by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

So here’s the plan:

Start out early tonight with beers at House of Loom, where the guys who run The Antiquarium Record Store will be spinning sides from 5 until 8. Very chill.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Mirror Traffic (Matador, 2011)

After that, head over to The Slowdown for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. The band’s new album, Mirror Traffic, was one of my favorites last year. In addition, a couple weeks ago I got my first release from the Matador Records “Singles Going Home Alone” 45-inch record club. The debut is SM&tJ doing a sweet cover of L.A. Guns’ “Wheels of Fire.” The flipside is a L.A. Guns’ cover of “Gorgeous Georgie” from Mirror Traffic. If you’re not in the club, you can join for $45 for a year’s subscription (six singles). Which brings up this question (again): WHEN WILL SADDLE CREEK START ITS OWN SINGLES CLUB? Get on it, folks.

Anyway… Opening tonight’s show is Nurses. The Dead Oceans artist just got off the road with Mountain Goats. You can check out their latest video on vimeo, here:  $18, 9 p.m. See you there.

After Malkmus and Co. wrap things up, get your nightcap at O’Leaver’s, where Lightning Bug is playing with Bear Stories, Lindsay Donovan and Dojorock. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also tonight, Underwater Dream Machine and Ragged Company are playing at The Barley Street Tavern with The Fucking Doneofits and Tenderness Wilderness. $5, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night’s much less hectic.

Davey & the Dicks are headlining a show at The Brothers with Dirty Talker and The Lupines. I don’t know who/what this Davey/Dicks is. Are they associated with the original Dicks hardcore punk band? That Davy didn’t have an “e” in his name. Anyway, I can tell you that The Lupines features John Ziegler (Brimstone Howl), Mike Friedman, Mike Tulis and Javid Dabestani. Here’s a review of their debut show at O’Leaver’s last November. 9 p.m., $5.

Also Saturday night, The Filter Kings return to The Sydney in Benson with School of Arms, $7, 9 p.m.

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The new full length by Digital Leather, Modern Problems, is just beginning to get the raves it deserves, like this review from Germany’s Musik Magazin Medienkonverter. I can’t read German, so I thought I’d drop the review into Yahoo’s old Babel Fish translator. Here’s what I got on the other side:

The output of Digitally Leather alias Shawn Foree is enormous – published alone 2011 a EP, a single and tape, follow now already a new album: Decaying of Problem is produced the successor of the 2009 published LP Warmly Bread ago and contrary to its predecessor still more consistently, taken up with a tape recorder in Foree’s bedroom, coly-ordinated to only few takes. 

You get the drift. Babel Fish don’t translate so well. Regardless, the review is still better than anything on Pitchfork.

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Finally, you may have noticed that the Bad Speler remix of Whitney’s “How Will I Know?” posted on Lazy-i Tuesday became “unavailable.” Darren Keen, the bad boy behind Bad Speler, said he received notification from Soundcloud telling him that the track “infringes on someone else’s copyright,” and hence, they pulled it from their site. That said, you can still download Darren’s remix at the Illegal Art website, where they’ve been posting a new Bad Speler remix on a weekly basis. Check it out (just don’t tell Whitney’s people…).

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’ve still yet to receive my first preview/review CD for 2012, but while I’m waiting, here are some new tracks that became available online to start off your new year.

Cursive, “The Sun and The Moon” — from the forthcoming album I Am Gemini, slated for release on Saddle Creek Feb. 21, if the rest of the new record sounds like this, Kasher and the boys may have another hit on their hands. Check it out here. The album is now available for pre-order here at the Saddle Creek online store, where it’ll ship Feb. 7. Buy it now and get access to a second track from the new album, “The Cat and Mouse,” instantly.

Depressed Buttons, “Dance with Me (Brianski)” — The electronic/dance/DJ triumvirate of Todd Fink, Jacob Thiele and Clark Baechle drop this new acid-themed jam designed to get your rump shaking. Also at SoundCloud.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/32262319″]

Bad Speler: Darren Keen is giving The Show Is the Rainbow the year off so he can concentrate on his other projects: Bad Speler and Touch People. Yesterday he posted the following new Bad Speler tracks at SoundCloud. Says Keen: “This is the stuff I’m going to be doing at my monthly at House of Loom.” His “monthly” is a residency at Omaha’s newest dance club every 4th Wednesday of the month, starting Jan. 26.

“Throw Ya Guns”
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/32228516″]

“Pistols, ETC.”
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/32224392″]

“My Intentions”
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/32219372″]

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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

Not a good week for shows in the Omaha area. In fact, nothing stands out until Masses and Lightning Bug on Saturday at Slowdown, and then Tim Kasher Nov. 19. Egad is this the slow season or am I just overlooking something? It can’t last forever, can it?

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It seems like only yesterday that Alessi Laurent-Marke — or just Alessi as she was known back in the day — was playing gigs at The Waiting Room and wandering around Benson with Jake Bellows. But in fact it’s been more than a couple years since I wrote this goodbye column to Alessi as she headed back over the waters to her home in England. Then out of the blue I hear about a show she’s playing in Portland, and discover she no longer is with Virgin Records, and hasn’t been since January. Alessi is now with Bella Union (Cocteau Twins’ old label, whose roster includes Beach House, Explosions in the Sky and Dirty Three), who just released her new EP Soul Proprietor. Maybe we can get her back to Omaha while she’s on tour.

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As I type this, I’m listening “Bitch Boyz Like It Rough,” a track off Bad Speler’s second mix collection now available for download at illegal-art.net. “The new mix is called Bill$ Gate and his Michael Soft Umpire PRESENT : The Babble iFad,” said Bad Speler mastermind Darren Keen. “It is a lot faster, smoother, and almost has a European breakcore influence. mos def something very different for the Midwest, for better or worse. trust me, our grandchildren are gonna love this band!” I’m sure they will, Darren. The mix collection is a pay-what-you-want endeavor, so go to the site, download, and pay what you think it’s worth — now there’s one possible future business model for the music industry. But we’ll talk more about that in this week’s column, which goes online tomorrow.

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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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.