I did not know Shaun McCabe, but I know from many people who did know him that he must have been a great dude and a big music fan.
McCabe passed away Feb. 1 at UC Health University of Colorado Hospital after a life-long battle with Cystic Fibrosis.
He was a Lincoln resident and became friends with a lot of Nebraska musicians. In addition, he was the lead singer/keyboardist in the band Bone Camaro, and a music director at KWSC 91.1 FM while in college. But most of all, he was active in the Lincoln/Omaha music scene.
In a show of appreciation of McCabe’s life, a ton of bands, led by Mike Elfers (Thirst Things First, JV Allstars), put together Shaun McCabe Forever, a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks from a variety of Nebraska artists. Among the 23 tracks are recordings by Columbia Vs Challenger, The Killigans, The Machete Archive, Her Flyaway Manner, Halfwit, Gramps and The Golden Age, there’s even a couple Bone Camaro songs.
“Any and all donations or purchases of this album will go directly to a McCabe family PayPal account that will ultimately make it to either the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Nebraska or the Children’s Organ Transplant Association in Shaun’s name,” said the Bandcamp page.
Pageturners’ Winter Concert Series continues tonight with Sun-Less Trio and Little Brazil. This dynamic double-bill begins at 9 p.m. and is absolutely free.
Being the self-proclaimed indie music snob that I am, I typically would never have discovered Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers. I mean, the Michigan-based band has been classified in the jam band / funk / pop category, has counted major label Universal among its distributors. and has been known to perform in Hawaiian shirts. That’s about as far away from “indie” as it gets.
But after receiving multiple emails from their publicist, I watched the video for the single “Lonely” off their Kickstarter-financed latest release, Pluto, and found myself tapping my toe. When I read via Wiki that Hertler started the band in an effort to get the attention of a girl who hosted an open-mic night, I was hooked.
Hertler was game to take the Ten Questions survey. Here’s what he had to say:
1. What is your favorite album?
Joe Hertler: It’s basically impossible to pick my favorite, but off the top of my head, maybe Black Radio by Robert Glasper? Sgt Peppers and maybe Live in Verona by Jamiroquai are up there, too.
2. What is your least favorite song?
I love It, by Iconopop. My sax player uses it as a wake up song sometimes for the band when everyone’s been sleeping in the van and we’ve reached our destination. I really do not care to ever hear that song again.
3. What do you enjoy most about being in a band?
Obviously playing music is super fun, but the adventure of tour with my bandmates (and getting to visiting and reconnect with friends and family in distant locations) is ultimately what makes it the most meaningful.
4. What do you hate about being in a band?
It can be stressful at times, but honestly we have a pretty damn good time playing music together and keeping each other in good spirits. It’s important to be aware of your emotions and the emotions of others. It’s also just as important to take care of yourself, you know, like exercising, eating decently, sleeping, and doing fun shit that doesn’t have to do with music, like hiking, site seeing, etc. If you’re aware of how your behaviors affect your bandmates, then really, there’s really not too much to hate. You gotta embrace all aspects of band life.
5. What is your favorite substance (legal or illegal)?
I think they’re all pretty damn fun 😉
6. In what city or town do you love to perform?
Michigan, Mountain States, and the West Coast have always treated us very, very well!
7. What city or town did you have your worst gig (and why)?
We had a sound system take a shit on us at a gig in Ashville. This was also after the promoter moved us to their rave cave room because there were issues with original room we were going to play. The heat went out, too, so it was like 50 degrees in the venue. Made for kind of a rough show. Honestly, though, we don’t really have bad shows. We tend to get pissed and nit-pick over little fuck-ups, but being critical of oneself is just part of it. Certainly doesn’t determine whether a show is good or bad. As long as the crowd is engaged, which they always seem to be – that’s what makes a show good.
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?
Yep! We do various side hustles, but for the most part we support ourselves through music. Aaron is an ex-engineer and part-time chainsaw carver. I used to be a teacher. Micah and Ryan do some work for our producer’s company on the side, and Rick makes giant mechanical wooden clocks.
