, the newest addition to the Creek roster and the best non-Omaha addition in years.  Hop Along’s Saddle Creek debut is out now.

And Mike Mogis talked about how new artists should prepare for their first time in the studio, from having demos in hand to simply knowing what you’re going to play and how to play it, and then being open to what the producer or collaborator brings to the process. As he pointed out, the final product never sounds like the demos, nor should it.

And Orenda and Matt added technicolor to the writing process. Their bottom line: Be honest, write for yourself and don’t worry about trying to write a hit record. The best stuff always comes from the heart.

Someone was videotaping the entire panel. No idea if it’ll ever see the light of YouTube, but if it does, I’ll let you know.

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Dereck Higgins

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Dereck Higgins has been the topic of a number of cover stories and feature articles over the past year, all of them lauding his musical and artistic achievements. Good stuff, but I noticed none of the stories talked about the struggles Higgins deals with as a working artist and musician whose sole income comes from his music and art.

He talks about those challenges and the decisions he made to get where he is in this month’s Over the Edge column, which you can read online right here at thereader.com.

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As mentioned last week, tonight I’ll be moderating a panel of local professionals involved in the music biz, all of whom you’re probably very familiar with: Mike Mogis, Orenda Fink, Matt Whipkey and CJ Olson. They’ll be providing insights about the music industry from each of their unique perspectives. Mogis from the studio; Olson as an A&R dude; Matt and Orenda as singer/songwriters.

In fact, the audience (which can include you, as this is free and open to the public) is singer/songwriters who took part in the Omaha Performing Arts songwriting contest held in conjunction with their presentation of the Broadway musical Once down at the Orpheum starting tomorrow night. Think of this as a mini-seminar with some of the area’s most successful talent as your teachers.

The panel starts at 6:30 at The Waiting Room and is free. It’s followed by performances from the winners of the OPA songwriting contest. Come on out and see me sweat under The Waiting Room lights.

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Matt Pond PA at Reverb Lounge, May 7, 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Matt Pond PA has such a sublime voice. I mean, a really good voice, especially for the kind of indie-pop music he’s known for. The first time I saw him play was about 12 years ago at Sokol Underground, and his voice has only gotten better. So has his band. He had an amazing crew with him last night at Reverb Lounge, including a standout guitarist, cellist, drummer and bass player (Hey, that’s everybody!).

For this performance they played his 2005 album Several Arrows Later, which was/is a career standout moment for Pond. A collection of 12 songs, each a charmer in its own way, played as if he just released the album last week. Pond and his band ran through the entire record (I think) in order, hardly pausing between songs except to let one of his band mates share a corny joke or two.

Pond’s songs, whether upbeat or mellow, have a somber edge lyrically and sonically. They’re the kind of songs that bring emotions forward to catch in your throat like the memory of a long-ago breakup or a loved one you haven’t seen in years or may never see again. Sad songs mostly, but catchy and memorable. In that way, Pond’s music reminds me of stuff by Pete Yorn or Jeremy Messersmith, though Yorn’s stuff can be so dark and lonely I have hard time even listening to it. Not so with Pond’s music, which is catchy and fun even if it leaves you with a broken heart

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It’s a sorta slow weekend for shows.

Tonight Outlaw Con Bandana headlines at fabulous O’Leaver’s. You can’t miss with Brendan and Pearl. Also on the bill are Church of Graviton and Andrew Berkley. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Saturday night Relax, It’s Science plays at Reverb in Benson with nanaHara. $5, 9 p.m.

Over at O’Leaver’s Saturday it’s singer/songwriter Miwi La Lupa, who was Kevin Coffey’s “band of the week” in the Omaha World-Herald, presumably beating out Garth Brooks (and for good reason). Joining him at the club are Calling Cody and Jazz Brown & The Afterthought. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And that does it for the weekend. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. And if you haven’t already (or even if you have) listen to this week’s Lazy-i Podcast featuring reviews of new albums by Klemmensen, Joyner, Barnett and Waxahatchee, along with some other fun stuff. Have a great weekend!

