by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m not so worried about snow in May. It’s happened before. In fact this will all be a faded memory by next week. Now if it snows in June, as Jon Spencer would say, now I got worry.

Ted Stevens Unknown Project, Impossible World (self release, 2013)

One benefit of May Day every year is the expectation that Ted Stevens will either play a gig somewhere or release some new material, and this year was no exception. Ted released the first song from his new project, Ted Stevens Unknown Project (Ted, I just got off the phone with the grammar police. They want to know if there should there be an apostrophe after “Stevens” in your band name. I told them there’s no apostrophe in Alan Parsons Project, and then I told them to mind their own business). Check out the track, “Possible Worlds,” below, and then buy it from Ted’s Bandcamp page. PS: It’s one of my favorite Stevens composition since his Lullaby days…

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Addendum to the above: Michael Todd, who edits HearNebraska.org, pointed out that I posted the wrong song from Ted! His May Day-day release was actually “Make Longer Nights” (below), and available for purchase here. Thanks Michael!

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Tonight at The Sydney in Benson, Omaha ex-pat Jake Bellows returns to headline a show that also features John Klemmensen and the Party (watch for a new EP by these folks soon) and Mike Saklar Trio (No Blood Orphan). Things should get rolling around 9 p.m. No idea on the cover, but it’ll probably be somewhere in the $5 range. Come on in from the cold and have a beer and some fine music.

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In this week’s column, a peek into my dog-earer library featuring Ellison, Sedaris, Coupland, HST and Christgau. You can read it in this week’s issue of The Reader or online right here.

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen a couple of these reviews in one format or another already (though they’ve been slightly altered). Bowie got nudged from the top spot on Billboard by Bon Jovi, which is a shame. Whether you like the new Bowie album or not, it’s hard not to root for him. I didn’t mention the new Low because I only got it yesterday. It’s a return to form for the Duluth trio. I’d love to get them back to Omaha somehow. The surprise among the Honorable Mentions is the Hookworms album, which is real steamroller of a record — grinding psychedelic throb rock, entrancing, Find it.

OTE53: The Quarterly Music Roundup, Brought to You in Spotify

Time for the usual roundup of what I’ve been listening to, this time stretching back to the beginning of the year. And for your information, all of it is available right now via Spotify.

Iím not trying to endorse the service, which is systematically fleecing just about everyone involved in the music industry. I’m just letting you know how I’ve come across the music, and it’s a lot different than it was in “the good old days.”

There was a time about five years ago when I received five or six manila envelopes per week in the mail loaded with promotional CDs. Today, I get about one CD a month (and it almost always sucks).

Instead of CDs, record labels now ìserviceî critics electronically. That means sending us emails with super-secret passwords that allow us to download albums from highly secured ìpress onlyî websites. To be honest, I prefer the downloads to cluttering up my office with CDs, even though I canít trade mp3s for store credit at Homer’s.

But lately even those download codes are drying up. Maybe itís because I’m writing less and less about music in these pages, or because record labels now simply streaming full albums via music websites prior to official street release.

Or maybe itís Spotify, where one can find every new album streamed on its release date. Make that “almost every new album,” because not everything is on Spotify, or even available online. Which explains why there’s no review of the new My Bloody Valentine album, titled m b v, below. Not only is it not in Spotify, it’s not on iTunes or available as a free stream anywhere. If you want to hear the new MBV, youíre gonna have to pay for it, kids, just like we all used to do.

Now, onto the reviews:

David Bowie, The Next Day — Some records take time to “sink in,” but how much time do you give? If itís David Bowie, you give it all the time it needs, I suppose. But after listening to this one off and on for about a week, I’m still struggling to find anything that stands out as being “essential,” or for that matter, memorable. Highlights “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” and “(You Will) Set the World on Fire” are as close to straight-up rock as you’re likely to get from the once-Thin White Duke, and are indeed good, if not safe. The foggy, fuzzy, melancholy ballad “Where Are We Now?” is comfortably attractive. The rest of it feels by the numbers, if not slightly dated; functional, but sung well by a voice we all love (and miss). Maybe thatís all weíll ever get from now on, or all we need, or maybe I just haven’t given it enough time.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away — As with most of his recordings, Cave is perversely dramatic in his singing/speaking, as if telling dark lies at midnight, which by the way, is the best time to listen to this record. The centerpiece, “Jubilee Street,” starts with a quiet repeated guitar line and Cave’s weird story about a street hustler named Bea. It builds slowly over six and a half minutes to a massive crescendo reminiscent of the best moments from the Kadane Brothers — the guys behind classic bands Bedhead and The New Year. But instead of Matt Kadaneís droll, monotone vocal delivery you get Cave at his most urgent. The rest of the record is merely sublime. From the dark rumble of “We Real Cool” (with the winning line, “Wikipedia is heaven when you don’t want to know anymore”) to the nearly 8-minute-long rock eulogy “Higgs Boson Blues” that calls out both Hannah Montana and her real-life counterpart: “Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake and youíre the best girl I ever had…” Shades of Robbie Robertson’s spoken-word dramas are conjured (“Somewhere Down the Crazy River” comes to mind), but Cave is never as corny, and never less than sincere.

Foxygen, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic — One of the most hyped releases so far this year, and worthy of it. Produced by Richard Swift, who worked on the last two Mynabirds albums, track “In the Darkness,” with the line: “Thereís no need to be an asshole / Youíre not in Brooklyn anymore…” is pure ’70s Stones, as Stonesy as you can get without dragging Mick’s saggy old bones into the studio.

Iceage, You’re Nothing — Matador Records may be the only label left (well, along with Sub Pop and Merge, and good ol’ Saddle Creek) where just the announcement of a band’s signing is big news. It means that the label’s brain trust has “discovered” something new, something “breakthrough” that could be as defining as when they signed Liz Phair or Pavement. Unfortunately, the last time that happened at Matador was when they signed Interpol way back in 2002. Still, when word leaked out that Matador signed Iceage it sent people scrambling to the internet to find out what these Danish punks sound like. That answer was only mildly hopeful. Iceage puts a new snarl on post-punk, like a modern version of Husker Du sung by a wasted slacker with a cockney’d scowl and not much to say. Songs like “It Might Hit First” border on hardcore, though there’s something artful beneath the buzz (Maybe itís the guitar solo that cuts in at the 30-second mark?). When they pull back toward the more conventional (“In Haze”) the ice melts revealing something akin to melody, and the road that all good punks head down… eventually.

