by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Filmmaker Lindsay Trapnell e-mailed me a week or so ago to tell me about a film she’s trying to get financed via Kickstarter, the fund-raising website which you remember from Digital Leather.

The film is called Seafarer and the primary actors are Melissa Geary from Honeybee and Sam Martin from Capgun Coup. “And though we’re not quite to the scoring/music stage of the film, the film will feature original music from area musicians and bands,” Trapnell said.

According to the film’s Kickstarter site, the movie is “about floating between adolescence and adulthood. It’s about feeling swallowed up by a big city and yearning for a simpler life. It’s about realizing that every relationship in your life is in transition, from your parents to your partner. It’s about feeling lost and searching. It’s about realizing you are still young and letting go. It’s about getting up one morning and taking off, driving across the country, and landing in the Midwest.” In other words, it sounds like a coming-of-age rock movie. You can check out an early trailer at the Kickstarter site or at the official Seafarer website.

Plans call for shooting on location in Omaha this fall. “Our most expensive costs include procuring camera and sound equipment and accessories like lenses, a dolly, a car rig etc. These items, which are quite costly, are critical to our film as the story will be told primarily through visuals. We will also use money raised to feed our cast and crew, pay for necessary travel, create DVDs, and market the film and enter festivals.”

So far, 34 people have pledged $2,365 (including one who pledged $500!). The goal is to raise $3,500 by Aug. 30. Of course your pledge will earn you all kinds of cool stuff, including limited edition recordings, DVDs, photos, souvenirs, even a cameo in the film. Check out the Seafarer Kickstarter page.

This is not Trapnell’s first attempt at film making. Her short film, Hump, was selected as part of Film Streams’ Local Filmmaker Showcase. You can watch Hump online at www.lindsaytrapnell.com

* * *

Even more mail… Last month I got an email from Lazy-i reader Kelly Murphy, who uncovered a rare 1990 recording of Omaha band 5th of May made at the old KRCK studio which was located “above the drug store at 50th and Dodge and was broadcast on KRCK 95.3 via Cox Cable,” Murphy said. He added that KRCK was a true pirate FM station until the FCC paid a visit to owner Paul Kriegler. Afterward, the station changed hands a number of times before Matt Markel took over, made it “legitimate” and changed the format to goon rock.

Anyway, the line-up of 5th of May was Marty Maxwell, vocals; Frank Maxwell, guitar; Bob Boyce, drums; Mike Jaworski, bass, and Bob Crawford, guitar. The setlist from that November 1990 session was, according to Murphy: The Kid, Backdoor, Calling Out Your Name, All Kinds of Weird, Shoutdown, Take What’s Yours, Lead Singer of Firehose, The Ride, Out of Time, Crosstown Traffic, He We Go Again.

Here’s the kicker: Now you, too, can own a CDR copy of that 5th of May performance. Murphy has offered to burn copies for anyone who drops him an e-mail at kelly@triagestaff.com. I’ve got a copy, and the recording quality is surprisingly good, while the music can only be described as “groovy.”

* * *
There are two very hot shows going on tonight.

At Slowdown Jr., Denver indie buzz band Tennis hits the stage. Read about them in this article in the New York Times or check out their music at their Myspace page. Headlining is Omaha’s very own Honey & Darling. Also on the bill are bark-rockers Well Aimed Arrows and the debut of Cabana Boys (Annie from Digital Leather, Kit from La Casa Bombas, and Kev from Watching the Train Wreck). $8, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, The Watson Twins (who you might remember from Jenny Lewis’ first solo tour) are playing at The Waiting Room with Ferraby Lionheart. $10, 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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What, no show reviews from this past weekend? The reason: I just got back from vacation since last Wednesday, in cool, dry Breckenridge, CO, one of the few places in the world where there is no good music — not in the bars, not on the mountains, not on the radio. Which made me thank my lucky stars that the GTI is equipped with a satellite radio. We spent the weekend listening to XMU, the indie satellite station, which I have to believe is becoming as important as Pitchfork even though their playlist is woefully narrow.

After overdosing on Arcade Fire for a few days in the row (it was as if XMU was sponsored by the band), Teresa insisted on Sirius “80s on 8” for the drive home — that meant nine straight hours of ’80s pop music. Why not? It’s been awhile since I dipped myself into the Reagan Era, music-wise.

