by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Re: Yesterday’s Special Comment: I humbly and proudly stand corrected.

* * *

Tim Kasher has the honor of being the subject for the debut of Pop Matters new video interview series. “Backstage at Chicago’s historic Vic Theatre, Kasher was candid and open with us, discussing why he chose not to write two more Ugly Organ‘s, how he deals with the frustration of those who feel somewhat betrayed by his songs not being autobiographical, and—after coming clean with some of his regrets—how getting to open for The Cure was one of the highlights of his life.” It’s a nice five minutes. Check it out.

* * *

Bright Eyes’ new free mp3 from the upcoming The People’s Key

, “Halle Selassie,” is a real grinder. It chugs along on top of a 6/8 electric guitar riff that provides a strangely formal structure for Conor’s heavily delayed vocals. If someone asks me what is one of the threads that runs through classic Saddle Creek artists’ music, I tell them it’s a penchant for waltz-time arrangements, and in that context, this is sort of a throwback. You can get a download key for the song delivered to your email box through the widget below.

* * *

Meanwhile, Azure Ray is giving away an 3mp of its new single, “Silverlake,” recorded with their friends in Sparklehorse. It’s a non-album track from the Drawing Down the Moon sessions, and as such, isn’t much of a departure from the usual AR fair, which means pretty harmonies and melodies and everything else you expect from Maria and Orenda. The two-song single includes ”Silverlake” and ”Silverlake (demo),” and is available via iTunes and the Saddle Creek Online Store. Download widget below:

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Finally, there’s this story from USA Today, which could have a major impact on the Omaha’s Red Sky Music Festival.

Buffett’s in stable condition, btw…

* * *

Tomorrow, the story behind what makes hearnebraska.org tick.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Because there’s nothing going on tonight (in fact, there’s nothing going on this week until Friday from a music vantage point) and in honor of the late, great though self-important, pompous and overwrought Mr. Olbermann, I bring you my “Special Comment” about today’s election. If you don’t give two shits about politics or if you live outside of Omaha, I’ll see you tomorrow when we resume our regular programming. That said, there is a local music/venue spin to all of it, and it’s this:

One night recently I visited one of my favorite local bars, bellied up to the counter and ordered my usual Rolling Rock. Ye kindly ol’ bartender brought me my cold green glass of America’s Finest and said, “It’s $4.50 now. We had to raise the price 50 cents to cover Suttle’s entertainment tax

.” So now in addition to the outrage of having to pay $4  — premium beer prices — for a beer that’s as common as Budweiser or PBR, here I was having to spend an extra 50 cents because the bar wanted to make a political statement to mask its greed.

The “entertainment tax” instituted under Mayor Suttle’s administration amounted to around a 2 percent tax on booze and food. Last I checked, 50 cents is not 2 percent of $4. So who is really benefiting from the tax? Bars and music venues like the one I speak of who upped their prices a full 12.5 percent. Do you think these outraged bar owners who want Suttle’s head on a stick are going to drop their prices once they get him out of office and repeal the 2 percent tax. No, they’re not.

If I sound matter-of-fact about this election it’s because I know Suttle will lose for the simple fact that most of the intelligent liberals I know are lazy pieces of shit who won’t go to the polls today, unlike the Teabagger Republican a-holes behind this recall effort — one of whom bears an unfortunate resemblance to our past and future mayor, Hal Daub. Regardless of your political views (or view of reality) you have to hand it to the conservative goon squad. They got out there, they spent the money (or got the local right-wing millionaires to spend their money), and they got it done. Say what you will about the GOP, they’re not lazy.

In fact, it dawned on me that after the election and the inevitable return of Hal Daub to office that I should immediately start a recall effort to get rid of him and base it solely on my dislike of his dumb-shit policies. I know that if I got enough signatures to get his recall on a ballot, that he, too, would get removed from office for no other reason than I dislike his point of view. But that won’t happen because liberals and free thinkers are generally lazy people who are satisfied with merely winning some sort of intellectual internal argument rather than deal with reality. They just assume everyone around them is a dumb shit and that there’s no holding back the Great Wad of Stupidity that engulfs politics. And though they may be right, they end up losing elections.