Honorable Mentions worth seeing out on Spotify, or at your local record store: Suuns, Images du Futur; Foals, Holy Fire; Yo La Tengo, Fade; Big Harp, Chain Letters; Bleeding Rainbow, Yeah Right; Hookworms, Pearl Mystic.

Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.

First published in The Reader. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Tonight is second night of Tim Kasher’s two-night stand at O’Leaver’s. Last night was the solo acoustic gig. Tonight he’ll have a band of familiar faces backing him (so I’m told). Opening is Brighton MA, who according to Omahype is actually a Chicago band who has played with The Walkmen, Okkervil River and Elvis Perkins, among others. Will this one sell out? Don’t chance it. Buy your tickets now. $10, 9:30 p.m.

Hey guys, you better have that tournament going on somewhere…

Also tonight, Dirty River Ramblers play at The Sydney with Brad Hoshaw and In Cahoots. And Celtic-style howlers Great Big Sea are at The Waiting Room ($25, 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Women Who Rock exhibition is at the Durham Museum through May 5.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The following column also appears in this week’s issue of The Reader, and online at The Reader website, right here.

Before we get started, a caveat: I’m not a huge fan of museums.

I know, what’s not to like about majestic limestone-carved capsules of history? How could you not want to spend hours studying the miracles and wonders of our great civilization’s past?

There’s just something about museums that bore the piss out of me.

Maybe it’s the static nature of it all, like staring at a bug encased forever in amber, wondering what could have been had it just moved a little bit faster across the surface of that leaf, avoiding the brown ooze that would capture its languid pace forever so that someone like me could stare at its mistake a million years later. I’m less interested in the bug than in how the bug could have been stupid enough to get one of its shoes stuck in the goo.

Or maybe it’s all the dim lighting. Or the smell. As soon as I step into a museum, a wave of fatigue washes over me like a fuzzy blanket. My feet — perfectly fine before I stepped inside the time mausoleum — suddenly, strangely become sore as I search among the glass display cases for a place to sit down.

Don’t get me wrong — I like the idea of museums, but most times I’d rather be somewhere else, capturing a moment myself rather than staring at someone else’s captured moments.

So with that caveat firmly behind me, I write about my Sunday afternoon at the Durham Museum and one of its current exhibits: Women Who Rock — Vision Passion Power. According to the handout given to me upon paying my $9 admission, the exhibit — created by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — “highlights the flashpoints, the firsts, the best, the celebrated and sometimes lesser-known women who pushed rock and roll music and the American culture forward.”

Sounds impressive. There’s one problem with the concept, however. No one goes to a rock concert to read about music, just like no one goes to a restaurant to read about food. You go to rock shows to partake, to participate in the experience; not to study it, to consume it. And I say this as someone who has been writing about music for nearly 30 years. I know at the end of the day whatever observations or criticism I level about anyone’s or any band’s music isn’t worth the mark left on a piece of used toilet paper compared to actually listening to the music.

(According to QuoteInvestigator.com it was Martin Mull, not Laurie Anderson or Frank Zappa or Miles Davis, who coined the phrase “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Garth Gimble, you were so right).

When it comes to rock and roll, once you take the actual music out of the equation, all you’re left with is spent drugs, bad sex, inflated egos and broken dreams… and out-dated fashion.

The lasting impression from seeing this exhibit was that the biggest contribution women made to rock music was wearing costumes designed by someone else. Sure, there were other artifacts on display — glossy B&W publicity photos, hand-written song lyrics and studio schedule entries, early album pressings and beat-up guitars. But the majority of the exhibit was dedicated to stage costumes worn by the stars themselves displayed on headless, fist-clenched mannequins, many (most) bearing the stains of last-eaten meals spilled upon their breasts in a drug and/or booze-induced stupor.

On display: Bob Mackie’s indian costume w/feathered headdress made for Cher for her “Half Breed” tour; the futuristic uniform worn by Janet Jackson in her “Rhythm Nation” video; Cyndi Lauper’s Starry Night-painted shoes; a heavily stained sun dress that once covered Mama Cass, and the creme de la creme: Madonna’s cone-tit costume designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. All standing upright like cast-off skins shed on stages across the country, nay the world.

Comment overheard from a klatch of middle-aged housewives who stared with open-mouth wonder at the Pat Benatar outfit: “These women, they were so tiny.” In fact, after seeing these costumes, you would think the average “women who rocked” were only about three feet tall instead of the giants we grew up believing they were.

Just as deflating were the write-ups that accompanied each display, documenting where they were born, their first record and where it was recorded, and the rest of their mundane music history up until around 2010 or their deaths. Academic. Dry. Tame.

Missing was the struggle, the defiance, the heartbreak, the battles won and lost and how they had to fight to be heard. Example: How do you summarize Tina Turner’s career and not mention the years of abuse suffered at the hand of husband Ike and how she ultimately rose above it? I guess it’s not that kind of exhibit.

Some displays felt oddly off the mark, focusing on the asides rather than the achievements. The Joni Mitchell display, for example, concentrated almost entirely on her forgettable debut album Song of the Seagull while virtually ignoring her landmark Blue album. Was the emphasis made on what the Hall of Fame could acquire rather than the star’s actual legacy? Maybe.

Which brings us to the inevitable list of the missing: Courtney Love, Tracy Chapman, Sinead O’Connor, Nico, Carly Simon, Karen Carpenter, Bjork, The Go Go’s, Annie Lennox, Dusty Springfield, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and on and on. The exhibit acknowledges the exclusions due to space limitations, but how do you include an exhibit on country upstart Taylor Swift and not include Dolly Parton?

Most people won’t notice, or care. After all, exhibitions and museums contain only a slice of history, not the whole of history. And anyway, rock and roll’s real museum is the vinyl and tape and CD and mp3 that’s used to record it for play back again and again. The rest is just bugs stuck in amber.

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Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.

First published in The Reader. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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LA indie hip-hop superstar Murs performs tonight at The Waiting Room with Prof, Fashawn, Black Cloud Music, and Kosha Dillz. Get your hip-hop on. $15, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Jeremy Mercy (Travelling Mercies) and Matt Whipkey (The Whipkey Three) open for Chicago singer-songwriter Dan Tedesco. $5, 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Billboard Magazine last week presented the final music sales numbers for 2012, and it appears to be filled with woe for the future of the compact disc.

