Ah, life is filled with difficult choices. Tonight is no exception as you have two blue ribbon indie rock shows to choose from. Which will you choose?
Over at The Waiting Room, Pedro the Lion a.k.a. David Bazan and his band, returns, this time performing two of his classic albums. It’s Hard to Find a Friend is the band’s debut, released in 1998 on Jade Tree records. I honestly have never listened to that record, having discovered Pedro the Lion two years later with the release of Winners Never Quit, but. strangely, Bazan is skipping over that record and instead also performing 2002’s Control tonight. I’m sure there’s a reason behind it and if you’re curious you can ask Bazan yourself as he usually takes questions during his set.
Opening is Seattle singer/songwriter Erik Walters, who has played guitar for a number of artists including Telekinesis!, Perfume Genius and tonight will be performing as part of Pedro the Lion.
This is the tour kick-off (Hurray!). $28, 8 p.m.
The Mountain Goats at The Slowdown, June 13, 2010. The band returns to The Slowdown tonight.
Also tonight, The Slowdown welcomes back The Mountain Goats. John Darnielle and his band continue to tour their latest studio album, Bleed Out (2022, Merge). There was some question (in my mind, anyway) if this show was going to happen as one of the band members came down with COVID last week, but here they are. Judging by the setlist from their April 4 Baton Rouge show (the last before the break), this will be a greatest hits set with a few songs from the new album thrown in.
I’ve seen these guys a few times over the years and the band puts on a very entertaining, fast-paced show. Knoxville singer/songwriter Adeem the Artist opens at 8 p.m. $45.
It’s the first Friday of the month and that means Benson First Friday! Benson turns into an urban walking art gallery with art openings happening all up and down Maple Street, not the least of which is the opening at Ming Toy Gallery, 6066 Maple St., where Brian Tait has a one-man show. Tait is one of my favorite Omaha artists, with a style that combines street art and abstract, strange, colorful and pure pop. The show runs from 6 to 9 p.m. and refreshments will be available. Come by and say hi.
Later tonight down at The Sydney it’s a 3-band bill headlined by Those Far Out Arrows, with Healer (Dan Brennan’s band that recently opened for Protomartyr at Slowdown) and Jack. $10, 9 p.m.
Tomorrow night (Saturday) there’s a pair of Matador Records bands playing at The Slowdown. The headliner is Baltimore’s Snail Mail a.k.a. Lindsey Jordan whose debut album, 2018’s Lush, was loaded with dreamy indie pop reminiscent of The Sundays and was an out-of-nowhere smash (and at the tender age of 17). Her follow-up, 2021’s Valentine, is harder and more mature but no less infectious, earning a massive 8.5 on the Pitchfork meter and “Best New Music” accolades. Maybe you remember them playing the 2019 Maha Festival? Joining Snail Mail Saturday night is lablemates Water from Your Eyes, who I wrote about earlier this week. Richmond, Virginia, old-school power pop band Dazy opens the show at 8 p.m. This one’s in the big room. $30.
Also Saturday night, The Sydney is hosting hard punk band Nowhere, Flooding and Omaha prog duo Pagan Athletes. 9 p.m., $10.
BTW, it’s Bandcamp Friday, so if you were thinking of buying any new music (or old music for that matter) Bandcamp is waiving its fees as it does every first Friday of the month, so do it now.
That’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend.
A week or so ago a Facebook memory showed up on my timeline – a photo of my laminate from the Flatlander Music Festival – “3 full days of intense musical ecstasy” hosted at Sharky’s at 7777 Cass St. I reposted the image and asked if anyone remembered who played the fest – it was almost 29 years ago after all. Other than a few “likes” and comments, not a word.
It got me digging through my stack of The Notes, the regional music monthly I wrote for back in the early ’90s published out of Lawrence, Kansas. I faintly remembered The Note was one of the fest’s sponsors and was how I got the laminate.
Sure enough, in the July 1994 issue, Flatlander Music Festival took out a full-page back-cover advertisement (see above). The fest boasted bringing in “industry representatives” for this “regional music showcase.”
The line-up was:
Thursday, July 7, 1994: Dashboard Mary, Honey, Ci2i, Stick Figures, Nudie Voodoo, St. Nicklehead, Flatwater Circus, Slowdown Virginia, Heroes & Villains and Sufferbus.
