by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I checked out Marisa Anderson’s music prior to going to last Friday night’s God Speed You! Black Emperor show at The Admiral. Actually, I listened to her recordings most of the night before knowing I was going to write a preview for this show. Anderson plays solo guitar, mostly unaccompanied and her records, but totally alone Friday night. Prior to the show I thought it was a strange opener for what would likely be an orchestra-level wall-of-sound experience, but I was wrong.

Anderson stood on stage with just an electric guitar and played gorgeous, mostly somber instrumentals, slightly over-amplified, a wee bit overblown at times, making them sound stark and haunted. No question the music would have been completely different on an acoustic guitar (but just as good). Anderson introduced each song with a story or an explanation, my favorite being one about a man who came up to her after a show and asked why all her songs were sad. Her response: It’s what I play. Making you happy is not my job. After which, she wrote the happy sing she performed next (which was more majestic than happy).

She closed with another happy number — a song about the hummingbird who rules over her back yard. It turned out Anderson was the perfect opener, because the last thing you need before experiencing bombast is more bombast.

And bombast was what we got with God Speed You! Black Emperor. The band came on at the stroke of 9 p.m. to an audience of what looked like around 400 crowded on the floor in front of the stage. The ensemble’s eight members were spread out almost in a semi-circle so each could see the others clearly.

As the opening tones began to rise, I noticed next to me in the back of the room a woman standing on a riser behind four film projectors. Behind her, loops of film hung from a rod like black spaghetti. She began to feverishly look closely at pieces of the film with a red light that hung around her neck, and upon finding the right piece, threaded it through one of the projector’s top sprockets, leaving the rest to hang limp as the film spun in a loop. On the enormous screen behind the band glowed a jittering, scratched-out word – “HOPE”.

Throughout the night she created projected effects, mostly black-and-white looped films of airplane acrobatics, wheat harvesting, ‘70s New York Stock Exchange trading floor, swans, and so on. When the band performed “First of the Last Glaciers,” the film loops were of enormous glaciers floating in an ocean. The band could have created a digital version of what was being projected, but there was something warm and human knowing this woman was back there creating the visuals by hand.

The band sounded as spectacular as ever, playing mostly compositions from their 2021 album G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! God Speed’s compositions generally start with a rhythm or noise, quietly and slowly building to a central looped melody with enormous electric guitars and acoustic instruments (violin, stand-up bass, percussion), before crescendo-ing and fading either to nothing or straight into the next number.

Their music has always been cinematic, but rarely felt so Western or traditional, with most songs falling into a 6/8 double-waltz time, lilting and building and splashing about like the deck of a ship in the middle of an ocean during a squall, beautiful and terrible, the audience staring up mesmerized by the spectacle.

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Yesterday it was reported Mimi Parker from the band Low died after her long battle with ovarian cancer.

Low has long been one of my favorite bands, dating back to Things We Lost in the Fire in 2001, when I first interviewed the band. I would have that pleasure a number of times over the years, including interviewing Mimi in 2005 upon the release of The Great Destroyer and in support of their show at Sokol Underground. We talked mostly about her kids, Hollis and Cyrus, and the joys and challenges of touring with them and without them. They are who I’m thinking about today, along with her husband and band mate, Alan Sparhawk, and everyone whose lives were touched by Mimi and her music. She will be remembered, and missed.

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Tonight’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor show at The Admiral is one of the weekend’s highlights. I saw the band the last time they came through back in 2016 when they played at The Slowdown. From the review:

Most compositions (songs?) were deep, repetitive ambient tonal melodies that evolved into haunting and/or majestic sweeps of sound. Sludgy, slow, deep ponderous movements were played in dim, deep-red sepia lighting, perfect for setting a mood or developing film. Overhead, the projections became less abstract — images of burning fields, film sprocket holes, a deer standing in a field, a sunset shot from inside a moving car — all in black-and-white (of course).

There wasn’t much on stage except lots of people leaning over things, huddled over guitars or effects pedals. Sometimes the compositions transformed into big rock numbers that reminded me of Meddle-era Pink Floyd or Mogwai, but most of the set was a pulsing dirge set to a 6/8 beat. It was beautiful and awful and exhausting. The set began at a quarter after 9. When I left at 11 and it was still going strong, the sold-out crowd standing in front of the stage was transfixed, mesmerized.

