The hot question of the day: Should I vote now or wait until after work? Will there be lines at the polls? Just how much of a pain in the ass is this going to be? You’d think with so many people pre-voting that the lines wouldn’t be that long. Right.

I’m waiting until after work. Maybe I should bring a change of clothes, eh…

So obsessed am I with this election that I’m considering not going to Slowdown tonight for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. I want to watch the returns as they happen. But just now I received an e-mail from Jason Kulbel at Slowdown saying that there will, in fact, be a big-screen television in the bar tuned to the election results. I wonder if it’ll be running during Malkmus’ set. Opening is Blitzen Trapper. $15. Doors are at 7, the rock show starts at 9.

Get ready to watch history being made.

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So, I stayed home on Halloween.

Thankfully all the costumes were gone by Saturday night, at least at O’Leaver’s where the walking wounded told turgid tales of their night-befores involving fake blood, make-up and booze. The mood was definitely low key.

Adam Hawkins’ new band, It’s True, opened the show right after the close of The Husker game. Hawkins sounded nice even in O’Leaver’s. He and his band played a short set (6 or 7 songs?) of laid-back indie folk rock that was pretty and, at times, lush in a Tears for Fears sort of way. Someone told me afterward that they’d make a nice prom band — sure enough, one couple slow danced during their set.

Among the world’s injustices is that Coyote Bones never gained traction locally or nationally. Gentleman on the Rocks was one of ’07s best local releases, which I was reminded of during their set. CB is the closest thing Omaha will ever get to a band as tunefully dynamic as Spoon. Matysiak was one of the city’s better songwriters. And now he’s gone, headed somewhere else to try again. I have no doubt that Coyote Bones will continue in some form, just not around here. Perhaps it was the nostalgia, but it was one of their better sets and included a handful of new songs that I’d like to hear recorded. In what is a rarity for O’Leaver’s, the band was “called back” (though they never really left) to do a two-song encore that included the best song of the evening and featured solos from each member of the band. Matysiak will be sorely missed, not only for Coyote Bones but for all the work he’s done for the local music community including his co-op label Coco Art and his Telephono project, which brought musicians together and helped spark new ideas. Ah, David, we hardly knew ye…

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Tonight at The Slowdown Sub Pop band Wolf Parade takes the stage with fellow touring act Listening Party. I like Wolf Parade (they remind me of Eagle*Seagull, or Eagle*Seagull reminds me of them) though I haven’t been following the band for the past couple of years. Expect a nice crowd. $17, 9 p.m.

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Here’s the rundown from last night at The Waiting Room:

John Klemmensen (along with his band, The Party) took the evening to exorcise his personal demons. Backed by a large-ish band that included all the usual instruments plus a two-man horn section and keyboards, Klemmensen, with his trusty acoustic guitar, divulged a set full of his private confessions, snapshots of a man lost and struggling along a crossroads that is wholly his own. The indie rock songs weren’t so much somber as downcast, with a tendency to build to a theatrical climax. Klemmensen has a voice tailor-made for soul and funk, though last night the style was similar to what he does in Landing on the Moon — arty self-referential acoustic rock. Covers included songs by Iggy and Maria done up in Klemmensen style. Good crowd response.

The contrast with Dance Me Pregnant was, well, bracing. DMP is sort of a supergroup of indie punk featuring some familiar faces from other local bands including John Vredenburg and Jeff Ankenbauer from The Shanks, Cory Broman (Art in Manila) and Chris Machmuller (Ladyfinger). The end product was cleaner than The Shanks (no surprise there) but heavier than The Dinks. All eyes were on Ankenbauer, who stood center stage, wrapped the microphone cord around his head and screamed. It’s as turbulent as you’d expect. Unfortunately, their set was cut short when Vredenburg broke a bass string. The opening bands’ bass players apparently had already left the building to grab some dinner, and of course there is no bass in 1090 Club. Without a replacement (or a replacement string) Dance Me Pregnant called it a night, a true case of coitus interruptus.

