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Tim Kasher at The Waiting Room, Oct. 5, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

So how was Tim Kasher Saturday night at The Waiting Room?

Pretty damn good, thanks for asking. Kasher’s set  drew from both solo albums, plus The Good Life and Cursive catalogs. Though backed by a ripping band that included sassy bassist Sara Bertuldo and musical genius/multi-instrumentalist Patrick Newbery (I’m not sure who was on drums, but he was awesome), the set’s tone was low-key and downright mellow.

For example, Kasher’s cover of “From the Hips” (off Cursive album Mama, I’m Swollen) took the usually rousing, bombastic rocker and re-imagined it as a quiet lullaby. In fact, there were a lot of quiet moments throughout most of the set, and maybe that was driven by the chatty crowd, who Kasher acknowledged when he sat down at a keyboard to play a solo version of a Good Life song that “none of you know.” Unfortunately, he eventually talked himself out of it, and his band instead returned to the stage to resume the usual setlist. While there  were a lot of new arrangements for older material, the tunes off Adult Film got the same treatment heard on the album.

The evening’s bright spots came during the encore, when Kasher and Co. lit into a spot-on cover of The Faint’s “Worked Up So Sexual” that got a few folks in the 200+ crowd jumping. The energy stayed for the evening’s closer, “Totally Freaking Out,” from the new album.

* * *

Here’s some guidance for the coming week….

Pageturner’s has Colleen Lynch and Grape Soda tonight. It’s free and starts at 10 p.m.

Killer Blow headlines at O’Leaver’s Tuesday with Peach Kelli Pop and S. Pratt and the Sweats. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Saturn Moth plays at Slowdown Jr., Thursday night with Manic Pixie Dream Girls and Hussies. $5, 9 p.m.

Man Man closes out the week at Slowdown’s big room Friday night with Xenia Rubinos. $15, 9 p.m.

And Crystal Stilts plays at O’Leaver’s Friday night with Pleasure Adapter and Zachary Cole.

Actually a pretty busy week of shows…

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Quasi at Slowdown Jr., Oct. 3, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

You couldn’t ask for more from Quasi last night. The duo of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss played a set that combined their best oldies with their best newies, the whole thing capped off with a long encore that included a keyboard-driven cover of “War Pigs.”

The 40 or so on hand at Slowdown Jr. last night were treated to no less then four songs off Featuring “Birds,” including “I Never Want to See You Again” “The Happy Prole” and “It’s Hard to Turn Me On.” In between they played new stuff off Mole City including, “You Can Stay But You Gotta Go” and “The Goat.”

The set was split in two by Coomes, who played the first half behind a distorted keyboard and the second behind a distorted Gibson. Weiss was a marvel on drums and filled out the sound with harmonies.

The set had me reconsidering Mole City, an album that I initially thought was just weird. The best way to listen to it is to cut out all the wonky minute-or-less filler noise tracks and focus on songs over 3 minutes in length. It would have been a solid 10-song album instead of a so-so 24-track double.

Last night’s set blew away the last time I saw them, at SXSW a couple years ago in support of the lackluster American Gong album where they didn’t play anything off their past catalog. The best moments last night were the hits, which Coomes supplied with a weathered panache that made them sound as fresh as they did when first performed 15 years ago.

Jeffrey Lewis at Slowdown Jr., Oct. 3, 2013.

Jeffrey Lewis backed by a bass player and a drummer played a set of funny, insightful, wordy folk-punk tunes that was as steeped as much in history as politics. Twice during the set Lewis played “storytime,” paging through a couple large hand-drawn comic books, one telling the story of the French Revolution, the other a brief history of comic book pioneer Alan Moore.

Set highlight was “WWPRD” — which stands for What Would Pussy Riot Do — which was both an ode to our Soviet punk rock heroes and a lessen for up-and-coming bands to ask themselves, “What piece of your soul are you willing to sell to be a success?” Not a bad lesson.

I did catch the last two songs by See Through Dresses and they were divine, though the vocals were lost in the mix. Great band, great music.

* * *

Let’s get right to the weekend.

Tonight at The Waiting Room it’s the return of everyone’s favorite funky, funny man, Har Mar Superstar. Opening is Lizzo (Totally Gross National Product) and Snake Island. $12, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, at the Barley Street, It’s True returns, but only as a solo outing by Adam Hawkins and as an opener for his band Eros and Eschaton. $5, 9 p.m.

Down at Slowdown Jr., Seattle’s Hey Marseilles headlines with The Apache Relay and The Big Deep. $12, 9 p.m.