Every once in a while, someone will tell me that he thinks his parents’ music was better than the music from the current era. Well, if his parents’ music is ’80s pop, I’m not sure that’s true. Was there a more flamboyant, more excessive era in pop music? Believe me, I know. I grew up in the ’80s with MTV and hair metal and the disco hangover. Listening back now, I have to believe all that excess was fueled by nose candy in the sort of opposite way that downers and pot influenced music in the droopy, drowsy ’60s.

By contrast, the ’80s was speed, glitter, rainbows and more more more. I can imagine high-dollar recording studios booked by rich rock bands for months at a time and helmed by zoned-out record producers who spent their time trying to figure out how they could squeeze more sound effects into every track. “I think we should add some zinger effects right here – zing zing zing

,” says the mustached former Sabbath roadie as he desperately tries to keep his elbow from knocking over the mountains of cocaine piled along the top of the sound board.

How else do you explain a song like “The Reflex,” by Duran Duran? It’s as if the band and producer were trying to put every inane sound effect into every spare second of the song. Go back and listen to it again. It’s the most idiotic, cartoonish-sounding recording you’ll ever hear.

It had to be the coke that made them want everything bigger, right? Take drums. Back in ’85, your typical pop song couldn’t use regular analog drums. Not big enough. Every song had to use sampled electronic explosions – crash, crash, crash

! Every beat was a bomb going off. Thirty years later, those bombs sound both big and hollow at the same time.

And then there were the egregiously narcissistic guitar solos — the staple of ’80s macho rock, so drenched in testosterone they wreaked of Brut and body odor. Sure, there were guitar solos in the ’70s, but they generally fulfilled a purpose, they at least tried to enhance the music experience. Not in the ’80s. Every hair metal song had to give 20 seconds (which felt like two minutes) to the lead ax man so he could pull down his leather pants and let everyone know how good of a guitarist he thought he was. But instead, those solos almost always just got in the way.

But more than hair metal, which was Cro-Magnon dumbshit music for a white-trash nation, the ’80s, specifically the mid-’80s, brought on the emergence of gay American dance music — post-disco good-time synth pop that was more effeminate than anything in the past. People point to Bowie’s androgyny in the ’70s, but to those who weren’t “in the know,” Bowie and the glam crowd were just a bunch of clowns who discovered their girlfriends’ make-up kits. “Gay” to them meant “Look at me, I’m a freak.”

That wasn’t the case on the dance floor in the ’80s. There was no mistaking the intent. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, these guys weren’t wearing crazy orange Bowie wigs or dresses, but there was no mistaking where they — and their music — were coming from. Sure, they were coke heads too, and were among the most guilty when it came to excess in their music arrangements. Add the calliope of sound to the late nights, the colored strobes, the sweat and the poppers, and the ’80s for them became a glorious blur that would, eventually, end tragically.

But before that, the gay culture had never so permeated popular American culture. Before long, even ’70s legends were trying to update their sound and style to fit the era. How else do you explain Born in the USA-era Springsteen? The guy who used to look like a skinny, greasy mechanic, suddenly emerged post-workout, with tight jeans, tight shirt and headband, he couldn’t have looked more gay. And “Dancing in the Dark” — with its tooting synths — couldn’t have sounded more un-Springsteen-ish.

So that’s what went through my head after listening to “80s on 8” for seven hours. We eventually couldn’t take it anymore and had to change it back to XMU, where I discovered something about the ’80s and what’s wrong with today’s indie music. No matter how excessive or overindulgent ’80s pop music was, you almost always could find the melody to every song, and after just one time through. They were songs that, after a couple spins, you could  sing along to, whether you wanted to or not.

Try that with most of today’s indie rock. Listen to the “Barricade,” the new track by Interpol, then afterward, try to hum the melody. When was the last time a melody by Spoon stuck in your head (other than the one used in the commercial)? Can you sing one line from a Deerhunter song? When it’s not singer/songwriter fare, indie music is drama and effect, an emotional tone poem or soundscape with a few lines of poetry thrown in. There aren’t a lot of indie “songs.”

