This week’s feature/interview is with Lincoln’s favorite red-headed son, The Show Is the Rainbow (read it here). The story focuses almost entirely on Darren Keen’s new CD, Gymnasia, which will be celebrated Saturday night at Sokol Underground. Among the stuff that didn’t make it into the story is why Darren left his last label, UK’s Tsk Tsk Records, which released 2005’s Radboyz Only!

“Tsk Tsk was never really something I was going to do forever,” Keen said. “The record sold fine, I sold a ton of them on tour, but I’m not sure how many we sold in stores or if we sold any in America. It wasn’t going anywhere. When I finished Gymnasia, I sent a copy to Kill Rock Stars, GSL, SAF, no more than seven labels. Matt Driscoll of SAF wrote back right away.” Keen wanted the label to release it last summer, but SAF wasn’t ready and Keen was considering releasing it himself. After a 75-day tour, however, he had a change of heart. “I was shell-shocked,” he said. “I told them I was willing to wait until they were ready.” That time off was spent finding a booking agent and a company to handle press.

And speaking of press, Darren says he’s getting tired of all those Har Mar Superstar comparisons. “I sound nothing like that,” he said. “We were just talking about bands being hesitant to compare themselves to other bands. Comparisons are cool, but when someone compares me to Har Mar, fuck that. I could see a little of that in the beginning, but to be honest, a lot of Omaha indie dudes saw me early and wrote me off as a Har Mar wannabe. I honestly really don’t give a shit, I don’t care who does or doesn’t like the band.”

I also have heard TSITR compared to Har Mar, but never really bought into it. The only thing they really have in common is that they’re both in-your-face one-man performers and they’re both somewhat overweight. Har Mar’s shtick is being the ultimate lounge-lizard lady’s man and is pure comedy. Har Mar isn’t Sean Tillman, he’s a character that Tillman played on stage (and which he eventually became tired of, though he says HMSS will be back). TSITR was/is Keen in all his over-the-top glory. It’s not an alter-ego, it’s Darren speaking his mind — this time mostly about the music industry — over home-made music, in front of a homemade video, standing amongst the crowd on the floor. Musically, there is no similarity between the two projects. But Darren may never shake Har Mar from his back, if this piece in the Daily Iowan is any example.

One thing Darren has left behind on this record are his attacks on Saddle Creek Records’ artists, which highlighted his last couple CDs. This time you won’t hear a single reference to Conor Oberst. Ironically, it’s Conor who may have sent an unintentional salvo at TSITR’s CD release show when yesterday it was announced that Bright Eyes will be performing a last-minute show at Murphy’s Lounge this Saturday night. The $15 tickets go on sale this afternoon at 5 p.m. from the One Percent Productions website. Also on the bill is Maria Taylor, who’s new album, Lynn Teeter Flower, is the best thing she’s ever produced (with or without Orenda). If you want to make it to this 21-and-over-only show, you better click on that One Percent link right at 5. Murphy’s, an Irish-themed lounge located at 96th and L, only has a capacity of a few hundred, so this one will sell out quick.

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The Shanks are this close — this close — to being one of those bands that people go to see just to see what’ll happen. They’re not quite there yet. They still need to push over that little hump that divides confusion and chaos. Ah, but it’s a tiny leap. Their set last Friday night at a mostly full Saddle Creek Bar was a big, blurry mess highlighted by ear-piercing feedback that simply would not go away. I asked someone in the crowd if they thought something was wrong with the sound system. No, nothing’s wrong, he said, that’s what they’re going for. I turned around and noticed a half-dozen people with fingers in their ears (thank god for my earplugs). Their brief set was a howling buzz-drone of hardcore-tinged noise-punk thrown together and sloppy. The highlight was when the towering drummer came from behind this drumset to sing the last couple songs leaning into a microphone that was only about 4 feet high while everyone else in the band stumbled around pounding on their instruments. They knew what they were feeding the audience — an audience that wanted more — just that much more.