BTW, it’s Benson First Friday tonight…

Saturday’s headline show is, of course, Tim Kasher at The Waiting Room. With Laura Stevenson and our very on Brigadiers. $11, 9 p.m.

Also Saturday night, it’s the return of Langhorn Slim, this time to Slowdown Jr. with his band The Law. Opening is Jonny Fritz. $10, 9 p.m.

The sleeper show of the evening is Goon Saloon at O’Leaver’s with Routine Escorts and the debut of Gramps, a band who calls among its players Love Drunk video producer Django G-S. This might require that I do some bar-hopping Saturday. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also worthy of attention, instrumental surf band The Sub-Vectors plays tonight at The Barley Street and sitting in one song is none other than John Tingle, former guitarist of legendary ’80s-’90s post-ambient band Digital Sex. Also on the bill, Winnebago Woman and Superbytes. $5, 9 p.m.

Finally Sunday, Blind Snake plays at O’Leaver’s with Flesh Eating Skin Disease. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And the Supersuckers play at The Waiting Room with Hellbound Glory. $15, 9 p.m.

Did I forget something? Put it in the comments. Have a good 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Kasher, Adult Film (Saddle Creek, 2013)

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

And here’s Pt. 2 of the Tim Kasher interview. Pt. 1 was posted yesterday. Both parts are in this week’s issue of The Reader. Pick up a copy at your local news rack or bar or coffee shop or convenient store today.

Over the Edge: Leftover Kasher

Like the headline says, here’s some leftover wisdom from Tim Kasher that didn’t make it into the feature story.  I thought it would be a shame to leave it on the cutting room floor.

For example, nowhere in the feature story did I explain the title of Kasher’s new album, Adult Film, and the origin of its hideous cover art. Hopefully Eric in production has a copy of the artwork to include with this column so you can see just how repulsive it truly is. So gruesome is the cover that I almost dropped the CD’s jewel case when I took it out of the promo mailer’s envelope.

The artwork is actually quite simple — it’s a nude head-and-shoulder photo of Kasher covered in some sort of greasy, slimy substance, as if a giant woman-thing gave birth to him full-grown only moments prior to the shoot. Mixed in with the shiny, viscous substance are bits of what look like shit or placenta or snot balls. Even Kasher’s well-combed hair lays flat like it hadn’t been washed in a couple weeks. The photo is just straight fucking gross; so ugly you can practically smell it.

The art is made all the more disturbing by the placement of the words ADULT FILM in yellow all-caps on top of a black bar that blocks out Kasher’s eyes, as if to hide his identity even though his name appears right above his head.

Creepy. Needless to say, there had to be some sort of meaning behind it.

“There’s not a ton to it, and I feel like I suffer when I explain it,” Kasher said sheepishly. “I just quite simply saw the two words ‘adult film’ in my head and I separated them from what they’ve come to mean in our society. I tend to play around with words, and it occurred to me how odd those words were together. They’ve come to mean ‘pornography’ and nothing else. but if they had never been used for pornography they would conjure this gross thought; this film that people collect that gets wrinkled and corse as it goes old and untouched.

“I think (in that context) it’s fitting for the album’s subject matter. That meaning casts a wide net. It’s a catch-all for mortality and getting older, but also about career and dating and aging and whatever pursuit you happen to be in.”

He said said he’s “a little uneasy with the porno aspect” of the title. As for the guck, “It’s Vaseline and dirt; potting soil and some mulch and some green dye to give it a bit of a sheen.”

Aren’t you glad I asked?

At one point during our interview I also asked Kasher about his vocals on the album’s roaring, rolling opener “American Lit,” and told him it reminded me of something from Slowdown Virginia, one of Kasher’s first bands from way back in ’93 that some say was a starting point for what would become the Saddle Creek scene.

“That’s a relief to me,” Kasher said. “I sing lower almost always now. I’ve been having vocal issues over the last four years. I write in low registers just in case. I just can’t stay on top of it. I don’t know when it’s going to go out next, with bronchitis or something.”

That was a surprise. So was Kasher’s comments about Help Wanted Nights. I mentioned that Adult Film was my favorite Kasher album since that classic 2007 album by his other band, The Good Life. It turns out that Help Wanted Nights also was notable to Kasher, but for a different reason.

“It was the first time that I got bad reviews,” he said. “It knocked me down for like two days, and then for the next few records I watched (the reviews) a little bit more than before. It became a sick curiosity, and I got a little obsessed.”

Kasher said he eventually got past his preoccupation with critics. “I’m not going to do that anymore,” he said. “It’s not that I’m against critics, it’s that they’re not the ones who I should be writing for.”