I expect more of the same tonight. It was a show better suited for a sit-down audience in, say, The Orpheum, or at a remodeled, majestic auditorium like The Admiral a.k.a. the old Sokol Auditorium (How long will I have to add that a.k.a. to The Admiral’s name?). 

Opening the show tonight is Portland-based guitarist/composer Marisa Anderson, whose latest album, Still, Here, was released earlier this year on Thrill Jockey. Her simple, quiet compositions are spare wilderness meditations you could imagine playing in the background as you walked across an open prairie during a winter afternoon, very much like the one pictured on her album cover. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are $30 or $47 for balcony access. Today’s weather is the perfect accompaniment. 

Also tonight, Indiana “stoner-emo” band Cloakroom plays at Slowdown, Jr. The band is influenced by ‘90s acts like Red House Painters and Hum, and has a dense, sludgy, hypnotic sound on their latest album, Dissolution Wave (2022, Relapse). Joining them are Lincoln math-rock instrumentalists Turquoise and Lincoln grungers Ivory Daze (It’s veritable a Lincoln Invasion!). 8 p.m., $20. 

Also, it’s Benson First Friday. Enjoy some art and booze in the Benson District!

And it’s also Bandcamp Friday — you know the drill, Bandcamp and some independent record labels pass along their profits from sales directly to the artists, so it’s the best time to stock up on those releases you’ve been dying to buy. 

Saturday is a wasteland… again.

The weekend’s second big show is Death From Above 1979 Sunday at The Slowdown.  The Toronto act, fronted by Sebastian Grainger, dropped big into the scene with 2004’s You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine (Vice), which would prove to be their high-water mark. They’ve released three more albums, including 2021’s Is 4 Lovers (Spinefarm), as well as an unnecessary cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.’” Fellow Canadians The OBGMs open at 8 p.m. $30.

And 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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Cursive’s Domestica was reissued by the band’s label, 15 Passenger Records, earlier this year; now the band is hitting the road playing the album in its entirety. The record turned 20 in 2020, so better late than never, right? 

Unfortunately, so far this is a NOmaha tour, as Omaha is not among the 20 cities the band will be visiting throughout December. But waitaminit… the tour doesn’t list anything after Dec. 21 and we all know what the X-mas holiday could bring us… Come on, Santa, we want to hear the “The Casualty” played on an Omaha stage…

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Those who came to last month’s Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies gig at Benson Theater were treated to a couple great covers of songs by Omaha ex-pat Kyle Harvey. 

Kyle is now living somewhere up in the Colorado Rockies. He’s a mountain man; a wandering poet, as good with a long-iron rifle as he is with a Bowie knife. But it turns out, Kyle is also good at creating electronic ambient music. 

In fact, Kyle has released two albums of lush soundscapes — Distances and Disjecta Membra. Both are available on Bandcamp. 

About Disjecta Membra: “Scattered fragments recorded to 4-track cassette in my garage during the COVID lockdown of 2020. We had moved into a new house and everything felt completely strange. I didn’t have any sort of DAW for recording digitally at the time, so I set up my Tascam 4-track in the garage and made dozens of recordings. This EP, Disjecta membra, is a peek into that time.”

Check out the links below and consider buying a copy (BTW, Bandcamp Friday is just the day after tomorrow). And if you’re missing Kyle’s lyrics, check out his recently published book of poetry, Cosmographies (2022, Cuneiform Press). 

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Two hot shows going on tonight…

Top of my list is the smaller of the two — Illuminati Hotties at Reverb Lounge. The LA indie band is on the road touring their 2021 album Let Me Do One More (Hopeless Records), which garnered a solid 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. Reminds me of ‘90s girl-powered indie rock. Fun! Also on the bill are Tacoma indie band Enumclaw and LA band Guppy. $20, 8 p.m. Don’t sleep on this one – sometime tells me it could sell out…

Also tonight, North Welsh alt band The Joy Formidable headlines at The Waiting Room. You might remember them from the 2016 Maha Music Festival (and they’ve been through town a few times since). LA post-punk band Cuffed Up opens at 8 p.m. Surprisingly, this show also is $20. 

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It’s the unofficial Halloween weekend at the bars and clubs — never a good weekend for live indie shows. This year is the exception. 

