by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I know I say this every year, but GoatFest, the annual bacchanal that took place at Scriptown Brewing Company this past Saturday, should be held every week, or at least every month, or at least once a season. 

The brewery, located in the Blackstone District, was loud and packed at 3 p.m. with folks throwing back glasses of bock beer and yelling over the bands rocking out by the back exit. With their overhead doors wide open along Harney Street, the music could be heard blocks away by neighbors out soaking in the pre-spring warmth. 

It reminded me of another mainly outdoor event that’s taking place this week in Austin, Texas – the South By Southwest Festival day parties. There’s something special about day drinking at afternoon rock shows. And Scriptown booking  psych-rock garage bands only adds to the event’s allure. 

Cowgirl Eastern certainly fit right in. The Omaha-based five-piece boasts the classic “two-drummer configuration” – the kits set up facing each other – along with two guitars and bass. It was the loudest band I’ve ever heard at GoatFest (and I’ve been to all of them), but it didn’t kill the acid-colored vibe of their ultra-vivid, fuzzed-out sound. Very ‘60s, kind of bluesy, hippie but not in a jam-band sort of way. 

Despite the crowd gathered around the band, people still managed to push their way through the throng to the back exit, where just outside a temporary livestock pen held three precocious goats. Two guys who I assumed were the the goats’ wranglers discussed livestock-related issues while sunglassed hipsters held pints in one hand while petting the goats with the other. 

Cowgirl Eastern was followed by another local act, Velvet Velvet, who ripped into an improvised version of “Sweet Home Alabama” as their ad hoc soundcheck, a hint of the southern-rock influenced material heard during the first part of their set, which was all I was able to stick around four, though I made a mental note to check out both bands the next time the play a proper venue. 

Scriptown was designed to be a beer tasting room, not a music venue, and it was evident by the blown-out stage-right PA speaker that fuzzed up the vocals. I doubt many people either noticed or cared as they were having such a good time. 

Which brings us back to the original statement – Scriptown should host GoatFest more than once a year. I mentioned this to one of the organizers, who told me the brewery does do special events during Blackstone’s “Second Saturday” efforts. Still, he wasn’t convinced they could draw such a large crowd on a weekly or monthly – or monthly – basis. He may be right, but we’ll never know unless they take the gamble, at least during the warm months…

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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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Omaha Film Festival (OFF) kicks off next Tuesday with screenings at Aksarben Cinema and runs through March 16. You can read all about it right here. 

A couple weeks ago, one of the festival’s documentary film makers sent me a link to an online stream of the film, The Opener, which is being screened Saturday, March 15 at 2:30 p.m. 

Directed by Jeff Toye and produced by Sunya Mara – the duo does all the filmmaking – The Opener documents what happened when singer/songwiter Philip Labes was “discovered” via algorithmic chance by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Jason Mraz. Seems Labes was doing one of his many live-stream TikTok performances and Mraz just happened to be among the 30 online listeners. As a result, Mraz invited Labes to open eight dates of his East Coast tour. 

The film follows Labes as he tries to make the most of his big break. More than just a “star discovery” story, The Opener also is a comment about the perceived futility of making art, life during the pandemic (when Labes began to generate his online following), how TikTok can create stars, the generosity of fame and the outcome of persistence. 

Pulling it together is Labes’ music and chipmunk-like personality. Raised middle class in Palm Springs (his father an amateur musician who also tried his hand at music in his youth), we see Labes during his shuttered COVID year, toiling at songwriting, held captive by fear in his tiny apartment. 

Mraz’s influence can be heard in Labes’ music. Mostly performed alone on acoustic guitar, the well-crafted songs sounded like modern Broadway versions of nice Mountain Goats tunes (regular goers of modern musicals will recognize what I’m talking about). They’re sweet, clever, often self-deprecating life stories that attempt to capture Labes’ COVID angst. 

Clocking in at an hour and 12 minutes, the first half focuses on Labes’ during COVID while the balance of the film covers the tour’s ups and downs, and the lengths Labes will go to get his music heard. Smart editing and Labes’ performances keep things moving. The only thing missing was the usual epilogue card that explains what happened to Labes after the tour. Did performing with Mraz push him to the next level? We’ll have to find out on our own. 

