by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Well, I was beginning to think Saddle Creek Records was becoming a purely nostalgia-based label. 

For the past couple months our hometown record label has solely announced reissues. First were The Faint reissues of classic albums Blank-Wave Arcade (originally released in 1999) and Wet From Birth (2004), both out March 14. And then the Rilo Kiley announcements – the April 25 reissue of The Execution of All Things (originally released in 2002) and a new “greatest hits”-style collection, That’s How We Choose to Remember It, out May 9. Of course both bands will be on limited national tours. 

Then yesterday Saddle Creek announced it signed singer/songwriter Dean Johnson, described as a “longstanding Seattle underground gem-turned-rising Americana star.” In 2023, Johnson released his debut full-length, Nothing for Me, Please, at the age of 50. “Dean’s songwriting reminds us why music matters, offering proof that a song can be more than the sum of its parts,” says the Saddle Creek one-sheet. 

Saddle Creek begins its relationship with Johnson with the April 11 release of “Blue Moon” b/w “Lake Charles” 7-inch as part of their Document singles series. Preorder here. The A-side, which you can hear below, is an original, while the B-side is a Lucinda Williams cover. 

Johnson heads out on a European tour in April, followed by a few Pacific Northwest dates. “Expect more music & news from Dean Johnson this year,” says Saddle Creek. 

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Omaha ex-pat singer/songwriter/poet Kyle Harvey emailed to say he has a new collection of ambient soundscapes out today called Holographic Topographies. It’s his fourth full length under the moniker When Light.

Says the one-sheet: “Inspired by the strange, overlapping nuances of quantum physics, consciousness, technologies, astronomy, and science fiction in popular culture, Holographic Topographies was composed on a small eurorack modular system. Each track on the album was recorded in stereo as a live, single-take performance.” Order your copy here. It’s also on Spotify. Kyle also has a new book of poetry called There Without Being There, which you can order here. 

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Here’s some other new stuff that’s been playing in my earbuds that escaped the delete key:

Thalia Zedek of the legendary bands Come and Live Skull has a new album out May 23 called The Boat Outside Your Window on Thrill Jockey. Known for her heavier-than-hell approach, the track “Tsunami” manages to have a sing-along melody without sacrificing the usual Zedek grit and feedback. The band plans to tour “extensively” in 2025, though no dates have been announced. 

Maha Festival veterans (2018), Tune-Yards dropped new single “Limelight” from their forthcoming album Better Dreaming, out May 16 on 4AD. The track has a sweet bass line, but what did you expect from a duo who sounds like this generation’s Tom Tom Club? They also announced a limited East Coast tour. 

Another Maha Festival vet (twice!), Car Seat Headrest yesterday released single “Gethsemane” from their new album, The Scholars, out on Matador May 2. The double-album is described as “a bold new rock opera.” The single itself is 11 minutes long! 

Finally, Los Angeles shoe-gaze act Shunkan dropped the first single from their upcoming album, Kamikaze Girl, out May 6 on Rite Field Records. Fronted by Marina Sakimoto, the record was produced by Alex Newport (Death Cab, At the Drive-In, Bloc Party). 

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I only knew Jeff Runnings through his life in music and the music itself. Some of my favorite memories of Jeff were actually our conversations over Facebook instant messenger. Jeff would usually start it, writing about something he was working on musicwise or telling me about some new album he heard that he had to share. He was remarkably opinionated – able to make his thoughts known in words of love or damnation. 

It was probably because of this relationship and our past interviews conducted for local papers that Jeff asked me to lead a discussion with him in front of an audience at the now defunct Hi-Fi House – a home-away-for home for people who loved music on vinyl – way back in the summer of 2016.

Because some readers may not know who Jeff was, below are the biographical notes put together to introduce Jeff at that event, that summarized his career up to that point. 

• Let’s start with For Against. A Lincoln band, the trio of singer and chief songwriter Jeff Runnings, guitarist/keyboardist Harry Dingman III and drummer Gregory Hill, combined droning, chiming guitars, buzzing synths, and machine-precise percussion with Runnings’ hollow, ghostly voice.