Tonight at Reverb Lounge, San Gabriel Valley band The Red Pears headlines. The trio has been kicking around since 2014 playing a sort of slacker-indie rock with jangly high-reverb guitar and simple beats. Their recent album, 2021’s You Throught We Left Because The Door Was Open But We Were Waiting Outside (Cosmica Artists) sounds like a garage version of The Strokes. l’d never heard of these guys prior to this show, but could be interesting. Opening is So Cal band Benches, who’s played in the past with iKNHOW and Foster the People among others. Very produced, with synths and smoothy vocals. Texas pop-punk-noise band Floats kicks things off at 8 p.m.  $15.

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Tomorrow night it’s back to Reverb for the grand finale from No Thanks. We’ve watched these folks grow into one of the best bands in the area over the past three or four years, so it’s tough to see them hang it up, but I guess they know what they’re doing. Come say goodbye along with their pals Cat Piss and Hussies. $7, 9 p.m. 

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And here’s an early head’s up about Monday’s Jeffrey Lewis and the Voltage show at The Sydney. I’ve seen Mr. Lewis before and love his stuff (and his comic books, which I’m sure he’ll have for sale at the show). The finest modern, indie, folk/anti-folk (in the Moldy Peaches vein). Check out this extended interview with Lewis (both parts linked from the article) conducted the day after Trump was elected in 2016 (Ugh!). Opening is the always awesome Nathan Ma. Again, this is Monday, Halloween, though I don’t see any sort of “costume requirement” in the listing (though it’s the Sydney so everyone will be wearing a costume because the Sydney is madcap). $15, 9 p.m 

So, a little extra. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section and 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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m trying to think of really interesting things going on indie-music-wise in Omaha and there just haven’t been any. It’s as if the city is in a dormant period.

That said, our hometown label, Saddle Creek Records, just signed yet another band, Philadelphia noise-pop four-piece Feeble Little Horse. Saddle Creek is re-releasing their debut album, Heyday, which came out last year. 

The band, formed in Oakland, PA, in 2021, described their sound in an interview from Pittsburgh radio station WYEP:

How do you describe your sound?  

• Sebastian Kinsler, guitar/vocals: We don’t use reverb, we don’t hard pan guitars, and we double track everything.
• Lydia Slocum, vocals: It’s like we took our favorite songs and put them in the Sebastian blender. I think the sound is super influenced by the music we like and then what the four of us are each exclusively able to contribute.
• Jake Kelley, drums: noise pop 

When asked what was the first album that “really changed your life,” three of the four members referenced a Green Day album (one referenced High School Musical 2 soundtrack). This is ironic because they (thankfully) sound nothing like Green Day. 

As mentioned, their debut LP was originally released on Philly community label Julia’s War Records, but the band also released a 10-song EP called Modern Tourism in March on local label Crafted Sounds Records. 

The rerelease of Heyday comes out on Jan. 13 (and includes bonus tracks), but no doubt new original material won’t be far behind. Here’s the first video from that album. It sounds much more influenced by Sonic Youth than Green Day. The full album and EP are already online at Spotify. 

By the way, my Novermber column in The Reader looks at Saddle Creek’s 2022 output (minus Feeble Little Horse). I’ll link to it when it’s online. Saddle Creek is 29 years old this year. What fun do they have in store for their 30th birthday?

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Remember what I said about going to shows on school nights? When you have an opportunity, do it, even if you know you’ll feel like shit the next day. You never know when the next good touring act will come through town. I skipped Kurt Vile last night at The Admiral and regret it even though his music is pretty same-y / boring. Why? Because there’s nothing coming through this weekend. 

So we’ll have to settle for the locals, and there are a couple good ones.

Tonight at Shakedown Street (the bar formerly known as The Barley Street) it’s an old-fashioned $5 show headlined by garage rock band Rare Candies, an act that sounds (heavily) influenced by Weezer and emo. The mighty Las Cruxes open. Old-school 9 p.m. start time as well. 

Meanwhile, downtown at The Jewell is that Josh Hoyer and Soul Colossal show I wrote about Wednesday. Two shows — 6:30 and 8:30. Tickets still available for $15 here.

Saturday’s a wasteland. 

Sunday night country/folk/roots artist Kelly Hunt plays at Pageturners Lounge. From KC.  No cover/$10 suggested donation. Starts at 7 p.m. 