Don’t agree with my cynical point of view? Than do something about it. Get off your lazy ass, turn off your television (or in the case of my typical reader, lift the tone-arm on that rare, limited-edition 7-inch) and go to the polls and vote against this mindless recall. I know it’s a pain in your ass. I know you “already voted for the mayor once.” I know that in the back of your mind you think that going to the polls is “giving in” to the fuckwits that are behind this effort by even acknowledging this ass-fist election. Yeah, it’s their game, but you’re playing it whether you want to or not. By not showing up and filling in the “no” oval, you’re letting a minority of dunces shout over your voice. You’re letting them take away your point of view. It’ll take two frickin’ minutes to vote, and your actions will send a message to the mighty Nebraska GOP/Teabagger/conservative a-holes that we’re here and we’re not going away.

Or prove me right and sit on your ass and let Suttle go down in flames. Look, I figure my 50 cents is already gone, and it ain’t coming back.

Don’t let me say “I told you so.” It’s your call. Maybe I’ll see you at the polls.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Instead of wasting your time here today, might I suggest you waste your time at the just-launched hearnebraska.org?

After months and months of delays, the site finally went live this morning. And what a site it is. It’s an events calendar, it’s live reviews, it’s band profiles, it’s a forum, it’s a video resource, and it’s a whole lot more. One key differentiator of HN over all the other local “all-in-one” calendar websites is its unique, exclusive content, including this video taken at last week’s Cursive’s Domestica concert at The Waiting Room.

I suggest you go to the site, click on the Register link in the upper-right-hand corner, and create your account before someone steals your nickname. Go. Hurry up.

I’ll have more on hearnebraska.org in this week’s column, and on this site in the coming days. For now, just go and check it out so’s you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Shoo.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A personal catastrophe didn’t keep me away from O’Leaver’s last night, but a lingering cold and general fatigue did. Now that I’ve glanced at the weekend’s line-up, I wish I would have gone out last night anyway.

There is nothing going on in regards to national touring bands. Nothing. Slowdown is closed for a private event tonight and tomorrow night, according to their website.  Saturday TWR is hosting a benefit for Habitat for Humanity of Omaha featuring Satchel Grande, Midwest Dilemma, The 9’s, Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies and The Half Hearts. Tix are $10 today from onepercentproductions.com and $12 tomorrow at the door. Show starts at 7 p.m.

Hoshaw’s also playing a singer/songwriter gig tonight with Sarah Benck and a few others at Louis’ Bar on Radial Hwy. Back in the day, Louis’ was the home of the 50-cent shot. Probably not any more, but you never know. That show starts at 9 p.m. and is free.

And that’s it for the weekend.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Column 306: Backyard Notions
Visions of 2011, Pt. 3

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

These “predictions” have dragged on long enough. In my defense, other than complaints about live reviews, I get more feedback about my annual predictions column(s) than anything I write. People just love being told what’s going to happen (or maybe they love being told what to do). Just to be clear: There is no “insider information” being let slip below; no rumor or innuendo being repeated. These visions are pure hocus-pocus; absolute hunches fueled by coffee and fatigue and all those annoying voices arguing inside my head. Do with them what you will.

This final chapter will explain what will happen in the local music scene in 2011. Read on, if you dare…

— Omaha’s festival season gets a lot more crowded with MECA’s mega orgy of music, the Red Sky Music Festival to be held at the TD Ameritrade baseball stadium. In its first year, ticket sales will fall below their projected target as MECA realizes no one is interested in dropping big bucks for the 6-day ride pass, and even fewer want limited-access tickets to the B- and C-list bands playing outside the stadium. Disappointing ticket sales will cause the Red Sky/MECA/Live Nation team to rethink its booking approach. Look for even more mainstream (i.e., country, jam, bland pop) acts lined up for 2012.

— In a year when it needs to differentiate itself from the Red Sky and other outdoor music events, MAHA will take fewer chances than last year for fear of messing up all the good it accomplished in 2010. Instead of forking over big bucks for major indie stars (i.e., Arcade Fire), they’ll go for an easy-access, locally grown act, and ticket sales will suffer. The good news: It’ll wake up organizers and force even riskier behavior in 2012, including the realization that the answer isn’t going to be found at Lewis & Clark Landing, but at a baseball stadium of their own.