• In their heyday back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, For Against didn’t exactly fit into a Lincoln scene that included bands like Mercy Rule and Sideshow. While SST-style punk was all the rage in Omaha and Lincoln, For Against was making 4AD/Factory Records-style Euro-pop that bordered on today’s version of electronic dance music. Their sound was directly influenced by ’80s and ’90s-era European post-punk from bands like Durutti Column, Joy Division, Gang of Four and Kitchens of Distinction, more modern acts like Interpol, Editors and The Faint.

• More recent comparisons would to be bands like DIIV, Echo Lake, Wild Nothing and Weekender.

• The trio began performing in Lincoln in 1985. After self-releasing a 7-inch, the band signed with Independent Projects Records (IPR) and released their debut full-length, Echelons, in 1987. The music criticism website All Music said of the release: “Balancing an at once crisp, brisk pace and just enough dreaminess in the guitar work, Echelons is a work of nervous tension throughout.”

• For Against went on a brief US tour — which was a bit of a novelty for Nebraska bands back then. They recorded their follow-up, December, in 1988, which critic Andy Kellman called “…their best, one of the most powerful dream pop releases of the late ’80s.” If you look up For Against in All Music, this is the album they select as the band’s finest, giving it 4.5 stars.

• That said, shortly after its release, For Against unceremoniously broke up, just as things were getting interesting. Capitol Records was interested in the band, but it wasn’t to be as Hill left the band. Dingman went on to join The Millions with Hill before he and his wife eventually moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado. 

• Jeff continued For Against with new personnel, releasing four more records:

• 1993’s Aperture. Mason’s California Lunch Room in 1995, both on Rainbow Quartz, followed by Shelf Life in 1997 on World Domination Records.  Coalesced would be released in 2002 on Minneapolis label Words on Music, who also reissued Echelons and December, and Marshes, a 10-inch originally released by Independent Projects in 1990

• Then in 2003, Dingman and his wife returned to Lincoln. Jeff said he and Dingman  had barely spoke to each other in 16 years. Eventually, Dingman found himself in Runnings’ living room, and the two decided that For Against should live again.

• But a funny thing happened in their absence. For Against had quietly become big… in Europe. The song ‘Amen Yves’ that only came out on vinyl, had become a hit with DJs throughout Europe, who had been playing it for years.

• In 2008 Words on Music released Shade Side, Sunny Side, For Against’s 7th studio album, and the first one to feature Dingman since December. PopMatters gave the record a 7 out of 10 rating, saying “It’s good to know they’re out there, getting better with age, staying true to their sound despite geographical isolation and maybe even (we can hope!) tricking some kids into picking up some post-punk the next time they’re looking for Against Me! or Rise Against.“

• The band toured Greece in spring 2007 and played Spain’s Tanned Tin Festival in Castelló, thanks in part to Spanish label Acuarela Discos. A full European tour was slated for early ’08. “Europe is simply where our fan base is,” Jeff said. “We’ve had offers to play in Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, Athens and all points in between.”

• In 2008 For Against released their ninth album, Never Been, again on Words on Music, which would be the last release with Harry Dingman. 

It was here that I asked Jeff to fill in what happened over the next eight years, which he did. Somewhere there’s a videotape recording of our talk, likely sitting on a shelf in some videographer’s closet. 

One reason for the Hi-Fi House event was the release of Primitives and Smalls on Saint Marie Records. Unlike a lot of dream pop, the record wasn’t intended to function as a polite soundtrack for idle daydreaming. It was vengeful and acerbic, and cut deep. It showcased Jeff’s mastery of the post-punk sounds he’d been creating since the ’80s.  

Jeff never quit creating music. Most recently, he was excited about his new album, Piqued, slate for release on Independent Project Records (IPR). The first single, “Batman Forever,” (Batman is the nickname for Runnings’ husband, Sean Applegate), was released at the end of January, and casts the same haunting spell heard on the best For Against albums. Jeff recorded the track, as well as the rest of the album, from his home. It’s a collection I know he’s proud of.

Our last correspondence – via email – was Jeff telling me that the US/Europe press agent for IPR was going to conduct a call with him and Bruce Licher of IPR about the “promotion machine” for the new record. He told me to stay tuned. 

