First a bit of news: I found out while watching The Grammy’s last night that Zach Nipper won for Best Recording Packaging for his work on Bright Eyes’ Cassadaga album. Right before one of the commercial breaks the network tossed the information on the bottom of the screen, along with a picture of Nipper — decked out in a tux — accepting the award at a ceremony held earlier in the day. If you’re wondering what Nipper looks like, he’s the handsome stud on the cover of Cursive’s Domestica album. The Grammy is the first for a Saddle Creek Records project, but hopefully not the last. It’s just a matter of time before the academy’s voters recognize Oberst for his songwriting chops. Niz has coverage in the OWH here. Says Nipper in the article: “It definitely makes me feel like a rock star.” Indeed.

Now to Daniel Johnston Saturday night at The Slowdown. The show wasn’t sold out when I got there, but it had to be darn close judging by the massive crowd in the venue. I arrived after 10:30, just in time to see Flowers Forever. The band has one of the best drummers in town in Craig D., as well as the genius that is Chris Senseney on guitar. Then there’s frontman/scenester diva Dereck Pressnall, who is single-handedly trying to reincarnate the soul of Elvis Presley within his Vincent Gallo-esque frame. There’s something almost subversive about Pressnall’s flamboyant, gyrating performance style, something that runs obscenely counter to the stand-and-play tradition of indie rock. Pressnall lets it all hang out, much to the dismay of the people around me who took his panache as rock star posing. Whether you’re revolted or not, you have to admit the performance is interesting, unlike the music. I’m working on a review of the Flowers Forever debut that’ll likely be online this Wednesday or Thursday as part of a package of reviews that make up this week’s column. Pressnall’s live performance embodies that CD, adding a little more life to the music than what’s heard on the disc. It all comes down to whether or not you buy Pressnall’s “Change better come / We’re not fucking around no more” millennial outreach — an approach whose sincerity works when it comes from Tilly. When it comes from Flowers Forever, it sounds less like a rallying cry than a threat from someone that no one could possibly take seriously.

Flowers Forever was an odd choice for this bill. Their music is almost diametrically incongruous with Daniel Johnston’s. I assume Pressnall is a big fan (or else he and Creek just wanted to glom onto what they knew would be a big crowd). There was no rock star posing from Johnston, who came out and spent the first five minutes of the set struggling with sound equipment. First his microphone didn’t work. When they figured that out, his guitar quit working. If you came wondering if Johnston would implode on stage (as a few of the people I spoke to outside admitted), here was the perfect opportunity. Instead, Johnston just looked lost, standing alone behind the microphone, waiting for someone to figure out what was wrong. I suppose this is what happens when you don’t do a sound check, which Johnston skipped earlier in the day. The original plan was that Johnston and The Rayguns were to play 30 seconds of each song during soundcheck just to make sure that everyone was on the same page. It didn’t happen, and there was some concerns that the evening’s performance was going to be a train wreck. It was anything but.

Johnston started by playing a few new songs solo with his guitar. He apologized for fumbling some of the chords, then another guitarist took the stage and accompanied him on a couple classics including “Love in Vain” and a Beatles cover (“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”). Johnston left the stage for a few moments, only to reemerge with The Rayguns in tow, changing the entire tone of the performance to something more professional and classic. Having seen on YouTube a few of the other instances where Johnston performed with local acts, he probably wasn’t used to playing with a band of this caliber. The Rayguns were amazing, playing songs like “Fish” and “Rock This Town” and “True Love Will Find You in the End.” The problem was Johnston, whose voice began to break about 10 minutes into the set. By the midway point, he was struggling to sing. He acknowledged that he was losing his voice, but soldiered on heroically. After about five tunes with the band, Johnston said goodnight. The crowd chanted “Daniel” trying to get him out for an encore, but it didn’t happen. Instead Mike Friedman and the band came back out and explained that Johnston’s voice was gone. Friedman told the crowd that Daniel would love it if they sang him “Devil Town.” “He’s right back there, he can hear you,” Friedman said, leading the crowd in the a cappella tribute. It was a sweet moment.