I only hung around for the first few songs by 1090 Club. A four-piece — drums, guitar, keyboards, violin — their style was sometimes pretty, sometimes slightly dissonant low-key indie rock heavy on drama. Not bad, though by the time they played, half of the 30 people on hand had left for the evening.

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There are about one million things going on this rare Friday night Halloween. I’m not a Halloween kind of guy, which means I don’t dress up in costume, which means there’s a high likelihood that I’ll be staying home tonight instead of going out to mingle with the drunken masses. As I say every year, when did Halloween become New Year’s Eve become St. Patrick’s Day? The bars have got to love it, as do the cops. It’s only a matter of time until Easter and Columbus Day also become just another reason to tie one on. (Thank you, East-da Bunny.)

So anyway, here are the highlights as I see them:

Tonight at Slowdown Jr., it’s Rig 1 a.k.a Team Rigge headlining a show featuring Little Brazil, Dim Light, and Fortnight. My pseudo survey of last night’s crowd indicates that this is where most of the music folks will be hanging out. $7, 9 p.m.

Over at The Waiting Room, The Song Remains the Same headlines a show that also features Satchel Grande and The Lizard King — a Doors tribute band. This being Halloween — when people just want to unwind/get drunk — expect a large, rowdy crowd. $7, 9 p.m.

The Barley St. has a big line-up with Thunder Power, Sleep Said the Monster, Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies, Malpais and Kid Theodore. If all these bands show up at the same time, there won’t be any room for anyone else. $4, 9 p.m.

Cover band Secret Weapon will be tearing it up over at The 49’r. $5, 9 p.m.

While The Saddle Creek Bar is featuring a night of metal with a bunch of bands I don’t know, along with a costume contest. No idea on the cover.

The good times just keep on rolling Saturday night — expect to see people eking out every last bit of “hilarity” from their costumes. There’s a rare show over at The Brothers featuring The Coffin Killers and The Dinks. Cover is $5, with all money going to help pay the bills of a young woman in need of a lung transplant. It’ll be a good time for a good cause.

Meanwhile, over at O’Leaver’s, Coyote Bones is playing with It’s True. Rumor has it this could be the last-ever Coyote Bones show. $5, 9 p.m.

Finally, on Sunday, it’s The King Khan & BBQ Show, this time at The Waiting Room with Women and Box Elders. $10, 9 p.m., while down at Slowdown Jr. it’s Margo & the Nuclear So and So’s with Wild Sweet Orange and Skypiper. $8, 9 p.m.

Happy Hallow…

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Tonight at The Waiting Room it’s Billings Montana indie band 1090 Club with Bay Area singer/songwriter Michael Zapruder (Sidecho Records), and locals John Klemmensen & The Party and Dance Me Pregnant. You might remember Klemmensen from Landing on the Moon and Satchel Grande. His new project involves material he’s been writing for awhile backed by an all-star band that includes Mike Deages, Ben Zinn, James Cuaato, Jason Ferguson, Matt Hall, Meg Morgan, Eric Harris and more. $7, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Iowa City’s Samuel Locke-Ward (Miracles of God) and Las Vegas act The Bassturd are playing at The Attic, 3231 Harney St. (Note, this show is listed on Locke-Ward’s and Bassturd’s Myspace pages but isn’t listed on the Attic page, so buyer beware.

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The Rig 1 recording just seemed to come out of nowhere about a week ago, as did the Rig 1 CD release show slated for this Friday night (Halloween) at Slowdown. Ian McElroy is living in New York these days, specifically Bushwick, Brooklyn, where he says he’s making a living as a prop assistant for fashion shoots. It’s a hustle, but he says it pays the bills. As mentioned below, he’ll be following in the footsteps of Mars Black, another Team Love MC, who went on the road opening for a Conor Oberst project. Will that valuable opening slot translate to new fans and CD sales? Time will tell. But one thing’s for certain, McElroy has his work cut out for him. I’m assuming Conor will be playing on stages as big or bigger than the one he performed on at The Anchor Inn last month. That’s a lot of space to fill for one guy with a microphone (backed by two musicians). The only way Rig 1 is going to work on such a large stage is if McElroy can get the crowd “into” his set and his music — a challenge for even the most seasoned MCs.