All of this was happening while Jeff continued treatment for the cancer that ended his life yesterday.  He was more than a friend in music; he was a good person with a razor-sharp sense of humor and a heart of gold. I’m going to miss him.

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

There’s not a lot of information about tonight’s headliner at Reverb Lounge, Buffchick. In fact, you’ll have to dig around on the internet to find any information, but after clicking through various Google pages, I discovered her BMI profile from 2023, which said Brooklyn’s Buffchick is New Jersey-born singer/songwriter Erin Manion, who counts among her influences Pinegrove, Modern Baseball and Soccer Mommy. 

Certainly it’s the last one – Soccer Mommy – that her music most resembles. Her self-released 2024 album, Showtime, has that same mid-tempo acoustic-guitar-driven indie sound that you’ll recognize from the Boygenius team (Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker). Spotify shows she has just shy of 30,000 monthly listeners, so someone is checking out her pretty indie folk rock. 

Tonight’s show at Reverb is a four-band bill according to the 1% website, consisting of all unsigned acts – ambitious for a Monday. Opener Peter Groppe’s claim to fame is having performed on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  Also playing are Three of Cups and Omaha’s Madeline Reddel. $18, 7 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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Here comes the weekend. There’s nothing on the show radar tonight.

Tomorrow night (Saturday), the weekly free concert series continues at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Mono in Stereo and The Mudpuddles. Mono in Stereo is the new project that consists of frontman Charles McNeil (Brian Jones Was Murdered); bassist Marty Amsler (legendary ’90s Lincoln act The Millions), guitarist James MacDougall, and drummer Joe Eichoff (The End in Red). It’s scheduled to start at 9 p.m. and like I said, it’s FREE. 

Sunday night, Clem Snide headlines at Reverb Lounge. The project of singer/songwriter Eef Barzelay, the band is supporting its new album, Oh Smokey, which came out last November but is now being released on vinyl May 2 via Foreign Leisure Records. .

“There’s, for sure, a soon-to-be-divorced energy in some of the themes,” Barzelay says about the record. “But mostly, I like to think of the songs as clumsy, well-meaning attempts at prayer by a lapsed Atheist raised by godless Jews.” That’s a lot. Akron’s Rye Valley and Nashville’s The Bedrock open the show at 8 p.m. $20. 

And that’s all 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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A quick note to pass along a few new tracks that caught my ear. Like I’ve mentioned before, I probably get 100 email submissions a day. These are the few that managed to avoid the delete key…

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I never listened to Ben Kweller much over the years, but his latest song, “Dollar Store,” is a straight-up banger. It was recorded with Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and is the first new music from Kweller since the death of his 16-year-old son Dorian Zev in 2023. The track is from his new album, Cover the Mirrors, out May 30 via The Noise Company. BTW, Kweller’s closest pass to Omaha on his upcoming tour is Minneapolis April 28.

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I almost skipped right over this email when I saw the band’s name was Smut, figuring it was just another metal act. But Smut is a Chicago-based shimmer-gaze band that recalls acts like The Sundays, but with a bigger punch. “Dead Air” is conventional-sounding indie rock that borders on alt, but… pretty; driven by front woman Tay Roebuck. This comes from an upcoming yet-to-be-announced album.

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Urban “anti-folk” folkie Jeffrey Lewis has a new album coming out called The EVEN MORE Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis, due March 21 on Don Giovanni Records. It was recorded in four days in Nashville by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo). “Just Fun” is the second single/video, which came out Tuesday.  

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No local band has worked an album harder than Clarence Tilton is working their latest, Queen of the Brawl.  Seems like they’ve dropped a new single every two or three weeks for the past few months. “Bongos” is the fourth single, released Feb. 14. The one-sheet doesn’t say when the whole record comes out, which is kind of a head-scratcher…

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Finally, for #TBT, here’s a review from 20 years ago. Just your typical night in Omaha, featuring Shelterbelt and The Golden Age. Whatever happened to those guys?

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The announcement that early-aughts indie act Rilo Kiley has been booked to play The Astro in La Vista Sept. 17 (tickets went on sale this morning) has spurred speculation as to who will be headlining the 2025 Maha Music Festival. RK had been one of the front-runners.