Help Wanted Nights was actually a sort of soundtrack to an unproduced script of the same name. Written a few years prior to the album’s release, it was the first script Kasher tried to get produced, catching the interest of a handful of Los Angeles money people. Still, six years later, the script remains unshot.

“I set it aside just before I began working on (The Game of) Monogamy (Kasher’s 2010 debut solo album). It had some renewed interest for a few months.”

Kasher hasn’t given up his silver-screen dreams. “I have another script being worked on to go into production,” he said. The new one is about couple swapping — ironic, considering the title of this new album.

Kasher said the movie business is “a hard game with a lot of money involved I keep writing and handing stuff out, and here and there get reactions. I’ll cautiously kind of let it play itself out and see what happens.”

One last thing I forgot to mention in the feature: Adult Film doesn’t come out until next Tuesday, Oct. 8, on Saddle Creek Records (of course). You should pick up a copy when you go to see Kasher and his band celebrate its release at The Waiting Room Saturday night. Whatever you do, don’t judge the record by its cover.

Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.

First published in The Reader, Oct. 2, 2103. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

* * *

One of the biggest shows of the month takes place tonight at Slowdown Jr.

Some of you may not be old enough to remember Quasi and the Portland band’s seminal 1998 album Featuring “Birds,” but it was one of the defining albums of the late ’90s and the high water mark this band. Frontman Sam Coomes had just left two pretty successful bands — Donner Party and Heatmiser, a band that also featured Elliot Smith — to form this band with Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss. Featuring “Birds” came out of nowhere and was a critical smash thanks to ultra cool songs like “I Never Want to See You Again,” “The Poisoned Well,” and of course “California.” Heck, every track is good.

Six more albums followed, including their just released Mole City, which came out Tuesday on Kill Rock Stars. Tonight’s show kicks off their tour in support of that album.

Joining Quasi is Jeffrey Lewis, who’s album End Result (2007, Rough Trade), is one of my faves. Lewis has recorded with Kimya Dawson and most recently with Peter Stampfel. Our very own See Through Dresses opens. You get all three for a mere $15. Starts at 9. GO!!

Also tonight, Louisville, KY singer/songwriter Cheyenne Mize (Yep Rock Records) plays at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Eli Mardock and Blue Bird. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And The Waiting Room is hosting another Songwriter Death Battle featuring 40 or so local singer/songwriters passing around John Klemmenson’s beat-up acoustic guitar for one song apiece. Hear Nebraska has the line-up info right here

. $5, 9 p.m.

* * *

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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

This is (sort of) the first part of a two-part feature/interview with Tim Kasher. Pt. 2 appears in this week’s column, which is essentially outtakes from Pt. 1. Look for that tomorrow. In the meantime…

Tim Kasher’s Adult Film

The Cursive frontman celebrates the release of his second full-length solo album.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

There’s a lot of death on Tim Kasher’s new album, Adult Film.

On the record’s first single, “Truly Freaking Out,” Kasher wrestles with the idea that his friends and family will all die some day, and he isn’t too happy about it. He bleakly points out over rolling keyboards: “I know, I know, I know the end is near / I know, I know it’s all downhill from here. / We’re all cascading to our graves / Tugging back at gravity’s reigns.”

At age 39, has Kasher, a staunch atheist, finally come to the realization that dead means dead, and there’s no coming back?

“I touch on it a lot it seems throughout the record,” Kasher said via cell while walking to Logan Square in his newly adopted hometown of Chicago. “There’s this kind of sobering that comes with age that anyone of us experiences who has gotten older and on the other side.”

One of Kasher’s dreams in his youth was to be a jazz drummer when he retires. “I wanted to be the cool guy that plays at a bar down the street,” he said. “Now that I’m turning 40 next year, I’m putting that aside. You start having sober realizations of how much time you have left. I also know that so much time has been nicked off, trimmed, shorn from our existence. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted time. I want to keep having more time, if anything.”

He may never become the next Buddy Rich or Joe Voda, but if the clock quits ticking for Kasher, he would leave behind an impressive list of other musical accomplishments that his loved ones would be proud of.  Kasher is arguably one of the best personal songwriters to come out of Omaha in the past 20 years, alongside his old pal Conor Oberst and local folk legend Simon Joyner.  Since ’97 he’s written and produced 12 full-length albums both as a solo artist and with his bands Cursive and The Good Life, almost all of them released on indie label Saddle Creek Records.