Friday, July 8, 1994: Brian Good, They Came in Droves, Beatkitchen, Fischer, Klass K, Such Sweet Thunder, Lavender Couch, Bartlby, Turquoise Sol and Solefish.
And finally, Saturday, July 9, 1994: Richard Schultz, Cowtown, Scott Laurent Band, Secret Skin, Jimmy Skaffa, Straw Dog, Green Machine, Town Crier, My Childhood and Squidboy.
Notable among the acts was Slowdown Virginia, a band consisting of Tim Kasher and Matt Maginn who would become half of Cursive, Steve Pedersen who would go on to front The White Octave and Criteria and Casey Caniglia. The band’s name is the namesake for The Slowdown music venue.
I know I was at this festival, but I don’t remember a minute of it.
Strangely, the next day Sharky’s hosted Sharkfest ’94. Headlined by The Beat Farmers, the line-up for that one also included The Kind, Ritual Device, Beef Curtains, Mercy Rule, Fischer, Secret Skin, Digital Sex, Shovelhead and Turtle Moon.
Sharky’s was in the the building that used to be the old Firmature’s restaurant, which if I remember correctly, had been a number of establishements before that. We used to joke that it was a cursed proprety because nothing lasted long there. The building had a rail car attached to it that was one of the first offices of weekly publication Sound & Art, which became The Reader. Local satire publication The Great Red Shark also was officed out of that building. Sharky’s didn’t last long. After it closed, the new Music Box took over that space, but it didn’t last long, either. Eventually the building was torn down to make way for a 24-Hour Fitness, which now is a Genesis Health Club. So there you have it.
Reading through these old issues of The Note is a hoot. Whoda thought a 32-page monthly magazine dedicated entirely to local music and the industries that support it could thrive for a decade?
The April issue of The Reader is out and it includes a tongue-in-cheek RIYL column about Maha. The copy editor at The Reader didn’t know RIYL meant Recommended If You Like and took it out of the headline, which I guess I get but isn’t the purpose of headlines to grab people’s attention? Anyway, in addition to being in print the column is online here. Fun!
Much in the same vein as that column, a friend of mine asked me about this Saturday’s Snail Mail concert at Slowdown, specifically, who is Water from Your Eyes? It sounds like the perfect name for an emo band, but they’re anything but emo.
Recently signed to Matador Records, the Brooklyn duo consists of Rachel Brown and synther / guitarist Nate Amos (This is Lorelei) and is described as “experimental pop music that’s pretty and violent, raw and indelible” which makes one think of art-infected ninjas bearing Sharpees.
They’re last album, Structure, was released on Wharf Cat in 2021, which apparently caught Matador’s attention, who will release Everyone’s Crushed May 26.
I had the good fortune of being among the dozen people who caught Water from Your Eyes when they opened for Palm this past December at Reverb.
The duo of vocalist Rachel Brown and guitarist Nate Amos were joined by a third person on guitar and were backed by some thumping rhythm tracks. If you’d fallen across the duo’s past recordings, like 2019’s Somebody Else’s Song (Exploding in Sound Records) or even 2021’s artier Structure (Wharf Cat) you would have been ill-prepared for the sound barrage of last night’s set.
At the heart of it was deep, blaring pre-recorded synths joined by Amos’ acidic, feedback-drenched guitar that interlaced with Brown’s untouched, unprocessed vocals that sounded like your little sister singing along to art-damaged post-punk. Harsh, throbbing sonic textures repeated trancelike with the second guitar providing counter riffs.
The evening’s highlight was a brittle interpretation of “Adeleine,” a track from Somebody Else’s Song, reinterpreted with rough synths and guitar, barely recognizable compared to the original, but a better fit in what turned out to be one of my favorite sets I’ve seen this year.
They were, indeed, somewhat awesome and are worth the price of Saturday night’s show by themselves.
Here’s their latest single. Get tix while you can…
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.
. 0 0 0 .
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.
. 0 0 0 .
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.
. 0 0 0 .
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.”
Comments Off on Bright Eyes special guests and Bridgers rumors; Mousetrap’s Patrick Buchanan; Hand Habits, Amber Carew leave Saddle Creek; who is Mary Ruth McLeay?…
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.
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.
. 0 0 0 .
Protomartyr at French Legation Park / Pitchfork Day Party at SXSW 2014. The band plays tonight at Slowdown Jr.
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.
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.
. 0 0 0 .
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.
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).
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.
Recent Comments