The last time Maha hosted a festival back in 2023, organizers announced the line-up the last week of February. However, Outlandia Festival organizers — now part of the Maha Festival team — didn’t announce their 2024 festival until the end of March.  

So far Maha Festival organizers have only said that the one-day festival is taking place Aug. 2 at the new RiverFront Park in downtown Omaha. I was told the headliner was booked months ago, and rumors continue to float among the “indie illuminati” as to who it is.  A friend of mine who says he’s “in the know” but wouldn’t give me a name told me the headliner is a well-known band that hasn’t played here in a very long time, although several of its members have played here over the years in various side projects. That’s rather broad.

Don’t ask me, I’m out of the loop, but I can make some educated guesses based on a few factors: 

1. As mentioned, Maha “combined forces” with the Outlandia Festival after Outlandia’s demise in 2024. That mean’s Maha’s original four founders – Mike App, Tre Breshear, Tyler Owen and Mike Toohey – are back in some capacity. What that “capacity” is, I’m not certain. These guys are all Gen X’ers and love legacy indie acts. 
2. The production company that worked with Maha in the past and that used to produce the Outlandia Festival – 1% Productions – also will be back to produce this year’s Maha Festival. For you younger readers, 1% is a big reason Omaha became nationally known for its indie music scene in the early part of this century. And while they’ve expanded their booking focus to more mainstream pop, R&B and C&W acts for their venues (which include The Waiting Room, Reverb Lounge, The Astro and The Admiral theaters), 1% still has an immense network of indie music contacts.
3. Before making any guess, eliminate acts that are either already booked for Nebraska shows, nearby festivals or have played here in the past year. So strike a line through festival favorites Jack White, Future Islands, Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, The Faint, Gregory Alan Isakov, Bob Mould, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Bob Dylan, Mannequin Pussy, Lord Huron, Real Estate, Cursive, Black Country, New Road, Indigo Girls, MJ Lenderman, Fontaines, D.C., Of Montreal, Orville Peck, Flaming Lips, The Head and the Heart , The Lumineers and Lana Del Rey. 
4. Also eliminate bands that are either not touring or are already playing gigs Aug. 2. This tougher list includes Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, Beck, Wet Leg, Nation of Language, Phoebe Bridgers, Jamie XX, Adrianne Lenker, Nine Inch Nails, GBV and Wilco.

So who does that leave? 

• – Well, on top of my list is The Pixies, who are playing the Palace Theater July 31 and Aug. 1 in Minneapolis and have the next day off on their tour. The band would be quite a get for the first Maha Fest down at the much larger RiverFront Park, and I know the Outlandia guys love them some Pixies.

• – Next on the list: St. Vincent. She’s played a number of sold-out Omaha shows in the past and has an Aug. 30 date at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

• – The Black Keys, who cancelled a national tour a year or so ago, are back and are playing a spring/summer U.S. Tour followed by a European tour that wraps up in mid-July, followed by an Atlanta festival in mid September. For some reason, they’re an Omaha favorite.

• – And then there’s our old pals Spoon. The band reportedly has a new album coming out this year and begins a national tour at the end of August that so far doesn’t include Nebraska. This Maha Festival veteran would be a great draw.

Here are a few additional guesses that are more like wishes:

• – LCD Soundsystem – The band that keeps touring despite having broken up a few years ago is playing gigs throughout the spring and early summer, but are likely out of Maha’s price range. 

• – The Hard Quartet, the new band from Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus with Matt Sweeney, Jim White and Emmett Kelly. Their debut album came out last year on Matador and they’re touring the US and Europe throughout the spring and summer.

• – Waxahatchee – The indie folk act has managed to avoid Nebraska on all its tours, including their next U.S. tour, which kicks off in March and continues through September. 

• – Perfume Genius – They’ve got a hot new album coming out on Matador Records and their June tour skips Omaha. 

• – Sharon Van Etten – She also has a red-hot album out now on Jagjaguwar, but her early summer tour skips Omaha. 

• – Horsegirl – Too small to headline a festival, the band played Outlandia two years ago, but their new album is a critical smash and could make them this year’s Wet Leg. 

Also-run possibilities: Japanese Breakfast, the ever-present Father John Misty, Youth Lagoon.