An entire generation of Nebraska singer/songwriters credits Kasher both as an influence and a survivor. In a time when musicians are being strangled by the economics of a financially crippled music industry, Kasher has continued to make a living doing nothing but music, though he’s beginning to diversify.

Last year he became partners in one of Omaha’s most notorious bars — O’Leaver’s on South Saddle Creek Rd. Kasher is a co-owner along with Cursive bandmates Ted Stevens and Matt Maginn, and long-time O’Leaver’s manager Chris Machmuller, lead singer of Saddle Creek band Ladyfinger.

“It’s hard to consider it my bar,” Kasher said. “It’s really their bar, but I’m glad to be able to contribute monetarily.”

While portfolio diversification was the main reason for joining the partnership, “the first reason was because Matt was interested in buying it,” Kasher said. “We’ve been working together forever and he’s always wanted to diversify but wanted to do it in a way that seems enjoyable. Who wants to buy a paper company because he hears it’s a good investment?”

Kasher said eight or so years ago when Cursive and The Good Life were at a financial peak, people just assumed he was “living high off the hog. I’m basing this on people I run into in other states who have lofty concepts of my success that don’t even remotely match reality,” he said.

“When someone writes a book, you figure ‘Well now, they must be loaded. They wrote a book.’ But in reality they’re actually a struggling teacher. These days most people think that I should have another job. I’m pretty much off the radar; nothing I do elicits some kind of suggestion of a lot of success, but I manage to do okay anyway. My career, at this point, has some girth to it.”

It also helps that Kasher does more than one musical project at a time. “A lot of why music is still a full-time job is because I tend to do it about twice as much as other musicians in that I release under multiple monikers” he said. “I always knew that (Cursive and The Good Life) kept each other afloat. When I set The Good Life aside it was like I had stopped my bar tending job. The money dwindled.”

Not for long. Kasher began releasing solo work with 2010’s The Game of Monogamy and its follow-up, 2011’s More Songs from the Monogamy Sessions EP.  The perennial question with every release is how Kasher decides which material will go toward which project. Cursive music tends to be harder, faster and more acidic than the lighter, more melody-driven tunes heard on Good Life albums. The music for Adult Film falls somewhere in between.

Recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago and mixed by John Congleton at Elmwood Recording in Dallas, Adult Film is the most tuneful Kasher project since The Good Life’s Help Wanted Nights in 2007. Songs like failure anthem “A Raincloud Is a Raincloud,” breakup drama “The Willing Cuckold,” and the pounding “A Looping Distress Signal” are as close to straight-up rock songs as Kasher can probably get.

Never has keyboards played such a dominant role in one of his productions. From the pounding organ on “Life and Limbo” to the wonky rolling synth on the aforementioned “Truly Freaking Out” that sounds like a Kubrick-ian nightmare to the piano-tightrope walk on “Where Your Heart Lies,” keys are on almost every song.

“We had that in mind from the onset,” Kasher said, pointing to collaborator Patrick Newbery who is credited with organ, keys, synths and horns on the recording. Newbery is joined on the record by Sara Bertuldo (bass, vocals), Dylan Ryan (drums) and a handful of other musicians caught in Kasher’s orbit.

So why were the songs on Adult Film used for a solo album?

“It’s just what I’m doing right now, and it’s logical,” Kasher said. “I want to get my own name off the ground a bit more. We’re all getting older and if I were to continue to do any of this, it’ll be easier to lean on just myself to put out an album.”

That said, there’s little doubt about Cursive’s future. Last year the band released the full-length I Am Gemini on Saddle Creek Records and spent a good part of the year on the road. Saddle Creek Records said the album had U.S. Soundscans of 10,379 and more than 430,000 track streams on Spotify. Kasher said he was satisfied at how well that record performed.

“It gave us (Cursive) a lot of vigor, we had a great time being together and felt good about the finished product,” he said. “We got a chance to play the songs every night to a lot of people who were crazy for it. It was a lot of fun. In the largest sense we’ve become a niche band. We’re kind of a small posse, but a good community.”

The future of The Good Life, however, is more in question. “I feel that all the projects are still alive. Some are more dormant than others,” Kasher said. “The Good Life is very dormant now, but we still chat and think about it. I still try to look at my schedule long-term and think where I might do this or that band. In my head, it’s not dead at all. My impression is that we’ll all get back together in time.”

Even if that time is running out. While there is a looming sense of despair on his new record, Kasher said, “We’re still living in a good age. There’s a lot of joy everywhere. Everyone is having babies. We’re on the edge between getting joyful phone calls that someone is in labor and getting calls that someone is in the ICU.”