In extreme contrast was The Box Elders, featuring Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre — the Brothers McIntyre — on bass, guitar and vocals, and Dave Goldberg on drums and organ. Unlike the last time I saw the trio at O’Leaver’s, I could actually hear Dave’s organ during the set. He punched out a counter melody with one hand and played the drumset with his other three limbs. Their music is propelled purely by its rhythms, and if it had been anywhere else but Omaha, the crowd would have been dancing instead of standing in front of the stage nodding their heads. This is fun-loving garage music with a groovy beat and a cutting sense of punk style that would be right at home at the coolest wedding reception in the world.

In other news…

Websites for the two newest, yet-to-open clubs in town went online in the last couple of weeks. Slowdown, the Saddle Creek Records music hall/bar in downtown Omaha, put up this website (at www.theslowdown.com) that is nothing more than a countdown to their grand opening June 8 (if my math is correct, and it probably isn’t). Other than the clock, there’s nothing to see. Meanwhile, just as cryptic is the new Waiting Room website (at www.waitingroomlounge.com) that sports the message “Keep Waiting.” Keep an eye on both sites, I have a feeling they will be updated shortly.

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Not a huge weekend in terms of live music, but enough to get by.

Tonight’s marquee show is Box Elders with The Shanks (here’s a review of their January show) and “The Antiquarium Staff” at The Saddle Creek Bar — always a great, laid-back place to see a show. Cover is usually $5 and it start at 9. Meanwhile, down the street at O’Leaver’s, it’s the infamous Blood Cow with Arch and The Filthy Few. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Saturday it’s indie band Vedera at Sokol Underground with Lincoln’s Tie These Hands. Kansas City’s Vedera sounds like a cross between Bettie Serveert and Denali, sung by a frontwoman who looks more than a little like Pat Benatar. $8, 9 p.m.

That about raps up the weekend. If you know of anything going on, post it here.

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Of the three bands on the bill the night of the Aloha show a week from tomorrow, Aloha is clearly the smallest, the least known and the least successful. The reason I went after Aloha will be obvious when you read the story’s lead (in fact, read the whole thing here). It’s not the first time I blew a review, and it won’t be the last.

Though they’ve been around for years, a tour with Sparta is still quite a catch for Aloha. “Both bands are much bigger than us,” said frontman Tony Cavallario. “Their crowds will not have heard our music. We don’t want to win everyone over, just a few.” Could be a tough crowd.

A few other things that Tony said that didn’t make it into the story:

— Cavallario isn’t exactly enamored with his own voice. “Singing isn’t like playing an instrument at all,” he said, “especially for your average indie rock singer who isn’t the most gifted. It’s never been easy for me. Figuring out the melodies is easy, but it takes a lot of work before I’m satisfied.”

He made it sound like his voice is pure shit, when in fact it’s one of the better voices in indie rock. I mentioned this, along with the fact that there are a ton of mediocre vocalists out there that are hugely successful.

“I’m proud of the stuff I’m able to do, but there’s a quality to my voice that I wouldn’t recommend for the job that I have, which is being a singer in a band,” he said. “I never listen to a band and say, ‘The singer of this band bothers me.’ There’s a certain discomfort you have with your own voice unless you’re born with killer pipes. Anyone who writes a good song has a voice people will want to listen to. There’s a lot of bad singing out there that’s great music. People who are really in touch with music aren’t looking for a good voice, they’re looking for a good song writer.”

We talked about lazy critics’ habit of drawing comparisons to bands. “Well, you have to start somewhere,” Cavallario said. “It gets even more difficult when you’re dealing with a specific readership. People who are into alternative and indie rock will name any band and assume the audience knows that band. But every day I deal with people who don’t read Pitchfork, and I wish they did so I wouldn’t have to say, ‘We sound kind of like Genesis or Simon and Garfunkel or the Beatles.'”

What about comparisons to Karate? “People may hear us and think of Karate, which is fine, because that’s where we came from. Karate played house shows at Neal House in Columbus. They were the indie undercurrent in the punk scene. That’s what turned us on to playing music. You didn’t have to sound like punk to be a punk band.”

Anyway, read the whole story here.