— The local interwebs are going to get mighty crowded in ’11, but the fact is, Linoma’s small handful of local music fans don’t need seven or eight different “one-stop-shop” music resources to figure out what to do on Friday nights. Watch as a couple of the online outlets fail to catch traction with readers and lose interest in updating their content, beginning that slow, familiar slide into “404 Not Found” obscurity. Meanwhile, one website will emerge as the true winner of an online war where victory is counted in clicks rather than dollars.

— In a completely unexpected turn, at one least one local over-the-air radio station will take the plunge and commit to a “new music” college format that includes CMJ-caliber indie rock in regular rotation. And it won’t be The River.

— Get those Facebook protest pages ready. Another long-running local music venue will be in danger of being gobbled up by a developer. Can anyone save this lovable dump?

— Despite all the doom and gloom talk about the end of the Compact Disc, Homer’s Records will have one of its best years in recent memory in ’11, and will consider opening a new storefront in Benson.

— Riding high on the new Bright Eyes release and a resurgence of interest in The Mynabirds, Saddle Creek Records will add yet another local band to its roster. Their choice will surprise no one who follows the local music scene.

— I know I say it every year, but this time I mean it: Another band will emerge from Linoma and attract national attention, and it won’t be a Saddle Creek act. Could Nebraska become the next capital of the punk music world?

— Speaking of record labels, watch as another enterprising young businessman comes out of nowhere and launches a new subscription-based vinyl records club like Simon Joyner’s Grapefruit Records, but with a focus on 7-inch singles a la the Sub Pop Singles Club. Sign me up!

— With every other influential old-school local indie band reuniting over the past couple of years, one more will take the stage in ’11, if only for one song. Better dig that guitar out of the closet, Mr. Nansel.

— A new band will add a unique twist to the recent rage over classic ’90s-era rock as its members will consist of musicians who are the progeny of members of one of those classic ’90s-era bands — literally representing the next generation of Nebraska rock.

— Two new live music venues will open in Omaha in ’11. One will be located along an already crowded Maple Street in Benson (and I’m not talking about The Hole). The other will be the first live music venue west of 72nd Street to book serious local and touring indie bands since the good ol’ Ranch Bowl met a wrecking ball.

— Emerging from the bloody carnage of the winter recall election — and flying in the face of record deficits — the City of Omaha will get behind the return of a “youth concert” in Memorial Park that was left bending in the wind during the Suttle administration.

— Lady Gaga will return to Nebraska, and this time she’ll be wearing a pork-chop dress (because pork is the other “white” meat. Get it? Wearing white? GET IT? All right, all right, it’s a stretch)..

— Bright Eyes will once again be nominated for a Grammy, but this time it’ll be for their music. And (surprise) they’ll win.

* * *

Enough!

Like watching the final episode of an Omaha version of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew but done in reverse, tonight is the final evening of Con Dios’ boozy residency at the house of pain we call O’Leaver’s. Barring any personal catastrophes, I, too, will be on hand, along with 100 others, to wish our heroes farewell and good luck as they leave behind a womb littered with spent PBR cans and dirty looks to go out into a scary world and make a name for themselves. Goodbye, Con Dios, and god speed. Opening the show will be O’Leaver’s lifers So-So Sailors (a band destined for great things, you heard it here first on K-TIM). This is must-see TV. Tonight, 9:30 p.m., $5.

Also tonight, Matt Whipkey and his band, The Whipkey Three, will be opening a show at The Waiting Room, along with the rootsy, bluesy, Americana genius of Lincoln’s Son of 76 and the Watchmen, for headliner Voodoo Method. $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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Cursive at the Waiting Room, 1/18/11

By Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The chatter in the crowd: How old were you when this album came out? Me, I don’t remember. What I do remember is interviewing the band a decade ago in the back room of the USA Baby store just east of 72nd on Dodge St. where Tim Kasher’s mom worked. Kasher had just moved back to Omaha. Ted Stevens had just joined the band. They were a tight, fun, happy bunch singing bitter, angry songs about Kasher’s broken heart. Cursive’s Domestica was the ultimate break-up album, whose cover art featured a young couple in strange, awkward embrace — a couple played by a cute young girl who would become the keyboardist/vocalist of Fortnight (and who looks as cute as ever) and a young guy who would become a Grammy Award winning CD sleeve designer. Domestica would eventually become recognized as Cursive’s epic masterpiece, and songs like “The Martyr” and “The Casualty” would become a permanent part of their set list for the next 10 years.