And these days, there aren’t many good pop songs, either. We listened to XMU Hits or whatever its called and got an hour of Katy Perry and the rest of the current tribe of girly girl artists who all seem to be singing the very same, proudly misogynistic songs that no woman over the age of 25 (and certainly no straight man) would take seriously. Do not compare them to Madonna.

Hmmm… in retrospect, and considering that it also marked the birth of indie, maybe the ’80s was a better era after all…

* * *

Tomorrow: An interview with Young Love Records artists Setting Sun and Quitzow. Be there.

* * *

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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Festival season continues Saturday with Farnam Festival at the corner of 40th and Farnam Sts. starting at 3 p.m. The goal: To raise $50k to help turn Farnam into a two-way street between 36th and 42nd. How this will help the businesses along that street, I’m not entirely sure, other than the fact that they’ll be getting traffic from both directions instead of one. I personally can’t imagine a two-way Farnam (especially in front of The Brothers), but what the heck, right? I assume money raised will go toward, what, construction to make the street two-way? Isn’t that a job for the City of Omaha? Does the money go to the City? More likely it’ll go to the Midtown Business Association who is spearheading the effort. Maybe they need it to pay for lawyers and architects? Look, I don’t know and it’s not spelled out on their website.

Regardless, what it means for the rest of us is an afternoon and evening’s worth of music by a handful of local bands (most of whom are Benson regulars) for a $10 admission. And, of course, a beer tent also will be set up. The sched:

3:15 p.m. – Normandy Invasion

4:25 – Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies

5:30 – The Third Men

6:35 – Sarah Benck

7:45 – Thunder Power

9:00 – Midwest Dilemma

10:15 – Southpaw Bluegrass Band

BTW, this thing is supposed to become an annual event.

* * *

Meanwhile, the North Downtown district (sadly nicknamed “NoDo”) is having a block party this Saturday. You can read about all the festivities here, but the music part of the gig is an open house at Slowdown starting at 7 p.m. The line-up is Bear Country, Talking Mountain and the mysterious KISS-loving DJ known as Tyrone Storm. The cost, absolutely free.

* * *

There’s more to this weekend than festivals and block parties.

Friday night Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship plays at The Barley St. with Why Make Clocks and the Ketchup and Mustard Gas. $5, 9 p.m.

And, The Mynabirds are playing at the Stir Lounge Saturday night with opener Jake Bellows. $5, 9 p.m.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Readership of this-here blog has been off the hook the past couple of weeks. I guess it has something to do with the coverage of both MAHA and ConorFest. So to readers new and old, thanks for coming. Just a reminder, there’s a comments section at the bottom of each blog entry, and lately it has been getting plenty o’ action, so make sure you scroll down past the copyright mumbo-jumbo for your opportunity to voice your own opinion, or you can always go to the webboard. Just one rule: Play nice.

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room Miniature Tigers (Modern Art Records/ILG)  drops by on their first headlining tour as they head to Lollapalooza. Opening is The Spinto Band and The Delta Mirror. $10, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, it’s a night of laid-back folk at Slowdown Jr. with Desert Soap, Platte River Rain and Cass Fifty and the Family Gram. $7, 9 p.m.

And finally, at fabulous O’Leaver’s it’s McCarthy Trenching, Jake Bellows and Phil Schaffart — all for the usual $5 at the usual 9:30.

* * *

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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Mercy Rule at Duffy's during last year's Lincoln Calling Festival, Oct. 3, 2009.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Jeremy Buckley yesterday announced the initial line-up for this year’s Lincoln Calling Festival, which starts Sept. 29. Below is the preliminary list of bands. Presumably more will be added (Do they really need more?), with a final confirmed list slated for Sept. 1. As always, this is a very solid collection of local bands with a few notable nationals sprinkled in. Buckley can pull this off because he actually pays his bands to take part in the event. The nine venues participating this year are The Bourbon Theatre, Duffys Tavern, the Zoo Bar, 12th St. Pub, The Alley, Marz Bar, Fat Toad, the Bricktop, the Black Market and the rooftop of Sandy’s (actually, that’s 10). Buckley said ticket prices will be announced next week, and you’ll get a substantial discount if you buy way in advance.