Tim Kasher plays with Laura Stevenson and The Brigadiers Saturday, Oct. 5, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple Street. Showtime is 9 p.m.. Admission is $11. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com.

First published in The Reader, Oct. 2, 2103. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

* * *

Tonight at O’Leaver’s, composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Marisa Anderson takes the stage. According to her online profile, Anderson’s second solo record, The Golden Hour (Mississippi Records 2011), features “12 improvisations inspired by Delta blues, West African guitar, vintage country and western, gospel, noise, rhythms, cycles, mortality, and praise.” Grapefruit Records, the label run by Simon Joyner, is releasing Anderson’s next album in December. Opening for Anderson is Rake Kash (Lonnie Methe’s latest project) and Zach LaGrou. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Marisa Anderson from De Kreun

on Vimeo.

Also tonight, Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional’s new band Twin Forks plays at Slowdown Jr. with Matrimony and Skypilot. $15, 8 p.m.

* * *

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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Jeremy Buckley posted 50 more bands/performers/DUs booked for the 10th Annual Lincoln Calling — one of the area’s longest running local music festivals, slated for Oct. 15-19 in 10 venues throughout the Lincoln metroplex.

Among the new additions that raised an eyebrow — and will likely have me traveling to Lincoln — is Future Islands, whose performance at The Waiting Room back in 2011 was one of my favorite shows that year.

Buckley plans to add one more band to the line-up to make the total a perfect 100. Here are the additions announced yesterday:

All Young Girls Are Machine Guns
Allie Kral of Cornmeal
AudBawl
AZP
Bass Coma
Bassthoven
Burning Down the Villager
Cake Eater
Chris Padgett of the Stereofidelics
Cory Kibler
CowboyUp!
Danny Myrick
DJ Brake-C
DJ Jab
thedjKG
Domestica
Ezra
Future Islands
Guilty is the Bear
Haggard Mess
Henhouse Prowlers
Hot Buttered Rum
Huntress
Karen Choi
Kronen
Life is Cool
Lloyd McCarter and the Honky Tonk Revival
Lucas Kellison
Mr. Deedles
Myth
Nick the Quick
Parker House Cartel
Pharmacy Spirits
Philip White
Powerful Science
Rebecca Lynn Howard
Sharkwe3k
Sharkwrekinbawl
Skypiper
Spankalicious
Sputnik Kaputnik and the Technical Manuals
Steven Garcia
Thirst Things First
Trill Ferell
Touch People
Virtuopath
Wrekafekt
Yimbo Slice

And here’s the first set of artists confirmed last month:

The 4onthefloor (Minneapolis)
The Big Deep (Omaha)
Bonehart Flannigan (Lincoln)
The Bottletops (Lincoln)
BOY (Hamburg)
Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies (Omaha)
Carolyn Wonderland (Austin)
Christopher the Conquered (Des Moines)
Cowboy Indian Bear (Lawrence)
Cowboy Winter (Madison)
DEERPEOPLE (Stillwater)
Desert Noises (Provo)
Dirty Talker (Lincoln)
Eli Mardock (Lincoln)
A Ferocious Jungle Cat (Lincoln)
Freakabout! (Lincoln)
Genders (Portland)
Gordon (Omaha)
Guilty is the Bear (Lincoln)
Halfwit (Lincoln)
The Highest Order (Toronto)
Homegrown Film Festival (Lincoln)
Jack Hotel (Lincoln)
Jeazlepeats (Lincoln)
Jeremy Messersmith (Minneapolis)
John Klemmensen and the Party (Omaha)
The Josh Hill Band (Akron)
Josh Hoyer and the Shadowboxers (Lincoln)
The Kickback (Chicago)
Masses (Lincoln)
The Mezcal Brothers (Lincoln)
Oquoa (Omaha)
Orion Walsh and the Rambling Hearts (Lincoln)
Pleasure Adapter (Omaha)
Powers (Lincoln)
Red Cities (Lincoln)
The Renfields (Lincoln)
Rock Paper Dynamite (Omaha)
Rusty Maples (Las Vegas)
Saturn Moth (Omaha)
Snake Island! (Omaha)
Tie These Hands (Lincoln)
Too Slim and the Taildraggers (Nashville)
Tsumi (Lincoln)
Twinsmith (Omaha)
Universe Contest (Lincoln)
Whipkey Three (Omaha)
White Mystery (Chicago)
Wiping Out Thousands (Minneapolis)

Jeremy tells me that tomorrow is the last day all-access passes will be available for $20 (inside of the Bourbon at Kinetic Brew during day time business hours). After tomorrow passes go up to $40, which is still a great deal, but why spend $20 when you don’t have to?