9. What one profession other than music would you like to attempt; what one profession would you absolutely hate to do?
I would love to make horror movies!
10. What are the stories you’ve heard about Omaha, Nebraska?
Haven’t heard many stories, but there’s some really great music happening in Omaha. My buddy, Rick Carson, owns a really incredible studio called Make Believe, which is a really hot space right now. Of course, there’s the Saddle Creek label. It’s a pretty bad-ass city 🙂
Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers plays with Here Come the Mummies Thursday, Feb. 22, at The Slowdown, . Tickets are $22 Adv/$25 DOS. Show starts at 9 p.m. For more information, go to TheSlowdown.com.
No matter what happens to the Blackstone District — no matter what new restaurant or bar or business opens its doors, no matter how gentrified it becomes — there will always be The Brothers Lounge.
The Brothers has always been — is — and will always be an Omaha punk Mecca that remembers its past and welcomes its future with open arms. The Brothers is where you’ll find the best jukebox, the nicest staff and the coldest beer (though they quit selling Rolling Rock because, I was told, the last “regular” who ordered it died of a heart attack. I guess Trey either forgot that I drink Rolling Rock or I need to become a regular).
I can’t imagine Omaha without The Brothers, and hopefully I’ll never have to. I write this because in an effort to keep up with all the new-fangled businesses (including yet another new bar that opened practically right under them) The Brothers has been beefing up its live music bookings lately. This past weekend featured back-to-back showcases Friday and Saturday night.
I made it to Saturday night’s three-band bill, figuring I’d miss the opening act (hey, Black Panther is a long friggin’ movie), but there was John Wolf and and Co. belting out the magic at 10:30 p.m. The band is Bad Bad Men, featuring legendary punker Wolf fronting a power trio rounded out by drummer Chris Siebken and bass player Jerry Hug. Saturday night’s show was their debut, but you’d never guess judging by how tightly they played.
Bad Bad Men is a natural continuation of the style of music Wolf has been playing for more than 20 years, reaching back to acts like Cellophane Ceiling and Bad Luck Charm. The only difference is in the economy of arrangements (BBM is a mean, lean fighting machine) and Wolf’s growl, which has grown into a brash, guttural bray that cuts through the band’s back-beat swing.
At times BBM felt like high-energy boogie blues punk, somewhat rootsier than Bad Luck Charm’s ’90s-influenced Ameri-alt-rock sound (can you believe Viva La Sinners came out 17 years ago?). The music chugged along like a high-ballin’ locomotive powered by the Siebken/Hug rhythm section and Wolf’s blazing riffs. The band closed out its set with a brutal cover of Warsaw’s “No Love Lost” (compliments to Dr. Sheehan for pointing this out) that was the perfect capper to a perfect debut. More to come.
The Lupines at The Brothers Lounge Feb. 19, 2018.
Next up was The Lupines, who played a solid set that included a few songs off their most recent collection, Mountain of Love (2017, Speed Nebraska). They closed with a long burner that I wouldn’t have minded had it gone on for 20 minutes. It was good to once again see guitarist Mike Friedman ripping alongside frontman John Ziegler and hearing his crazy leads laced throughout the songs.
Those Far Out Arrows at The Brothers Feb. 17, 2018.
Finally, Those Far Out Arrows hit the stage well past midnight. The band had played The Replay Lounge in Lawrence just the night before, and could be the next break-out act to grab national attention thanks to their take on garage psych-rock. If you haven’t seen these guys lately, do yourself a favor. They have a West Coast/San Francisco style reminiscent of ’90s-’00s acts like Brian Jonestown Massacre, BRMC and The Warlocks. but with a nod to bands that go back even further and farther (Them, Small Faces, etc.).
Unfortunately their set got cut short when first the bass drum pedal broke and then the bass drum head broke. These things happen. You’ll get a chance to catch them again when they open for White Mystery March 4 at fabulous O’Leaver’s.