It didn’t matter if Kasher messed up the opening line of “The Casualty” or if he even remembered the words, because the SRO crowd at The Waiting Room last night spent the evening singing along like an indie rock Greek chorus — a happy soccer mob chanting anthems that have become part of their lives. The set honestly didn’t sound much different than when they first played the album top-to-bottom at Sokol Underground a decade ago. Kasher’s voice certainly hasn’t changed… much. The guitar interplay between Kasher and Stevens — the most distinctive element of the album — was as playfully distorted as ever.  As much as the songs themselves, it was that guitar style that I remember most about that album.

So yes, they played all the songs in order with no pauses or stage banter in between, and that’s just the way the crowd wanted to hear it. It’s a slim set — just a little over a half-hour — and that brevity has helped it age well. But while I have to admit that Casualty/Martyr are one of the best one-two punches in indie rock history, Domestica is not my favorite Cursive album, not anymore. That honor goes to 2003’s The Ugly Organ (which hopefully we’ll hear in its entirety in 2013). Regardless, Domestica is the band’s most important album. It’s the one that pushed them to the next level of national attention, at a time when everyone around the country was just beginning to whisper about what was happening in Omaha.

* * *

The folks at the MAHA Music Festival announced this year’s dates/location — August 13 at Lewis and Clark Landing. The festival remains a one-day event, which makes it more of an all-day concert rather than a festival. Regardless, their growth won’t be contingent on the success or failure of the Red Sky Music Festival, but rather their willingness to take risks and go out on a limb with a line-up that will attract the gaze of the world outside of our city limits. Will they be successful? Come back tomorrow for the final part of this year’s 2011 music predictions and find out…

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And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Here are the winners of the Lazy-i Best of 2010 CD sampler:

Elizabeth A. Toepel, Morse Bluff, NE
Adrian Mejorado, Edinburg, TX
Cami Rawlings, Omaha, NE

Congratulations! And thanks to everyone who entered the drawing. See you next year!

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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Peace of Shit at O'Leaver's, Jan. 14, 2011.

by Tim McMahan,

Lazy-i.com

How good is the new Peace of Shit cassette? Well, really good, actually, though it sounds (appropriately) like shit in my ’99 Tracker. The poor sound quality has as much to do with my standard-issue cassette player (which makes everything sound like shit) as it does the overblown, tin-can rattle recording. But no matter how dirty it sounds, you can’t keep a song as good as “Out of Our Heads” hidden beneath all the filth, nor can you ignore a line as good as, “I can only do one thing, and that’s drink, without you.” Sounds like frontman Austin Ulmer has had a little of his Digital Leather experience rub off, both in his vocal style and his song structure. Consider this the more punk, less New Wave version of DL (closer to the live DL sound). But amidst all the anger and angst and panic in the streets, there’s room for a ringing little pop song like “Slumber Party” that will have you doing a drunken twist with your chained-up gimp down in your personal basement torture room. Don’t have a cassette player? Doesn’t matter. You should still buy a cassette from the Rainy Road Records website, or from The Antiquarim if the band ever gets around to dropping some copies off down there. It comes with a download code so you can add the digital files to your portable listening device. Those files provide more pristine versions of these songs, but I still prefer the fuzzy, shitty versions coming from my Tracker’s 6 x 9s.

As you would expect, the live version of POS is a different animal than the cassette version. Frontman Ulmer had his paws wrapped around a couple microphones while he mmrrwwrrred the lyrics backed by a 5-piece punk band. Unlike, say, a Shanks show (I went to a fight and a rock show broke out) all the energy was focused directly on the music. Though they’ve only been around for a few months POS has somehow already floated to the top of the punk-rock toilet bowl as one of the best collections of local hard music talent in Omaha. It’s like they’re stars already, sort of. OK, maybe not stars, but a band that deserves more exposure. That is if their name doesn’t hold them back. It’s Ceelo Green all over again. Maybe they should change their name to the less offensive Peace of Poop.

Uh, maybe not…

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room, Cursive performs their landmark album Cursive’s Domestica top-to-bottom, beginning-to-end, in honor of the 10-year anniversary of its release. No more needs to be said, except that they performed Domestica in Chicago on New Year’s Eve (review of that show here) and that tonight’s show has been sold out for quite a while now. Lightning Bug opens, show starts at 9 p.m.