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Matt Pond PA at Slowdown Jr., May 11, 2010

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

First, if you haven’t already, check out this week’s podcast. Reviews of albums from Courtney Barnett, Waxahatchee, John Klemmensen and the Party and Simon Joyner, with special guest Chris Aponick, plus a HUGE concert announcement (that we made online here yesterday and that you’re going to get sick of hearing about). Check it out.

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Over the course of what seems like a month (But was only a week or so) Hear Nebraska has  announced the line-ups of its Good Living Tour — a series of concerts the org is putting together in towns west of Omaha and Lincoln. It’s kind of like musical missionary work.

Actually, that’s a very pretentious way of putting it. It’s not as if the people in small towns don’t have access to the internet, where music lives these days. You can’t point to their lack of a terrestrial radio station that plays local music on rotation because, well, Omaha doesn’t have one of those, either.

That said, it’s safe to say that someone in West Point or Valentine is out of touch with indie rock bands in Omaha and Lincoln because the vast majority of people in Omaha and Lincoln also are out of touch with these same bands. Brad Hoshaw and John Klemmensen may draw a few hundred people to their album release shows; but that leaves about 800,000 people in Omaha who still don’t know who they are.

And as I’ve said before (broken record) the next time you’re in line at Hy-Vee tap the shoulder of the person in front of you and ask if they know who Cursive or Conor Oberst is, or for that matter, what Hear Nebraska is. Let’s not kid ourselves. The organization still has a lot of work to do to get the word out in its own back yard, let alone in rural Nebraska.

Still, this is a cool project that sits at the heart of what Hear Nebraska is all about. It’s rare for the folks in these towns to see these bands perform. Check out these dates and line-ups, gas up and take a road trip:

July 17 — Imperial
The Talbott Brothers
See Through Dresses
The Bottle Tops

July 18 — Ogallala
Twinsmith
Freakabout
Lloyd McCarter

July 19 — Gering/Scottsbluff
McCarthy Trenching
Both
blét

July 20 — Valentine
Kris Lager Band
All Young Girls Are Machine Guns
Oketo

July 21 — North Platte
M34n Str33t
Brad Hoshaw
A Ferocious Jungle Cat

July 22 — Kearney
Josh Hoyer and the Shadowboxers
The Seen
Mike Adams and Friends

July 23 — West Point
Rock Paper Dynamite
John Klemmensen and the Party
Dustin Prinz

July 24 — Nebraska City
A Summer Better Than Yours
Kill County
The So-So Sailors

July 25 — Grand Island
AZP
Simon Joyner & The Ghosts
Icky Blossoms

More info, including times and venue locations, are available right here at hearnebraska.com.

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When I agreed to be the moderator of next Monday’s “pro panel” discussion sponsored by Omaha Performing Arts that’s being held at The Waiting Room (Mike Mogis, CJ Olson, Orenda Fink, Matt Whipkey, 6 p.m, free!) I didn’t know I also was volunteering to be a judge in a songwriting contest. I, uh, don’t usually like music contests, of any kind. Songwriters competing against each other, what’s the point? Is one song really better than another? In this case, yes.

The contestants were told to use the Broadway musical Once as an inspiration (the touring company version is currently performing the musical at the Orpheum). I listened to 50 entries, all posted on YouTube, along with a panel of judges. The obvious choices floated to the surface, and the top 20 songwriters who entered will be performing on stage after the panel discussion. The top two won something coveted by a lot of musicians (local and otherwise): Recording time with Mike Mogis at ARC Studio. Impressive.

So the winners were: Luke Heffron, 17, of Omaha won for “Forget Myself” in the 13-18 Age Division, and Drew Nenemen, 29, of Omaha won for “Another Love Song” in the 19-29 Age Division.

My general observations after going though this process: There are a lot of Jack Johnson / Dave Matthews / Taylor Swift fans out there (especially Jack Johnson fans). I was more impressed with the 13-18 age category entries as well as those who performed with a full band rather than sitting in their bathroom with a guitar on their lap. There’s a lot o’ young talent in this town, and you’ll get to see some of the best on Monday. It should be fun night.

