Yes, I went to the Todd Grant/Dolorean show last night, but you’re going to have to wait until later today for a live review (sometime late this afternoon). Just a reminder, briefly, of tonight’s big show: Head of Femur with The Holy Ghost and The Minus Story at The Brother’s Lounge, 3812 Farnam. Show starts at 10 p.m. and is a measly $5. Will it be the show of the year? Maybe. But it’s not the only show tonight: The Hold Steady is at Sokol Underground with The Oranges Band and Ladyfinger. That one’s $8 and starts at 9. Check back here later for more.

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O’Leaver’s continues to pick up momentum to the point where there’s always an SRO crowd, at least for the last three or four shows I’ve seen there. Not huge, but big, respectable (though I’m told hardly anyone was there for The Flesh Wednesday night, but that’s another story). The stars were out for The Nein last night. Plenty of local music notables, bands, label people. The Nein is The White Octave without Criteria’s Stephen Pedersen (who was in the audience cheering on his former comrades). With a new CD out on Sonic Unyon, the band carried itself like seasoned indie rock veterans, playing tunes that sounded like typical angular indie rock with a hook. The lead singer/guitarist has a voice that (when you could hear it in the poor mix) was reminiscent of a young, gritty Elvis Costello — a comparison that will seem out of the blue for these guys who would probably prefer to be compared to the usual suspects (Gang of Four, Pixies, etc.). Their music, of course, sounded nothing like Costello’s. Overall, I guess I liked it, though we’ve all heard these songs before in one form or another. I think if they pulled it back they’d be better for it. That said, the CD is a keeper and worth finding.

You could blame the sound for The Nein’s less than magnetic live performance, except for the fact that the band that followed never sounded better. It was the second time I’ve seen Little Brazil v. 2.0 and probably their best live performance. I’ve been hearing some of these songs for what seems like two years now (they still play the tunes that originally appeared on their self-produced demo). Little Brazil doesn’t do anything terribly different than any other indie pop-rock band. They live off their rhythm section, specifically the bass lines that give all the songs an undeniable bounce. The secret ingredient continues to be Landon Hedges’ clear-yet-quirky, almost forlorn voice that has the same strange lonely lilt as everyone’s favorite green muppet – no, not just like it, but with that same sad, honest quality. He’s got the voice of your little brother or the guy who sat alone in study hall reading comic books who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s pre-puberty Peter Brady. And maybe it’s because I’ve heard all these songs so many times that the new one, which Hedges said they’ve only played live a couple times, seemed so good – a typical indie song that starts by focusing on Hedges and a spare guitar line, bleeds into a medium-tempo rocker and ends with the usual bombast, Hedges yelling the same line over and over before joining everyone else in the pounding. Little Brazil is first and foremost an indie rock band in the classic manner, but I have to wonder how they’d sound playing a set of straight-up electric ballads. As respectable as their new full-length is amidst the multitude of indie CDs crowding the bins these days, it’s the next record that will push them out of that enormous and faceless pack. It has to.

Tonight, Whipkey, Todd Grant and Dolorean at Sokol Underground, $7, 9 p.m.

You got three days of shows this weekend. All good. No excuses. None. It all starts tonight with OK Go, Statistics and Rescue at Sokol Underground. I have never heard OK Go before. They’re a Chicago trio. They’re compared to The Beta Band, Modest Mouse and The Promise Ring by All Music. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. I’m going tonight just to see Statistics again. The last time they played here, as a trio, they were lean and hungry, without any noodle-y keyboards or other flotsam, just plain ol’ rock. For whatever reason All Music compares Statistics to Bright Eyes, The Faint and Grandaddy, three bands that they sound nothing like in the least (which immediately puts the OK Go comparisons into question).

Tomorrow night it’s The Nein at O’Leaver’s. The Nein, incidentally, is The White Octave without Stephen Pedersen. That said, they sound sort of like The White Octave without Stephen Pederson, but with a few more hooks in their bag of tricks. I’ve been listening to their six-song EP on Sonic Unyon and give it a well-deserved “Yes,” especially for the song “Handout” which has a killer hook of its own. Opening is Doris Henson, of which I know nothing.

Then Sunday is Dolorean, a laid-back folk-rocky, harmonizing Elliott Smith-meets-Crosby-Stills-and-Nash type singer-songwriter. Pleasant enough, but I’m going for the opener, The Todd Grant Project (which I wrote about yesterday, scroll down), featuring Grant, Tim Kasher (The Good Life) on bass, Mike Brannan (owner/operator of The Ranch Bowl and Caffeine Dream) on guitar and Dan Crowell (ex-Digital Sex) on drums. Get there early to see a solo set by singer/songwriter Matt Whipkey (Anonymous American, INXS try-outs).