The CD, which first became commercially available in 1982, has seen a steady decline first with the emergence of Napster (the first effective mp3 distribution device) in 1999 and then with the launch of Apple’s iTunes (and the invention of the iPod) in 2001 that made downloading digital music files “legitimate.”

But despite the constant heralding of its demise, the compact disc continues to survive, though its pulse weakens ever-so-slightly year after year. Case in point: Billboard reported that for the Year of Our Lord 2012, the sales of physical CDs (according to Nielsen SoundScan) were down a whopping 13 percent compared to 2011, reflecting a decline in U.S. album sales of 4 percent to 315.96 million from 330.57 million in 2011.

While CD sales continued to flounder, digital album downloads continued to increase their share of the overall album sales pie with a 14 percent gain to a record 117.68 million. Says Billboard, 37 percent of all albums sold in 2012 were downloads, up from 31 percent in 2011. For the first time in January 2012, digital surpassed physical with 50.3 percent of all music sales.

You might be scratching your head thinking, “Gee, 315 million albums seems like a lot to me.” Contrast that number with 2001, when Nielsen SoundScan reported CD album sales of 712 million. We’re talking a nearly 50 percent decline in album sales (of any format) in 11 years. It begs the question: Are people listening to less music or simply buying less music because they’re either 1) stealing it or 2) getting it from “free” sources, which could include anything from websites to free streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify?

For a local perspective, we turn (as we always do) to Mike Fratt, general manager and head buyer at Homer’s Records. Fratt said what’s driving the decline in sales over the past two years is the “huge reduction in (physical inventory) and square feet devoted to music retail at mass merchants” like Best Buy and Target.

“This is driving many people to online stores like Amazon,” Fratt said. “Non-traditional sales (online stores, non-music retail, non-mass merchant) biz was way up again this year. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to make up the difference, as many consumers think (record) labels have stopped making CDs. We heard that comment a lot this holiday season.”

In fact, there are no plans to abandon compact disc production before the end of this decade, Fratt said. NARM (not the North American Registry of Midwives but the National Association of Recording Merchants) and the record labels project that sales of compact discs will remain an important part of the total retail music business through the next five years.

The big box stores’ retreat from music sales would seem to be boon for stand-alone record shops. Unfortunately, the shift came too late for many. According to The Wall Street Journal, the number of physical record stores dropped 77 percent between 2000 and 2010 and is expected to decline another 11.6 percent by 2016. HMV, Tower Records, Sam Goody’s and Virgin have all gone the way of the dinosaur.

Meanwhile, there are still about 2,000 independent music stores like Homer’s, according to the Huffington Post. And their sales are growing. Fratt said Homer’s CD sales were up last year in both dollars and units.

“Being up in dollars is significant because the average price of a CD has fallen to nearly $10 as labels have radically reduced prices in the last two years,” Fratt said. “We now have a quarter of our CD inventory below $8 and a third below $10.”

Fratt said music lovers who want to buy an entire album’s worth of music still choose physical over digital 65 percent of the time. “New music (digital sales) is driven by songs,” Fratt said. “Very much like the ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s when 45 rpm’s drove the business before albums took off.”

But the other life blood for independent record stores is vinyl — that’s right, those old-fashioned records that you play with a record player, the format that everyone shoveled dirt over when the CD emerged as the medium of choice in the ‘90s.

For the fifth consecutive year, more vinyl albums were sold than in any other year since SoundScan launched in 1991, reported Billboard. In 2012, 4.55 million vinyl LPs were sold — up 18 percent compared to 2011’s then-record haul of 3.87 million. And 67 percent of those vinyl albums were purchased at independent music stores.

“While some indies are reporting lower CD sales for 2012, everyone was up in vinyl again,” Fratt said, adding that vinyl was “huge at Christmas, but was up all year long.”

So with all this in mind, when was the last time you bought a CD or a vinyl album?

Maybe even more important: When was the last time you printed out a photo you took with your cell phone? When was the last time you printed a letter or clipped a newspaper article? When was the last time you burned a DVD of a home movie? These were all activities we used to do regularly when we felt we needed a physical backup of our digital memories for fear that our computer hard drives would crash and we’d lose it all.

Today we have backups of everything, and backups of backups that reside in the mystical “cloud.”  We’re becoming confident that our digital memories are secure (whether they are or not) and are throwing away the backups, clearing out the clutter, selling back our compact discs.

More than anything, it’s this new confidence in digital security that could kill off the compact disc once and for all as we begin to walk the digital tightrope without a net.

 

Some additional thoughts….

Fratt says that vinyl now represents almost 20 percent of Homer’s sales, and that they’re looking at building new fixtures to hold more vinyl product in the same space. As for labels going “digital only,” Fratt said a record label is more likely to go out of business before going that route. “There are still infrastructure costs associated with digital,” he said. “It is not cheaper to be digital-only.”

In addition to that, I’m not sure why a label would want to go “digital only.” I guess it would still control licensing and get a portion of the download revenue. But why would an artist want to be on a digital-only record label? The label maybe would pay for an album’s recording costs (studio time, producer) and help with promoting the album. The label also could help sell the artist’s publishing rights to television, movies and Madison Avenue. Certainly there’s cache to being associated with a brand like Saddle Creek, Sub Pop or Matador. Plus the artist could leverage the label’s connections for booking, tour management, etc.

Beyond that, I don’t know. These days a bands can record and release their own material digitally rather cheaply, but what good is having a record available for download if no one knows it exists?

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If you ever wondered what kind of hi-jinx bands get into on the road, read Icky Blossoms’ tour diary, written by the frontwoman Sarah Bohling, who proves if the rock and roll thing doesn’t work out she can always have a successful career as a writer (or strip club owner). The article is right here at Paste.com.

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Tonight at The House of Loom Chris Aponick presents Wintertime Beach Party with bands Sun Settings and Dads. This will be the last-ever performance by Sun Settings, according to the band’s Facebook page:

“It has been decided that we took Sun Settings to an end. Over the last year we did some Big things and we would like to take the next step and do even bigger things. Since everybody has different opinions, the best thing we can do is disband and move on to form new ideas. Don’t worry though there will be NEW NEW NEW things from the members of sun setting…“

Come bid them adieu tonight at House of Loom. The show starts at 9 p.m. and is absolutely free. More info here, including apparel suggestions.