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Joining Jake Bellows (of Neva Dinova fame) for his usual Thursday night gig at Pageturners is Boston guitarist Ethan WL. His second solo album “in the American Primitive Guitar style,” Blood Farm, was releases last summer on Carbon Records. Omaha singer/songwriter Sean Pratt kicks things off at 7 p.m. and there’s no cover.

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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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

If anything, last night’s Molchat Doma/Sextile show at Steelhouse Omaha proved that the massive, blimp-hangar-style facility can host shows that only draw 1/3 of its capacity and still feel like an important event.

Los Angeles electronic-fueled post-punk act Sextile — no stranger to Omaha — was up first and scored the better of the two performances, thanks to a shorter set and more varied and frenetic music. Sextile’s heart-racing, jittery rhythms, infectious bass lines and unlimited energy generated by three bouncing musicians did everything it could to get the (guess-timated) crowd of around 1,000 moving. 

Throughout their 10-year careers, Sextile has always been more punk than post-punk, and never moreso than on their aggressive new album, Yes, Please., slated for release May 2 on Sacred Bones Records. New songs like “Women Respond to Bass,” “Kids,” “S Is For” and set closer “Resist” — wherein vocalist/instrumentalist Melissa Scaduto hoisted a flag emblazed with “Abortion Rights Now!” — were among the night’s highlights. 

Long-time Sextile fans yearning for past glories were not disappointed. The set opened with 2018 favorite “Disco,” and included tracks “No Fun” and “Contortion” from 2023’s Push. Instrumentally, Scaduto and fellow front-person Brady Keehn impressed with their stick-work and knob twirling when not spitting lyrics at the crowd. 

A fellow concert-goer pointed out the music would be perfect at 2 a.m. in a crowded, smoke-filled warehouse while high on some unidentified substance, instead of at 8:30 on a Monday night drinking a lukewarm microbrew. Maybe that’s why so few were moving on the floor beyond the edge of the stage. Ah, to be honest, the only band I’ve seen turn an Omaha crowd that size into a bouncing a mob was The Faint.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Molchat Doma took the blackened stage, each band member staking out his territory – bassist Pavel Kozlov stage left, guitarist Roman Komogortsev stage right, and frontman Egor Shkutko dead center. And that’s where they stayed throughout the evening while someone somewhere controlled the prerecorded synth and rhythm tracks that fueled the performance. 

“We are Molchat Doma from Minsk, Belarus,” Egor quietly declared after the first song. “Dosvedanya.” 

The basic song recipe involved a drone/tone intro followed by a kick-ass rhythm track, Pavel’s bassline and Roman’s guitar. It’s easy to point out the obvious influences – Depeche Mode, The Cure, Joy Division, etc. A fellow concert-goer gave nods to Nitzer Ebb and Front Line Assembly.

But despite the rump-shakingly infectious rhythms and guitars, Egor’s dark, bosso voice eventually transported listeners to a drab, Soviet-era landscape covered in brutalist architecture. It was like listening to a soldier sing mournful Russian-language anthems over a wicked EDM loop.

Early in the set, the audience, which included a lot of younger people dressed in black, many donning their best goth styles and make-up, merely nodded their heads to the beat. But as you walked deeper into the crowd, you noticed the bodies moving oh so subtly, the energy increasing closer to the stage. I’m unsure where these fans came from, as Molchat Doma has never played Omaha before and isn’t heard on local radio. The answer is probably those viral TikTok videos, apparently as popular here as in Eastern Bloc countries.

Despite shifts in rhythm and melodies — and instrumental interludes (in one instance, Pavel and Roman met centerstage and exchanged riffs) — the music’s “sameness” was unescapable thanks to being draped in dirge-like vocals. How would their music sound with English-language pop vocals? No doubt it would lose its gravitas — and to some, become more interesting — but it would never be Molchat Doma. And to that, all I can say is “Dosvedanya.”

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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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

By Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Performing last night in front of a crowd of around 100 in Slowdown’s front room, Pile proved it’ll be the perfect pairing for Cursive as the two launch a North American tour starting this Thursday in Fort Collins. 

In this configuration, the band is a powerhouse four-piece of pure angular goodness, fronted by guitarist Rick Maguire at the height of his vocal prowess – we got him before the tour, folks. 