* * *

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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Decatures at Dario Day, Sept. 28, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What to say about Dundee Day a.k.a. Dario Day Saturday? We passed the crowds gathered along Underwood Street to see tribute band Rock and Roll Suicide and proceeded to Dario’s, which boasted a slate of original bands as well as Dario’s gourmet cheeseburgers and pulled-pork sandwiches (not to mention the Belgian beer).

Only 30 or so people were standing around the tables in Dario’s cordoned off parking lot at around 6 p.m. On stage, a three-piece played grunge-infused hard rock complete with guitar solos. The shaggy blond lead singer/guitarist looked like a young Peter Frampton under his curly locks. I tend to shy away from mainstream rock acts, but I have to say these guys were pretty durn fun to listen to — if not a little green. It didn’t help matters that their drummer punctuated every number with a post-song drum fill best left for band practice.

It wasn’t until after their set that I discovered it was The Decatures. and only after I asked the sound guy. Here’s a tip, guys: Unless you’re a known commodity, tell the audience who you are at least a couple times during your set. Even if you only recognize your friends and family, you never know who might be in the audience.

Old Money at Dario Day, Sept. 28, 2013.

We hung out at Dario’s for dinner and beers and waited what seemed like an hour for Old Money to get set up. Old Money was described as “Satchel Grande lite,” which was right on, though their music leaned a little too close to “smooth jazz” territory. By the time we left, the crowd had nearly doubled to around 50 — pretty light compared to the last time we went to Dario Day and had to fight to get a table.

On the way home outside along Underwood, the crowd had ballooned. On stage the band was busy putting down a lousy version of a Bowie’s “Suffragette City.” Ah, how Omaha loves its cover bands…

* * *

A hot gig has sneaked up on us tonight at The Waiting Room. Drag City Records band Blues Control headlines a show that also features Detroit’s Jamaican Queens, Omaha punks Worried Mothers and Rake Kash (Lonnie Methe’s latest project). $7, 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Growlers at Slowdown Jr., Sept. 26, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m looking over my notes from last night’s Burgerama Caravan showcase at Slowdown Jr. That’s right, sometimes I actually take notes at shows, usually when I’m bored or think of something that I want to remember to mention the next morning. Here’s what I wrote:

“The scene is very ‘hippie,’ very drug culture. I guess it’s the whole Southern California thing. Lots of people smoking dope outside. Tiny little pipes, big puffs of stink. Lots of leaf motif apparel. Lots of Charles Manson hair and tie dye.

“Is this what it was like in 1967, when the world was dropping out and protesting the war and wearing flowers in their hair? When I think of the ’60s in my mind I see it in grainy, slightly over-saturated color film, bright, vibrant colors and only the bluest sky and music that sounds like this.“

My co-pilot for the evening blamed The Growlers’ crowd for the hashy, hippie scene. It was the youngest crowd I’ve seen at a Slowdown show — or any rock show — in a long time, with only one familiar face in the crowd — a guy at least my age who I’d talked to at other shows and had run into at Homer’s before. We chatted in front of the stage before the headliner came on.

Together Pangea at Slowdown Jr., Sept. 26, 2013.

We both thought the highlight of the evening (or at least what we saw of it) had been Together Pangea. The four-piece played straight-up, edgy, garage rock with brazen hooks and smart, dirty choruses like “Too drunk to C**.” They were too good, too tight and well-polished, to call “garage rock.” Certainly no garage bands from around here sounded so well-rehearsed, every corner perfectly rounded.

The Cosmonauts at Slowdown Jr., Sept. 26, 2013.

They were followed by The Cosmonauts,  another finely honed punk band but this time with layers of hazy drone. They closed their set with a number that seemed to go on forever. By then I’d already moved from the side of the stage to a vacant booth in front of the soundboard and began tapping notes into my phone.

Behind me along the back wall was a virtual swap meet of merch, as if Burger Records had opened a pop-up store inside Slowdown. Maybe 20 different shirts hung from the wall, some with pot or drug references or crude drawings. The long table contained stacks of albums, CDs and cassettes, along with assorted other band junk like buttons and stickers. I wanted to buy a Pangea album but was told the only thing available was a cassette. I like cassettes and have a large collection of them as well as a top-quality TEAC tape deck, but the idea of paying $10 or whatever for a cassette didn’t thrill me and I ended up buying nothing.

Back outside in the beer garden I leaned against the fence by the locked entrance gate when two rather large women walked along the other side and pulled out one of those little chrome pipes. A member of one of the bands walked by and they offered him the pipe but he smiled and waved it off. “I can’t play when I’m high,” he said.