Here goes:

The Allendales (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/theallendales
Bandit Sound (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/banditsounds
Bear Country (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/bearcountry
Brimstone Howl (Omaha/Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/brimstonehowl
Capgun Coup (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/capguncoup
Christian Mistress (Olympia, WA) http://stereogum.com/399492/christian-mistress-home-in-the-sun-stereogum-premiere/franchises/haunting-the-chapel/
Conchance (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/conchanceallcity
Cowboy Indian Bear (Lawrence) http://www.myspace.com/cowboyindianbear
Deerpeople (Stillwater) http://www.myspace.com/deerpeople
Honeybee (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/honeyhoneybee
The Hood Internet (Chicago) http://www.myspace.com/therealhoodinternet
Ideal Cleaners (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/idealcleaners
The Kickback (Chicago) http://www.myspace.com/thekickback
Life of a Scarecrow (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/lifeofascarecrow
LookBook (Minneapolis) http://www.myspace.com/lookbookmusic
Loom does Lincoln Calling (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/loomgathering
The Love Language (Raleigh, NC) http://www.myspace.com/thelovelanguage
Manny Coon (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/mannycoon
Mercy Rule (Lincoln) http://www.speednebraska.com/independent_bands/mercy_rule.php
Mezcal Brothers (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/themezcalbrothers
Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/noahsarkwasaspaceship
Patrick Park (Los Angeles) http://www.myspace.com/patrickpark
Poison Control Center (Ames) http://www.myspace.com/thepcc
The Prids (Portland) http://www.myspace.com/theprids
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers (Phoenix) http://www.myspace.com/azpeacemakers
Sea Wolf acoustic (Los Angeles) http://www.myspace.com/seawolf
Sera Cahoone (Seattle) http://www.myspace.com/seracahoone
Shaun Sparks and the Wounded Animals (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/compoundshaun
The Song Remains the Same (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/songremainsthesame01
Talking Mountain (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/talkingmountain
Techlepathy (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/techlepathy
Third Men (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/thirdmen
Thrones (Salem, OR) http://www.myspace.com/thronestour
Those Darlins (Murfreesboro) http://www.myspace.com/darlins
Thunder Power! (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/thunderpowermusic
Turbo Fruits (Nashville) http://www.myspace.com/turbofruits
Union Line (San Juan Capistrano) http://www.myspace.com/theunionline
UUVVWWZ (Lincoln) http://www.myspace.com/uuvvwwz
Wagon Blasters (Omaha) http://www.myspace.com/wagonblast

* * *

Tomorrow: Another take on The Concert for Equality…

* * *

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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Happy Birthday at The Waiting Room, July 29, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I almost didn’t go see rock band Happy Birthday last night at The Waiting Room. I got a text from someone at the show who said no one was there. And it was $10. And I was tired. But then I thought to myself, dammit, I should go to this if only because I don’t want to be part of the reason why One Percent quits booking these kinds of bands — touring Sub Pop bands, bands that should be drawing crowds of people who like indie music.

So I went. And sure enough, there was maybe 10 people there (and 10 people at TWR looks like no people). But it didn’t matter. Happy Birthday put on an amazing show. Their set was a half-hour of buzzing indie goodness, sort of a modern version of Dinosaur Jr. but poppier, funner, and sung by a guy with a witchy voice who looked like a shaggy version of Derek Pressnall. Sure, it ended up costing me about a $1 per song, but it was worth it.

So how can we get more people to come out to see young touring bands like this? It’s always been a problem. I remember when Retsin came through Sokol Underground and played for five or six people (talk about an empty-looking venue when fewer than 50 were there). That had to be 10 years ago. I felt as embarrassed for Omaha then as I did last night. But beyond embarrassment, if the promotors can’t get people to come to these shows, they’ll have little choice but to quit booking them. So if you want to see your favorite Sub Pop or Merge or Matador band come through Omaha, you better start going to shows, whether you’re tired or not.