One last clue about Maha’s festival line-up: I’ve been told by a couple organizers that “I’ll like some of the bands but not like others.” So what else is new? Isn’t that the way with any festival?

Who do you think Maha’s headliner will be? For now, we wait…

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

If anything, last night’s Molchat Doma/Sextile show at Steelhouse Omaha proved that the massive, blimp-hangar-style facility can host shows that only draw 1/3 of its capacity and still feel like an important event.

Los Angeles electronic-fueled post-punk act Sextile — no stranger to Omaha — was up first and scored the better of the two performances, thanks to a shorter set and more varied and frenetic music. Sextile’s heart-racing, jittery rhythms, infectious bass lines and unlimited energy generated by three bouncing musicians did everything it could to get the (guess-timated) crowd of around 1,000 moving. 

Throughout their 10-year careers, Sextile has always been more punk than post-punk, and never moreso than on their aggressive new album, Yes, Please., slated for release May 2 on Sacred Bones Records. New songs like “Women Respond to Bass,” “Kids,” “S Is For” and set closer “Resist” — wherein vocalist/instrumentalist Melissa Scaduto hoisted a flag emblazed with “Abortion Rights Now!” — were among the night’s highlights. 

Long-time Sextile fans yearning for past glories were not disappointed. The set opened with 2018 favorite “Disco,” and included tracks “No Fun” and “Contortion” from 2023’s Push. Instrumentally, Scaduto and fellow front-person Brady Keehn impressed with their stick-work and knob twirling when not spitting lyrics at the crowd. 

A fellow concert-goer pointed out the music would be perfect at 2 a.m. in a crowded, smoke-filled warehouse while high on some unidentified substance, instead of at 8:30 on a Monday night drinking a lukewarm microbrew. Maybe that’s why so few were moving on the floor beyond the edge of the stage. Ah, to be honest, the only band I’ve seen turn an Omaha crowd that size into a bouncing a mob was The Faint.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Molchat Doma took the blackened stage, each band member staking out his territory – bassist Pavel Kozlov stage left, guitarist Roman Komogortsev stage right, and frontman Egor Shkutko dead center. And that’s where they stayed throughout the evening while someone somewhere controlled the prerecorded synth and rhythm tracks that fueled the performance. 

“We are Molchat Doma from Minsk, Belarus,” Egor quietly declared after the first song. “Dosvedanya.” 

The basic song recipe involved a drone/tone intro followed by a kick-ass rhythm track, Pavel’s bassline and Roman’s guitar. It’s easy to point out the obvious influences – Depeche Mode, The Cure, Joy Division, etc. A fellow concert-goer gave nods to Nitzer Ebb and Front Line Assembly.

But despite the rump-shakingly infectious rhythms and guitars, Egor’s dark, bosso voice eventually transported listeners to a drab, Soviet-era landscape covered in brutalist architecture. It was like listening to a soldier sing mournful Russian-language anthems over a wicked EDM loop.

Early in the set, the audience, which included a lot of younger people dressed in black, many donning their best goth styles and make-up, merely nodded their heads to the beat. But as you walked deeper into the crowd, you noticed the bodies moving oh so subtly, the energy increasing closer to the stage. I’m unsure where these fans came from, as Molchat Doma has never played Omaha before and isn’t heard on local radio. The answer is probably those viral TikTok videos, apparently as popular here as in Eastern Bloc countries.

Despite shifts in rhythm and melodies — and instrumental interludes (in one instance, Pavel and Roman met centerstage and exchanged riffs) — the music’s “sameness” was unescapable thanks to being draped in dirge-like vocals. How would their music sound with English-language pop vocals? No doubt it would lose its gravitas — and to some, become more interesting — but it would never be Molchat Doma. And to that, all I can say is “Dosvedanya.”

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Monday Night is Show Night in Omaha™  Now there’s a catchphrase the Omaha entertainment business community can really get behind. Or how about: Weekends Are Made for Locals™. 

Listen, we can thank tour routing for the abundance of Monday night (and weekday night) touring indie shows, since we’re located between major markets like KC, Minneapolis and Chicago. Bands could simply take the night off, but they come here anyway, even if it makes for some bleary-eyed Tuesday mornings. 