I’ve listened to a lot of Pile albums but I don’t remember them sounding this straightforward and brutal. They rocked a shit-ton harder than anything on their last EP (of which they only played one song, a white-knuckled version of “Scaling Walls”). The pace throughout the first third of the set was breakneck (Cursive better watch out or they’ll be blown off the stage); leaving room for their weirder stuff later on (except for the set closer, but I’ll get to that in a minute). 

Highlights included the set opener, a song called “Deep Clay” that must be new, followed by a head-banging rendition of “Loops” from their last LP, 2023’s All Fiction. The band reached back into the archives for “Uncle Jill” from 2010’s Magic Isn’t Real before Maguire introduced another new one, called “Meanwhile Inside,” off their yet-to-be-released new album, warning the crowd that it’s “very long.” But it didn’t seem long at all — the intricate time shifts and dynamics made for quite a ride. 

Pile closed the 14-song set with yet another new one, which Maguire said wasn’t about any single person but a bunch of people. Titled “Stephen Miller,” the angular explosion was like listening to a sonic fistfight, with Maquire throwing one haymaker after another while the band crushed – perfect, angry, venomous, mosh-pit punk — exactly what we all need right now. 

I caught the last two songs by opener Cope Acidic and wish I would have heard their whole set. Playing as a power trio, the guitarist/frontman brought shades of Bob Mould to the vocals, while the rhythm section brought the heat. Complex rhythms that never lost track of the core song, in the old days we called this style of post-punk “math rock” — an impressive outing by a band I need to see again. 

Last night was the first time since before the pandemic that I attended a show in the month of January, which is historically always a shit time for touring or booking shows (especially in Nebraska). So, a good sign. We made it through what arguably is the worst month of the year in terms of rock shows, and the calendar is filling up nicely over the next few months…

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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 © 2025 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by TIm McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It was red hot inside Reverb Sunday night (figurative and literally) for Carver Jones and the American Dreamers. Reverb was packed – quite a feat for a local show on a Sunday night by a band that’s never played there before. 

I was easily the oldest person in the crowd from my vantage point standing next to the sound board. A gaggle of mostly late-teen/early-20s patrons – an equal mix of guys and dolls – pushed up front as Jones and his band entered the stage along with a couple photographers who captured images throughout the night from behind them. It was Jones’ first “headlining show,” and no doubt the footage will wind up in one of his future music videos. 

Jones stood tall center stage in a white polo shirt, guitar slung over his shoulders, with drummer Max Soderberg off stage right invisible behind the crowd and bassist Alec Allhijjawi bouncing to his left. I dug Jones’ well-produced, catchy pop songs on YouTube and Spotify (they don’t have a record label). Could they pull it off live?

Well, almost. Jones’s breathy vocals struggled at times to be heard above the rock, but when they broke through they were impressive, jumping from a mid-range croon to funky falsetto. Jones kicked off the set playing two songs on acoustic guitar before strapping on his trusty Fender (named “Rose”) for single “Hit the Road (Jack)” and a couple new songs performed live for the first time. Both leaned toward the Lenny Kravitz-style rock that Jones loves. Halfway through the second song, Jones strolled over and turned up his amp before ripping into a kille solo.

But just as the crowd was getting into the set, Jones shooed his band off stage and played two quiet cover songs solo-acoustic, including a whispery version of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” The vibe down-shift might have worked in a more formal setting but not in rowdy Reverb, where Jones gentle coo was drowned out by party-level crowd chatter. 

It wasn’t lost on Jones, who quickly waved the band back on stage, switched guitars, and launched into a sweet cover of The Beatles “Come Together” that segued into another original followed by his latest single, “Winter,” and an earlier single. “RU Still Up?,” that was welcomed with squeals from the girls when announced from stage. 

Jones closed out the night with two more bluesy Kravitz-esque numbers, again turning up his amp for some wicked solos. He should have just kept the amp at 10 all night. Upon saying “goodnight,” the crowd burst into an “encore” chant and the band played one more. Hey guys, don’t you know you’re supposed to leave and come back to the stage for the encore?