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Lazy-i Best of 2012

It’s winding down, folks. Only a few short days left to enter to win a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2012 compilation CD. The collection includes songs by The Intelligence, Simon Joyner, Ladyfinger, Twin Shadow, Ember Schrag, Tame Impala, Paul Banks, Cat Power and a ton more.  The full track listing is here (scroll to the bottom). To enter the drawing send an email with your name and mailing address to tim.mcmahan@gmail.com. Hurry! Deadline is Jan. 15.

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m scattering the annual year in review coverage over the next few days, beginning with this column, which also appears in this week’s issue of The Reader, which I think is on the streets now (though I’m not entirely sure as my internal calendar is discombobulated).

Over the Edge #43: The Year in Review 2012 (or 1969?)

Every year at about this time for more than a decade, I’ve written a “Year In Review” article for The Reader that looks back at the events of the past 365 days and outlines the trends and direction of the coming year in popular music. This year, Music Editor Chris Aponick is handling those duties, but if I was writing a YIR article, the main message would be this:

Imagine that it’s 1969.

A major catastrophe has struck the eastern United States. President Nixon and a congress headed by Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn) and John William McCormack (D-Mass) are doing what they can to pull together resources to help our fellow citizens in this time of need, but it’s just not enough. In a stroke of genius, an enterprising young person comes up with an idea to host a massive concert at the just-opened Madison Square Garden to generate funds to rebuild communities devastated by this unnamed disaster.

For the concert to succeed, only the most popular acts of the day would be invited to perform — a list that anyone in America could name off the top of their heads: Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Whisperin’ Jack Smith, the Kentucky Serenaders, George Olson and Jelly Roll Morton. You know, the music that everyone was listening to in 1969 at the height of the Viet Nam War.

Wait a minute, doofus, that’s not the music of 1969. Yeah, I know. In this Bizarro World, instead of inviting the current rock acts of the day, concert organizers invited the hottest acts from 43 years earlier, from 1926. Sounds crazy. An effort doomed to fail. And yet, it was a no-brainer, just like what happened two weeks ago.

When it came time for organizers to pull together a lineup for the 12-12-12 relief concert for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the short list of top-name performers was obvious: Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, The Who, Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, acts whose heyday was 40+ years ago. Sure, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin and Kanye were there, but no one came to see them. They came to see the dinosaurs along with a few “more current” faves like Billy Joel (“Piano Man,” 1973), Bon Jovi (“Wanted Dead or Alive,” 1986), and Michael Stipe (“The One I Love,” 1987).

This is a reflection of the current state of pop music in this country. There are no new superstars making groundbreaking music anymore; and there hasn’t been in decades. The last universally recognized game-changing rock band was probably U2 in the ‘80s. Radiohead came close. Arcade Fire was important, but their music is far from known by the Great Wad.

Everything else is manufactured. Look at the charts. Bieber, Kelly Clarkson, PSY, Rihanna, Ke$ha, Taylor Swift, all diversionary fluff that no one would mistake for important game-changing music. And sure, there was plenty of fluff in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but there always was something that people could point to as timeless, embraced by a nation instead of a tiny sliver of indie music nerds who “know better” about what’s good.

Despite all the technology, there’s no longer a method for elevating talent, there’s no way for the cream to rise to the top. Because, believe me, the talent is still out there. There was some great music in 2012. You simply didn’t hear it because it wasn’t on your radio. When radio became irrelevant as a way to identify and escalate talent, we lost our national music identity.

What about television? Look, these people that emerge from American Idol or The Voice are performers; they’re not songwriters, they’re not musicians. In many ways, we’ve gone back to the pre-Beatles days of Pat Boone and Bobby Darin empty haircuts. What made The Beatles important was that they wrote and performed their own music.

But even more discouraging is that somewhere over the past few years, it has become painfully obvious that the dream of “making it” in rock ‘n’ roll is now and forever gone. There was a time not so long ago when a group of musicians could get together, write some great songs, practice, perform and record some demos that they would shop around to mid-level independent labels in hopes that maybe — just maybe — someone would spot their talent, sign them to a “deal” and put out a record whose sales would generate enough money so they could quit their day jobs.

Sure, bands still dream of getting signed, but they know better than to think that they’ll ever make a living selling records in this Spotify era when $10 a month gives a listener access to (nearly) everything. When Spotify launched a couple years ago, no one really understood how artists would get paid. Now we know — they get paid, but at a rate of around 0.004611 cents per play, according to an article on pitchfork.com. That equates to around $46 per 10,000 plays (before the split with their record label). Good luck with that.

Ironically, among the few bands who would actually make decent money off Spotify are those dinosaur acts like the ones who played at the Garden a couple weeks ago (though some of them, such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, have the wisdom to keep their music off the service).

I don’t know, maybe the music back then really was that good, that timeless. Maybe it will never be matched. But for the sake of future generations, I hope I’m wrong, or else in 43 years — in 2055 — when the next disaster occurs and a benefit concert is organized, the last great rock stars will be long gone.

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Sound hopeless? Maybe. Maybe not. This Spotify/streaming audio model is just beginning to fuck things up for everyone. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, as non-music fans are just now beginning to discover it. It could pile on the already-catastrophic damage that downloading had done to CD sales…

Anyway, as I said above, there was some damn fine music produced in 2012, you just had to look really frickin’ hard to find it. Tomorrow: The Year in Review 2012, Pt. 2 — The top-10 of 2012, and the Lazy-i Best of 2012 Sampler track list and give-away — get ready to enter the drawing!

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Ladyfinger at Slowdown Jr. Dec, 21, 2012.

A bit of catch-up on some pre-holiday bric-a-brac: Ladyfinger at Slowdown Jr. last Friday was like being introduced to a different (i.e., new) band, as it was the first time I’ve really noticed the impact of Dan Brennan since he took over for Ethan Jones in 2010. One might assume “it’s just a bassist” and one would be wrong, as the entire rhythm section sounded different (in a good way). Actually, the entire band sounded more polished, more focused, more tuneful. Or maybe it was just the new songs. I’m not entirely sure.