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Lazy-i Best of 2010

This is it, the last day for entering the drawing for a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2010 Sampler CD. Considering the number of entries received so far, your chances are pretty good this year of getting a copy. Just send an e-mail to tim@lazy-i.com with your name and mailing address. Tracks include songs by Arcade Fire, Jenny and Johnny, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Belle and Sebastian, Titus Andronicus, The Mynabirds, A Weather, Zeus, The Black Keys, Pete Yorn and more. Full track listing is here. If you’re lucky enough to win, you’ll also get the new limited edition Lazy-i Sticker to stick on something. Deadline is TODAY. Do it.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

How do you suppose the guys in the band Peace of Shit came up with the name?

“Hmm… Let’s see. How about Peace in our Time? No, no, they’ll think we’re a hippie band. We need something tougher, more punk. OK, maybe, maybe… Piece of Ass? What do you think? That’s awesome. Waitaminit, wait a minute. I got something even better. How about Peace of Shit. And we’ll spell it P E A C E. Yeah, fuckin’ A. That’s it!”

Head butts and high-fives all around. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the best new band names I’ve heard in years, though I won’t be able to wear their T-shirt to the UP gym. The band consists of members of a handful of the area’s most belligerent punk bands, including Digital Leather, Baby Tears, the Shanks, The Fucking Party, La Casa Bombas, The line-up: Johnny VD, guitar; Calvin Retzlaff, drums; Nicky Waggonner, guitar; Craig Fort, bass; Todd VonStup, bass, and chief peace officer Austen Ulmer. But according to Todd, every show has a different line-up. Who knows who’ll show up for tonight’s POS cassette-release party?

“This 10 song cassette was recorded by Ben Allen and Austen Ulmer,” Todd said, “with Austen on vocals, guitars, bass and drums.  Jeff Lambelt also plays drums on a few tracks.  It is being released by Rainy Road Records (Watching the Train Wreck, Brimstone Howl, the Shanks).”

You can download the songs here. But come on, who wants digital files?  Tapes are $5 and you’ll soon be able to order them right from the Rainy Road website. But your best bet is just coming to the show tonight at O’Leaver’s. You know I’ll be there. I even have a tapedeck in my Tracker so I can suck in these sweet tunes on the way home from the bar. Also on the bill are Watching the Train Wreck and Mosquito Bandito. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Kind of/sort of competing with this show is another punk show down at Slowdown Jr. featuring Bazooka Shootout, Dim Light, and Grandmother’s Milk. $5, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, there’s a benefit for the National Humane Society taking place tonight Barley Street Tavern in the memory of Scout the Benson Bar Cat. Among the performers are All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, Platte River Rain and Alex Diimig. $5, 9 p.m.

John Wolf himself has confirmed that tomorrow night’s show (Saturday) at the Waiting Room will be the last time that you’ll ever get a chance to see Omaha legends Bad Luck Charm on any stage. It will be their final show. They’ll be going out in style with The Killigans and Cordial Spew, all for $7. Starts at 9. Come pay your respects to this maximum rock and roll band.

Also Saturday night, Fortnight will be celebrating the release of their new 6-song EP, Botany Camp, at Slowdown Jr. Fortnight is keyboardist Jenn Bernard, guitarists Mike Greene-Walsh and Tim Walker, bassist Matt Carlson, drummer Scott Micheels, and vocalist Corey Degner. Botany Camp was recorded on an analog board in a machine shed and a spare bedroom, then mixed at Enamel Studio and mastered by the master himself, Doug Van Sloun at Focus Mastering. Also on the bill are So-So Sailers, Landing on the Moon and Down with the Ship. $7, 9 p.m.