In our interview last month, Jones said he and his crew have done a lot of street busking, and that seemed evident. The band was, indeed, tight, but I got the sense they’re still learning how to get the most out of a formal stage and would benefit from rehearsing with a seasoned sound man (as well as one of his producers) to get their live show in tip-top shape prior to going out on an inevitable formal tour. Something tells me you’re going to hear a lot from these guys in the future…

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A couple other notes from this past weekend…

I caught Magü’s set at the Waiting Room Friday night.  The band has changed a lot since I last saw them three years ago at Petfest. Once a guitar-heavy rock band whose sound at times bordered on shoe-gaze, Magü no longer has any guitars, and their female vocalist was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Magü consists of a keyboard/vocalist, tenor sax, trumpet, bass and drums playing loungy R&B pop tunes that border on Yacht Rock (but without guitars). Quite a shift in style!

Also, an apology and a “caveat emptor”: Cover charges for both the Carver Jones and Magu shows were more than what I published in Lazy-i. I based my prices on what was posted on the One Percent website. The Magü show ended up being $10 instead of the advertise $5; the Carver Jones show was $15 instead of the advertised $12. Why the prices jumped, I do not know, but it’s something to be aware of the next time you head to a 1% show. 

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It was Standing Room Only at Scriptown Saturday afternoon as Omaha psych-rock band Those Far Out Arrows helped the Blackstone-based brewery celebrate its 10-year anniversary. 

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the Arrows – August 2023 at Reverb to be exact. No doubt they’ve been busy living their best lives and haven’t had time to rock, but rock they did Saturday afternoon, unveiling a few new songs along with some old favorites (including TFOA classic “Snake in My Basement.” Fronted by the Keelan-White brothers of Ben and Evan on guitar and vocals, let’s hope we’ll get those new songs recorded and pressed on a new album (Their last outing was 2020 LP, Fill Yer Cup). We’re all waiting, dudes. 

And I’ll say again: Scriptown should consider hosting weekend afternoon rock shows on a regular basis. They’re always a blast, always draw a crowd, and who doesn’t want to day-drink on the weekend, right? 

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The massive Ice Storm of ’24 took its toll on Friday night’s Dream Ghoul show at Reverb Lounge. The band’s drummer ended up stranded on I-80 along with hundreds of other motorists. Max Holmquist said we might have to wait until February to get another chance to see the band again, which is a shame because I’m dying to see how they make their new album, A Forgotten Future, come to life on stage. 

Released just yesterday on Bandcamp and on the usual streaming platforms (Spotify, etc.), the album is a dark, chiming totem of rock majesty that recalls acts like Interpol, Joy Division, Peter Murphy even Bowie’s Blackstar. Holmquist’s flat, tonal vocals cast warm, haunted echoes over that album’s trippy rhythm tracks and chiming guitars. 

The liner notes describe the record as “an exploration of themes of Hauntology, lost futures, spectacle, weaponized nostalgia, and phenomenology against a back-drop of personal struggles with mental illness, paranoia, anxiety, and addiction.” Dark stuff… but with a beat! 

Holmquist isn’t afraid of letting the tracks breath as needed, with songs like album highlight “The Being Always Was, 1997” rolling well past the six-minute mark. Recorded, engineered and mixed by James Schroeder (Mesa Buoy, David Nance Band, UUVVWWZ), A Forgotten Future is a shoe-gaze rock odyssey best heard with headphones. Download it here at Bandcamp for just $7.

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Last night’s performance of Simon Joyner’s Coyote Butterfly at The Waiting Room was a touching tribute to Joyner’s late son, Owen – the subject of the album. Every seat was taken throughout the packed house, with many standing in the back along the bar.

Megan Siebe began the evening performing a solo cello composition on the darkened stage – a solemn, dramatic, tonal piece performed over looped portions recorded via a pedal. The album’s artwork was projected behind her – a bleak snow scape in the dead of winter. The image would later be replaced with a rotating collection of photos taken near the South Omaha Bridge – beautiful landscapes with cloud-filled skies.

Sarah Adkisson Joyner, Simon’s wife, took the stage next and said a few words about Owen and how their family had grieved following his death in August 2022. She also talked about how the music we were about to hear played a role in their grieving process, before introducing the band. 

Joyner, seated center stage with his guitar, was surrounded by his friends and bandmates – David Nance on bass, James Schroeder, guitar; Kevin Donahue, drums, and Michael Krassner on guitar and keyboards. They proceeded to perform Coyote Butterfly in its entirety in track order, beginning with the field recordings and Joyner’s guitar instrumental, “Red-Winged Black Birds (March 13, 2024),” that led directly into Joyner singing alone, “I’m Taking You With Me.” 