* * *

Here’s the burning question from many of the patriots who plan on attending tomorrow’s Concert for Equality: Where do I park? The answer: It’s every man for himself. Benson isn’t exactly designed to handle an influx of 2,000+ people from a parking standpoint, so if you’re driving and intend to show up right before the 5 p.m. start time, expect to do some hiking from your car to the concert site just outside of Jake’s on Military Ave. As someone pointed out last night, there isn’t much parking at Sokol Auditorium, yet people always seem to find a place to park in the surrounding neighborhoods for sold out shows of 1,400 people. Me, I intend to walk from my house, a little over a mile away. It should be an adventure.

Conor Oberst was on the local NPR news this morning talking about the concert and the issue surrounding it. Kevin Coffey’s article in the Omaha World-Herald came out this morning, right here, where Kevin references one of Oberst’s personal motives behind his activism:

“And he’s outraged at the situation of a close family friend who came to the United States illegally from Mexico decades ago. She recently returned to Mexico so she could come back here legally, and though her three daughters and husband are citizens, she can’t return to the U.S. for 10 years.“

This paragraph begs for more explanation. If the “family friend” is married to a U.S. citizen, how is it that she’s not able to return to the United States for 10 years?  I don’t know much about immigration law, but I always thought that if a citizen of another country married a U.S. citizen, that person also becomes a U.S. citizen. That, apparently, isn’t the case. A quick search at WikiAnswers brought this back: “If the person was illegally in the country for more than a year, than he or she is barred from ever coming back for 10 years (known as the “10-year-bar”) The only way to overcome having the 10-year-bar is by the US citizen spouse filing a petition for a waiver of the bar.”

I’m sure there’s even more to the story. And that’s the problem when a celebrity becomes the center of a cause such as this one — there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to confuse more people than you convince. Immigration law is complicated. It’s multi-faceted and multi-layered, with jurisdictions inside of jurisdictions. The issue that seems to be impacting Oberst’s family friend is a federal immigration issue. The Fremont immigrant law is a local issue that resides within a federal framework. Do the kids who will be rocking out to Desaparecidos know or care about any of this? Very unlikely. All’s they’ll know is that the Fremont law is “a bad thing.” Do they need to know more than that?

That said, it’ll be impossible for those young fans to ignore the hate groups that will be set up along the parameter of the concert. If those fans thought they lived in a world free of racism, they’re in for a sobering civics lesson tomorrow afternoon. And maybe that shot of reality alone will make this concert worthwhile.

* * *

There are a lot of other shows going on this weekend other than Conor-fest.

A brand new band is being unveiled tonight at Slowdown Jr. Conduits is a supergroup of sorts. The line-up: Guitarist J.J. Idt (Eagle Seagull), guitarist Nate Mickish (Kite Pilot, The Golden Age), bass/keyboardist Mike Overfield (Eagle Seagull), drummer Roger L. Lewis (The Good Life, Our Fox), and vocalist Jenna Morrison (Son, Ambulance). The band describes its sound as “moody, atmospheric, shoegazey, drone pop.” Headlining is Our Fox, who are going on hiatus after this show, and the always amazing Jake Bellows. $6, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, down at Sokol Underground, its Fat Possum band and critics’ darlings Heartless Bastards. This show has been flying under the wire, probably because it’s not being presented under the One Percent banner. Also on the bill are Builders and the Butcher and Peter Wolf Crier. $12, 7 p.m.

The Sydney is hosting a little pre-Conorfest party tonight with Statistics frontman and Desparecidos guitarist Denver Dalley doing his thing on the turntables. Starts at 10 and no cover.

Tomorrow night, of course, is the Concert for Equality. Watch my Twitter feed for updates and photos throughout the afternoon and evening (Yes, I’m a “deluxe” ticket holder).

Here’s the schedule for Saturday’s concert, by way of One Percent Productions:

Outside:
Flowers Forever – 5:00-5:30
Vago – 5:45-6:15
The Envy Corps – 6:30-7:00
Bright Eyes – 7:15-8:00
Gillian Welch – 8:15-9:00
Cursive 9:15-10:00
Desaparecidos – 10:15-11:00

Inside:
Fathr^ – 5:00-5:40
Simon Joyner – 6:00-6:40
The So-So Sailors – 7:00-7:40
Conchance – 8:00-8:40
David Dondero – 9:00-9:40
Closed from 10:00 – 11:00
Lullaby for the Working Class – 11:30-12:15
Hootenanny – 12:30-2:00