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Tonight Nashville band Blank Range headlines at Reverb Lounge. Rolling Stone named them one of the “10 New Country Bands You Need to Know” though I’d classify their sound as leaning more toward alt-country/Americana than straight up C&W. Think Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson but with less twang. Frankly, they remind me more of The Band than anyone else, and are keeping their options open by opening shows for everyone from Spoon to Drive-By Truckers to Black Joe Lewis. Evan Bartles opens tonight at 8 p.m. $10.
It’s a packed weekend for local shows, not much from a national-touring-indie perspective, but what else is new? It’s February, after all. Who wants to tour through Omaha in February? Apparently no one.
Anyway…
The Brothers Lounge is really stepping up its game, hosting two shows this weekend. Tonight’s headliner is The Broke Loose. The band released a single this past January called “Flatlands,” and another in February called “Cold As Hell.” Both were recorded with Rick Carson at Make Believe Studios. Frontman Glenn Antonucci said they’re the first in a series of nine singles, all recorded at Make Believe, that they plan to release one by one over the course of 2018.
Why release a single at a time versus a full album?
“Well, a couple reasons,” Antonucci said. “For one, we thought many of the individual tracks that came out of this session had a distinctive feel, and could stand on their own. And of course, it also gives us the ability to offer up something new each month (or thereabouts), rather than drop an album on people all at once and then retreat into silence for a year or more.”
I like it. It’s like the old days or rock ‘n’ roll when bands released 45s then compiled them into albums. Too bad Broke Loose songs aren’t being released as 45s, but imagine how much that’d cost…
Opening for The Broke Loose tonight is legendary tractor-punk band Wagon Blasters (Gary Dean Davis and crew) and Ottumwa Iowa basement rockers X-Ray Mary. $5, 9 p.m.
Also tonight Closeness headlines at The Sydney in Benson. Seems like we haven’t heard from the dynamic duo of Todd and Orenda Fink for quite a while. Will we be getting a glimpse of new Closeness music tonight? Opening is Lincoln’s Universe Contest and garage-punkers FiFI NoNo. $5, 9 p.m.
That’s not all. Tonight Saddle Creek Records band Twinsmith headlines at Slowdown Jr. The Sunks open at 9 p.m. $10.
And also tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s it’s another shit-kicker of a bill headlined by Omaha’s finest alt-country band Clarence Tilton, who just released a split LP with Monday Mourners. Opening for Tilton is fellow boot-scooters The Eletroliners and 24-Hour Cardlock. $5, 10 p.m.
Tomorrow night (Saturday) it’s back to The Brothers for a special night of rock headlined by Those Far Out Arrows. The always awesome Lupines hold the second spot while a new band called Bad Bad Men, featuring John Wolf (Cellophane Ceiling, Bad Luck Charm), Chris Siebken (Lude Boys) and Jerry Hug (Ritual Device), has the opening slot. Lots o’ curiosity about these bad hombres. $5, 9 p.m.
And that’s all I got. If I missed your show put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend…
This being Conor Oberst’s birthday (he’s 38 today, whoda thought?), and with nothing else going on, here’s a TBT item from Lazy-i from way back on Feb. 15, 2005. Back then, Bright Eyes national TV appearances were still very much a novelty, and YouTube didn’t exist to post the shows online the following day. If you wanted to watch them after-the-fact, you had to have a TiVo, which I just happened to own back in the day…
Anywhere, here’s the Lazy-i write-up the day after, written 13 years ago….