It doesn’t stop there. There are also good shows coming on Monday and Tuesday, but we’ll get to those later.

Column 16 — Grant-ed a Second Chance

If you went to rock shows back in the ’90s you’ve heard of Todd Grant, either as a solo act or as part of Compost, a band he fronted with Matt Rutledge, Mike Fratt and others.

Out of the blue last fall, a buzz began ringing around the city that Grant was back and working with none other than Tim Kasher, frontman of Cursive and The Good Life. Kasher mentioned the Grant project when I interviewed him last August, saying he and drummer Roger Lewis were involved and calling Todd “a good friend and a role model.”

Role model? Some would raise an eyebrow over that one. After all, where had Grant been the last five or six years?

About a week ago, a friend of mine found a used copy of Grant’s 1994 solo CD, Strangled Soul, at Cool Stuff for $4.99. He passed it onto me for research purposes. I spent the next three days enjoying a collection of music that has held up remarkably well over the years. Not your usual singer/songwriter fair, Grant’s songs are like listening to pain spikes or peering into a cellar of dark loneliness. The CD sports song titles like “Valium & Coca-Cola,” “Happy Going Nowhere,” and “The Know,” with its telling line, “Wouldn’t it be better / To be left alone / Where these demons inside you / Can bother no one?” Grant has a showman’s charisma, belting out the lines in a style that recalls Warren Zevon, and more recently, American Music Club’s Mark Eitzel.

I got Grant’s number from a local promoter and set up an interview. The days leading up to it, people came out of the woodwork with odd requests like, “Check out his teeth” or “Ask him about the scar on his back.” Everyone had a weird Grant story. I expected a badly damaged, war-torn lost soul to show up at the Dundee Dell and not the hip-looking guy dressed in black with long black hair and soul patch, his girlfriend, Stephanie Wyscarver, in tow. Over a couple hours, a gallon of Diet Coke and too many cigarettes, Grant, 34, told me how drugs had gotten the better of him most of his adult life, and how he has managed to free himself.

“I had a lung removed when I was 17. The medication led to other drugs, and it all caught up with me in ’99,” he said casually between puffs. “One thing about being an outlaw, you can never turn to the law for help.”

Grant says his turnaround began after getting arrested by the state patrol, who had been watching him for months. He said his three days in jail without drugs “were hell.” He would eventually get probation and re-enter a methadone program that he’d preemptively began prior to the arrest.

And then he just disappeared. “From ’99 until now, I haven’t been out of the house,” he said. “I don’t know why I stayed disconnected for so many years. Methadone was the hard part. For two and a half years I didn’t have a guitar, didn’t write. I was literally a zombie.”

When he finished the methadone program in January 2004, Grant slowly began rediscovering old acquaintances. Among them Wyscarver, who he’s since moved in with. And Kasher, who had a different opinion of Strangled Soul. “Tim thought the songs were great, but that the production was too slick and over the top,” Grant said.

Kasher, who had never produced a band before, took Grant as his first project. “Tim and I got together between his tours. We started practicing in the summertime and it came together quickly.”

Between Cursive and Good Life tours, Grant and Kasher laid down tracks at Mike Brannan’s Artery Studios, with Kasher on bass, Roger Lewis on drums, and Brannan on guitar. Old friends Matt Rutledge and Mike Daeges also are involved, while ’89 Cubs guitarist Dan Brennan manned the board.

Grant says the new music isn’t much different from the stuff on Strangled Soul, “but with Tim’s arrangements, there are things that are undeniably Kasher-esque.” With Kasher now back from tour, Grant hopes to finish the CD in the brief window of time before he leaves again.

In that window, Grant and a band that includes Kasher, Brannan and drummer Dan Crowell will perform on stage as an opener for Dolorean March 13 at Sokol Underground.

Grant said a label has expressed interest in releasing the finished recording, and perhaps a tour will follow. But after that, his future is blurry.

“I feel like there’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m now in a position to do it,” he said. “When I look back at what I’ve done and how I went about it as a beast, it’s ridiculous to think that having cleaned up my act and grown up a bit that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off with a clear head. It’s humbling to know that after all I’ve been through that so many people still care.”

Well, the Saddle Creek Records story is online, all 3,500 words of it (Read it here). In an extensive Q&A, label operators Robb Nansel and Jason Kulbel talk about looking for new bands, Team Love Records, Bright Eyes hysteria, radio, marketing, not being millionaires, Slowdown, the Omaha scene and the label’s future. The story will also is published in today’s issue of The Reader, which probably won’t be distributed until sometime tomorrow. The entire interview clocked in at over 5,000 words. Some of the out-takes will be used in next week’s Lazy-i column (which means they’ll be online next Thursday). I’ll probably also include a description of Creek’s swank new offices, which also didn’t make the cut. Enjoy.