Ladyfinger used to be a hazy noise rock band that was more about dirty, dark energy than music. There was a smear or recklessness to everything they did, and amidst the smoky sturm und drang the words didn’t matter. This new version is cleaner in every way, and that more cohesive sound is reflected on their upcoming album — the best collection of songs they’ve recorded in their career.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t think that elements of So-So Sailors’ anthem rock were beginning to seep into this band. The similarities are obvious, and other than the vocalist’s grainy style, are not two-way — So-So has never resembled Ladyfinger. Whether that’s good or bad depends on what you liked most and least about Ladyfinger before the shakeup.

Too cerebral? Never. The point: Ladyfinger is emerging as more of a straight-up rock band than the grizzled noise-punkers we’d grown accustomed to, and a big part is driven by the new approach to songwriting, especially in the rhythm section. While the guitars are nice, it’s Brennan and Pat Oakes driving the show these days — a pounding, pulsing freight train that pushes Chris Machmuller’s vocals as far as his brassy croon will go.

In fact, the only criticism I have is pointed directly at Machmuller, whose vocals sounded way too restrained and mumbling on stage. Part of the precision and appeal of the new record is being able to understand exactly what Mach is singing (another So-So overlap?). That quality was gone Friday as he casually rushed the vocals. So all the fun of “Galactic” was lost because you couldn’t understand his star soldier declarations; while the soul-searching of “Dark Horse” was merely a heart-ache mumble. We may never get those qualities live, which I guess makes the records that much more valuable.

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Holy Hannah!, it’s a garage rock blow-out tonight at Slowdown Jr. with Dads, Yuppies and Places We Slept all for a measly $5. Show starts at 9.

Also tonight, former Omahan and current legend Kyle Harvey returns to The Waiting Room’s stage opening for singer/songwriters Tara Vaughan and Jessica Errett. $7, 9 p.m.

So what if it’s one below zero outside? Get yourself to the clubs, people. The year ain’t over yet.

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

King Khan and BBQ Show at The Slowdown, Nov. 28, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I never got my free booze at last night’s King Khan and BBQ Show concert at The Slowdown, but it’s not Sailor Jerry’s fault. The booze maker, who sponsored the event, had a converted Streamliner camper parked on the curb outside the club with blinking lights and signs and such. I didn’t bother to climb inside, and found out later that’s where they were distributing drink tokens. Kind of a weird deal, but there’s probably some sort of law that prevented them from setting up a table right inside Slowdown. Or something. I didn’t want to go back outside so I skipped it. I’d already bought my Rolling Rock anyway.

The “free” element was an ongoing riff played on by the KKBBQ duo, who kept prodding the rather large crowd about the freebies. “How’s your free booze?” said a smirking Mark Sultan sitting behind his two-piece drum kit, almost accusatory. Odd. Sultan, playing drums, guitar and singing (simultaneously), and King Khan on guitar and vocals were dressed in Mardi Gras-quality royal attire, complete with capes and feathered chapeaus. Glittery and cool. So was their music, a combination of garage, punk and sock-hop doo-wap, Chubby Checker meets Elvis meets Jack White meets the cast of Treme. They prodded the crowd to dance, and got a few to do a half-assed Frug.

Digital Leather at The Slowdown, Nov. 28, 2012.

Digital Leather opened the show with their usual grinding garage attack. I’ve seen these guys a hundred times and they never fail to bring it, but were especially on point last night. As I was sitting there wondering how many times I’d heard this set (or a slight variation), Shawn Foree and Co. threw out a golden nugget I thought I’d never hear them play again — “Studs In Love,” the homo anthem from Blow Machine re-engineered from an electronic hump fable to a roaring, spitting metallic confession. Foree launched it with a full-on riff attack aimed directly at the rhythm section of bassist Johnny Vrendenburg and drummer Jeff Lambelet (the best bass & drum duo in Omaha) settling into a tense, unrecognizable grind before barking out the line “I’m a man’s man / I don’t need no bitch.” F*** yes! They closed out their set with another classic — “Styrofoam,” from 2008 album Sorcerer.

I accepted years ago that Foree considers Digital Leather’s garage-rock stage presentation to be a completely different animal than the band’s electronic, proto-New Wave music heard on the recordings. I get it. But I’m beginning to wonder how long it will be until he breaks down and breaks out the Korg on stage once again. Maybe never. And that’s fine as long as he keeps putting out great records. Again, if you’ve only heard Digital Leather on stage over the past couple years, check out their recordings for a whole different take on their music.

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Below, for your reading pleasure, is this week’s column, which also is printed in the current issue of The Reader. I include it here instead of merely providing a link as I usually do because of the topic. Saturday night’s Millions show definitely is worth the trip to Lincoln for any Millions fan, as there’s a good chance you’ll never hear this band play again.

The Millions, circa 2012. Photo by Ted Schlaebitz.

Column: A Million Reasons Why

Marty Amsler, like some of us, lives two lives.

Most know him as the mild-mannered “creative” at Nebraska advertising agency Bailey Lauerman. He’s a Mad Man ad guy who heads a team of Mad Men ad people that do some of the best creative work in the country. I know because I’ve seen it first hand in my “other life” at Union Pacific.

(To this day, I still meet people who think I make a living writing this column for The Reader. These are the same people who watched Sex and the City and thought Carrie Bradshaw could afford her cool Manhattan apartment and countless pair of $300 Manolo Blahnik shoes on what she made writing her weekly column in some faceless newspaper…)

Aside from Bailey Lauerman, there’s Marty’s main gig — his wife, Julia, and their son, Truman.

And then there’s The Millions, the band Amsler started way back in the late ‘80s in Lincoln with guitarist Harry Dingman III that included vocalist Lori Allison and drummer Greg Hill. Over the course of about six years, The Millions lived the rock ‘n’ roll dream. They generated a large following playing local gigs, got signed by Smash Records (a subsidiary of major label Polygram), quit their day jobs and recorded and released their debut album, M Is for Millions in July 1991. They toured, and then released their second album, Raquel, in September 1995. They toured some more. And then broke up and went their separate ways, leaving behind some great music and fond memories.

And now, just like that old rock ‘n’ roll story always seems to go, they’re getting back together again, for one night only — Dec. 1, 8 p.m., at Lincoln’s Bourbon Theatre. Well, at least three of them are, anyway. Greg Hill no longer plays drums and doesn’t want to. Drummer Brandon McKenzie will be sitting behind the drum kit that night. So can you really call this a “Millions reunion”?

“Lori, Harry and I don’t look at this as a ‘reunion’ show,” Amsler said. “Just old friends getting together again to play some songs we wrote a while ago to help some other old friends release a project they’ve worked tirelessly on.”