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Tonight, it’s the return of Matt Pond PA. Seems like ol’ Mr. Pond has been coming through Omaha every few years for the past couple decades. This time the show is part of the band’s 10 Year Anniversary tour in support of one of their most beloved albums, Several Arrows Later. Each night, not only will Pond and crew play the album in full, but also a sampling of songs from their upcoming album The State of Gold, which will be released later this year. Opening is Young Buffalo and our very own See Through Dresses. $12, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, listen to Matt Whipkey’s Underwater album on a $250,000 sound system that includes a $100,000 turntable. The free event runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Sound Environment, 11021 Elm St. Whipkey says beer and wine will be provided. Bring your checkbook; you’ll want to go home with one of those turntables…

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The 50th Birthday Concert at Reverb, June 3, 2015. A benefit for Hear Nebraska.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

So here’s the big secret concert I mentioned last week: My 50th Birthday Concert, organized by Polecat Communications (i.e., my wife, Teresa), June 3, 2015, at Reverb Lounge. The bands: Son, Ambulance, The Wagon Blasters and The Lupines. It’s a fantastic line-up for a celebration, with proceeds going to a good cause: Hear Nebraska, an organization that I’ve served as a board member for a few years now. Please join me for an evening of fun, music and booze!

The announcement was first made during this week’s Lazy-i Podcast (linked below). This week’s episode features Chris Aponick and myself bantering back and forth Siskel & Ebert style (you can decide which of us is which) over four first quarter 2015 releases by Courtney Barnett, Waxahatchee, John Klemmensen and the Party and Simon Joyner. Also a live soundbite from Digital Leather to kick things off. Check it out below.

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

See Through Dresses at The Waiting Room, July 19, 2014. The band just signed to Tiny Engines.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Indie label Tiny Engines announced today that it signed Omaha band See Through Dresses. The Carolinas-based label has been around since 2008 , according to their website. Their roster includes Beach Slang, which recently toured with Cursive, Adult Mom, Everyone Everywhere and a shitload of bands I’ve never heard of (but who are probably awesome).

Look for a new See Through Dresses EP this fall on Tiny Engines. The band just finished touring with Cursive and are headed out on a rather massive European tour starting right after they open for Matt Pond PA at Reverb this Thursday night. No doubt Sara Bertuldo, Matt Carroll and the rest of the band will be fluent in German when they return in June.

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Speaking of touring, Desaparecidos just added a few more dates to their summer tour, according to Brooklyn Vegan. The band will play support shows with Gaslight Anthem and Brand New, and will be hosting their CD release shows for Payola (out June 23 on Epitaph Records) in NYC at Shea Stadium and Rough Trade.

Meanwhile, the various members of Desa are busy trying to ride the wave of publicity with their own projects.

Rig 1 a.k.a. Ian McElroy, just announced a handful of East Coast and Midwest tour dates in support of his last record, 2014’s North of Maple (Team Love Records).

One of Denver Dalley’s other projects, Broken Bats, yesterday premiered a track off their upcoming EP called “Leather” (listen to the track here). In addition to Denver, Broken Bats consists of  former Pink Spiders frontman Matt “Friction” Bell, Future Unlimited drummer Gabe Pigg, and Tony Smith from Bowling Green rockers Sleeper Agent. The full EP apparently drops digitally today. The band is playing at Mercury Lounge in NYC May 14 with Fidlar and Metz.

I mentioned Matt Baum’s latest project, Montee Men, recently released a new tune on Bandcamp. And, of course, Landon Hedges’ project Little Brazil is in the process of writing and recording a new album.

Then there’s Conor Oberst, who’s got solo dates throughout the month of June, including a sold out show at The Waiting Room June 18.

* * *

Tonight at Slowdown Jr. it’s the return of San Francisco band Vetiver (Sub Pop, Easy Sound). Opening is EDJ (Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats). $15, 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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

John Klemmensen and the Party at Reverb, May 1, 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What is the musical future of John Klemmensen? Who knows. It’s impossible to base anything on an album release party. Case in point: How many times have you seen bands pull off well-attended album release shows only to fall back to wherever they were before, never building on the momentum they’ve gained leading up to the show? It’s laughably commonplace.