Bright Eyes on the Late Late Show… – Lazy-i, Feb. 15, 2005
I TiVo’d Bright Eyes on the Late Late Show last night. What happened to Craig Kilborn? He turned into an unfunny, geeky Irish guy in a bad suit. To be honest with you, I hated Kilborn’s snarky approach and was happy to see him go. But who is this guy? What the hell? I guess he’s kind of charming with his I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing schtick. Especially when he’s talking about Bright Eyes:
“I’m a big fan of the Bright Eyes. The American kids look to me for their musical tastes, and I have to say, ‘Bright Eyes, that’s my tip for the tour.'” A lot of what Craig Ferguson says doesn’t make sense. He could be Scottish. His next comment confirmed it. He said Bright Eyes is really just Conor Oberst, and compared BE to Scottish band Aztec Camera, saying that band was basically just Roddy Frame. “There was no Aztecs or cameras or anything. So when he gets out here I’m going to ask ‘Are you Conor or Bright Eyes?'”
Before that, though, was Jane Seymour and the bastard responsible for writing that over-glorified piece of shit called Million Dollar Baby – not exactly A-list guests. If you don’t have TiVo, really, consider picking one up. Then: “Please welcome Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes!” They played “Road to Joy,” a good choice, though I’m sure it frightened a lot of people in the Heartland. Conor smashed a guitar, Nate Walcott smashed his trumpet (I’m not kidding). It was very noisy. The mix was pretty bad.
And then, lo and behold, Conor did his first sit-down interview after a performance. So are you Bright Eyes or Conor Oberst? “Mike Mogis is the other person in the band.” Was anyone hurt during the destruction? “Everyone’s fine, I think.” Are you okay for cash? “That was an extremely expensive guitar I smashed.” You rock. I love your work. I’m reading you’re the new Bob Dylan. Do you like that? “There’s worse things to be called. I don’t see it myself, personally.” Who else is an influence? (I think that’s what he asked. Ferguson mumbles a lot.) “Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, Simon Joyner.”
Conor was funny with his shy-guy stutter, but he looked like he couldn’t wait to get out of that leather chair. Next up is Leno on May 3. I doubt that Oberst will be doing any chatting afterward on that one. Oberst is playing three sold-out nights at The Orpheum while he’s in L.A.– Lazy-i, Feb. 15, 2005
Lots o’ shows on this Valentine’s Day / Ash Wednesday, which is kind of odd but oh well, right?
Top of the list is the big UnValentine’s Day event at fabulous O’Leaver’s featuring a screening of Tim Kasher’s epic motion picture No Resolution. Director Kasher will introduce the movie to an inebriated, possibly high O’Leaver’s crowd and will play some “UnValentine’s Day” songs before hand. I’m not sure this means he’ll actually perform songs or that he’ll be manning the O’Leaver’s soundboard/DJ booth. No matter, either way it’s worth the price of admission, which, btw, is absolutely free. The fun starts at 9.
Also tonight a couple bands that usually play at O’Leaver’s are setting up cross town at Pageturners Lounge — Rusty Lord and Ocean Black. This is bound to be some “rough love” for all involved. This free show also starts at 9 p.m.
Meanwhile in Benson at Reverb Lounge Sam Martin tops a bill of singer songwriter bands that include Small Houses and Midwest Dilemma. $7, 8 p.m.
Finally, The Door, a new collaboration between Dereck Higgins and Aaron “Bird” Williams, will perform their debut album, Virgo, tonight at B Side of Benson Theatre, 6058 Maple Street (the old PS Collective space). Joining them is Johnna Dortch & Steven Kat Lanier. Your $15 ticket gets you a copy of Virgo. This early show starts at 7 p.m.
Yesterday Darren Keen, who you might remember from The Show Is the Rainbow, shared links to a couple new albums he just dropped. They’re instrumental albums called Let Me Score Your Video Game and Let Me Score Your Video Game #2.
As the names imply, these albums contain 8-bit- and 16-bit-style music that would be appropriate as soundtracks to your run-of-the-mill ’80s- or ’90s-era video game. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will right after clicking the links below.
I asked Keen if he was a big gamer.