Tomorrow’s column is a piece on Terrence Moore, the man behind Dirt Cheap Records in Lincoln and Omaha, and the new challenge he’s facing.

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It was a fun night at Sokol Underground Saturday. Interesting in that none of the bands on the bill had a speck of merch for sale. Nothing. And yet, these bands have been around for quite awhile. In the case of Third Men and Virgasound, for over a year.

The Third Men are trying to make up for that lack of merch by releasing a full-length on Speed! Nebraska this year. I can never quite put my finger on what these guys (and gal) sound like. One minute I’m thinking summer of love, the next, ’90s college/indie followed by ’70s cock rock. They seem dead-set on bringing back the guitar solo, and that alone separates them from the herd of local indie bands. I think I’ve seen these guys at least a half-dozen times, and every time I end up comparing them to Matthew Sweet. A more accurate comparison might be to ’80s-’90s college band The dBs, another act that seems clearly influenced by Big Star and The Kinks, and that also had a similar dependence on upbeat hooks. Bottom line: The Third Men are the kind of band that would play in the background of a Jonathan Demme film — the scene where the protagonist is looking for his girlfriend at the club — that’s The Third Men up there on stage playing the role of the house band — cool and unobtrusive, but with enough umph to make you wait through the film’s closing credits to find out who the hell they were. They finished their set with a serviceable cover of Mott the Hoople’s/David Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes,” complete with one of the most recognizable intro guitar solos in the history of rock, supplied this time by Matt Rutledge.

Virgasound has turned into a showcase for drummer Jeff Heater. He is impossible not to watch during the set, fiercely flailing in his throaty, muscular style — no one in town plays with quite the same intensity, except for maybe Cursive’s Clint Schnase or The Box Elders’ Dave Goldberg. No, Heater is in a league of his own, and has been for the past decade. The rest of Virgasound is good, too, but Heater is the guy that takes them to the next level.

Finally, there was The Filter Kings, a new group headed by former Cactus Nerve Thang and current Bad Luck Charm frontman Lee Meyerpeter. They bill themselves as sort of a country band, but I don’t think you’ll ever see them invited over to Bushwackers for a weekend gig. While there’ s a distinctive twang to their trot, don’t let the cowboy hats fool ya — they’re pure rock. Look under the sleeves of those western-cut shirts and you’ll find plenty of tats. More than country, there’s a punk aesthetic to what they’re doing. Whenever Lee was singing up front, I was reminded of Social Distortion, maybe because his voice and vocal mannerisms so closely resemble Mike Ness’. Add a groovy stand-up bass, some shit-kicker drums and songs about drinking and women, and you’ve got yourself a comfortable hybrid of punk and western swing. About a third of the 60 or so on hand were doing some sort of improvised punk/country dancing. All were a-grinnin’ and all were throwing down the booze — this is drinking music pure and simple. Like how The Jazzwholes are the house band at Shag on Sunday nights, the One Percent guys may want to consider making The Filter Kings their weekly house band at The Waiting Room. It’s just smart business.

Finally, unlike the smarter among you who didn’t, I did sit through The Grammy’s last night. My take on this year’s awards: Today’s pop music industry (radio music industry?) has become obsessed with performers – not artists, not songwriters, not musicians — probably because every last ounce of creativity has been leached out of their Hollywood high rise offices. When American Idol is your farm team — when even AI losers are honored as genius — there’s something gainfully wrong with your industry. So addicted have they become to AI, this year’s awards show even incorporated its own version of the lame talent search, selecting a faceless nobody to sing alongside Justin Timberlake (and you, the viewer at home, got to pick who it was!). One assumes that the “winner” had a recording contract by the time she left the stage, and we’ll be graced by her cookie-cutter vocal stylings for years to come.

It’s pretty sad when the evening’s highlight is a performance of a song that’s almost 30 years old by a band that’s decided to cash in with a reunion tour. Oh, The Police looked and sounded great, but after attending The Who concert, I’ll probably skip this retro tour when it comes to The Qwest unless they release some new material. Been there. Done that.