The full band then joined in on “The Silver Birch,” (with Megan Siebe on violin) and continued for what was a note-perfect rendition of the album. An exception was an epic version of “Port of Call” that featured an extended instrumental introduction showcasing the band – it felt like the evening’s centerpiece leading into a performance of the album’s title track.

Joiner didn’t speak between songs, and the audience seemed initially hesitant to applaud, perhaps wondering if it was okay to enjoy themselves while Simon poured his heart out. After the buzz of cicadas heard on the concluding field recording came to an abrupt halt (as it does on the album), the crowd again applauded and Joyner thanked everyone for being there. The evening was somber but also heart-felt and special, and will likely never be repeated. 

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Knowing the theme behind the recording, I dreaded listening to Simon Joyner’s new album, Coyote Butterfly (2024, Grapefruit Records). 

Released last month, the record is the first collection of songs from Joyner in two years following the overdose death of his son, Owen, in August 2022. Joyner’s music is already known for leaning on the heavier topics of life; now along comes a very personal 10-track collection described as an exploration of loss through a series of imagined dialogues and raw confessions drawn from the kaleidoscopic nature of grief. 

Well, after listening to the album for the past few days, my dread was unfounded. Coyote Butterfly not only is one of the most poignant collections penned by Joyner, but melodically also among the most beautiful. This is not a minor-key cry of pain, rather it’s an elegiac acknowledgement of grief, regret and acceptance from someone who has been through something no one should go through.

Despite its bleak subject matter, a number of the album’s songs could become staples in Joyner’s future set lists such as “The Silver Birch” and “Port of Call” where Joyner leans on long-time comrades and friends to accompany him – a backing band consisting of David Nance, James Schroeder, Kevin Donahue, Ben Brodin and Michael Krassner. 

On the other hand, many of the songs that feature only Joyner, his guitar and voice — especially the gut-wrenching “My Lament” and the heart-breaking title track — are difficult to get through, but are far from maudlin. 

AllMusic.com critic Fred Thomas, in an incisive review of the Coyote Butterfly, concluded: “The album does an amazing job of conveying how dealing with death is a journey with no destination, one spent looking for slivers of understanding and acceptance but knowing there will never be resolution. The way Joyner shares his pain with honesty and fearlessness makes these songs some of his most beautiful and connective and life-affirming even in their unimaginable grief.”

Joyner and his band will perform the album at a special seated show this Sunday at The Waiting Room. According to the One Percent Productions’ website, it will likely be the only performance of the album in its entirety. And if my notes are correct, it’ll be the first time Joyner has performed on a formal Omaha stage in almost a decade.

Singer/songwriter Megan Siebe, who has played on a number of Joyner’s previous albums, opens Sunday’s show at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Weighing in at just under a half-hour, Violenteer’s self-titled 6-song debut EP is a tale of competing sonic identities sandwiched between two slices of bass. 

The recording showcases the Cotton Brothers. In the right channel on bass is Randy Cotton, who you might remember from his work in ’90s Omaha golden age punk band Ritual Device, which was followed a few years later by metal band, Ravine. In the left channel also on bass is Barry Cotton, formerly of the band Members of the Press. These guys share a love for pounding, nihilistic-fueled metal that is like listening to one explosion after another or the dark soundtrack to a ’90s grind-core horror flick. 

Cutting through the dueling basses’ thundering rumble is vocalist Steve Tulipana’s howls, growls, spoken words and the occasional sung lyric. Tulipana made a name for himself as the frontman of ’90s Kansas City noise-rock band Season to Risk. 

The album is a mountain of noise/soundscapes that tumble forward at approaching-doom pace, lovingly provided by drummer Eric Ebers, another Omaha punk rock veteran from bands Ritual Device and Ravine, now a member of shoe-gaze outfit Minne Lussa. New drummer Corey Thumann has taken over behind the kit for the live band. Though overcast by a cloud of metal angst, two songs on the EP break through the darkness. 

“Up the Flood” jumps forward atop a groovy, punchy drum line before breaking into monster riffs, then throttling back again to that crazy rhythm. It’s the closest thing to vintage gutter-groove Ritual Device I’ve heard since the last Ritual Device reunion show. 