This Monday night is all about the EDM (as in electronic dance music) of Molchat Doma and Sextile at Steelhouse Omaha. I won’t rehash what I already said last week. Go back and check out the Lazy-i Ten Questions interview with Molchat Doma.

Glancing at Molchat Doma’s setlist from last Friday night’s show in Chicago, expect a 14-song set with 4-song encore, including their viral hit “Sudno.” I’d list the other song titles, but let’s face it – no one reading this is that familiar with the band or their catalog. 

And here’s a review of the Oct. 19, 2023, Sextile show at The Waiting Room. Attendance was a wee bit light that evening, and as I wrote in the review, I could only imagine how the performance compared to, say, a sold-out Terminal 5 show in Brooklyn. For the record, Sextile played 12 songs at their Feb. 19 Toronto gig. Here’s the setlist. 

I’ve never been to a show at Steelhouse that wasn’t either sold out or close to selling out. Will tonight be a first?

When I interviewed Omaha Performing Arts President Joan Squires and Steelhouse Director of Booking Erika Hansen back in 2023 for my column in The Reader (online here), I asked how they’d handle shows that draw fewer than 1,000. Squires said the space may not be appropriate for those shows, which would be a better fit for small O-pa-operated venues like the Holland Music Club. However, Hansen said Steelhouse is flexible and has options, including the use of retractable risers. I’ve yet to see those risers in action.

The sheer fact that Steelhouse was willing to gamble on this show, however, is a credit to Omaha Performing Arts. Let’s see if the gamble pays off tonight. Tickets to the show are still available at steelhouseomaha.com. Showtime is 8 p.m. Bring your dancing shoes.

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

UPDATE AS OF 5:30 P.M.: This show has been CANCELLED “due to unforeseen bus issues.”

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“We still play all of our songs live, but there are only so many chords you can put into a three-chord song so many times. You can only sing about having a broken heart for so long.”

That was The Get Up Kids’ keyboardist James Dewees in 2002. Little did he know how wrong he could be, as the band heads to The Waiting Room tonight to play an album that came out 25 years ago. 

When I interviewed Dewees in 2002 (read the interview here), the band was headed for a gig at Sokol Auditorium (now called The Admiral) supporting the release of On a Wire and actively running away from the “emo” tag placed on them by MTV and various music journalists. 

“This is the best time in the world for emo music,” Dewees said back then. “It’s just that we don’t really want to write music like that anymore. We want to experiment with writing slower songs with acoustic guitars or organ or string parts or keyboards instead of the soft-then-loud-then-scream songs with the typical punk-rock-flourish ending.”

Dewees was a late comer to Get Up Kids, which formed in Kansas City back in mid-’90s. Also a member of the metalcore outfit Coalesce, he met the band when the two played together.

According to Wiki, when Get Up Kids broke up in 2004 Dewees played with New Found Glory, continued his work with his band, Reggie and the Full Effect, and eventually joined My Chemical Romance in 2006. He later rejoined Get Up Kids for the 10th anniversary of Something To Write Home About and stuck around for a few more albums before splitting for good in 2019. The band was never able to capture lightning in a bottle like they did with that ’99 album. Alas, Dewees will not be joining them when they play tonight at The Waiting Room.

Surprisingly, this show has yet to sell out. With the rise in popularity of “Emo Nights” at clubs around the country, you’d think second-generation emo pioneers like this band would be a red hot ticket. 

Opening for Get Up Kids is The Anniversary, the Lawrence, Kansas, indie band that enjoyed a heyday in the early aughts, and included singer Adrianne Verhoeven, a former member of Saddle Creek Records band Flowers Forever and Orenda Fink’s Art in Manila. Is Adrianne still in The Anniversary? Head to The Waiting Room tonight and find out. $36, 8 p.m. 

AGAIN, THIS SHOW HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

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Tomorrow night (Saturday), newly minted post-punk band Cope Acidic headlines a free show at fabulous O’Leaver’s. I caught a few songs by these guys when they opened for Pile at Slowdown Feb. 29 and was intrigued. Very mathy; pretty good vocals that reminded me of Bob Mould. Joining them Saturday night are Jar and Softlines. Like I said, it’s free and starts at 9 p.m. (O’Leaver’s time, which means probably later than that).