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Remember that scene in Ghost Busters where Sigourney Weaver’s neighbor/accountant, Louis Tully played by Rick Moranis, hosts a party over at his apartment as a business write-off? The classic moment comes when Louis’ blonde, pony-tailed girlfriend pouts because no one’s dancing. “Maybe if we dance, everyone will join in,” Louis says, and the two start doing a shag in the middle of living room. There was sort of a reenactment of that scene last night at O’Leaver’s during United State of Electronica’s set. Here’s a band that’s used to having people dance at their shows – their electrified disco demands it. Ah, but U.S.E. has never been to Omaha before, the home of sit-and-stare. About three songs into their set, I was beginning to worry that Omaha was going to live up to its no-dance reputation when the bass player from Aqueduct got up and started wriggling in front of the band in a desperate attempt to get people off their asses. Finally, someone got the bright idea of moving the tables and chairs out of the way, and the fun began. By the end of U.S.E.’s rather short set the entire area up by the band was crowded with sweaty white people trying to groove to the band’s good-time music. It took awhile, but about half the crowd actually loosened up, though there were still plenty of people in the back sitting and nodding to the beat. Hey, I was dancing too… in my head.

Opening band Aqueduct was a pop trio of bass, keyboards and drums playing beat-heavy synthetic rock in sort of a Cars-meets-Ben Folds style. The lead singer/keyboardist has a smooth rock voice that works well with the band’s simple pop arrangements that consist of lots of synths, percussion augmented by electric beats, and bass played by a guy with robot moves straight out of Devo.

I liked Aqueduct’s style, but it was clearly U.S.E. that the packed house came to see. It took a good 20 minutes for the band to get their gear, sound and home-made light rigs set up and arranged on the time tiny “stage.” There’s seven people in the band, including two women backing vocalists, a guy who yelled phrases like “Omaha, we love it!” and “Bright Eyes!” and “Saddle Creek!” to get the crowd energized, and another guy who sang into a vocoder, a sound effect that epitomized the band’s retro-tinged disco vibe. Live, U.S.E. rocks harder than on disc, even throwing in a few guitar solos, but overall they were somewhat rough, with a made-in-my-basement quality — this was, after all, only the third show of their two-month tour. Regardless, it was the bass and drum track (the live drummer was somewhat lacking) that got the crowd moving, eventually. Said a stunned Jeremy the bartender, amazed at the party that erupted in in front of him, “Dude, you should have brought your camera.” Omaha, it seemed, had learned how to dance.

Note to O’Leaver’s: It’s time to replace or fix your sound system. The static throughout both band’s sets would have been distracting if the crowd hadn’t been on their feet shaking their asses.

Tomorrow: The massive Saddle Creek Q&A. As a warm-up, read Part 1 — the 2001 Lazy-i interview with Robb Nansel.

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Like the headline sez, U.S.E. tonight at O’Leaver’s. The real question is whether anyone comes out to the show. With press in both the OWH and The Reader, you’d think so, but it’s a Monday night and this is Omaha. On a certain level, I’m hoping people stay away just so I’ll be able to get inside the place.

This weekend was something of a washout for attending live shows, for me at least. Not because there wasn’t anything worth seeing, but because I’ve been killing myself writing a 3,500-word cover story on Saddle Creek Records for this week’s issue of The Reader, which will be online at Lazy-i Wednesday morning. In addition, I ran down Todd Grant for this week’s column, which’ll be online Thursday morning. It’s strange not going to a show over the weekend, especially with the weather we’ve been having, but I hope to make up for it this weekend with OK Go at the Underground Friday night, The Nein at O’Leaver’s Saturday and the aforementioned Todd Grant and his band opening for Dolorean on Sunday (and that’s followed by Head of Femur next Monday and Son, Ambulance Tuesday).

And speaking of giving a head’s up — U2 announced they’ll be doing a show at the Qwest Center Dec. 15, with tickets going on sale March 19 ranging from $50 to $165 per. The Herald has the story on their site here. How fast this will sell out is anyone’s guess. It’s the first important arena show to hit Omaha in years.

