by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A few random notes that are getting dusty in my in-box:

Yesterday Bright Eyes announced the “special guests” on the next leg of their tour will include Stranger Things’ star, singer/songwriter Maya Hawke, who also appears in the new Wes Anderson film Astroid City. But more notable is that Cursive and Neva Dinova will be the band’s special guests for the May 14 show at Tulsa’s Cain’s Ballroom and that Azure Ray will be a special guest at the May 18 gig at Houston’s White Oak Music Hall. 

Conor also is in the news because of the release of the new Boygenius album, which has member Phoebe Bridgers doing the media circuit. Yesterday, Nylon speculated that the record’s closing track, “Letter to an Old Poet,” was about Oberst, which would be a less-than-flattering portrait if true. 

Rolling Stone asked a similar question to Bridgers back in February about lyrics she added to a SZA song, where she calls some bloke an asshole. She declined to acknowledge the asshole was Conor and went on to say she didn’t know what the future holds for Better Oblivion Community Center, the project she had with Oberst.

Ah, the complicated lives of rock stars. 

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Patrick Buchanan, the frontman to ‘90s Omaha punk band Mousetrap, will do a one-off performance of his new project, House of Transgressor, May 11 at miniBar in Kansas City. Says Buchananon, “The live setup is actually NO stringed instruments at all. I will be singing & playing synth, there’s a 2nd guy who is playing dual synths, and a drummer who is playing a completely modular electronic drum kit AND synth. It’s a bit like a gothic Kraftwerk or an electronic Bauhaus.” Check out their recorded music here.

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Hand Habits announced that their next album, Sugar the Bruise, will be released on Fat Possum June 16, apparently ending their relationship with Saddle Creek Records, who release their last couple albums, including 2021’s Fun House, which was one of my favorites that year.

It also appears that the label’s Los Angeles A&R person, Amber Carew, left Saddle Creek sometime last year. Carew was involved in signing many of the band’s recent acts, including Palm, Indigo De Souza, PENDANT, Shalom, Tomberlin, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Ada Lea, Disq, Spirit of the Beehive, Stef Chura and Young Jesus. The only reason I found out was that Shalom mentioned Carew left the label in a recent interview. Carew’s LinkedIn indicates she left Saddle Creek last May, so this is pretty old news.

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And finally, Nebraska native Mary Ruth McLeay reached out in late February to let me know she released a new indie tune called “I Want Too Much.” McLeay, who’s a student at Berklee College of Music, produced the track and played on it with Dean Andreadas, who engineered and played guitars.

I’d never heard of McLeay before, though she said she’s played at Reverb and The Waiting Room, where she’s opened for acts and taken part in Femme Fest. I checked out her older music and it was anything but indie, more pop-flavored in the Swifty vein. Was the change intentional, and why?

“Definitely intentional and for so many reasons, many of them relating to simply growing up,” she said, adding her early stuff was recorded when she was 17 and influenced by acts like Lorde and Blackbear. She produced a couple pop rock songs at Berklee, which were examples “of me honing my pop writing chops but not necessarily carving my personal place as an artist.”

“The making of ‘I Want Too Much’ felt like my arrival to the place I’ve been trying to get for eight years. I went into my friend Dean’s home studio (I discovered that’s my favorite way to record over the years) with my only objective being I wanted to make something that sounded like my interior and my thought processing and reflected my presence. Therefore, the sound turned out like the exact path genre-wise I’d like to be on for a long time.”

Here you go. Looking forward to the next one:

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A friend of mine met me at O’Leaver’s last Friday night for the Scout Gillett set. The show was scheduled to start at 10 p.m. with Anna McClellan, but by the time I arrived a little after 10, McClellan had already wrapped up her set, so they must have moved her start time.

There was my friend with his beer. While I hadn’t been to O’Leaver’s in at least six months or more, he hadn’t been there in a number of years. 

“Were those booths there before?” he asked, pointing at two sets of black leather booths installed along the south wall, directly in front of “stage right.” No, those are new, at least new post-Covid, when O’Leaver’s changed their business plan to become more of a burger joint and less of a rock club. 