And finally, Sunday Tokyo Police Club returns to Slowdown with Freelance Whales and Arkells. $15, 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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Looks like Conor’s doing press for Saturday’s Concert for Equality in Benson. KETV posted an article and video yesterday (right here) where a newly bearded Oberst is interviewed and basically repeats what he’s already said about the Fremont immigrant law — “It’s a human rights issue,” “It’s un-American, it’s unconstitutional and it’s immoral,” and so on. They never get to the actual reason why Conor is involved in this cause. Oberst explaining his real motivation would give all of this a strong emotional anchor that it’s currently lacking. Maybe Kevin Coffey of the OWH will get the real story when his interview with Conor goes online “later this week” at Omaha.com. KETV also spoke with Susan Smith of the Nebraska Advisory Group, who supports the Fremont immigrant legislation. The report says that she’ll be at the concert, protesting. But unless she and her followers bought tickets, I’m skeptical that they’ll be “at the concert.” Maybe outside the concert… It’s easy to discount people with signs that read “Deport Conor Oberst” as a bunch of loons, but these days, with the Internet, a bunch of loons can turn into a movement. Just look at the Tea Party.

* * *

Spinner yesterday posted a nice review of Tim Kasher’s solo set at Tonic Room Tuesday night. TK apparently ran through a number of songs off his forthcoming solo album The Game of Monogamy

. Said critic Anna Deem: “Utilizing only trumpet, keyboard, drums, bass and violin, Kasher’s new songs were more reminiscent of his previous records with the Good Life rather than the more hard-hitting sound of Cursive. As always, his commanding howl was the real fixture of the hour-long performance, resounding throughout the entire bar with force.

” She said Tim ended the performance saluting the audience with, “You’re a bunch of sweet ass motherf—ers.” Nice. Read the whole review here. The new record comes out Oct. 5 on Saddle Creek.

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room, Sub Pop space-rock trio Happy Birthday is playing along with LA pop rockers Residual Echoes (Holy Mountain). $10, 9 p.m. Meanwhile, at fabulous O’Leaver’s, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship headlines a show featuring Mumfords, Utopia Park and Adam Robert Haug. $5, 9 p.m. And The Sydney is doing a rare during-the-week show tonight with Down with the Ship. According to the recently redesigned Sydney website, the other bands on the bill are Where Astronauts Go to Hide, and OK Hemmingway. On the other hand, SLAMOmaha’s calendar says the undercard is Minneapolis band Holyoke and Cass Fifty and the Family Gram. Either way, it’s $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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Associated Press

is reporting (right here) that the Fremont immigrant law that is the focus of Saturday’s Concert for Equality in Benson may be on the verge of being suspended.

According to The AP: “The (Fremont) City Council is scheduled to vote on suspending the ban on Tuesday night, a day before the city goes to court over the measure. The city faces lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund. City officials have estimated that Fremont’s costs of implementing the ordinance — including legal fees, employee overtime and improved computer software — would average $1 million a year.”

Money raised from this Saturday’s concert is earmarked for the Nebraska ACLU to help fight the Fremont immigrant law. N-ACLU’s director Amy Miller said in the article, “If the City Council decides to stop the law from going into effect themselves, that would be a step in the right direction.”

Is it possible that by Saturday’s concert, the Fremont law could be dead before it had a chance to go into affect? Regardless of what happens, I have no doubt that the show will go on, but it could take the sting out of the day’s rhetoric.

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room, it’s Jagjaguwar recording artist Black Mountain, whose frontman, Stephen McBean, you might remember from head-buzz band Pink Mountaintops. With The Dodos (Frenchkiss). $12, 9 p.m.

For those of you in Lincoln, For Against is playing a warm-up show tonight at Knickerbockers with Pharmacy Spirits before they head off to Brooklyn to play at The Big Takeover Magazine’s 30th Anniversary Festival this Saturday with Mark Burgess (ex-Chameleons), Jon Auer of The Posies and a ton of other bands. This is the first Lincoln For Against show in two years, and the first Lincoln show since the release of their eighth LP, 2009’s Never Been. Show starts at 9, no idea on the price.