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Seems the singer/songwriter gods are smiling on Omaha more and more these days. In addition to the king of local singer/songwriters — Simon Joyner — at O’Leaver’s tonight, Omaha golden-age legends Todd Grant and Scott Roth (Such Sweet Thunder) have been added to the Vago/Icarus/Civil Minded show at the Ranch Bowl, likely as the very first band. Grant, who’s 1994 CD Strangled Soul continues to be relevant after 11 years, will be the focus of this week’s Lazy-i column (online Thursday). Consider tonight’s show a preview of what you’ll hear when Grant and his new band take the stage opening for Dolorean a week from Sunday at Sokol Underground.

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Only two shows worth mentioning this weekend. Tonight it’s Les Georges Leningrad at Sokol Underground with Lincoln’s notorious Zyklon Bees and noise-rock favorites The Lepers. Using the exciting new mp3 jukebox at the One Percent Productions’ website (it’s just to the right of the logo at the top of the page), I listened to one of LGL’s songs — sounds like Sonic Youth-flavored post-punk, and pretty good at that. $8, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow is the return of Simon Joyner and the Wind-Up Birds to O’Leaver’s with Outlaw con Bandana. The last time I tried to hear Simon at O’Leaver’s I ended up doing it from the parking lot because it was so unbearably packed inside. I suspect it’ll be a replay tomorrow night, especially if the weather holds out. $5, 10 p.m.

Column 15 — Dawn of the Dead Air

As you’re browsing through the newsstands at your local Borders, Barnes & Noble or Hy-Vee, prepare to be startled by the cover of the March issue of Wired magazine. The dark, glossy image shows a smoking bullet exploding through the front of a red transistor radio — a take on the famous Doc Edgerton bullet-through-the apple photo.

To the left, in big, bold letters: THE END OF RADIO.

The headline, I suppose, was intended to shock. The end of radio! My God! What will we do now!

Here’s a news tip for the folks at Wired: Radio’s been dead for a long, long time. At least for me, and for a lot of other people who grew up listening to the FM. Back in the day, the radio was the only outlet to really hear new music besides the record store. I still remember hearing a cool new song and waiting with baited breath for the DJ — then the ad hoc program director — to tell me what they just played so I could run down to Homer’s or Peaches or Pickles to pick up a copy to throw on my own turntable.

Those days are long gone. Tuning through the FM now is like walking through a pasture and deciding which pile of cow flop to tip your toe into. You’ve got a ripe choice between today’s retro, today’s hip-hop, today’s kuntry klassics and today’s goon rock — all with a solid rotation of about 12 stale songs. The only other choice is between the talking drones on NPR or the talking jack-asses on the AM.

Radio’s downward spiral began after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which gave a handful of faceless suits the ability to gobble up every station in every market. Once in, the suits fired the programmers and sanitized the play lists by passing them through a dumbing-down process consisting of focus groups, consultants and Billboard charts. Forget the deep cuts. Forget the obscure, cool artists. The word of the day was homogeneity, and radio’s new catch phrase was “Love it or leave it.”

Well, it looks like people are leaving it. In droves. According to Wired, despite the fact that every week 200 million people still tune into Big Radio (their euphemism for Clear Channel and the other evil congloms), the number of daily listeners has slipped to 1994 levels, with the coveted 18- to 24-year-old demo falling nearly 22 percent since 1999.

Sounds gloomy. But if you just glanced at that Wired cover, you might have missed the real story written in parentheses below THE END OF RADIO, where it says, “(As we know it)”.

The magazine’s special section breaks down like this: A feature on Howard Stern going to satellite, a piece on Adam Curry’s (yes, the guy from MTV) pioneering efforts in podcasting, and a story titled “The Resurrection of Indie Radio” that features a show hosted by Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones — Jonesy’s Jukebox — on Indie 103, a Clear Channel-backed station in Los Angeles. What? Clear Channel you say?

Of the technologies discussed, it’s the one featured in the Jones story that’s the real hope for the future. They call it High Definition radio — digital radio broadcast over the same wavelength as conventional analog radio, but with near-CD quality sound. That by itself is innovative, but the best part is that digital stations will be able to broadcast as many as six different shows simultaneously on the same channel. Stations like Indie 103 could have an “A channel” with regular programming, and a “B channel” that reruns Jonesy’s Jukebox or any of their other specialty shows. Or to put a local spin on it, imagine listening to 89.7 The River and being able to hear the indie program New Day Rising whenever you wanted instead of just at 11 p.m. on Sunday night.

This is where Clear Channel comes in. They bought all the advertising time on Indie 103 and are reselling it, essentially ensuring the tiny station stays afloat. Clear Channel knows that High Def radio, which is now only in its infancy, is the only way it’s going to compete with technology like mp3 players, satellite radio or podcasting. It’s the only way to provide the sort of variety that listeners thirst for now more than ever. The future of radio, it seems, is in niche programming. And that future can’t come fast enough.