“What’s with the projector screen behind the band?” he asked. I told him once upon a time, O’Leaver’s installed a big screen TV that was behind bands, and then created some sort of cover-up for it and then took it down. Now it appears they’re using a projection TV and no longer lift the screen, giving the staging area an office party vibe. Not sure why they’d leave the screen down unless they were watching the women’s Final Four game before the set and forgot to close it. 

The wall of electronic candles also was new, as were a couple beer signs I didn’t recognize, and every so often someone would emerge from where the Tiki Bar used to be with baskets of French Fries, but all in all, O’Leaver’s hadn’t changed much. I told my friend how despite its tiny size and lack of a real stage The Club used to be one of the most important — and fun — places to see a band, and some pretty remarkable bands at that. 

You can still relive some of those crazy O’Leaver’s nights at http://www.liveatoleavers.com, where high-quality soundcloud files of sets are still stored and playable online, including by bands like Johnathan Rice, Xetas, Head of Femur, Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club (Conor Oberst project), Speedy Ortiz, Cursive, Bob Log III, Orenda Fink, Mike Schlesinger, Simon Joyner, Matthew Sweet, Iska Dhaaf, Digital Leather and tons more. 

Anyway… Scout Gillett and her band kicked off their set at around 10:30. Playing as a four-piece, the Brooklyn crew sounded more straightforward and less hazy and moody than what’s heard on their delectable No Roof No Floor (Captured Tracks) album, more like a bar band than shoe-gazers, surrounded by around 30 people in the half-filled club as the Iowa women’s team celebrated their Final Four victory on the overhead TVs. 

The highlight was Gillett’s lead guitarist, whose name I didn’t catch and who isn’t listed on her Bandcamp page. He played some soaring fills and solos over a band that you could tell has the fire power to fill a big stage when/if the situation calls for it, unlike Friday night when a more subdued rhythm section was the state of play. At one point late in the set Gillett walked through the main floor area playing her guitar, the only thing missing was a basket of Fries. 

O’Leaver’s has yet another show coming up May 6 with David Nance & Mowed Sound and French rockers En Attendant Ana. Oui Oui!

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Pageturners has another of their sneaky Monday night shows tonight with Chicago singer/songwriter Maria Elena Silva. “Sweet, spacious songs sung in English and en español that evoke endless prairie,” says the Viking Choice Guide to Bandcamp 2021.  Omaha ambient artist Phill Smith opens at 8 p.m. $10 suggested donation.

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

After a busy a week, a busy weekend, (or at least a busy Friday night). 

Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s, former KC singer/songwriter now Brooklyn singer/songwriter Scout Gillette performs. Her new album No Roof No Floor (2022, Captured Tracks) vacillates between Mazzy Star dreaminess and Angel Olsen rock and is quite good. Opening is Omaha’s own dreamy singer/songwriter, Anna McClellan. $10, 10 p.m. 

Also tonight… every so often out of the blue Yayo from Las Cruxes drops me a private track of something the band has been working on. I got three tracks last Sunday via Soundcloud, all produced by superstar producer/sound engineer/raconteur Ian Aeillo and all three pretty awesome. And all performed in Spanish, I have no idea what they mean, but they rock. The new records is due Aug. 5. No doubt Las Cruxes will be performing some of those tracks tonight at The Sydney where they play with NYC’s Sky Creature, Omaha’s Bad Self Portraits and Trees with Eyes. What’s it cost? No idea, probably $10. Starts at 8:45. 

Also happening in Benson tonight at The Waiting Room, the return of all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band Zepparella, featuring Clementine in the John Bonham role. I saw them when they came through back in 2014 and they were lots o’ fun. Opening is rough-hewn all-male band Bad Bad Men. $20, 8 p.m. 

Finally, Saturday night at The Waiting Room is a tribute to the late Lawrence Deal, who was a member of such notable local acts as Glow in the Dark and Civicminded. This five-band evening kicks off at 7:30 and is $12, with all proceeds going to a trust fund for Deal’s daughter (gofundme). More info here.