* * *

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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Superchunk at The MAHA Music Festival, Omaha, 7/24/10.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A more comprehensive review of MAHA’s music will appear as Wednesday’s column/blog entry, (though I found that 1,000 words wasn’t enough). The lead for that column: Have the MAHA Music Festival organizers gotten the monkey that was last year’s failure off their backs? The answer, probably, is yes.

I think no matter how you look at it, the festival worked. I certainly had a good time and so did the folks I spoke with. My personal highlight was Superchunk, whereas I think The Faint was probably the big winner — they’ll be the ones that people remember most. Spoon was merely OK, but I’ve never thought Spoon was a very good live band (I think they’re a very good recording project, though their new album is limp).

MAHA organizer Tre Brashear said that scanned ticket attendance was just over 4,000 (They won’t give actual ticket sale info). I thought the crowd seemed larger than that, especially during The Faint (When Spoon started its set, people began to head home). For a crowd that size, everything ran smoothly, which is a credit to Brashear, his team and their crack staff of volunteers.

Still, as is the case with any festival, there were problems. A couple people were arrested: “One idiot punched his girlfriend.  Another idiot punched the son of the Omaha City Prosecutor,” Brashear said. And apparently MAHA was unable to provide free waterbottle refills throughout the entire day — which is a concern at any outdoor festival. Brashear said it’s “the thing we’re most disappointed in ourselves about.” I didn’t notice it and didn’t hear about it until I read a complaint on Twitter after the show.

From a profitability standpoint: “Even though our attendance was below the 4.5K we were planning on, we came out ahead because of our beverage sales,” Brashear said. “We sold out of everything.  At the end, all we had left was Bud Light.” This underscores one obvious tragic misstep by organizers: I was unable to find a Rolling Rock anywhere on the festival grounds. Along with the water problem, this is something the MAHA committee must solve in 2011.

Brashear said he and the rest of the MAHA brain trust are going to “decompress” over the next couple of weeks and then begin planning for next year’s event. The two questions that burn brightest in my mind: Where will it be held and who will they invite?

I assume that they consider this year’s event a smashing success. Still, one has to consider that concerts like River Riot (or whatever it’s called) sell three to four times as many tickets as MAHA, thanks to the shitty pop bands that they book. If MAHA is going to keep its refined indie focus, it could take a long time until they hit those kinds of numbers — such is the nature of indie music. I’d hate to see them buckle under and book an 89.7 FM-style roster of bands to boost ticket sales.

In retrospect, this year’s main stage roster was a tip o’ the hat to ’90s-’00s indie — the kind of music that the organizers grew up listening to (presumably). Old ’97s, Superchunk, Spoon, The Faint, even Ben Kweller had his best music in the earlier half of the ’00s. The festival would garner a younger audience if it tried to book more up-and-coming acts, such as Sleigh Bells, MIA, Wavves, The National, Foals, Band of Horses, New Pornographers, along with the usual legacy acts. If they want to extend this event to two days, they’re going to need to book a couple huge bands — one to anchor each day. And I mean Pixies/REM/Wilco huge. That’s pricey. And risky. There are also those who think the line-up should be more diverse stylewise. Bottom line: You’re never going to please everyone.

Interestingly, the most modern bands were on the second stage, which is another thing MAHA needs to fix in 2011. The second stage was an abomination both soundwise and viewing-wise (unless you like your retinas burned off by the setting sun). If MAHA decides to stay at Lewis & Clark Landing, they’ve got to figure out the second stage “problem.” Maybe they can merely move it to the east side of the main stage, with the Mighty Mo as a backdrop.

More likely, MAHA will move to a new location that allows camping — that’s certainly part of the organizers’ vision. So is getting more involved in “the local scene.” The No. 1 criticism with the festival is their process for selecting the small stage bands — no one likes battle-of-the-bands contests where entrants perform for free. It’s cheap and humliating. It’s time that MAHA grow a pair and start selecting the bands themselves, or work with someone involved in the local scene to help select local bands. Considering the amount they pay bands for the event, they have their pick of the best Lincoln and Omaha have to offer.

Anyway… more recap Wednesday.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

BTW, a quick glance at Craigslist yesterday showed Deluxe Concert for Equality tickets were being offered for as much as $200 each, while general admission tix were being offered for $100 each. There are 25 listings there now, and most are “want to buy” ads.