On the other hand, what are these artists supposed to do next? The simple answer is hit the road. Go on a self-booked tour that gets them to as many nearby cities and towns as possible; a tour that presumably was arranged months in advance of the album release show. But that rarely happens because, well, these artists have to survive. They have to feed themselves and their family. They have to pay their rent. Which means the following Monday it’s back to whatever day-job they suffer through to pay the bills.

Booking a tour on your own is difficult. Going out on tour — especially with a band the size of The Party — is expensive. It’s a massive money-loser for everyone involved, an expensive vacation that doesn’t include good meals and hotels. Because of these reasons, local bands talk about touring, but rarely do.

And time passes. Eventually the band plays another local show, and another. And slowly, in their spare time, they begin to write more songs and, before you know it, a Kickstarter campaign pops up and they begin gearing up for the next album release show. It’s an endless cycle. The only way to break out of it is for a miracle to happen, such as someone important (such as a record label) discovering your album who is willing to do what it takes to get you to the next level — rerelease, distribution, publicity, booking agent, financial backing necessary to hit the road. It’s like winning the lottery, and it never happens.

That doesn’t stop people from dreaming. Part of that dream has happened for Klemmensen. Someone put up the money to press 500 copies of Party All Night, his new album. What that person is able to do next to get the record heard only Klemmensen knows, but to that person I say: You have made a good bet based on how the audience responded to his music Friday night — full-on sing-alongs and fist pumps. It helps that Klemmensen has been performing this music for months, but there also is that tangible quality — memorable, yell-worthy lyrics.

I think Klemmensen could break through as a pop act. His music is suited for it. It’s certainly not indie, and when it comes to making a living playing music, that’s probably a good thing these days. But it all depends on what he does next. If he never gets a chance to go on the road, if he goes back to life-as-usual, the only thing that’ll come out of Friday night’s show is a sweet memory.

Little Brazil at Reverb Lounge, May 1, 2015.

Opener Little Brazil put on the best show they’ve played in a long time. The set was all (or almost all) new material, and it was all somewhat awesome. I’m told they’ve recorded some demoes of these songs; can a full-length can’t be far off? Well, frontman Landon Hedges has his hands full over the coming months with the release of the new album by his other band, Desaparecidos, and the ongoing support tour.

Dan McCarthy at Brad’s Corner during Benson First Friday, May 1, 2015.

One other act I caught Friday — Dan McCarthy doing a solo acoustic set on Brad’s Corner. McCarthy is always entertaining. If Brad Hoshaw had been ambitious he would have dragged a full-sized upright piano out to the corner. Next time. Benson First Friday is getting crazier and crazier. This time Military Ave. was blocked off for some sort of art fair craft show thing…

* * *
When did record labels start releasing albums on Mondays? Today Saddle Creek released the new Hop Along and Twinsmith records. Isn’t Tuesday release day (which is eventually shifting to Fridays at some point)?

No matter. If you haven’t heard the new Hop Along album, titled Painted Shut, you need to. As I’ve said before, it’s the best non-Omaha-based Saddle Creek release in years. And apparently Pitchfork agrees. The indie “tastemakers” gave the album a respectable 7.9 rating in this review, where they call out Saddle Creek:

Painted Shut is being released on Saddle Creek, a label built on the kind of romantic, middle-American indie that made Hop Along possible in the first place—music more indebted to the 1970s than the 1980s, more to the earnest mythologizing of folk than the grandstanding of rock, more to the fantasias of Edward Gorey and e.e. cummings than to the flash of the city; music for rickety houses in college towns and the lonelyhearts who collect in their corners like dust and give each other stick-and-pokes. I’d say it all seems old-fashioned but it has been this way for about 25 years and seems part of a longer continuum all the time, so who knows.

Uh, 25 years?

Now, Pitchfork, where’s that Twinsmith review? Not to be outdone, punknews.org reviewed Alligator Years and gave it four stars (out of five, here), launching the review with the statement: “Omaha’s Twinsmith are the next Vampire Weekend.” Oh boy…

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Just got word that the big concert announcement I mentioned online here last week is coming Wednesday morning. Huge. Watch Lazy-i or (I guess) the local media for the announcement. It’ll  be hard to miss.