That’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments. 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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Did I tell you the story about how Kurt Vile saved my life?

It happened way back in 2014. I was covering the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, for The Reader. It had been a long day and an even longer night. Kurt Vile was my last stop, a performance at outdoor venue Cheer Up Charlie’s, located on Red River Road. It was your typical beautiful night in March in Austin and I know the fun would go all night, but it was midnight and I was a broken man, tired and ready to end it, but I wanted to see Vile, who was red hot at the time. I wasn’t sure I would even get into the venue (even with a media badge), but sure enough, come on in.

There seated on stage was Vile playing to a standing-room-only crowd, barely visible above the audience’s heads on the low-riser stage. I guess Kurt was tired, too. I didn’t realize it was going to be a solo acoustic gig, a format that really exposes how important a backing band is to Vile’s music. All you could hear was his mumbling free verse recited/sang over barely audible guitar and the constant rumble of the crowd. “mmmblmmmmbl… here’s another one.” Somewhat awful.

Halfway through the gig I said screw it and left to hike back to my hotel about a half-mile away through gigantic crowds of clearly loaded people just getting started. Late night at SXSW is like the scene at the end of The Ten Commandments where they’re having an orgie and making a golden calf while Moses is climbing the mountain barefoot to get the laws. Booze, drugs, loud music all around and thousands of wonked-out people flailing in the streets. 

The next morning I awoke to text messages from my family that said “Are you OK?”  

I rubbed sleep from my eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m in Austin. What’s up?”

“Turn on your TV.”

At around 12:30 a.m. the previous night a crazed drunk driver drove onto Red River Road and into a crowd of people, killing two and injuring 23 more. It appeared to happen on the street right outside of Cheer Up Charlie’s. Had Kurt Vile not sucked that night, forcing me to leave before his set ended, I might have been in the crowd and got creamed. 

So, thank you, Kurt, for saving my life.

Anyway…

Kurt Vile plays tonight at The Admiral Theater with his band, The Violators. Based on his set list from his Louisville show Tuesday night, looks like he’ll be playing a lot of songs off his 2022 release, (watch my moves). Opening the show tonight at 8 p.m. is Julia Shapiro from the band Chastity Belt. $35, or $65 if you want to stand in the balcony.

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Josh Hoyer has a CD release show this Friday for his new album, Green Light, at The Jewell and sent me a copy of the CD knowing full well I have very little background in the kind of music he and his band play. For as long as I can remember he’s been classified as a blues guy; in fact his music leans closer to soul/funk and R&B much in the vein of the late Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, a performer I am familiar with mainly because, for reasons I’ll never know, her and her band creased the frigid indie music waters around the time I Learned the Hard Way was released in 2010. In the purest sense of the term, Jones was an indie artist, as her music was consistenly released on Daptone Records, a label that also released albums by funk instrumental artist The Budos Band. 

By that standard, Hoyer also is an indie artist who continues to fly under the major-label radar for better or ill. This new record sounds as good as anything I’ve heard on Daptone, or for that matter, anything else in this style, which is to say if Daptone Records catalog is your cup of tea, you will not be disappointed. The arrangements are first rate and his singing is as good as ever. 

Josh has kept the new album off Bandcamp, no pre-release tracks on Spotify or even on his website. You’ll have to buy it. More and more, I’m beginning to believe this is the smart thing to do, though it’s still a good idea to release at least one song from an upcoming album.

(Right after I posted this, Josh shared the following YouTube tracks)

Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised a band like Josh’s, with so many musicians (7 plus Josh) to make the boat float, is surviving in a time when artists are struggling to make any money at all. Obviously there’s no money in releasing albums anymore unless you’re on a major label and selling thousands of copies or have zillions of stream plays. Yet, here is Josh and his band touring a new album. God love ’em.

Josh Hoyer and the Soul Colossal are playing two shows Friday night at The Jewell, at 6:30 and 8:30. Tickets are $15 and available now at the Jewell website. 

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Speaking of indie bands, Charleston indie band Easy Honey plays tonight at Reverb Lounge. Estrogen Projection opens at 8 p.m. $10.

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

No national indie shows this weekend. Hey, we got Black Midi last weekend, right? Be thankful for at least a couple decent touring indie shows per month. (Who remembers the old days, when we were all stretched between multiple touring indie shows per night on weekends?). 