Column 196: Rig 1 Rising
The return of Team Rigge.

These days, Ian McElroy’s hip-hop crew goes by the name Rig 1. It used to be called Team Rigge, the secret endeavor of Omaha’s indie rock elite, a project that remained secret to everyone but the few in on the joke.

It all began almost 10 years ago with McElroy and a handful of Creighton Prep juniors that included his cousin Conor Oberst. “We used to clean the Rigge Science Center,” McElroy told me from somewhere in Brooklyn. “We were really bad workers. Our first raps were about cleaning the halls.”

Rigge became a sort of side project, whose first recording was heard as a pretrack on Criteria’s 2003 debut. The only way to find it was by dropping the CD in the player and hitting the “rewind” button to discover — voila! — something preceded the first track. At the time, Oberst lived next door to Criteria’s Stephen Pedersen in a small house just north of Dundee. The two shared recording equipment along with a copy of Pro Tools. “That (recording) was me and Conor, and the girl was Jenny Lewis,” McElroy said. “Conor was the last verse; the first two are me.”

Oberst and McElroy had already emerged in an above-ground rock project called Desaparecidos. But quietly and in spare time, Rigge lived on with a crew that included everyone from fellow Desa member Denver Dalley, Little Brazil’s Dan Maxwell, Son Ambulance’s Joe Knapp and The Faint’s Clark Baechle.

It was with Baechle that Team Rigge appeared on stage for a one-off gig opening for Broken Spindles Oct. 24, 2003, at Sokol Underground. The two-man crew’s rapping over prerecorded tracks was stiff, suburban and downright goofy, with McElroy telling the crowd, “You can bob your heads to the beat if you want to.” A few did.

McElroy and Baechle ended up doing some recording, which showed up as mp3 files on the just-launched Team Love website in 2004. And then Rigge disappeared. Baechle became too busy with The Faint, and the duo parted ways.

McElroy said his life also got too crowded for Team Rigge. “I would still mess around with songs and stuff on my own in the basement,” he said. “And then I just kind of started realizing, ‘If you’re going to do this, do it now.'”

So a couple years ago, McElroy found new collaborators including Mike Bloom, a.k.a. Caveman, who played in The Elected and Rilo Kiley; a guy called Nez Beat, and finally, Andy Lemaster, the Athens, Georgia, wunderkind whose projects include Now It’s Overhead.

“I’ve known Andy for over 10 years,” McElroy said. “He would be in town and I got to hang out with him. I trusted his ear and he told me he wanted to do a hip-hop project.”

Though A.J. and Mike Mogis worked on the recording, it was Lemaster who put his signature production on Tree Line West of the Periodic, the 10-track debut released Oct. 7 on Team Love Records — credited not to Team Rigge, but to Rig 1.

With its dense production, the CD sounds atmospheric, layered in cinematic drama. McElroy’s flow is urgent and nearly rhythmless, like someone being chased by the cops trying to leave a desperate message on an answering machine before the noose drops over his head. There is rhyme, there is alliteration, there is emphasis on certain words that hit atop the beat. But unlike, say, Beastie Boys or Eminem, McElroy’s style doesn’t swing as much as spit. Birmingham MC The Streets comes to mind in comparison, a guy known for his stilted, sometimes-funny rhymes laced in British brogue. But while The Streets’ lyrics deal with everyday class struggles in bonny ol’ England, McElroy’s messages are more cryptic, even quasi-spiritual.

Take “Dirty Little Sica” with its free-verse opening lines, “The filthy glittering doubling of helixes / The crossbred orbits marriage among flesh fluids,” and then add the chorus, “You slimy, grimy, dirty little sica / You scum-ridden, soiled, no-good piece-a / Should have had a shower seven times over / Unzip the epidermis, I’m out of my body…” The last line floats away in a ghostly echo.