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Great Monday night show tonight: Lady Lamb, whose new album After was just released in March on Mom & Pop Music (Courtney Barnett’s new label) are playing at Slowdown Jr. with Rathborne and Jordan Smith. $12, 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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

John Klemmensen at The Waiting Room, Feb. 21, 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’ve been enjoying the tracks from John Klemmensen & The Party’s new new album, Party All Night, for more than a month. The actual record — and I’m talking vinyl record — will finally be available tonight at a special release show at Reverb Lounge. The album is a career benchmark for Klemmensen, who has been performing music for more than 20 years both solo, with The Party and in a slew of bands, the most recent being Landing on the Moon.

In fact, the tunes off Party All Night most closely resemble LotM songs, but with a more focused, more stripped down (but no less rocking) approach. Klemmesen’s one of the better singer/songwriters in town, creating rock songs with a mainstream appeal sung in a high, sweet voice that belies his stature. My favorite part of his music is how he channels his personal stories into his lyrics — there’s no question he’s singing about his life, his experiences, in a candid, matter-of-fact way that holds nothing back. Klemmensen lets it all hang out, singing with a brazen honesty rarely heard in modern pop songs. And it can be some disturbing, heart-breaking shit.

For example, take the new album’s title track, with the lines, “If I had real love / I wouldn’t drink ’til the morning comes / She would be waking up / I would want to be with her / I’d probably quit cocaine / Unless it was her thing / Then we’d do it all night / Until the sun comes up.”

Or, from “Death and Destruction,” the lines “I’m feeling bored, bored with myself / Death and destruction are all that I have left / I want to f*** the world on a dirty motel bed / I don’t love her no more so I treat her like shit.”

I don’t think any of us want to know what inspired those lines. Needless to say, the words are bracing and unexpected, especially if you’ve met Klemmensen — one of the nicest, quietest guys in the Omaha scene, he holds in his rage until he gets on stage, or in the studio.

For every dark ode there’s a good-time song in its shadow. Klemmensen indeed loves to party, and this record was designed to be the perfect soundtrack to every regretful decision you make at your life’s party.

Opening tonight’s show at Reverb are those everlovin’ geniuses from Little Brazil and Bonzo Madrid, featuring CJ Calhoun from Lawrence band Cowboy Indian Bear. $8, 9 p.m.

The Klemmensen show is the top attraction of a busy night of shows.

This afternoon at 5 p.m. the legendary Grant Hart of Husker Du will be at The Sydney in Benson, where his artwork will be on display all weekend. Yes, Hart is a fine artist as well as a musician. You can check it out for free (and buy a piece of art) until 8 p.m. when The Sydney hosts a screening of the documentary Every Everything: The Music, Life and Times of Grant Hart followed by a discussion with Hart and a performance. Talk about being up close and personal. Admission is $12.

BTW, Hart also is doing a special Sunday afternoon all-ages matinee performance at The Sydney at 3 p.m. Tickets: Adults and children ages 13+ are $12; children younger than 13 are free. And adults who attend tonight’s show also will be admitted free if accompanied by a child.

Also tonight, M34n Str33t is headlining at The Slowdown with Calm Fur, Timecat and INFNTLP. $8, 9 p.m.

And All Young Girls Are Machine Guns are playing at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Xion/ Mesonjixx and Lars & Mal. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And and in case you forgot, it’s Benson First Friday. Tonight’s special guests at “Brad’s Corner” (hosted by Brad Hoshaw) are the incomparable Dan McCarthy and David Mainelli.  Brad’s Corner takes place from 8 to 11 p.m. in front of the Edward Jones building right where Military Ave. meets Maple Street in downtown Benson.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) is less crowded show-wise.

Satchel Grande is hosting an album release show down at The Slowdown. Joining them is Lucas Kellson. $8, 9 p.m.

The Strange Attractors headlines at O’Leaver’s Saturday night with The Last Draft and a solo set by Attractors’ member (and local legend) Dereck Higgins. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Sunday night McCarthy Trenching is playing at Pageturners with Little Marais. 8 p.m.  And Seattle band My Goodness is playing at Reverb Lounge with Low Long Signal. $10, 9 p.m.

That’s what I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend.

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.