Mal Blum performing at Slowdown, Aug. 12, 2025.

By Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Backed by a three-piece band and playing guitar, Mal Blum performed a rather subdued set last night at Slowdown that highlighted material from their new album, The Villain, along with a couple oldies.

Struggling initially with in-ear monitors, Blum never seemed to recover, at least from a vocal perspective, at times barely singing or quietly mumbling into both a standard microphone and an old-fashioned red handset telephone. 

A pleasure of their recordings is being able to make out every word to every song, which unfortunately just wasn’t the case last night.  The crowd of around 40 helped by singing along to oldie “New Year’s Eve” from 2010’s Every Time You Go Somewhere.

Blum also threw in plenty of between-song snappy patter, describing the previous evening’s trip to “one of Omaha’s three gay bars” (unfortunately, they were the only ones there), and, along with the rest of the band, being chased off of the Bob Kerrey Bridge by a female ghost. 

Stage hijinks included picking up a prop gasoline can and pouring the contents over their head before ripping into a rousing version of “Too Soon” from the new album. 

Charlie Mtn. at Slowdown, Aug. 12, 2025.

Just prior to Blum, singer/songwriter Charlie Mtn. played a solo set of C&W-flavored acoustic bangers, each song providing a glimpse into their trans journey that began in 2020. 

Charlie, a.k.a. John-Allison Weiss, had a rapid-fire guitar strumming style and kept time by kicking a tambourine lying on the stage. Weiss just wrapped up recording with a full band, so keep an eye out for a new album.

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North Carolina singer/songwriter Rosali is practically an Omaha local. Her last album, Bite Down (2024, Merge Records), was recorded with members of Omaha’s David Nance and Mowed Sound band. 

In fact, Rosali’s touring band has included Nance, drummer Kevin Donahue and guitarist Jim Schroeder; and Colin Duckworth, Pearl Lovejoy Boyd, JJ Idt and Ted Bois are credited on the album. I assume we’ll see some of these folks on stage with Rosali when she plays tonight at Reverb Lounge. 

This date was not listed on her website. I guess she figured “why not play one more gig with the band?” as she heads back after a brief West Coast tour. Lucky us. Sgt. Leisure opens the show at 8 p.m. $15.

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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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.