The beaches of San Juan…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Well, I’m back from San Juan. And I can report that while not all things are back to where they were before Hurricane Maria, they’re pretty close… in the resort areas. We didn’t venture inland or go beyond Old San Juan (which looks virtually untouched, though I’m told it suffered greatly). I’ll talk more about what we saw in next month’s column in The Reader.

In this month’s column I reminisce about 25 years of The Reader and why alternative publications are so important, especially in a city that’s dominated by one traditional news source. The big 25th Anniversary issue of The Reader is on newsstands throughout the city right now, but you can also read the column right here.

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Those of you who yearn for another performance of the Conor and Phoebe Show on national television should tune in tonight to The Late Late Show with James Corden. BTW, the show listing in no way mentions Better Oblivion Community Center. Did they drop the awkward moniker?

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Tom Bartolomei and Ben Eisenberger are hitting the road together and tonight is their tour launch show at Pageturners. You should go. 9 p.m. and no price listed (Pageturner shows are usually free, but if I were those guys, I’d have a tip jar out in an attempt to generate some road cash.).

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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 © 2018 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Catching up on some email…

The first video from the Friends and Family Volume 1 comp, out May 11 on Maria Taylor’s Flower Moon Records, dropped last week. It’s for a Jake Bellows track called “Tattoo,” and is actually a short film (more than 9 minutes long) directed by Martin Kenna. Very well shot, but missing from the frame is Jake Bellows himself (and we all know Jake can light up any room… or video).

Check it below:

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A new EP by Jason Steady & the Soft Ponies also dropped last week, called This Is Where I Am.  It’s described by Mr. Steady as “Songs about adventure, girls, smoking pot, waking up in the sun, and vegetarianism, but not necessarily in that order.”

The band, which includes Knife de la Garza and Aaron Lee, is heading out on a 14-city tour in May, which doesn’t include Omaha. What are you afraid of, Jason? Come on!

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And then there’s a new cassette by Ben Eisenberger called Three Islands. Ben also plays guitar in Hussies, Screaming Plastic and FiFI NoNo. The acoustic folk on this pretty 7-song LP is quite a departure from those projects.

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Q1 2018 record reviews continue. Read them all here at The Reader website.

High Up, You Are Here (2018, Team Love)

High Up, You Are Here (Team Love) — This Omaha act has been working up to a full-length debut for a couple years, and a number of these songs have been released as different recordings on their debut EP last year. Most notable is “Two Weeks,” which gets a different arrangement that brings the horns up front and feels louder and more confident. Unlike their past EP (and live performances) the band keeps the energy pumping even on the ballad-heavy numbers like the cover of Bright Eyes’ “Make a Plan to Love Me” and the gospel-organ fueled “Blue Moon” that sounds like an FM radio single. “Domino,” another stand-out, is  a punchy sequel to “Two Weeks.” When will a bigger audience discover these guys?

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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 © 2018 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.