Tonight, local band Fox plays at Reverb Lounge. Who’s in Fox? Hard to say when they don’t have a website and the personnel or any information about the band isn’t listed on any of the online show promotion. No matter, I recognize Jessica Errett and Marta Fiedler in the promo photo. A little digging revealed that Jason Domonkas and Jesse Otterson also are in the band, but no idea what their music sounds like, except the description “We play love songs to ghosts,” so… take a chance? Also on the bill are Ojai and Ebba Rose. $8, 8 p.m. 

Similar situation tomorrow night (Saturday) where you’ve got Begonia playing at The Sydney. Who is Begonia? Hard to say. No description on any of the promo materials. I guess “for fans only”? Luckily, you have Lazy-i to dig around and find out for you. 

Begonia is an “indie pop powerhouse” launched into the Canadian music scene with her “critically acclaimed” 2017 EP Lady in Mind. OK, that doesn’t ring a bell. Her website says she’s “Canada’s breakout alt-diva” who has been nominated for a JUNO award. Opening is Seattle duo Dooms, which includes Katlyn Conroy, an ex-member of old friends Cowboy Indian Bear. There’s also a TBD on the bill. $12, 9 p.m.  

And that’s all I got. Hey, at least we got Black Midi last Saturday, right? If I missed your show put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend.

Speaking of nostalgia…

Ten years ago this weekend Judgement Day played at O’Leaver’s and I just happened to capture one of the songs. Enjoy.

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The warm-up music for Black Midi at The Slowdown Saturday night was lilting jazz from Wayne Shorter, falling on the ears of a mostly young audience packed into the bowl in front of Slowdown’s main stage. Not a sell-out audience, as the balcony was closed and you could easily get around, but still a healthy crowd, nodding their heads to Shorter’s “Adam’s Apple.”

No doubt the jazz playlist was the band’s idea. Though they have a rep for being a very hard art-rock band, at Black Midi’s core are elements of progressive jazz. So it came as a surprise when the lights finally came down at around 9:30 and the band entered the stage to the strains of The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” They took their respective places and preceded to crush it for a little over an hour.

Playing as a four-piece, most of the vocals were handled by guitarist and founder Geordie Greep, who switched between spoken-word phrasing a la Murray Head and a loungy croon that (for some reason) reminded me of Bobby Short. For a few songs, Greep handed over the lead vocals to bass player Cameron Picton (Greep himself taking up the bass for those songs), who either sang or had a shrill delivery akin to John Lydon.

None of that mattered because at the heart of the performance was Black Midi’s music that swung between a kind of lounge-prog to straight up art-noise, performed with acute precision and driven forward by Morgan Simpson’s drumming, which was nothing less than spectacular. Simpson gave a clinic on remarkable stick work, no stroke or beat wasted on a style that ranged from machine-gun bursts to glorious fills to shimmering cymbal work — here was the best drummer I’ve seen in years.

And Greep knew it, taking cues from Simpson, whose kit was set up off to the side of stage left, pounding away as the crowd moshed in a large pit out front. Between all that moshing and Greep’s beat poet/scat singing, the night had a sense of theater about it. It was Broadway crooning atop raindrop keyboards and aggressive punk married with slam poetry – a strange, wonderful combination.

Greep’s guitar work was angular and precise, reminiscent of Robert Fripp / latter-day King Crimson, while Picton’s bass was staccato fill rhythms when not carrying the weight of the chaos melodies.

The majority of the set was dedicated to the band’s latest release, Hellfire. Solid takes on “Sugar/Tzu,” “Welcome to Hell” and “27 Questions” were the standouts. Unlike the recording, no horns, but what are you gonna do? Late in the set the band performed what felt like a shortened version of “John L,” and I could see Greep look at Simpson and sort of shrug.

Though the crowd was clearly into it all night, there was no encore (as apparently there hasn’t been throughout this tour). Greep instead thanked each member of the band and the sound and support folks before leaving the stage.

The line for the merch table was long and deep. Homer’s should have set up a merch tent with used vinyl in the parking lot. Of course a band as complex and challenging as Black Midi could only attract the best music nerds, hungry for limited edition stuff and vinyl versions of the album they already own digitally, and no doubt played in their cars on the way home (as I did).

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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 © 2022 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.