Sica? I hit Wikipedia first. Maybe it was Latin for “whore” or “thief;” maybe it was a street term. The answer was not so sinister. “I had this car, this Corsica, it became the ‘sica,” McElroy said. “It was a totally terrible car.” The “out of my body” line has to do with getting into a zone. “It can be like writing or partying or hitting on a girl or having a really intense conversation with one of your bro’s.”

As for the rest of the translation, you’re on your own. America will get a chance to decipher Rig 1 when it opens a 17-date tour for Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band starting Nov. 5 in Boston. The locals point enviously to McElroy’s Oberst connection as the reason behind any success. McElroy responds this way: “That kid has been my best friend forever. He’s a huge influence, regardless of the music thing. He didn’t financially help me with the record at all. I asked him to put it out on his label, but it’s been my thing. He didn’t write my rhymes for me. It stands alone.”

The bottom line: Oberst won’t be on stage with him when he performs on tour or this Friday at The Slowdown. But McElroy won’t be by himself. He’ll be joined by Dustin Bushon a.k.a. Trust (and locally a.k.a. Fathr^) on guitar and backing vocals, and Retisonic’s Jimmy Kimball a.k.a. Jimmy Utah on bass. Unlike that ancient Sokol gig, McElroy knows just standing there and rapping won’t cut it.

“I’m not nervous about it,” he said. “I just want the crowd to get into it and have a good vibe on stage. That’s the goal.”

Tonight at The Slowdown Jr. it’s Canadian indie folk combo The Acorn. The band just returned from a UK tour with Akron/Family and are on the first leg of a cross-country US jaunt before they join up with Calexico (who are coming to Slowdown Nov. 23. No idea if The Acorn will still be with them). With Ohbijou & Shaky Hands. $8, 9 p.m.

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Yet another CD review from intern Brendan Greene-Walsh. OK, Brendan, time to send some more…

Land of Talk, Some Are Lakes (Saddle Creek) — Land of Talk is a three-piece outfit from Montreal and a recent addition to the Saddle Creek roster. Fronted by singer and guitarist Elizabeth Powell, the trio takes a quirky approach to their music, with the song writing and structures combining into an amalgamation of genres that results in a cohesive final product. Drawing primarily from up-tempo folk and rock, the band uses dance beats and jazz chords to fill out their sound. The driving force is the rhythm section, with Powell’s sparse, jangling guitar added at the right moments. It’s her voice, however, that makes the album work. I was reminded of Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino — the two share a light, unforced style. At times she sounds willing to relinquish tonal control only to rein it back before the notes turn sour. My only complaint is the odd stops and starts on the first two tracks disrupt the flow and make it difficult to dig into this interesting album. Rating: Yes.– Brendan Greene-Walsh

Tim Sez: Its shimmery, mid-tempo indie rock feels influenced by ’70s-era Fleetwood Mac thanks to a well-grounded rhythm section. That said, frontwoman Elizabeth Powell sounds more like Carol van Dyk (Bettie Serveert) than Stevie or Christine. It’s pleasant-going until “Give Me Back My Heart Attack” breaks through the monotony, only to slide back into mid-tempo gear with “It’s Okay,” a song whose bass-drum combo would sound good at your next prom. There is a middle-of-the-road quality to a lot of this, which could cause it to get lost in an ever-growing, ever-homogenized sea of indie music. Rating: Yes.

Tomorrow: An interview with Rig 1’s Ian McElroy…

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My take on The Dinks is that they’re a very different band than The Shanks, a more focused, more musical (and much tighter) band that still has the same punk energy but without the violent dross. That’s a fancy way of saying that The Shanks were a Molotov cocktail that could explode with a spray of violence at any moment during their shows, and half the fun was waiting for the meltdown. While 3/4’s of the Shanks are in the Dinks, there appears to be no threat of flying bottles/knocked-out teeth as the band is too busy trying to make music. That, of course, is a good thing. though we’ll all miss the Shanks’ nights of chaos (except those innocent bystanders who got caught in the blood spray). So I guess The Dinks are a real band, which puts them in a whole different category. It’s no longer about “performance;” it’s about songwriting and what level of creativity they can bring to a genre that was mined bone dry 20 years ago. What can The Dinks bring to the table that we haven’t already tasted before? That’s the challenge. I dug what I heard Friday night at O’Leaver’s (and so, apparently, did the 50 or so on hand), but I’m waiting to see where it goes next.