“I’m not a ‘gamer’ because I don’t play lots of games, but the games I do play, I play obsessively,” he said. “I grew up playing Final Fantasy games for NES – SNES – Playstation. I used to hit ‘save points’ at certain parts of the game where I liked the music a lot. The music was so so so important to me. It wasn’t til I started doing my ‘Darren Keen’ music that I realized what a huge influence Nobuo Uematsu (the dude who scored the Final Fantasy games) was on me.”
Keen would love to add “video game music composer” to his already large music resume. Maybe these albums will be the tokens that get him into that very special music industry arcade.
BTW, Keen will be celebrating the release of his new The Show Is the Rainbow LP in Lincoln this Friday and on March 3 in Benson at The Sydney.
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One Percent was busy announcing Junes shows this morning. Among them:
— Okkervil River June 9 at The Waiting Room.
— First Aid Kit June 13 at Sokol Auditorium
— Iceage June 18 at The Waiting Room
The additions are a welcome relief after a pretty quiet winter show-wise. What else does 1% have up its sleeve? And will there be any Stir Cove announcements that rival last year’s Beck concert?
Not much to talk about from an indie-music perspective this weekend. No national touring indie shows, no real local indie, either.
Fabulouis O’Leaver’s is going all-country this weekend. Tonight Township & Range, who describes their sound as “rural music,” headlines a show with The Empty Sky and Evan Bartles. $5, 10 p.m.
Tomorrow night O’Leaver’s has Matt Cox, Ragged Company and The Electroliners. Wear your shit-kickers. $5, 10 p.m.
Also tonight, Satchel Grande returns to The Waiting Room with Carson City Heat. $8, 9 p.m.
Lo-Fi Balitimore surf-rock/garage band Trunkweed headlines a show at Pet Shop Gallery Saturday night. Time Cat and Death Cow also are on the bill. $5, 8 p.m.
Also Saturday night, The Sydney has KC garage act Drugs & Attics with Hussies. $5, 9 p.m.
And that’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend.
Let me be the thousandth person to point you to the Quincy Jones interview in Vulture. Everyone has their favorite quote from the article, here’s mine:
Do you hear the spirit of jazz in pop today?
No. People gave it up to chase money. When you go after Cîroc vodka and Phat Farm and all that shit, God walks out of the room. I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even Thriller. No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money. You could spend a million dollars on a piano part and it won’t make you a million dollars back. That’s just not how it works.
God, I hope I’m half as clever and thoughtful as Jones when I’m 85.
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Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s… Typesetter is a Chicago indie band that has some emocore overhang, though any band with a song titled “Lapsed Asshole” has to be good. And the mighty Boner Killerz is on the bill along with Omaha duo The Natural States. Classic. $5, 9 p.m.
Also tonight, Dereck Higgins returns to The Down Under Lounge. Joining him is Minneapolis jazz group The Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperance League. No cover, 9 p.m.
This month’s Over the Edge column in The Reader is a feature on Matt Whipkey’s new album, Driver, which Whipkey will be celebrating with a pair of shows later this month at Reverb. You can read the story online here, or in the printed version of The Reader, which should be on newsstands now or in the very near future. Or you can just read it below…
Uber Confessions Rocker Matt Whipkey’s new album captures life behind the wheel.
Maybe, if you’re lucky, the next time you call for an Uber or Lyft after a hard night of partying, you’ll get Matt Whipkey.
He’s the guy who drives the black 2010 Chrysler Town and Country. The guy with the perfect hair.
“OK, here’s a weird one I had last night,” Whipkey said during some off time on a drizzly Sunday afternoon at Zen Coffee. “This woman grabbed me too many times during the ride. I felt uncomfortable. She was in her 40s or 50s and told me she’d just done drugs. She didn’t tell me which ones, but by the way she was acting I can only guess. It happens. I wasn’t scared.”
But there have been plenty of times when he was scared.