The Growlers came on before midnight looking like they just walked off stage at Woodstock or the 1967 Monterrey Jazz Festival or the Spahn Ranch. Big hair. Like the others, they were razor sharp. Frontman Brooks Nielsen, wearing overalls and a shirt that looked like pajama tops, sounded like Bob Dylan singing over Middle Eastern chant music. Also like Dylan, you couldn’t understand a word he was singing, but that was okay with their fans, a few of whom were mouthing the words along with Nielsen’s mumbling.

I love the idea of a record label taking their bands on the road. No doubt fans of one Burger Records band is familiar with the others, and it makes sense for everyone to travel together and share a backline for quick 15-minute swap outs between sets. I wondered why Saddle Creek hadn’t tried something like it during the label’s heyday. The closest I can remember was when Bright Eyes and The Faint shared a stage for a few shows (or at least one at Council Bluffs’ Mid-America Center).  It’s never too late.

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After the bonanza of shows over the past two weeks, the weekend is looking light.

Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s Simon Joyner and The Ghosts co-headline with Iowa City’s Samuel Locke Ward Lo Fi Garbage Spectacular. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also tonight, The Filter Kings opens for Denver’s Reno Divorce at The Sydney in Benson. $5, 10 p.m.

Saturday is Dundee Day and as per usual they’ve booked a lousy cover band for the evening beer garden. No matter because all the real action is taking place at Dario’s beer garden. Dario will start serving fine Belgium booze starting at noon along with pulled pork sandwiches and cheeseburgers.

Dario’s music starts at 5 p.m. and bands “include” No, I’m the Pilot, The Decatures, Old Money and Rock Paper Dynamite. No word on entrance fee but I think it was $5 last year. Always a good time.

Saturday night The Beat Seekers play at The Sydney with Fonzarellies and Greg Loftis. $5, 9 p.m.

And that’s it. If I missed anything, put it in the Comments section. Have a good 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I was on the list and everything for last night’s Orenda Fink / Simon Joyner show and just plain didn’t make it and I feel guilty about that. Another super-early morning kept me out of the clubs. There are  trade-offs in life, it seems…

I have tomorrow off so there’s nothing stopping me from hitting the big Burgerama Caravan of Stars Tour 2013 at Slowdown Jr. tonight. Burger Records is a red hot DIY punk / indie/ noise label. The SF Weekly called the label “contingent somehow within and decidedly apart from the indie rock sphere, boasting followers from all walks of life and similarly branded offshoots springing up throughout the land.” I’ve read that three times and I still don’t know what it means.

Anyway, the label’s biggest stars are on the road together and have finally made it to Omaha. The headliner is California act The Growlers. They call their sound “Beach Goth,” which also happens to the be name of their limited edition cassette-only 2012 Burger release. Their last formal album came out on FatCat this year.

Also on tonight’s Burgerama fightcard: Cosomonauts, Together Pangea, Gap Dream, White Fang with Colleen Green, and The Memories. All for $13. Show starts at 8. Why go to a festival when the festival can come to you?

Check out the story of Burger Records:

And here’s some samples from tonight’s bands:

Also tonight, punk band The Vibrators return to The Brothers Lounge with Bullet Proof Hearts, and Officially Terminated. $5, 9 p.m.

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In this week’s column, I get cold-called by Springfield, Missouri band The Gardenheads in the form of their new vinyl release Growing Season. Album of the year? Maybe, maybe.. You can read it in this week’s issue of The Reader or online right here.

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Just in time for fall, Hell for Breakfast

, the blog run by Orenda and Todd Fink, posted a recording of Orenda’s rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” (embedded below). Orenda’s breathy coo on this grim lullaby could entice any pick-up driving sumbitch to go on a killing rampage…in a good way.

You’ll get a chance to hear Orenda sing it live tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s.

Todd writes, from the HfB blog:

“On Wednesday Orenda will be playing (Springsteen’s) song “Nebraska” along with a bunch of new and old songs.  She’s letting me sit in on the drums. Our neighbor Greg Elsasser (from Capgun Coup, and No, i’m the Pilot) will be bowing the spooky-saw and playing bass. Christine Fink (O’s sister who recently moved here) and Pearl Boyd (Outlaw con Bandana) will be singing backups. And Orenda’s usual partner in crime, Ben Brodin, will be playing his tape delayed moody guitars.”