The Dinks were followed by Guitar Hero II band The Last Vegas (Guitar Hero is becoming this generation’s MTV as a vehicle for unknown bands to get their music heard by a new — and huge — audience), I don’t know what was more hilarious, the Last Vegas’ ’80s hair-band histrionics or the level of disgust heard from some of the folks who were there to see The Dinks. For me, it was like stepping into a time machine that took me back to Fat Jacks circa 1986. This band would have fit right in on their red-carpeted stage — pure G ‘n’ R / LA Guns / Aerosmith hair rock, and done quite well (this from someone who saw more than his share of it after years of Tuesday night buck pitchers). If you like that sort of thing, you would have loved these guys — they had the riffs and the moves, even the right clothing. Of course there was nothing original about any of it, nor (I assume) was there intended to be. In fact, The Last Vegas would probably do just as well if they just played Ratt covers.

Saturday night was the Whipkey Three CD release show at Slowdown Jr. I saw a movie before the set (W), which caused me to miss the opener, It’s True, Adam Hawkins’ band (which is generating quite a buzz from a handful of local musicians). Whipkey and Co. played a spot-on set that included as much new material as stuff from the new CD to a crowd that appeared to number just over 100.

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Here’s another Brendan-Greene Walsh CD review. You’ll just have to take his word for it, as I haven’t heard it:

IfIHadAHiFi, Fame By Proxy (Latest Flame) — The fourth full-length from this Milwaukee group and their first release on Latest Flame, the 11-song album is comprised of an all-out barrage of noise, synth and guitar riffs. To say that the songs are jumbled doesn’t do justice — spastic is more accurate. Dissonant melodies are connected to jangling guitars and space-age sound effects to create an awkward sense of a song. Frequent and unwarranted changes in tempo and time signature only add to the overall confusion and lack of continuity. While at some points the band reminded me of the raging sounds created by Shellac, more often than not they sounded like a musical train wreck. Through the mess, only one song stood out above the rest and stayed with me for more than a few minutes, the 10th track, suitably titled “Success! Success! Success!” While I am not willing to offer conclusions about the title having anything to do with the music, the chorus is the closest the group came to a unified and cohesive sound. The vocal melody is coupled with concise song writing and a strong rhythm section to create what could actually be considered a decent song. Rating: No. — Brendan Greene-Walsh

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First, Amy Ray last night on Slowdown’s big stage. They had the balcony closed; and you know why. Fewer than 100 were in the “alternative” crowd to see one-half of the Indigo Girls. I’ve got a couple of IG albums from back in the day, an era when there were a lot of new female singer-songwriters taking over the scene — Tracy Chapman, Edie Brickell, 10,000 Maniacs, Suzanne Vega, The Sundays, Sinead O’Connor, Blake Babies, Throwing Muses, Cowboy Junkies, Mazzy Star, and so on. Where’d they all go? It was IG’s folky numbers that I liked, not so much the Melissa Etheridge blues rock stuff. Ray hasn’t gone in that direction; her new stuff sounds more like hard rock, not really bluesy at all. I just wanted to hear her play an acoustic and leave the electric in the rack. And it was during the very few acoustic moments that her set shined brightest.

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The Reader‘s monthly CD reviews are in the current issue. Here’s my contribution:

Brimstone Howl, We Came in Peace (Alive) — Brimstone Howl is part of the Midwest’s garage rock retro revival that bows down to the ’60s and ’70s by way of Detroit and NYC. And as with any genre exercise, too much of a good thing can get pretty dull. Someone should have told that to The Howl when they decided to squeeze 15 tracks onto this disc, especially when so many have an inescapable similitude, which, combined with the flat production (from White Stripes producer Jim Diamond) and tiresome, over-reverbed vocals, makes this a challenge to sit through from beginning to end. Back-to-back, previous album Guts of Steel had a bigger swagger and a wider stance. And the vocals on Guts merely sounded cheap and dirty vs. this endless echo chamber from yesteryear. Still, taken in small doses (like their superior 7-inch singles) Brimstone Howl provides big rewards. Rating: Yes. (Reader rating: 3 stars).