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There’s not a lot to say about the Conor/Obama show yesterday at the Civic. Bright Eyes consisted of Oberst and trumpet player Nate Walcott, joined by M. Ward and Jim James on guitars. It dawned on me while listening to Oberst croon through “Land Locked Blues” — one of three songs performed for the 9,000-plus crowd — that Bright Eyes’ music isn’t exactly inspirational in a “Let’s go get ’em!” sort of way. In fact, it’s somewhat downcast and slightly depressing. Hardly the “Celebrate good times COME ON!” revelry that one expects at a campaign rally. Oberst made up for it with his own brief comments, the first of the evening where anyone declared Obama “the next president of the United States.” We’d hear the same thing again from Ben Nelson, Mike Fahey and the governor of Iowa. Anyway, after their three songs, Oberst and Co. strolled off stage, and it would be another two hours before Obama would finally arrive with his usual, inspiring stump speech, much more of a rock star than Oberst and Co. will ever be. Niz made it to the Slowdown Obama rally; you can read her brief comments on the OWH site here. The caucus is tomorrow morning, where you’ll all get to see where your neighbors stand, except in my case because most of my neighbors are probably republicans.

I think there’s a law against voting drunk, so you may want to hold back at the shows tonight. It could be difficult, as Satchel Grande is headlining a show at The Waiting Room with Polydypsia and Dessa Vibes. $7, 9 p.m. Down at Slowdown Jr., Thunder Power!!! returns with Darren Keen (a.k.a. The Show Is the Rainbow) and Somewhere Soon. $7, 9 p.m. While at Mick’s, Scott Severin and his band opens for Jumpin’ Kate. $5, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night, of course, is Daniel Johnston and The Rayguns at Slowdown. Opening is Flowers Forever and Jake Bellows. $18, 9 p.m., tickets are still available at theslowdown.com. While over at The Waiting Room, those old stoners from Clever are playing, along with pop-punk bands Old Boy Network and Straight Outta Junior High. $7, 9 p.m.

Don’t forget to caucus tomorrow!!!

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Well I did get to see Yeasayer/MGMT last night at Slowdown after all. About an hour after I posted yesterday’s blog where I whined about the show selling out, I got an e-mail from Yeasayer’s publicist offering me a slot on the list (Yes, people really do read Lazy-i). Despite being sold out, they easily could have squeezed an additional 50 people into the bar. The limited numbers obviously have something to do with bullshit fire codes. Evidence of the slim crowd size: I’ve never gotten a beer faster at Slowdown than I did last night.

MGMT went on first. My caveat for this review — I knew next to nothing about either band on the bill, only that Yeasayer has an album near the top of the CMJ radio charts, right under Radiohead. That means they must be good, right? Well, of the two bands, I liked MGMT more, but probably because they were going for a ’70s-era prog/arena-rock sound. You could draw parallels to a lot of FM greats, from Queen to Frampton to Styx, but modernized with a touch of Flaming Lips and Arcade Fire. It’s no surprise that they’re on a major label — Sony/Columbia (which probably helped them get that gig on Letterman last month). A Sony rep actually was in the bar last night schmoozing. He told me to watch out for a song later in the set that will “have the girls dancing up front.”

Sure enough, two or three songs before the end, MGMT launched into a funky, grinding dance number that sounded like a cross between David Bowie and Parliament Funkadelic. Mr. Sony was right, they were grooving up by the stage, and rightfully so. The tune had a heavy, head-bobbing bass line that any college marching band brass section would be proud to blast at next year’s bowl game. The Sony guy confirmed that it was indeed the song for which he spoke. “That’s their big hit, or the song that should be a huge hit.” Believe me, it would be if the recording sounded like it did at Slowdown. I found the track, called “Electric Feel,” this morning on their website. That bass line was there, but its thundering storm-cloud weight had been lightened to one guy limply fingering a bass string. ’tis a shame.

Yeasayer came on at around 11 to throbbing tribal drums (some of which were sampled), Middle Eastern-sounding guitar (where’s the sitar?) and lush three-part harmonies. It was like listening to the second coming of Poco by way of Punjabi. Cool, stylized stuff, though it lacked any sort of central melody (or at least any that I remembered on my drive home). The frontman, who fiddled with a table full of effects gear/pedals, was a real crooner, and while the crowd wasn’t dancing, they were certainly bobbing their heads.

* * *

Of course today and tonight is all about Barack Obama — his rally down at the Civic with Bright Eyes (doors at 3:30, Barack at 4:30) — followed by the Obama rally at Slowdown with Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jim Ward and Secret Life of Sparrows. There already was around 50 people standing outside the Civic as I drove home for lunch. I’ll be one of them later this afternoon; I won’t, however, be at Slowdown tonight because I couldn’t score a ticket.