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Lazy-i Best of 2010

This is your last weekend to get in on the drawing for a copy of  the Lazy-i Best of 2010 CD sampler. Just send an e-mail to tim@lazy-i.com with your name and mailing address. Tracks include songs by Arcade Fire, Jenny and Johnny, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Belle and Sebastian, Titus Andronicus, The Mynabirds, A Weather, Zeus, The Black Keys, Pete Yorn and more. Full track listing is here. If you’re lucky enough to win, you’ll also get the new limited edition Lazy-i Sticker to stick on something. Deadline is next Tuesday, Jan. 18. Do it.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Column 305: Dangerous Visions

Music predictions for 2011, Pt. 2.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’m not saying that all of the following visions will happen in 2011, but the ball will start rolling next year that will cause the walls of the music industry to finally come tumbling down. It may take years, but it’ll happen sooner than anyone (except me, of course) expects. Here’s how it’ll go down:

— As you read this, everyone will be talking about the new Verizon iPhone; and the talk of 2010 was the iPad. But the big news in 2011 will be when Apple announces that iTunes now lives “in the cloud.” What that means is that all of your music in iTunes on your PC or Mac, as well as all of everyone else’s music, will be available on any PC or iPhone/iPod with 3G/4G or Wi-Fi connectivity. And that includes in your car (with a new 3G/4G-accessible car stereo).

Apple’s purchase of lala.com helped make “music in the cloud” possible, along with Apple’s enormous capital investments in massive server farms. Add to that a technological breakthrough that results in a quantum improvement in file compression that will make near-CD-quality music files available via streaming, and you’re seeing the beginning of the end of the Compact Disc. It also could signal the demise of the traditional album format as we know it, since music no longer will be sold in units, but in a subscription format — all the music in the world on your speakers or earbuds for just $10 a month.

— iTunes “in the cloud” and this new subscription format also will mark the end of illegal downloading — what would be the point?

— Picking up on the Pandora model, artists will no longer be paid based on album or singles’ sales, but on how often their music gets played in iTunes. Record labels will turn into full-time promotion companies, whose goal is to get their artists’ music listened to in iTunes as much as possible.

— Pandora, Grooveshark, Rhapsody and all the other streaming services will see the writing on the wall and will file anti-trust suits against Apple, who will argue that competition exists in the form of other media, such as radio and television, and other stream-tech companies such as Google and Microsoft. The glacial speed of the legal system will cause the case to drag on for years, long enough to put Apple’s streaming competitors out of business.

— The old standby revenue stream known as “publishing rights” — artists getting paid to have their music used in TV commercials or movies and TV — will dry up. Suddenly artists will be willing to pay whatever is necessary to get their music used in commercials and movies. “Selling out” becomes known as “buying out.”

— iTunes “in the cloud” will become the boot on the throat of the radio industry. But without radio, how will new bands capture the attention of an audience outside of their home towns (as if they could depend on radio before)? We will welcome a rebirth in the importance of music videos, but this time making a video will have nothing to do with art or music. A 3-minute clip of your band performing its song on YouTube just ain’t gonna cut it. Instead, it’s all about “going viral,” and that means filming something that no one has seen before. Expect to see videos that push the envelope not only of good taste, but of human experience. For the first time, we’ll see a band member get killed while making a video. And it’ll be a monster hit.

— Another way to get your music noticed — get the stars to talk about it. Having your band name-checked on Kanye’s playlist already is an effective tool for young bands. Soon all the big-league commercial artists will post their playlists online or in Rolling Stone

, effectively putting a spotlight on unknown artists. But be wary, it’ll only be a matter of time before those greedy bastards start taking money to include bands on their playlists (if they don’t already).

— With this quantum change in how we listen to music just around the corner, old-school record industry execs will make one last-gasp attempt at keeping as much market as possible by finally dropping CD prices below $10 a unit for all content (not just “sale items”). Some CDs will be as cheap as $5.99. This price drop will result in a brief resurgence of record stores — Homer’s might even consider expanding its world-wide chain of stores to three. But it’s too little too late. The audience for cheap CDs is dying off, literally. And the last kick in the crotch will be when automakers quit offering pre-installed CD players in their cars.

The scariest part about all of these visions — the same thing will happen to the movie and book-publishing industries.

Keeping with tradition, I can’t leave out these 2011 predictions:

— Artists we’ll be talking about this time next year: Bright Eyes, Deathcab for Cutie, Justin Timberlake, U2, Cat Power, Beastie Boys, Madonna, Tilly and the Wall, Decemberists, Commander Venus, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship, Dismemberment Plan, Beck, Radiohead, Animal Collective, Conduits and Grasshopper Takeover.

— Artists we won’t be talking about next year: Lady Gaga, Kanye, Eminem, Ke$ha, Susan Boyle, Arcade Fire, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, M.I.A., Wavves, Best Coast, The National, Sleigh Bells, Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens and The Faint.