The weekend is upon us. Here’s what I have on my radar screen.

Tonight

— Sokol Underground has a good punk show with The Yuppies, Columbia Vs. Challenger and UUVVWWZ. Starts at 10. No idea on the cover.

— Meanwhile, The Dinks (three ex members of The Shanks) have a show at O’Leaver’s with The Last Vegas and Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship. $5, 9 p.m.

— Up the street at The Waiting Room, Shiver Shiver opens a show with It’s True, The Great Atomic Power and headliner The Pendrakes. $7, 9 p.m.

— Finally, down at The Barley St, the Big Al Band uncorks some It’s War You Die on your ass. No idea on the cover, but the openers start at 9.

Saturday night

— Down at Slowdown Jr. it’s The Whipkey Three CD release show with It’s True. $5, 9 p.m.

— The Barley St. has a five-band bill featuring A Tomato A Day and Thunder Power. $4, 9 p.m.

— And The Waiting Room is having a “zombie ball” in conjunction with Benson’s Zombie Walk. Bands include Social Distortion tribute act Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell and Fremont/Lincoln punk band Officially Terminated. $7, 7 p.m.

Sunday

— On the Lord’s day of rest, Fromanhole tries to burn down O’Leaver’s with touring band Prize Country. $5, 9:30.

Now is it ever going to quit raining?

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This column is a companion to yesterday’s Whipkey Three feature (which, if you haven’t read yet, you should right now. Go!). We rarely consider the role pets play in the creative process (or in our lives). Now it’s Sage’s turn…

Column 195: Remembering Coco
What’s more inspiring than a dog?

There’s a dedication in the liner notes of the new Whipkey Three CD. Among the thank yous to family and friends is this message:

“For Coco, who heard these before anyone.”

Coco wasn’t a brother or sister, but she was still a member of Matt Whipkey’s and Sarah Benck’s family. Coco was a Boston Terrier. “She was my dog,” Sarah said.

Their relationship began two-and-a-half years ago. Sarah had been living alone in an apartment and needed a friend to keep her company. “After my family’s dog died, I felt like I wanted a pet in my life, a dog in my life, a companion,” she said. “I tried to rationalize all the reasons not to get a dog, that I wouldn’t have enough time for her, but in the end, it worked out.”

Sarah found Coco through the Midamerica Boston Terrier Rescue, an organization that helps find homes for the breed after they’ve been liberated from puppy-mill hellholes. Coco was one such survivor, a breeding dog that outlived her usefulness to the human filth who run such operations. After seven years spent in a cage (no one really knows for sure how old she was), Coco needed a new home.

“I remember seeing her and feeling like ‘Wow, that’s my dog,'” Sarah said. “Her hair was the same color as mine. She was just my dog.”

And just like that, Coco found herself embedded into the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, taking on a new role as Sarah’s faithful companion and creative muse. She was a tiny patchwork of auburn and white, with the classic squished-up Boston Terrier face that looked like Ernest Borgnine in Marty, offset with batlike ears and wide, staring eyes. Wherever Sarah went, there was Coco, surveying the landscape from an ankle-high vantage point.

It didn’t take long until she worked her way into Sarah’s music. No, that baby girl that Sarah sang about on the title track of her last album, Neighbor’s Garden, wasn’t her daughter. It was Coco.

“I started writing that song one day sitting in my apartment, just me and her,” Sarah said. “I didn’t know what to write about, and looked over at her and started writing. It’s a song about knowing that I wasn’t going to have a lot of time with her. seeing how old she was. It’s about what I wish her life would be like ideally, or what her life will be like in heaven.”

The song’s chorus: “I wish you could run through the tall grass / Swim with ease / Stand the tallest / And I’ll do what I can to make you happy.“

As soon as Matt Whipkey began dating Sarah, Coco became his muse as well, or at least an impartial sounding board. “She was sitting right next to me when I was writing the songs on the new album,” Matt said. “She would listen. She played a part in the writing process, as much as a pet can.”