The Millions, Poison Fish (Randy’s Alternative Music, 2012)

The project is Poison Fish, a collection of lost, unreleased Millions recordings that capture the unbridled spirit of the band before they got signed.

The collection (under the name The Millions NE, because a different band now controls “The Millions” name) is being released by Randy’s Alternative Music, a record label run by Randy LeMasters, a Pittsburgh-based music entrepreneur who said the Millions’ music “turned my world upside down.”

LeMasters has spent nearly a decade working with the band and Millions’ fan Malcom Miles piecing together tracks heard on the new release from remastered cassette tapes, as the original master tapes (apparently) no longer exist.

Despite the frustration of spending years trying to track down those original masters, LeMasters says the release’s timing couldn’t have been better. “The band might not have gotten together for the CD release show in years past due to commitments with family and careers,” he said. “The time is right.”

And the timing may be right for other reasons. There’s a resurgence of interest in the post-punk, pre-Nirvana, “first wave” bands that influenced The Millions, such as REM, Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush and The Sundays. Some of the best new music released this past year, from indie darlings like Twin Shadow, Wild Nothing and DIIV, are revising the post-punk new wave sound for a new generation of listeners who may also discover something new in The Millions.

And if you’re wondering, no, LeMasters isn’t doing it for the money. “I’ve never been in the music ‘business’ to make money,” he said. “I do it for the love of the music and for my passion to get music into the ears of other fans. Other than the love one gets from family and friends, I believe there is no greater pleasure than sharing music with willing, eager ears.”

For Amsler, playing with his pals in The Millions again fills a void he didn’t realize he had.

“I have a very fulfilling career in advertising,” he said. “I get to spend my days working with some of the most talented people in the industry. I have great clients and more creative opportunity than I know what to do with.”

And though he gets the same creative fix from working with his B-L team, “I didn’t realize how much I missed just playing a song together – being super ‘cops-show-up (which they did) loud,’ getting in the zone and drowning all else out,” he said. “It’s so powerful, perfect and precarious. I didn’t realize how much I missed that — or them.”

Motivation to strap on his bass again also came from his family. “They see how much I’m enjoying it,” he said. “I get to share a side of me that neither of them knew.”

So I had to ask Amsler, the way the music industry is these days, would he do it all over again?

“That’s something I’ve thought about during the years,” he said. “Looking back, I’d have killed for the internet, e-mail, downloads or a damn cell phone (imagine being on the road for six weeks without one). That certainly would have made our lives easier on many fronts. But there was something about the music scenes when you had to be an active participant (not optional/digital) that was pretty amazing. I also think we were the last generation to get the big ‘quit-your-day-job’ record contract. Obviously, it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, but for a while, recording, touring and playing WAS our day job. That was pretty cool.”

The Millions play this Saturday, Dec. 1, at The Bourbon Theatre, 1415 ‘O’ St., Lincoln. Tickets to the all-ages show are $10 adv.; $12 DOS. Show starts at 9:30 p.m., with no opening bands (so get there on time). For more information and tickets, go to bourbontheatre.com.

First published in The Reader. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Here’s one that was flying under the radar: Tonight at The Waiting Room is the listening party for this year’s Christmas for Pine Ridge compilation.  The CD includes tracks by So-So Sailors, The Whipkey Three, Gerald Lee Jr. (Filter Kings) and a bunch more. The music starts at 8 p.m. Consider it a warm up for Saturday night’s benefit show, also at The Waiting Room.

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I typically don’t run my Reader column in this here blog because it typically doesn’t focus on music (and this is a music blog after all). Sure, I add a line of hype about the column on Thursdays, but then I simply link to it. Well, this week I can’t find the column online at thereader.com. So because of that, and because the focus this week is on music, I’ve included it below. As always, you can also read it in print in The Reader.

Over the Edge: Of Sound Mind (and Opinion)
CD Reviews, YTD 2012

This week’s column is a return to my old indie music criticism schtick. Because I still listen to music — lots of it — and have more than 20 years’ experience writing about it, which I think gives my critical analysis a modicum of relevance.

Or maybe not.

The role of the music critic has become somewhat (mostly) marginalized. Anyone interested in modern music with the available income to purchase it also has access to Spotify or one of the other music streaming services that makes (most) new music available with the flick of a finger from their iPhone/Android/computer-powered listening device.

In other words, if you want to know if the latest buzz band is worth listening to you no longer have to risk your hard-earned ducats and make a blind purchase like in the old days. Now all you have to do is listen to it online. That means the critic’s role has been relegated to: 1) saving you time by pointing you toward an interesting path, or 2) validating your already made-up mind.

Reviews don’t even mean that much from a marketing perspective since artists don’t (and can’t) rely on income from album sales anymore. The ones who want to make a living making music depend on income generated at live performances. Still, if they’re going to get butts in seats, they have to get their music heard in the first place, and maybe that’s where the critics come in. My how the world has changed in just 10 years.

With all that in mind here are my impressions of some recent music, for what it’s worth…

Purity Ring, Shrines (4AD/Last Gang) — Chime-bot sounds from outer-space tone rockers is at its best when melody outdoes beat, but man it can get tiresome.

Thee Oh Sees, Putrifiers II (In the Red) — A crowing cock-a-doodle-doo of a garage punk band, no one does it better or with more style. Stands for Orange County if you’re wondering. So why can’t we get them to come to Omaha?

Digital Leather, Yes, Please, Thank You (Southpaw) — Another in a series of recordings (something like four LP/EP releases in the last couple years?) that sounds like Gary Numan post-wave synth rock bolted to a doped-up garage-punk band. One of Omaha’s finest. BTW, this is a cassette-only release. Yes, you read that right.

Peace of Shit, Business as Usual (Rainy Road) — Local perusers of thee garage aesthetic write songs as clever (or crass) as their name. Also on cassette (I see a luddite trend here).

Two Gallants, The Bloom and the Blight (ATO) — This original snarling guitar-and-drum purveyors of the punk sea shanty waited until they left Saddle Creek to make the best record of their careers. They’ve never been more focused, or ferocious.

Cat Power, Sun (Matador) — Chan Marshall puts aside afternoon-light fragment pop for something more upbeat, trippy, tuneful and almost happy, until you listen to the words.