That’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments sections. 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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

About three times as many people were on hand at Slowdown Jr. last night for Protomartyr than the previous evening’s Titus Andronicus show. Someone who read yesterday’s blog asked how the band has changed since I first saw them in 2014, and the answer: very little. Protomartyr’s sound and style, which is combination of influences from The Fall to Gang of Four to The Pixies, is centered around a post-punk energy created by drummer Alex Leonard, bassist Scott Davidson and guitarist Greg Ahee.

At the center is vocalist Joe Casey, looking a little older, a little rounder than I remember from the last decade. Casey is at once a magnetic figure who demands your attention while at the same time looking like an everyday guy. 

Glancing at my notes from last night: “He looks like an Irish Gandolfini, he looks like my accountant, he looks like my lawyer, in that black sports jacket he could be mistaken for a priest. He looks like my shop teacher, he looks like an angry plainclothes detective, he looks like Alfred Hitchcock, like every umpire in Boston, like a very upset  neighbor.” 

With a low-boy can of Budweiser in one hand and the microphone in the other, Casey spat out lyrics – mostly yelling, sometimes talking, sometimes chanting – his voice cut through the throbbing punk like a blunt-force instrument through a skull. Most of it was undecipherable, which is a shame because Casey’s lyrics are like blank verse observations of the messed up world we live in, often dark and pessimistic and the perfect match for this music. 

The well-mannered crowd mostly stood and bobbed their heads but one small knot of energy frantically danced to every song and sometimes added their own rants, which were welcome.

I tried to imagine what this music would sound like with a traditional vocalist singing traditional rock melodies and of course it wouldn’t work; it would be something different, something I wouldn’t like. 

Throughout the set Casey politely thanked the crowd between songs, reminding us that the band is from Detroit and that they’ve been here many times. Later in the set he spoiled the plot to Cocaine Bear, saying actor Ray Liotta (“who is now dead”) gets torn apart, and then explained the plot to 2014 film The Identical, also starring now dead Liotta, about a guy who looks like Elvis. It was weird, and strangely appropriate. Here’s hoping they come back soon. 

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What to say about Patrick Stickles a.k.a. Patty Stax and his band, Titus Andronicus, who played a crushing set last night at Slowdown Jr.? In the four times or so that I’ve seen them, this was my favorite set. It also was their shortest set. Titus Andronicus sets used to be notoriously looooong; so long, in fact, after 90 minutes or more I would find myself hoping the next bludgeoning ballad was the last, but no, there was always another…

Performing last night as a five-piece, Titus Andronicus played a tight one-hour set that included a few new songs off their latest album along with a handful of their classics, which they packaged at the end in a sort of medley that included “Four Score and Seven,” “A More Perfect Union” and “Titus Andronicus Forever.” Those fist-pump almost-Celtic-flavored anthems were in stark contrast to the songs from their new album, The Will to Live, which had more in common with the Stones or Cheap Trick, complete with scorching guitar solos. 

And as much as I liked the three-song epic closer, my favorite moment was a rousing version of “Tumult Around the World” off 2019’s An Obelisk, which sounded like a hyper-active version of “Sweet Jane” played by Thin Lizzy.  Actually, every song felt like a high-voltage energy buzzsaw, with Stickles lighting the fuse from one explosive rocker to the next, backed by a rock solid band of brothers. I get a sense that, from one town to the next, whether playing in front of 50 like last night or 500 or 15, Stickles and Co. always bring the same manic perfection and will from now until the end of time. 

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Tonight, it’s back to The Slowdown for the return of Detroit post-punk legends Protomartyr. Their last full length was 2020’s Ultimate Success Today (Domino Records), but they’ve got a new one waiting in the wings called Formal Growth in the Desert, slated for a June 2 release on Domino. 

According to the one-sheet, “Formal Growth In The Desert is a testament to conflicting realities — the inevitability of loss, the necessity of finding joy through it and persisting — that come with living longer and continuing to create. It begins with pain but endures through it, cracking itself open into a gently-sweeping torrent of sound that is, for Protomartyr, totally new.”