Also on the bill, the incomparable Simon Joyner (check out his one-on-one Hear Nebraska interview conducted at midtown meat house The French Bulldog) and Chicago’s Circuit des Yeux and duo Spires that in the Sunset Rise (that’s STITSR, which is very similar to TSITR). This one is $7 and starts at 9 p.m. sharp. Get there early.

* * *

Speaking of members of Azure Ray, yesterday Maria Taylor debuted her first song off upcoming Saddle Creek release Something About Knowing called “Up All Night,” and it’s a baby song (of course). The new record comes out Oct. 29.

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Also happening tonight at The Brothers Lounge it’s the return of Lincoln’s Ron Wax (a.k.a. Ron Albertson) along with KC punkers Lazy and our own Video Ranger. $5, 9 p.m. Check out some Ron Wax 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Yo La Tengo at The Waiting Room, Sept. 21, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

When I got to The Waiting Room Saturday night at around 8:30 I thought the show was going to be a dud. Maybe 20 people were wandering around the club. A guy outside with connections told me pre-sales had been disappointing, especially considering that Yo La Tengo rarely plays such small venues anymore. Last time they came through (in 2009) they nearly sold out The Slowdown. In fact, the reason I got there early was to make sure I could snag two tickets and a table.

But within a half hour the place was nicely filled, and a line of people waiting to get in snaked out the door. I didn’t get numbers, but it felt like at least 250 were there to see what arguably is one of the most influential indie bands of the past 20 years. Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew came on at about 9:20 and announced they were doing two sets, starting with a “quiet set” that included soothing renditions of soothing songs from albums that reached all the way back to 1993’s Painful LP as well as stuff off their latest, 2013’s Fade

(Matador).

Don’t get me wrong, this was beautiful, lush, moving stuff, but after four or five songs, it all began to bleed together, and sure enough people started to get bored and turned their attention away from the stage and toward whoever they came with. Muted chatter slowly became a rolling roar that rose from the back of the room. This is the point in the review where I’d normally chastise the crowd, but I can’t blame them for getting restless.

After about 45 minutes of soothing stuff, the trio left the stage for about 20 minutes, than returned for the “loud set,” which was indeed more interesting, more upbeat, and loud enough to discourage casual chatter. You had to yell if you were going to cut through the dense noise generated by Ira’s guitar shredding. Again, the band played a fine selection from a variety of albums, including favorite “Tom Courtenay” off Electr-O-Pura. Nice stuff, but again, one after another after another — including extended Ira guitar solos — started to become dull indeed, and we ended up leaving five songs into the “loud” set.

I love Yo La Tengo. This is the third time I’ve seen them live. The best time was when they played Sokol Underground back in 2006. That set was broad and varied and Ira was reined in. Then there was that Slowdown show in ’09. That one felt loud and chaotic and while Ira was in full-on jam mode, the sheer overblown power of the set made it memorable. Last Saturday’s show was memorable too, but dividing the set into “quiet” and “loud” made for too much of one thing or another.

Eros and Eschaton at Slowdown Jr., Sept. 22, 2013.

I don’t know if it was because I still had YLT on my mind, but Eros and Eschaton kind of reminded me of that trio when they played at Slowdown Jr. last night. This was an early show — starting at 7 p.m. — which made it possible for me to actually attend. Why more shows — especially on Sunday or “school nights” — don’t start at 7 or 8 remains a mystery to me. It’s nice to be able to get home before 11 p.m.

In this case, I was home before 10 because E&E played a severely short set. The band consists of former It’s True frontman Adam Hawkins and his wife Katey Sleeveless (Kate Perdoni), along with a bassist and (I’m told) the drummer from It’s True. The It’s True influence was distinctive during the first half of the set, which sounded very much like material that would have fit in well on It’s True’s last album. The difference is the harmonies between Hawkins and Perdoni, along with a bit more heft in the arrangements.

Things got heavier in the second half of the set, as the band pulled away into the more brutal territory heard on their new Bar/None album. The musical violence reached a fever pitch when a song closed with what seemed like a full five minutes of battering guitar and feedback noise — a noise collage — that had the guy next to me holding his ears.

At their best, the band epitomizes the ’90s shoegaze of bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, while the quieter numbers recall the Velvets or, yes, Yo La Tengo. The prime moment was the closing song, a hard, fuzzy droner that I wanted to go on and on, but instead closed too quickly, marking the end of a set that couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes (including five minutes of guitar-noise filler).

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The week starts off strong tonight as Lincoln’s UUVVWWZ takes the stage at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Power Haunts (ex Eagle Seagull, ex Black Hundreds) and Dirty Talker. $5, 9:30 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.