I’m not sure I understand the obsession with John Mayer – a mediocre vocalist who apes all of Clapton’s easiest guitar licks. As a lyricist, he blows. But then again, all the lyricists honored last night blew. The most relevant lyricists were probably the Dixie Chicks, whose totality of message is “quit picking on us for hating Bush.” Trite? You make the call. At least Mayer didn’t win Best Rock Album. That honor went to one of the most over-congratulated, least-talented, over-exposed bands in the history of rock music. It is unfortunate when the winner of the Best Rock Album category is a band that peaked 16 years ago — and even back then, wasn’t very good. They’ve managed to make a career out of rehashing the same two or three songs over and over again. Someday your children will go online and view some of RHCP’s live performances and ask, “Did you guys know back then that the naked guy can’t sing?” Yes, dear, we did.

Last night’s big winner, if you didn’t already know, was the Dixie Chicks. What the media seems to be missing in the story is how their current success was propelled by one of the better music documentaries I’ve seen since that Metallica flick a few years ago — Shut Up and Sing. I didn’t give two shits about them before I saw the flick a few months ago. Afterward I became a reluctant fan. The other part of their story that everyone seems to be missing is how Dan Wilson, formerly of Semisonic and Trip Shakespeare, helped them redefine their songwriting style. His influence on the band is much more obvious than Rick Rubin’s.

Missing, of course, was any mention of indie music. A couple indie bands did win Grammy’s (they just weren’t televised). OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again,” won for best shortform video, while The Flaming Lips’ won for best engineered album (nonclassical), and best rock instrumental performance (waitaminit, the Lips aren’t indie anymore, are they?). Maybe next year, eh? Not likely.

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I do this only because nothing else is going on this week, except this avalanche of Saddle Creek news. It will continue with this week’s column (online tomorrow), which is about illegally downloading a copy of Bright Eyes Four Winds EP (and webboards and Creek and a one-paragraph review of the EP that includes a comparison to Matt Whipkey).

Anyway, yesterday’s “big news” (released presumably by his publicist) is that Bright Eyes has let loose the flock of doves that is the track listing for Cassadaga, from which eager BE fans will excitedly try to glean the true meaning of the album, which ain’t available until April. Press is supposed to get review copies in mid-March. That said, like Rolling Stone last month, Billboard got a sneak listen to the disc, which they wrote about here. Comments include references to swelling orchestras, Phil Spector and The Pogues, summed up with “The album leans heavily toward country-rock territory…” Big wow. Their comments aren’t much different than the RS “preview” that went online on Jan. 12, where the gushing writer said “Oberst seems to have solved the split personality problem by layering all of it – the optimistic strings and the gritty, impassioned vocals – together on track after spine-tingling track.” Spine tingling!

How did RS get special access to the recording before everyone else? I assume Conor is angling for the cover, and why not? If they can put lame-o acts like Panic at the Disco on the cover, why not feature the guy who they declared was the next Bob Dylan? It will happen. I know that SPIN also is working on a big Conor story. I got an e-mail from the magazine’s photo department a couple days ago asking for the source of the photos I used in my ’98 Oberst interview. I told them to contact Saddle Creek. This isn’t the first time that SPIN has bothered me for photos. Same thing happened last year when they were putting together a story on DCFC and found my blurry, out of focus, poorly lit photos of The Postal Service show from 2003. They wanted everything I shot. I told them, sure, but they suck, they’re low-res, they’re too dark, they’re unusable in your magazine. Just credit Lazy-i. I sent them and of course they weren’t used.

Anyway… Like everyone else, I’ll be sending in my request for a copy of Cassadaga and an interview with Conor. I’ll keep you posted on how well that goes this time.

What other news? Well, I noticed a few days ago that One Percent Productions has begun listing shows for The Waiting Room on their website, and today’s One Percent e-mail update also talks about the new venue. Glancing at the schedule, the first show listed at the new club is The Killigans March 16, which is followed by Murphy’s Law March 18, Dirty on Purpose March 28, and finally a band that I’ve heard before, Sondre Lerche with Willy Mason March 29. The prices are $8, $8, $6 and $12 respectively. Will there be a huge, unannounced Grand Opening performance? If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.

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