Azure Ray, As Above So Below (Saddle Creek) — By combining the best of their respective solo projects, the Fink/Taylor duo have (finally) struck the perfect balance between strutting and soulful, sounding (finally) comfortable in their own skins.

TEEN, In Limbo (Carpark) — Maybe the best all-girl indie rock band going. Less self-assured than Best Coast, but better.

Ember Schrag, The Sewing Room (Single Girl Married Girl / Edible Onion) — Local singer/songwriter’s clear-as-a-bell coffee-shop folk ruminations, worth it if only for the perfect jewel of “Your Words.”

Dinosaur Jr., I Bet on Sky (Jagjaguwar) — Everything ‘80s is new again, at least to the young ears that weren’t around the first time. As good as anything they did back then, at times even better.

Bob Mould, Silver Age (Merge) — Everything ‘80s is new again, again. Bob put away his dancing shoes and rediscovered his electric guitar and hasn’t sounded this good since his Sugar days.

The xx, Coexist (Young Turks) — Among the hottest (or most heralded) of the droll vibe bands, no matter how much I try it bores the shit out of me.

McCarthy Trenching, Plays the Piano (Slumberparty) — Half ragtime instrumentals and half ragtime-influenced piano ballads, they say he’s Omaha’s Randy Newman but he’s really just a nice guy lost in better days. And I like his “Solace” better than Marvin’s.

The Intelligence, Everybodys Got It Easy But Me (In the Red) — The best under-the-radar indie rock collection that you’ll probably never find. By the numbers, but it still gets me every time.

PUJOL, United States of Being (Saddle Creek) — Proof that Saddle Creek still has a nose for finding new talent (even though Jack White found it first). All his earlier recordings have been leading up to this. Not anthemic, but epic nonetheless.

David Byrne and St. Vincent, Love This Giant (4AD) — Waters down the best parts of both, it’s not weird enough to be interesting and not straight-forward enough to be interesting.

Violens, True — Everything ‘80s is new again, the dream-pop edition. Lush.

Wild Nothing, Nocturne (Captured Tracks) — Everything ‘90s is new again, the (upbeat) shoe-gaze edition.

Twin Shadow, Confess (4AD) — A dizzying trip back to ’80s electro-pop with a sound that recalls everything from General Public to Fine Young Cannibals to New Order to Peter Gabriel. If you’re gonna steal a style, this is how to do it.

Divine Fits, A Thing Called Divine Fits (Merge) — Better than the last couple Spoon albums (or anything by Wolf Parade).

Various Artists, Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac (Hear Music) — Unnecessary tribute album’s only highlights are Billy Gibbons’ “Oh Well,” and Antony’s fey “Landslide,” though it’ll make you want to seek out the source material.

Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com. Published in The Omaha Reader, Sept. 27, 2012.

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Tonight at The Slowdown it’s Liverpool indie-rock trio The Wombats (Bright Antenna). Their sound has been described as “post-punk” but falls much closer to alt-pop or power-pop. Some say they’re destined for Arctic Monkey-level stardom. Who knows… maybe. This one was originally scheduled for the “junior room,” but was moved to the big stage thanks to pre-sales. Opening is Morning Parade and The Royal Concept. $12, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, our old pals Kite Pilot is playing tonight at The Sydney with Betsy Wells and Black Jonny Quest. $5, 9 p.m.

Last but not least, Pony Wars (Craig Korth, Craig Meier, Mike Brannan, Eric Ebers) is headlining a show tonight at O’Leaver’s with I Was Totally Destroying It and Millions of Boys. $5, 9:30 p.m.

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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Maha Blackbird

In this week’s column, sizing up Maha and getting a bead on its future from Maha organizer Tre Brashear. With this year’s record crowd, does the festival have room to grow or will it be content being a one-day concert event? Read it in this week’s issue of The Reader or online right here.

Some other thoughts about Maha…

One of the most successful things about this year’s festival had nothing to do with the performances. Two years ago, no one knew what Maha looked like. This year with the help of Oxide Design, Maha became a recognizable brand that resonates with its audience. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like that blackbird emblem. You don’t get 40 people tattooing that symbol on their bodies unless they think it’s cool. It looks good on posters on T-shirts on everything and I have a feeling we’re going to see it all over town all year ’round. I don’t know what it cost the Maha folks, but it was worth every penny. Maha now has a graphic identity, and I can’t even begin to tell you how important that is.

In its fourth year, Maha took its first real step in defining itself. As successful as it was, Maha can’t be satisfied with merely repeating what it accomplished this year. If year five is just another one-afternoon/evening concert event it’ll be wasting any momentum gained last weekend. They’ve got to do something different and better in 2013.  So what would I do if I was running Maha and didn’t have to concern myself with such things as budgets and schedules and sponsors and vendors and the legacy the festival has built?

— Raise the ticket price. If what they’re saying is true, Maha is henpecked by its thirty-something-dollar ticket price when it comes to being able to draw larger-name band(s). Price the festival in conjunction with what your biggest name’s tickets would sell for. Jane’s Addiction is $45-$65. Morrissey is $55+. We gladly pay for these shows that feature really only one band (We don’t even think about who’s opening). With Maha, you could pay for the headliner and get the rest of the festival for free. That’s a good deal, especially if you’ve got a couple additional kick-ass bands on the docket.

— Ease into expansion. When they talk about goals, the Maha folks rarely mention attendance numbers; instead they talk about wanting to expand the festival to a full weekend. What’s the easiest way to expand Maha to two days? Start it the night before. Book the park for two (or three) days. Set up the stages on Day One and work the bugs out of the system by hosting an evening of bands the night before the main day. Maybe only use the small stage. Bring in the vendors; open the beer garden. Make it a pre-show party from 7 to 11. Get people psyched about tomorrow. You might even sell some more tickets to the big show. (And yes, get a headliner for the preview night, and charge for it. Sell a package that gets you into both.)