I’m not sure what they’re talking about, although it might have something to do with frontman Joe Casey’s “period of colossal transition” that took place with the death of his mother.  The band just wrapped up four days at South by Southwest, where (like Titus Andronicus) I first saw them play in 2014, where I described them this way:

“The Detroit-based punk band is fronted by a guy who looks like an insurance salesman, complete with a sensible haircut and full-on business attire, but who has a singing style akin to Husker-era Mould or The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. Deadpan anger, straight-faced disgust, like an upset father with a controlled rage and a back-up band that is pure Gang of Four post punk.”

Hopefully nothing has changed. Opening tonight at Slowdown Jr. is Dan Brennan’s band Healer, a local supergroup that includes two members of Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship — Andrew Gustafson on guitar and John Svatos on bass — and two members of UUVVWWZ — David Ozinga on drums and Jim Schroeder on bass VI and Rhodes. Or at least it did the last time I saw them. 

Show starts at 8 p.m., $22, and you may want to get tickets now because this one could sell out. 

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The first time I saw Titus Andronicus live was at Habana Calle Annex 6 at the first South by Southwest Festival I ever attended way back in 2009. Of that performance, I said: “I liked their most recent album (The Airing of Grievances) enough to place it on my 2008 top-10 list — it’s rowdy and rough and young, with unbridled energy — and so was the band, bashing away on stage, the frontman sporting the new-hipster unibomber beardo look. It was loud, but forced — they never got into an angry groove or maybe it was just too early for that sort of thing.” It was a day show.

Fourteen years later, Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles still has that new-hipster unibomber beard look, but it ain’t so new anymore. I’ve seen Titus many times since that first gig, and have another chance tonight at The Slowdown. 

The band’s latest, The Will to Live, was release last year on Merge Records. It’s a departure from the Titus I remember all those years ago. On this new record, the band is “drawing on maximalist rock epics, from Who’s Next to Hysteria.” Big riffs and lots of guitar solos, it sounds like power pop from the Titan label, sort of. Actually, it reminds me of Butch Walker and The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites, an album that came out two years before Titus Andronicus’ debut album.

At any rate, it’s change from massive, punk anthems like “Four Score and Seven” or “A More Perfect Union” from the band’s seminal 2010 album, The Monitor, which was remastered and rereleased in 2021. The band’s had a lot of personnel changes since 2008, but their latest line-up with Stickles, Liam Betson on guitar, R.J. Gordon on bass, and Chris Wilson on drums, has been the longest-running consistent lineup in their history. According to the one-sheet, The Will to Live was created in large part as an attempt to process the untimely 2021 death of Matt “Money” Miller, the band’s founding keyboardist and Stickles’ closest cousin. That’s a lot to process. Expect an epic performance because Stickles and Co. leave everything on stage every night. 

Opening band Country Westerns combines punk and classic rock and has the audacity to say their 2020 debut made Pitchfork’s list of the Top 35 rock albums of that year. But get this, the band includes Nashville underground legend Brian Kotzur. Prior to Country Westerns, Kotzur drummed for Silver Jews and Crooked Fingers and has played in bands with Duane Denison of The Jesus Lizard, and country legends Bobby Bare Jr. and Charlie Louvin. Soak it in.

You get both bands for a mere $20. Show starts at 8 p.m., in the front room. 

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Also tonight, it’s the tour kick-off for Simon Joyner and the Echoes at Grapefruit Records, 1125 Jackson St. The band released a new CD last month that features full-band reinterpretations of songs from across Simon’s catalog, including a cover of Loudon Wainwright III’s “Hospital Lady.” The Echoes are Mychal Marasco, drums; Sean Pratt on guitar, bass and keys; and Megan Siebe on strings, keys and vocals. Starts at 8 p.m., $10 suggested donation. Let’s send them off in style.

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Outlandia Festival tickets went on sale last Friday and though the VIP prices have gone up, General Admission tickets are actually a little less compared to last year. The reason? They’ve included your parking fee right in the ticket price. 

This year, ticket prices are $89 for a single-day pass or $169 for a 2-day pass, but both come with general admission parking. Last year tickets were $79 single day / $149 2-day, but general admission parking was $25 (or $15 if you were willing to take a shuttle to your car). So… cheaper, right?