If politics ain’t your thing, Omaha’s most genuinely disturbed punk band, The Shanks, are opening for The Filthy Few along with Bloodcow at The Waiting Room tonight at 9. $7 will get you an evening of mayhem.

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By now you’ve heard about the Barack Obama rally featuring Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jim Ward of Sparta and Secret Life of Sparrows this Thursday at Slowdown starting at 7 p.m.

What I don’t understand is the ticketing situation. According to an e-mail I received from Saddle Creek Record’s Robb Nansel, to acquire two tickets to the rally you must be 18+ and “must either register to vote or sign a pledge card stating ‘I pledge to caucus for Barack.'”

Now, that isn’t an issue for me, as I threw money at Obama’s campaign weeks ago. I’d love to see as many people caucus for him as possible. But forcing those already registered to vote to sign a pledge card to get in seems like bad politics.

Isn’t the whole idea behind a rally to get people to support the candidate regardless of their affiliation? Why force someone to sign a “pledge card” who may not support Obama prior to the rally? How many of the signees will have lied to get into the event? Is the goal to keep the honest Republicans, Undecideds and Hillary supporters out? It seems out of character for a candidate whose central message has been about inclusion in the political process — and that includes for clueless Republicans as well. Does Obama want people to vote for him in exchange for a Bright Eyes concert? No, no he doesn’t.

Yeah, I know, I’m just reading too much into an event that has obvious limited capacity. Nansel’s memo also said even if you have a ticket you may not get in. The sign-up for tickets begins today at 4:30 at Slowdown. Strangely, an article in today’s OWH states the club’s capacity is a mere 640 — quite a few less than the 715 we’d been told in the past. One assumes that they didn’t sell many tickets to the Jim Ward show that was already scheduled for that night, as they’re refunding any previously purchased tickets and guaranteeing admission to the Obama event. So, if they sold 200 tickets to Jim Ward (presumably to 200 possible Republicans *yikes!*), that leaves only 440 remaining rally spots. Better get in line now…

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If the turnout for last night’s first “public forum” for KIND 99.1 FM is any indication, the station shouldn’t have any problem attracting volunteers. By 7 p.m., every table in PS Collective was filled — more than 40 people were there to hear what the station was all about. The presentation began with the playing of another Dave Webber-voiced station promo over a logo-emblazened Powerpoint presentation while volunteers handed out agendas that listed the station’s “Goals and Intentions.” I’m not going into details, it’s pretty much what you expected — a home-grown radio station with a range of 10 blocks (you can read the background here).

The station’s entire team of program coordinators already has been selected. The program director is longtime radio veteran Mary O’Keefe, “CD Releases” music programmer is The Reader‘s Jesse Stanek. There’s also a slew of specialty personnel covering everything from “Comedy” (Matt Geiler) to “Independent Film” (Lauren Van Buskirk).

The station even has its own website up and running at kindfm.com (not sure why they didn’t get a .org site since they’re non-commercial, but oh well). Podcast/streaming is definitely in the works.

The hour-long meeting was mostly background stuff, except for one interesting tidbit: Station organizers intend to set up “repeater” transmitters in attics all over town, each broadcasting at a power level well within the limits of the FCC, essentially creating a pseudo 100 milliwatt citywide network. The engineer on hand said such tiny transmitters are cheap, easy to set up, and take almost no noticeable power to operate. Judging by the interest in the audience, plenty of people are willing to wire up transmitters as soon as the station begins operating.

Station organizer Shawn Halpenny appeared to be blown away by the turnout for the first meeting. And I have no doubt that the station will eventually be broadcasting, for as he said, his “reputation is on the line.” Halpenny explained that they were accepting any and all programming contributions as long as the content was legal. This brought up the question of the legality of airing BMI/ASCAP music. When asked by Coyote Bones frontman David Matysiak if they would play BMI/ASCAP material, O’Keefe quickly said “No,” but Nils Erickson, who runs Rainbow Recording Studio and who donated some equipment for the station, said they could air BMI/ASCAP music as long as artists signed a written waiver, which will be available from kindfm.com. No ASCAP/BMI content would be a real deal-breaker for the station. Even the smallest bands with or without a label have some sort of BMI/ASCAP agreement. Frankly, without the ability to broadcast ASCAP/BMI-represented performers, KIND would only be able to play amateur-level artists.