Column 280: Goodbye, OEAAs…

It’s better than beating a dead horse…

I just finished writing a 1,000-word critical review of this past weekend’s Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards showcase in Benson, and then I threw it out.

It dawned on me after adding the -30- (a traditional, out-dated way of ending news stories) that I should take the same tact that I take for bands that I don’t care for — just don’t write about it. There’s no point in tearing down the OEAAs. The bands that participate aren’t indie bands, aren’t bands that I cover in my column and website, and aren’t the kind of bands Nebraska has become nationally known for.

In truth, the OEAAs don’t target any specific “type” of band. The organization’s showcases are open invitations to anyone willing to play for free, with apparently no criteria that eliminate anyone from consideration. As a result, the showcase has become a two-day open mic night, where truly talented performers like Ember Schrag, Ground Tyrants and a couple others, get lost in the overwhelming fog of mediocrity.

Even the annual awards process has become somewhat misguided. As an OEAA Academy member, I found myself not voting in a number of categories last year because the nominees simply didn’t fit the category definition — and I’m not talking about from a genre standpoint, but as representing the best bands from the Omaha/Lincoln area in a specific category. I have no interest in voting for the least mediocre among five mediocre bands, while the area’s real talent — the bands that release albums on nationally distributed record labels, the bands that go out of state on tours — are consistently ignored by the process or refuse to participate.

When the OEAAs began four years ago as a non-profit, there was some discussion that money generated from the effort could some day support a scholarship fund or some other worthy cause. But that never happened. Conceivably, money raised from the showcases is funneled into covering costs involved in putting together the annual awards banquet — a program that’s supposed to showcase the best and brightest, but where the best and brightest rarely perform.

Despite all of this, there’s no question that folks enjoy the OEAA showcases and awards banquet, whether I do or not. Who am I to begrudge anyone for having a good time? So with that, I wish the OEAAs the best of luck as I resign my position as an Academy Member, put down my gun and slowly walk away…

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Speaking of the OEAA’s, the MAHA Music Festival filled its final opening slot for bands performing on the Kum & Go Local Stage from those participating in last weekend’s OEAA showcase. In an open vote of OEAA patrons, the winner was R&B act Voodoo Method, a band that harshly clashes with the national acts chosen to perform on the main stage. I guess that’s what the MAHA committee gets when it leaves a decision as important as who will perform at their concert up to someone else.

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If you were on the fence as to whether or not to buy tickets to the Concert for Equality, being held July 31 in Benson and featuring Bright Eyes, Cursive, Desaparecidos, Lullaby for the Working Class, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, The Envy Corps, David Dondero, The So-So Sailors, Conchance, Simon Joyner, Flowers Forever and Vago, along with some TBA superstars, you can forget about it. The event sold out last week. Deluxe Tickets, which originally cost $50 each, were being listed on ebay for $315 a pair last week, and I suspect you’ll see even higher prices as the event gets closer. Could the concert be moved from one of Benson’s side streets to Maple Street, freeing up more tickets? We’ll have to wait and see.

* * *

Finally, I skipped Day 2 of the OEAAs to attend the Speed! Nebraska showcase at a crushed-full O’Leaver’s — the epilogue to the Soapbox Riot soapbox derby held at Seymour Smith track earlier that day (and won by Wagon Blasters’ frontman Gary Dean Davis). Speed! Nebraska Records boasts arguably the best roster of pure rock bands in Nebraska — including Mercy Rule, Ideal Cleaners, Techlepathy, The Third Men, Mezcal Brothers and Wagon Blasters, all of whom performed that night (and none of whom played the day before at the OEAA showcase). Note to the MAHA committee: Any of those bands would have been an amazing addition to the Kum & Go stage. Maybe next year?

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It’s a night of nightmare music at Slowdown Jr. tonight with Gunnison Beach, New Jersey noise band East of the Wall (proggy, syncopated rhythms, monster vocals, loud), Name (crazy fast guitars, metal, screaming), Masses (pounding instrumentals, violently loud, torturous), and Techlepathy (intricate, tense, free-fall explosions). Earplugs highly recommended. $8, 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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.