“One time I picked up these guys at Oscar’s at around 8 p.m. It was three dudes. Two of them were average people, but one was huge, six-nine, a big guy, bigger than everybody. He was intoxicated and excitable. They were going to this strip club, American Dream off 72nd and F, and this guy gets excited and says ‘We’re gonna see naked chicks’ and he starts jumping up and down, shaking the whole car, then grabs my shoulders and starts shaking me, lifting me up and down. We’re on the Interstate doing 80. I said, ‘You’ve got to stop him.’ But this guy could easily have taken all three of us.”
Whipkey, one of the smoothest talkers you’ll ever meet, somehow calmed the monster and got him to put him down. “You get really good at conflict avoidance, de-escalating the situation,” Whipkey said. “I dropped them off and reported it to Uber immediately. The sad thing was that it was on his friend’s account, and that guy — not the big guy — will get banned from Uber for it.”
Whipkey’s been driving for Uber and Lyft for two years as a side hustle from his regular job teaching guitar lessons and being a rock star. As a result, he’s got a million stories about life behind the wheel hauling drunks, druggies, bigots, homophobes, horn dogs, celebrities and normal folks like you and me.
“I’ve given rides to the most down-on-their-luck people to the most desolate places in Omaha and also given rides to billionaires to their private air strips. It’s a strange equalizer. For that fraction of time, it doesn’t matter. It’s my car. I’m driving you. There’s trust there.”
Matt Whipkey, Driver (self-release, 2018)
It’s a job that inspired the songs on Whipkey’s latest album, the double LP Driver, which he and his band will showcase Feb. 23 and 25 at Reverb Lounge. The collection is 14 portraits of loneliness, desperation and inner monologues (along with a Beatles cover), all of which rock, at least most of the time.
Whipkey, known for his catchy, guitar-fueled pop songs and bombastic stage presence, stretches in new directions on this record, most notably with the album’s opening and closing tracks that bookend the collection with warm, acoustic touches and unexpected keyboards. The songs contrast nicely with riff-rock ballads that underscore Whipkey’s guitar prowess and his tight backing band consisting of Travis Sing, bass; Scott Zimmerman, drums; Korey Anderson, guitars; and keyboard player J. Scott Gaeta.
The thread that ties it together is Whipkey’s breathy, growling vocals, which do their best to coax every last drop of emotion from these lonely stories, like the longing “Amy Knows” about a woman who just transferred to Omaha and has “fourteen days to fix a lifetime” and the rocking, Nugent-esque screamer “The Driver” where Whipkey keeps a tight stranglehold on his blazing ax.
Whipkey spent a good nine months recording the album with Scott Gaeta at Gaeta’s Music Factory Productions studio, laying down tracks when he wasn’t on the road. During that same time, he also recorded his previous album, the 2017 pop collection Best New Music. All of this came shortly after opening 30 dates for music legend Dwight Yoakam on his 2015-2016 tours.
The week prior to this interview, Whipkey opened for ’70s legacy act America in Sioux City, Iowa. He hopes to get more of those kinds of large-stage gigs, though he’s just as determined to get his music heard in his home town.
“The goal was to make the best record with the resources we had,” Whipkey said. “I don’t have the national mentality of ‘This song is going to take you to the next level.’ I want this to take me to the next level as a songwriter and as an artist. If you think in that regard, it will translate into other areas where people will recognize that you’re growing and doing something that no one else is doing.”
Matt Whipkey and his band perform with Stephen Sheehan Friday, Feb. 23, at Reverb Lounge, 6121 Military Ave. Showtime is 9 p.m. Whipkey will perform a second show at Reverb Sunday, Feb. 25, with Charlie Ames at 6 p.m. Both shows are $10. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com.
Over The Edge is a monthly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, music, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com
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Tonight at Reverb Lounge it’s the return of Diet Cig. The band has made Omaha a regular tour stop of the past few years, even making a special appearance at 2016’s Maha Music Festival. This tour marks the first time the band is playing as a 4-piece, as the duo will be joined on stage by Anna from The Spook School (bass) and Karli from Plush (keyboards/vox). The Spook School will actually open tonight’s show, along with Great Grandpa. $15, 8 p.m.
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