So when’s it going live? No one knew for sure, though it likely will be in the next few months. Volunteers were asked to fill out an “Interest Intake” form detailing what they wanted to do. Now it’s up to organizer Amy Ryan to sort through them all and begin assigning tasks… Stay tuned.

* * *

This weekend is front-loaded with shows — there’s tons going on tonight, and almost nothing tomorrow night.

Tonight at O’Leaver’s it’s The Third Men with The Diplomats of Solid Sound featuring the legendary Diplomettes — the band’s female back-up singers. I have visions of the scene from Apocalypse Now when the drunken troops stormed the stage and the Playboy Bunnies had to be helicoptered to safety. This could be interesting. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, there’s a rare live music show over at The Saddle Creek Bar tonight featuring Adam Weaver, Car Then Cars, UUVVWWZ and Crush The Clown. Show starts at 9 and is FREE.

Over at The Waiting Room it’s The Mercurys with gritty twang rockers The Filter Kings. $7, 9 p.m.

And finally, down at The Bemis Underground, it’s Black Hundreds and Columbia vs. Challenger for a free show that starts at 9.

Then it’s Saturday, and the only show of consequence is The Whipkey Three and Sarah Benck (sans The Robbers) at Mick’s. $5, 9 p.m.

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No, the future of KIND FM (read about the station here) doesn’t rest on whether or not anyone shows up tonight at 7 p.m. at PS Collective for the station’s first public forum, but it’s probably fair to say that if no one shows up for this meeting, KIND will be short-lived, if it happens at all. There’s no way a radio station that hopes to broadcast 24/7 can survive without an army of volunteers and content providers (i.e., DJs). As I’ve said before, any frustrated DJ who had dreams of one day being heard on the air should be there tonight. So should anyone who’s whined about Omaha lacking a station that plays local music. Yes, the signal will only carry 10 to 15 blocks, but KIND FM chief engineer Shawn Halpenny’s dreams are much bigger — and far-reaching — than that. He says that he’s currently building a second transmitter, one with a much larger range that “is standing in the wings waiting for the green light (FCC Approval and license).” Such a rare license, if ever made available, would cost a fortune, and who knows where the money would come from. But stranger things have happened.

* * *

I’m told that the short film “Oscillations” has been put to bed. The 20-minute headtrip (with no dialogue) includes music by a number of local musicians, chief among them being Kyle Harvey, who is credited below the title. “Oscillations” will be screened at the Omaha Film Festival as part of two nights of short film entries — Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. and Feb. 23 at 5 p.m. Screenings are held at Westwood Cinema 8 (find out more about the fest here). Director Evan Blakely also plans to screen the film at an event sometime in the future that would include live performances. Stay tuned.

* * *

Hey, I can finally read theslowdown.com on my iPhone. The venue replaced its old, all-Flash website with a standard html model — and it’s about a million times better. All-Flash websites have always been a bad idea — they’re generally over-designed, hard to read, pages can’t be bookmarked, rarely print well, can’t be copied-and-pasted from, and lack other basic usability — but are an even worse idea in the age of the iPhone, which doesn’t support Flash. So check out the new site at theslowdown.com and tell Jason Kulbel the next time you see him, “Thank you for just being you.”

* * *

Speaking of Slowdown, tonight at Slowdown Jr. it’s the punk stylings of Brooklyn band Blood on the Wall, on the road supporting their just-released LP Lifers on Social Registry Records. They sound like Slanted-era Pavement to me, which is a good thing. Opening is Honeybee and TBA (featuring CJ Olson, Derek Pressnall (Flowers Forever), and others). $7, 9 p.m.

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For those of you who have always wondered what my voice sounds like, check out the Worlds of Wayne podcast (here), featuring yours truly reading Column 155, where I talk about nearly missing my chance to hear singer/songwriter Brad Hoshaw because of my poorly held preconceived notions. It’s part of an all-Hoshaw edition of WofW (Episode 39) where you’ll also hear some of Brad’s music, which by itself is reason enough to check it out. I have to admit having not listened to this particular episode, as I have a sort-of phobia about hearing my own voice! We did the reading in one take, and I never even listened to it on playback, trusting host Wayne Brekke that everything went fine. You tell me.

This week’s colunn focuses on The Better Beatles. Look for it online tomorrow…

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