— Decide on a theme. The Maha folks seem to have more luck booking legacy indie acts than current indie high fliers. Look at the past four years of headliners; Garbage (’90s band), GBV (’90s band), Superchunk/Spoon (’90s bands) Dashboard Confessional (dreadful ’90s band). I see a theme here, and it ain’t necessarily a bad one. To my knowledge, there’s no festival that’s declared itself as “thee” national classic indie rock festival. Maha could be that festival. We’re talking booking ’90s legends like The Pixies, Pavement, Cat Power, Sonic Youth, Dead Can Dance, Ride, Daft Punk, Pulp, Jesus Lizard, Stereolab, Weezer, Portishead, GYBE, Aphex Twin Cocteau Twins, Sugar/Bob Mould, Magnetic Fields, Built to Spill, Chavez, Jeff Mangum/NMH, The Lips, friggin’ Fugazi, heck just about anyone on Matador / Touch and Go / Sub Pop / Merge / Mute / Thrill Jockey / 4AD / Drag City from the ’90s (or before), The trick, of course, is getting more than one, and market them as if they were gods.

And no, I’m not suggesting this because I’m an old guy who likes “his music.” If given a choice between listening to a new album recommended by Chris Aponick or Jeff Runnings or that scores high on Album of the Year versus listening to a ’90s album I’ll pick the new album every time. The fact is that  Lolla, ATP, Pitchforkfest, Coachella and SXSW have cornered the market on attracting the hottest new indie acts (not to mention all the UK festivals). There’s only so many weekends per summer and you’re never going to be able to compete with those huge festivals for those weekends. But as Maha has proven, they can get the ’90s bands. And believe me, folks in their 30s and 40s will take time off work and travel if they think they’re getting something that can’t get anywhere else.

— Reunited (and it feels so good). To coincide with that ’90s theme, host at least one, if not two, classic Omaha or Lincoln band reunions. Think about the possibilities: Mousetrap, Sideshow, Ritual Device, Secret Skin, Cellophane Ceiling, Digital Sex, Grasshopper Takeover/The Kind, Secret Skin, Cactus Nerve Thang, Culture Fire, Commander Venus, Fullblown. A one-time reunion of one of these bands would actually sell tickets versus Maha’s current model, which places bands that play regularly around town on the second stage. Icky Blossoms was awesome and one of my favorite performances from this year’s festival. They’re also playing Sunday night at Slowdown.

— Get them there early. I know I know I know I know — no “headliner”-quality band wants to play at 2 p.m. You’ve got all this money riding on a band, you can’t afford to waste it by putting them on stage to play for crickets. I’m just saying, for one year, try it. Maybe you can get a band headed to Lawrence or KC willing to play an early afternoon show on their way to Missouri. Imagine how much your vendors would appreciate have a few thousand people in the park at 2 p.m.

What else?

I realize this was their fourth year, but in a lot of ways, this was Year 1 for Maha. It’s emerged with a new identity and is riding a wave of success. The organizers are going to face some big decisions in the coming months that will determine if Maha will become the festival that they want it to be, or will remain just another concert in the park…

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Guthrie, right, receives his copy of the Flaming Lips' "blood vinyl" from Jake.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This week’s column in The Reader has some obvious musical overhang. It’s the story of how artist/professor/adventurer Tim Guthrie came into possession of a copy of the ultra-rare Flaming Lips “blood vinyl,” and what he plans to do with it. You can read the column in this week’s issue of The Reader or online right here.

* * *

As detailed on Monday (here), tonight is the debut and presumably only local performance by the “unnamed Jake Bellows band” at O’Leaver’s. It will be a madhouse. The band consists of Bellows (Neva Dinova, Whispertown), Todd Fink (The Faint, Depressed Buttons), Ben Brodin (Mal Madrigal, Our Fox), Ryan Fox (Our Fox, The Good Life) and Heath Koontz (Neva Dinova). Hear Nebraska’s Embedded Music Journalist Michael Todd did an interview with Bellows back in May that mentions this project, which you can read here. Simon Joyner opens. $5, 9:30 p.m., I ‘spect you should get there early…

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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A non-musical tangent: This week’s column in The Reader is about Yelp. You can read it online right here. (BTW, it looks like Over the Edge has stuck as the column name.)

A brief addendum to the column: Within 24 hours of posting my review of Lot 2 in Yelp, I received an email from the restaurant’s owner/operator, Brad Marr, thanking me for the criticism and wishing I had talked to him personally so he could address the issues. Marr said they’ve taken measures to address problems with heat and noise (though beyond stapling carpet remnants on the ceiling, I’m not sure what they could do). After asking that I come back and try Lot 2 again, Marr added that he took offense at my description of our server as being “elfin,” which he called “offensive.” I guess in Marr’s world elfin means “trollish” or “ogre-like.” I’ve always considered “elfin” a term of endearment for people who are strangely, unworldly attractive. I guess Marr was thinking of the Keebler type of elf rather than the Elrond/Arwen type as seen in The Lord of the Rings films. Regardless, I struck “elfin” from the write-up. These days any physical description of anyone is considered unacceptable, at least in more sophisticated circles than I travel in. You can read the Lot 2 review here.

Marr’s almost immediate reaction to the review sort of proves the strange power and reach of Yelp, and how much restaurants pay attention to it. On the other hand, it may also reflect the almost total lack of critical discussion outside the social media arena. That said, there are 19 reviews of Lot 2 in Yelp, and almost all of them give the restaurant a rating of 4-stars or higher, which would seem to indicate that my 2-star experience was unique. Everyone in Benson wants Lot 2 to succeed (including me), and what better way to help them along than by writing a 5-star review…?

There’s nothing quite like Yelp in the local music world — a place where fans can throw bouquets or turds at bands and their music. The closest thing we have is SLAMOmaha.com, but no one takes it seriously, as almost all of the comments on SLAM are anonymous, and as a result, useless.

Speaking of anonymous comments, yesterday’s blog post attracted a couple real doozies, which you won’t be reading on my website. While I do allow anonymous comments on my blog, I don’t if they include personal attacks or make direct accusations. Anonymous criticism is okay, but it’s spineless to call someone a name or accuse them of something without putting your own name behind the comment.

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Tickets are still available for tonight’s Shins show at Stir Concert Cove at Harrah’s in Council Bluffs. Opening is The Antlers and Blind Pilot. Tix are $35, and the show begins at 7.

Also tonight, it’s the return of Against Me! at The Slowdown with The Icarus Line and Sky Road Fly. Against Me’s front person, Tom Gabel, performed for the first time as Laura Jane Grace this past weekend in San Diego. Read the Rolling Stone review of the show here. From the write-up: “I was worried that some people expected me to come out looking like Little Bo Peep or something,” Grace said after the show while hanging out at the merch table with her wife, Heather. Talk about courage. $15, early 8 p.m. start time.

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