And that’s all 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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Belarusian post-punk/cold wave/synth-fueled EDM trio Molchat Doma was founded in 2017 in Minsk. And like their origin implies, there is drama in everything they do. Even their name — translated to English — means “Houses Are Silent.” Could anything sound more foreboding?

The band — vocalist Egor Shkutko (Belarusian: Yahor Shkutko); Roman Komogortsev (Raman Kamahortsau) on guitar, synths and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synths — creates darkly urban, wholly modern synth-pop whose undertones and rhythms are familiar to anyone who grew up listening to Depeche Mode, Human League, The Cure, and so on. 

The band sites Perestroika-era Russian groups such as Kino as an influence, and you can hear shadows of Kraftwerk in their early work. As their one-sheet oh so accurately describes: “The band gained a following with earlier albums that sound like third-generation bootlegs of banned recordings from the Eastern Bloc made after a few key entries in the Factory Records catalog were smuggled in from the West.” 

Tracks off their 2017 self-released debut, S Krysh Nashikh Domov (translated via Google as From the Roofs of Our Houses), such as “Ludi Nadoeli,” (“People are Boring”), could be mistaken for early, upbeat Joy Division, except for the Russian lyrics.

According to Pitchfork, one of Molchat Doma’s early breaks came in April 2020 when their song “Судно (Sudno)” was used in a viral TikTok video clip that garnered over 6 million views, sparking listeners on Spotify. Then (according to the Chicago Reader), an Australian taste-maker uploaded the band’s 2018 album, Etazhi, onto YouTube, which caught the attention of hip Brooklyn record label Sacred Bones, who signed the band and reissued their early works. 

Sacred Bones released Mochat Doma’s third album, Monument, in 2020 in the shadow of the pandemic. The band was forced to hold off on its first U.S. tour, but would eventually play major festival stages, including Coachella and Cruel World in 2022. 

Over the years, their sound has evolved from shadowy, minimalist post-punk into the shiny, pulsing, black-lit EDM heard on their most recent release, 2024’s Belaya Polosa. Completed in their new home of Los Angeles, their label called it “a testament to change in difficult times, a love letter to the digital pulse of the ‘90s, and a technicolor reinvention of the band’s somber dancefloor anthems.”

The trio has been selling out venues throughout its current tour, which brings them to Steelhouse Omaha Monday, Feb. 24. They generously took the Lazy-i Ten Questions survey. Here’s what they had to say:

1. What is your favorite album?

Yahor: Moby – All Visible Objects

Pavel: Tool – Lateralus

Raman: Puma Blue – Holy Waters

2. What is your least favorite song?

“APT” by Bruno Mars and Rose

3. What do you enjoy most about being in a band?

Touring. We all love touring. Every time we hit the road we feel ourselves alive.

4. What do you hate about being in a band?

Being homesick. We all have families and sometimes it’s really hard being too far from them.

5. What is your favorite substance (legal or illegal)?

We all love a lure. We are crazy about this bait. 

6. In what city or town do you love to perform (and why)?

There are so many cities where we love to play. Always pleasure to play in our residence city, LA. NYC is so special too. Europe is definitely different, but Berlin, London, and Paris are so good to play. 

7. What city or town did you have your worst gig (and why)?

That was several years ago in Minsk, Belarus. We were so drunk and played as shit. We still feel ashamed.

8. Are you able to support yourself through your music? If so, how long did it take to get there; if not, how do you pay your bills?

Yes, it became possible when we started growing in popularity in 2020. We toured a lot and continue to tour to this day, plus streaming and merch helps us pay our bills.

9. What one profession other than music would you like to attempt; what one profession would you absolutely hate to do?

Certainly none of us would like to go back to our previous jobs, which we did before music – working in construction. In fact, I don’t want to try any other professions, since we get great pleasure from what we are doing now. Well, maybe a civil aviation pilot.

10. What stories have you heard about Omaha, Nebraska?

We don’t know anything about this place, but we hope to have a very good experience and enjoy being there!

Molchat Doma plays with Sextile at Steelhouse Omaha Monday, Feb. 24. Tickets range from $27.50 to $65. For more information, go to steelhouseomaha.com

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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.