However, Outlandia VIP tickets this year are $249 for one-day passes and $449 for two-day passes – which is a price bump compared to 2022 when VIP tickets were $199 for one-day, $340 for 2-day passes with VIP parking included. That’s a substantial increase.

Not charging for parking is obviously a good idea – not only does it seem like a better value but it’s a lot less confusing than last year, where people didn’t understand the parking situation or felt ripped when they found out that they were being gouged for parking. Odd that Outlandia hasn’t ballyhooed the free parking. 

Comparably, the price for Maha Festival tickets are $50 for Friday night, $60 for Saturday, $100 two-day; VIPS are $130 for Friday, $160 for Saturday and $240 for 2-day VIPs. Parking has always been free and abundant at Maha. That’s a price increase for Friday and 2-day tix over last year’s pricing, which were $35 for Friday night, $65 for Saturday and $85 for both days. VIP tix in 2022 were $90 Friday, $165 Saturday and $230 for two day. So, strangely, Saturday prices are cheaper this year.

Maha has already posted a “low ticket” warning, that’s because the current price point for general admission will eventually go up by $10 per ticket, and then another $10 increase day of show. VIPs are static. They used to call these Tier I tickets “early bird” pricing. Remember when they used to offer the discount before they announced the lineup?

Like I’ve always said, if you’re really into the Maha line-up, and you’ve got the bread, VIPs are really the best way to go – food, your own bar, fantastic sight lines, private bathroom, shelter from the sun – it’s worth it.

Outlandia VIP tickets are a simlar value. Conversely, if you’re going to the entire Outlandia weekend, camping would be the way to go because, once you’re there, you’re there. No parking hassles, no weird traffic hangups (though it’s not clear if you can camp overnight and leave the day following the festival).

Weekend camping passes are $100; car camping passes (which come with two camping passes) are $250 and RV camping passes are $800 (and also include two camping passes). Priced DO NOT include festival tickets. Camping is only available to festival ticket holders, and only people with camping passes can access the campsite, where you must be 21 to enter. Lots of rules for this one – beverages must be purchased from Camp Outlandia, outside food is allowed but you can’t bring it with you to the festival grounds. No grills or campfires!

So waitaminit, I can’t bring my own cooler full of booze? Then again, something tells me these campers will be imbibing in something other than booze for their good times…

I’m not a camping-type person, but I asked a friend who and he thought the RV prices were steep unless they included hookups. This being their first year for camping, I’d have offered a discount, but hey, they have their reasons, right? 

I didn’t attend Outlandia last year, but was told getting in and out was relatively painless, and you know it’ll be even smoother the second year (especially with “free” parking). 

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It’s another no-indie weekend, but don’t fret. Next week is busy thanks to The Slowdown, who has Titus Andronicus on Tuesday and Protomartyr on Wednesday. So… maybe sleep up this weekend?

The only show that moves the needle is the rockabilly sound of The Mezcal Brothers at B-Bar tonight — actually it starts this afternoon at 5 and runs until 8.  No price listed for this show and I’ve never been to B-Bar but I heard the set-up is nice. 

Saturday night cover band The Damones returns to The Waiting Room. 8 p.m. $10. 

Sunday there’s a pop-up record shop at fabulous O’Leaver’s. It’s been awhile since the club has hosted a show, but they have Scout Gillett and Anna McClellan slated for next Friday and David Nance and Mowed Sound just announced a May 6 gig. Come on, O’Leaver’s, book more shows!

That’s it folks. 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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Flipping through Lazy-i for #ThrowbackThursday I came across this entry, published eight years ago, that compiled three days of South by Southwest 2015 reporting in three podcast episodes that captured descriptions and performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Speedy Ortiz, PUJOL, Laura Burhenn, Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill, Natalie Prass, Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Residents, The Pop Group and Will Butler, along with photos from each performance. 