— And finally, all of Courtney Love’s problems will be solved once and for all.

So what will happen in the local music scene in 2011? Find out next week in the third and final chapter of the 2011 Predictions!

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Spoon’s Britt Daniel recalled his brief time with Jay Reatard, just a few weeks before Jay’s death, in this item on spinner.com. Among the comments, Daniel recalls first learning about Reatard’s music. “I remember looking at a bunch of the live videos online and feeling like … I don’t know. That’s not how I usually learn about music. I remember for some reason being really turned on by looking at these live videos. It just felt like really great pop songs with a sort of very odd Midwestern punk sensibility to it.” An interesting read that helps keep Reatard’s memory alive.

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Con Dios continues its brief three-week residency tonight at O’Leaver’s. Tonight’s special guest is Slumber Party Records artist Bear Country. And then there’s the $1 bottles of PBR (When are they ever gonna put Rolling Rock on special? Just imagine the response!). 9:30, $5. Need more reason? King Coffey has a review of last week’s Con Dios show in today’s OWH Go! (read it here).

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Lazy-i Best of 2010

Tick, tick frickin’ tick. That’s the sound of time running out on those of you who are thinking of entering this year’s drawing for a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2010 sampler. Better get to sending your e-mail to tim@lazy-i.com with your name and mailing address. Tracks include songs by Arcade Fire, Jenny and Johnny, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Belle and Sebastian, Titus Andronicus, The Mynabirds, A Weather, Zeus, The Black Keys, Pete Yorn and more. Full track listing is here. If you’re lucky enough to win, you’ll also get the new limited edition Lazy-i Sticker to stick on something. Deadline is next Tuesday, Jan. 18. Better get on it most ricky-tick.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

More interesting than yesterday’s announcement that Bright Eyes has added dates to his seemingly endless tour for The People’s Key is the list of opening bands that Conor and Co. are bringing along for the tour. Saddle Creek bands always have been generous when it came to helping their friends out by offering opening slots on national tours. In this case, it not only helps the bands, it helps the label.

Maybe more than any other instance, adding Mynabirds to this tour will have a quantum impact on growing that band’s following, even if it’s only for a week (March 10-16, Boston to Champaign, IL). Fact is, Mynabirds’ frontwoman Laura Burhenn will be along for the ride anyway as a member of Bright Eyes, so it made sense to find a way to add the rest of her band when possible. Adding Cursive to four dates (March 3-6) makes this a sort-of Saddle Creek “Supertour” (Who remembers the Bright Eyes / Faint tour all those years ago?).

So why doesn’t Bright Eyes simply fill the rest of this tour with these and other Creek bands? Certainly the bands’ fans know and love fellow Creek artists, and having them along for the tour is like surrounding yourself with family. Everybody wins.

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BTW, just like I figured, Bright Eyes has announced its first appearance at South By Southwest since 2000. The date is March 19 — the last day of SXSW — at Auditorium Shores as part of  The Ground Control Touring showcase, which also featuries The Felice Brothers, Middle Brother and Man Man.

Still no word whether Saddle Creek is hosting a showcase at SXSW this year.

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Eli Mardock can now add “ex-Beauty in the Beast” to his “ex-Eagle Seagull” name description. He e-mailed his Facebook fans Saturday saying, “I’m no longer performing as Beauty in the Beast or Eagle Seagull, but instead just as ELI MARDOCK.” In addition to having a new glamour photo, Mardock has posted a new song to his fan page, “The King of Crickets.” I dig it. Check it out.

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Tomorrow: 2011 Predictions, Pt. 2 — get ready to be astounded.

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Lazy-i Best of 2010

Your entry into this year’s drawing for a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2010 sampler isn’t going to send itself. It’s up to you  click on this e-mail link: tim@lazy-i.com and compose a small message that includes your name and mailing address. It’s pretty frickin’ easy, and it’s free. Tracks include songs by Arcade Fire, Jenny and Johnny, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Belle and Sebastian, Titus Andronicus, The Mynabirds, A Weather, Zeus, The Black Keys, Pete Yorn and more. Full track listing is here. If you’re lucky enough to win, you’ll also get the new limited edition Lazy-i Sticker to stick on something. Deadline is next Tuesday, Jan. 18. Better do it now. These things sneak up on you…

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.