Coco would accompany Sarah when Matt played acoustic shows at Soaring Wings Vineyard in Springfield. And when Sarah would join him on stage for a song, Coco would sit between her legs “like a member of the band,” Matt said.

Eventually, Coco even followed Sarah and the band downstairs into the basement for practices. Matt said he was concerned that the noise was too loud for a dog. “Most dogs would run out of a room with the sound of a snare, but not Coco,” Matt said. “Sarah thought she liked the music.” But the fact was, by the beginning of this year, Coco already was stone deaf, no longer even able to hear the tinkling sound of the treat-jar lid. Toward the end, Coco would stand next to Sarah’s bass cabinet while she played.

The seizures started coming in May; their frequency and severity increased daily. Finally, on Memorial Day, Coco found herself in a pet ER. The vet diagnosed a brain tumor. The next afternoon Coco went to sleep for good.

“She was always around,” Sarah remembers. “Matt put her in the liner notes because she was the first one to hear his songs. She wasn’t the kind of dog that would come and sit on your lap, but she was always right there by you, following you from room to room. When she wasn’t there anymore, the house just seemed empty. It was kind of scary to come home without hearing the little sounds she makes.”

Less than two months later, on the Fourth of July, Matt and Sarah adopted Sage, another Boston Terrier rescued from a puppy mill. At only four years old, Sage already is helping Matt test new material. “She sat right there the other day while I played, and tilted her head a little when the harmonica came in,” Matt said.

Will Sage become The Whipkey Three’s new mascot? “If she wants to be,” Matt said. “She’s scared of (drummer) Zip (Zimmerman). She runs away from the sight of him.”

Matt said she’s still adjusting to her new life. Sage knows that she’s got some big paws to fill.

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Here’s another review from intern Brendan Greene-Walsh:

Her Space Holiday, Sleepy Tigers (Mush Records) — Marc Bianchi is the mastermind behind Her Space Holiday, a band that traditionally has been tethered by a short leash to the world of computer composition. Bianchi decided to cut the cord that bound him and attempt to get back to some of the more simple things in music; guitars, banjos, live percussion and even glockenspiel. Sleepy Tigers is a four-song EP that doubles as the lead up single to HSH’s next full length. The music is a vast departure from Bianchi’s previous efforts. In place of synth-heavy dance songs, Bianchi took to the guitar to write light-hearted pop folk tunes. The EP is bouncy and jovial by nature, setting your foot a-tapping and bringing a smile to your face. It’s pretty difficult for a band to go in a new creative direction and do it well, but Bianchi shows no sign of struggle here. Rating: Yes — Brendan Greene-Walsh

Tim Sez: Listen as former electro-tech-mechanic Bianchi trades synth-beats for hand claps, tambourine, whistles and acoustic guitars — as if someone locked him in a room with Tilly and the Wall or Lightspeed Champion or Michel Gondry. It’s cute. Almost too cute. Which makes for an ironic counterbalance for lyrics draped in everyday loneliness. As an EP, it works, but anything beyond four songs (in this style) could get mighty tedious. Rating: Yes.

Tonight at Slowdown it’s Indigo Girl Amy Ray, out on the road with her band supporting her new album Didn’t It Feel Kinder on Daemon Records. Ray takes the tunage into a heavier direction than on her albums with Emily Saliers (the other Indigo Girl), at times pushing it into Melissa Etheridge territory. The best track is an upbeat acoustic number titled “Cold Shoulder” that could be a hit if radio had the cajones to play a song about a gay woman hoping to seduce a straight woman, where Ray sings about hanging with “the deviants and the tranny nation.” Opening is Arizona, a band that actually hails from Asheville North Carolina and plays rootsy indie psychedelic rock. $15, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, LA-based indie band The Little Ones (who sound like a lite version of Tokyo Police Club) plays at The Waiting Room with Sleep Said the Monster. $8, 9 p.m.

–Got comments? Post ’em here.—