Eight years ago I was first experimenting with podcasting, having caught the bug from listening to the Serial Podcast, and if you dig around Lazy-i you’ll find podcast episodes embedded into entries that captured local and national performances on Omaha clubs along with interviews from around Omaha. The weekly podcast, which summarized my week of Lazy-i reporting and the shows I went to that week, was fun to produce, but I did the whole damn thing by myself with semi-professional audio equipment using Garageband for editing – what a grind!

Now eight years later, it’s a running joke that everyone has their own podcast. In fact, Emmy winning series Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is a series about a podcast. As more of my free time opens up in the coming year(s), I’d like to do another podcast, but this time with some help!

The podcast never had huge listener numbers – somewhere between 200 and 300 per episode spread out across numerous hosting platforms, including iTunes, Libsyn and Soundcloud – podcast hosting was not easy back then. Considering I was using a hand-held Zoom H2 recorder and MacBook with no sound mixing or mastering, it didn’t sound half bad, especially the live recordings. Who knows how this would have sounded had an audio engineer been involved… 

Anyway, check out the post for all the photos or just listen below:

Day 1: Performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Dotan and Speedy Ortiz.

Day 2: Performances by PUJOL, Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds), Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill and Natalie Prass.

Day 3: Performances by Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Pop Group and Will Butler.

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Some meandering thoughts about Outlandia…

I just wrapped up a column for the April issue of The Reader wherein I tried to “translate” the festival’s bands into RIYL bands that someone in their 50s who has become disconnected to music might recognize. It was not easy.

As I was writing it, the Outlandia line-up was announced, and I considered including Outlandia bands in the write-up until I discovered that the headliner and a couple other prominent acts were completely unfamiliar to me. I was told by a pal at the office that Lord Huron has played in Omaha many times. Gregory Alan Isakov played The Waiting Room way back in 2011 (with Kyle Harvey opening no less), again in 2017 opening for Blind Pilot and as recently as a few weeks ago at a sold out Admiral show. Manchester Orchestra also has played Sokol Auditorium in 2009 and 2014 according to the Lazy-i Wayback Machine. So how come I’m so clueless about these three bands?

It probably has something to do with how I discover music, which is exceptionally hit and miss. Beyond listening to new bands after they’ve been scheduled to play in Omaha, I discover new indie music via Sirius XMU (which, by the way, doesn’t play anything by those three artists), as well as reading Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and review aggregator Album of the Year, and also word of mouth via social media, where people embed YouTube videos, etc. 

Lord Huron and Isakov, moreso than Manchester, are indie folk artists. Over the past five (maybe 10 years) indie folk and indie singer/songwriter music has been dominated by women. The Maha Festival line-up is headlined by Adrianne Lenker’s Big Thief and includes women-led acts Alvvays and The Beths – three of my favorite artists in the past few years. The last male indie folk artist who caught my attention was Christian Lee Hutson, whose sound is in direct lineage with Simon and Garfunkel. If Hutson were to play a local festival, no doubt it would likely be Maha. 

I’m also of an era where record labels were everything when it came to finding new music – Matador, Sub Pop, Merge, 4AD, Jagjaguwar, Saddle Creek, Jade Tree, Carpark, Domino, Dead Ocean, Speed! Nebraska, all the way back to Mute, Factory, Rough Trade, etc – I always gave a listen to artists released on these labels, and still do. Lord Huron’s last couple albums were released on Republic, a label I’ve never followed. Isakov’s albums are released on his own Suitcase Town Music. Outlandia act Cat Power, on the other hand, was one of the early big names released on Matador Records, and as a result, I’m very familiar with Chan’s output. 

Of course Outlandia’s line-up this year goes well beyond the three acts I mentioned above, but really, other than Modest Mouse and the cadre of Saddle Creek Records legacy acts, those three are the ones who are getting the most notice and will sell the most tickets. I have to believe Horsegirl will be a complete mystery folks buying tickets to see Lord Huron, Manchester and Isakov. Horsegirl and Cat Power are my favorites from this year’s Outlandia line-up, along with the Creek bands of course (and I’d place Modest Mouse up there if they only played their early material — highly unlikely).

Yeah, I know I’m missing a lot of great music the way I do it, but don’t we all?

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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 © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.