Then there’s “Just Another Day,” a grunge-style ballad that features Tulipana’s best vocals singing the album’s most appealing melodies. The song breaks down to an indecipherable spoken-word bombast before shifting into a Pink Floyd (a la Meddle)-style psych rock soundscape. This song, no doubt, will be the epic closer for Saturday night’s album release show at Reverb Lounge. 

Joining Violenteer on this loaded four-band bill are Dance Me Pregnant (‘00s-era O’Leaver’s punk rock survivors Chris Machmuller, Johnny Vredenburg, Corey Broman and Jeff Ankenbauer), Lodgings (last I heard, their new records was in the process of being mixed) and Bad Bad Men (the Wolf-Hug-Siebken power trio extraordinaire). 8 p.m., $12. 

Limited-edition 12-inch vinyl and digital download are on pre-sale at the Violenteer Bandcamp page, where you can also hear the first single from the EP.

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Regular Lazy-i readers may have noticed that show listings posted on the site for The Sydney typically end with the language “start time, xx p.m., Sydney Time.” I began doing this because whenever I went to shows at The Sydney scheduled to start at, say, 9, they ended up starting at around 10:30, leaving me with 90 minutes to nurse my Rolling Rock and dead-scroll my iPhone. 

Late start times were a normal thing in the pre-COVID days. Most rock shows didn’t start until well after 10 p.m. (and usually closer to 11) in an effort to draw the largest crowd (or sell more drinks). Then came COVID and shows went away. Upon their return a year or so later, venues began to run with strict military precision; specifically The Slowdown, Reverb and The Waiting Room. What used to be three-band bills that began at 10:30 and wrapped up at 1 a.m. have become two-band bills that begin at 8 p.m. and rarely run past 10. It’s a strange but welcome change, especially for old-timers who like to get to bed early. 

The exception, of course, is The Sydney, who has kept operating like the pre-COVID days with late nights and multiple bands. And irregular start times. 

The reason for this enormous preamble: I showed up at The Sydney at 10:30 this past Saturday night (after having drinks with an old pal of mine) to see In Tongues, Housewares and Minne Lussa, figuring at worse I’d miss part of whoever played the opening slot. I paid my $10 and rushed inside only to hear Housewares’ frontman say (paraphrasing): “Good night! Thanks to In Tongues for opening. Minne Lussa is next.” 

For whatever reason, this night The Sydney decided to start the music right at 9 p.m., as advertised, typical “Sydney Time” hi-jinx. 

The good news is I was able to catch an entire set by Minne Lussa, who I’ve seen perform many times over the years, but this night they never sounded better. Dressed in their finest Grand Ol’ Opry outfits I guess for irony’s sake (since they don’t play an ounce of either Country or Western music), the band shimmered both literally and figuratively beneath their Spencers Gifts-quality mood lighting. 

At the heart of their music is the intricate guitar interplay between Matt Rutledge and Eric Bemberger, with Bemberger providing the more fluid, gossamer licks. This will seem uncharacteristic to anyone who only knows Bemberger from his former band, Beep Beep, whose specialty was blaring, angular post-punk. Here, Bemberger weaves his glowing, gorgeous guitar lines with Rutledge’s complimentary counters or rhythms, creating a dense, ethereal soundscape, driven forward at mid-tempo by the ace rhythm section of drummer Eric Ebers and bassist Alan Legge. 

Their songs could hold up as instrumentals, but Rutledge adds warm, grotto vocals throughout, that unfortunately were undecipherable due to the poor vocal mix/PA. Bemberger provided contrasting lead vocals on one very cool song. 

I guess you could call their sound dream-pop or ornate shoe-gaze, comparable to, say more laid-back My Bloody Valentine or (more appropriately) Slowdive. One fan standing next to me said they reminded him of ‘90s Portland instrumental band Pell Mell, which got us talking about Sokol Underground acts like Tresteza and The Mercury Program, though for my money, Minne Lussa is more innovative and interesting.

They closed out their set with a glowing cover of “Alison” by Slowdive, met with a nice round of applause by the 40 or so on hand.  Rutledge said the band enters the recording studio Dec. 7 with producer/engineer Jeremy Garrett. More to come…

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.