Bleeding Rainbow at The Waiting Room, Nov. 12, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Bleeding Rainbow sounded like the reincarnation of Sonic Youth last night at The Waiting Room. The whole first half of the set was dominated with full-on drone action, with vocals playing little or no role in the melee. Even when Sarah Everton or Rob Garcia were singing, you could barely hear their incomprehensible syllabic cooing over the roar of the guitar. This is indeed a guitar band, with Greg Frantz being the center point of attention on every song, bending and almost breaking every note, making what could be run-of-the-mill rhythm-drone music much more interesting.

About halfway through the set, during a particularly drony number, Everton started fiddling with her guitar, eventually unstrapping it and then dropping it intentionally on the ground, snapping off the headstock, after which she tossed the broken ax off the stage to the floor below — real rock star stuff. I haven’t seen anyone break a guitar on stage in five years. “It’s just a Squire, it doesn’t matter,” she said between songs.

The carnage seemed to mark a breaking point in their set as well, as they band shifted into more tuneful, more melodic territory with Everton and Garcia singing pretty harmonies over the riffage. It didn’t take long for them to devolve back to drone, and by the end of the set Garcia was twisting his guitar, eventually flipping it to the ground to land smack dab on its headstock with a crack. I don’t know if he broke it or not, but it didn’t sound good.

The band seemed much more fractured than when they played at Slowdown Jr. last March. With a new album coming out in January (delayed by their label, it was supposed to come out this month) Bleeding Rainbow feels like a band in transition, still figuring out what they want to sound like. I can’t to see where they end up.

A Place to Bury Strangers at The Waiting Room, Nov. 12, 2012.

Shortly after ending their set, the fog machines began to kick in high gear for A Place to Bury Strangers. By the time the trio took the stage, The Waiting Room was smoldering in dense, choking smoke. Six projectors cut through the fog along with frontman Oliver Ackermann’s shimmering, chiming, staccato guitar, while bassist Dion Lunadon and drummer Robi Gonzalez provided a throbbing, pulsing bedrock. Lost in the darkness there was something distinctly gothic about the whole thing, even though their sound felt industrial, broken to shards by sound and light. For whatever reason, I was reminded me of Love and Rockets and (dare I say it) the most hard-edged, aggressive moments from The Clash. Ultimately cool. Standing next to the stage like sitting at the foot of an airport runway watching jets fly overhead.

APTBS’s Oliver Ackermann tries to grind off his guitar strings with a strobe light.

So what would Ackermann do to close out the show? His theatrics are legendary. Talk to a APTBS show veteran and he’ll tell you about the time Ackermann tore the strings off his guitar or smashed an amp down on his axe. For this show, Ackermann grabbed one of the hot-white strobe lights from in front of the stage and dragged it across the strings of his guitar, causing ripples of noise that fed back through the amps, eventually breaking the light and finishing off the set in the dark. Fantastic.

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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.
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by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The make-up date for the Nov. 1 Morrissey show at Rococo Theater has been announced. It’s now Feb. 6 — a Wednesday night (which means a lot of Omaha peeps will be taking the following Thursday off). See the full rescheduled tour at Morrissey’s “official” fan website. BTW, this one has been sold out for months.

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Mike Fratt of Homer’s Records dropped a heads up that 14 of the most important Beatles albums are being released on vinyl tomorrow. We’re talking back-to-the-basics individual British releases of everything from Please, Please Me to Abbey Road and everything in between, as well as a vinyl boxed set that collects all of them. Check ’em out at Homer’s tomorrow.

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Tasty booze-maker Sailor Jerry announced last week that it’s sponsoring The King Khan BBQ Show at The Slowdown Nov. 28 along with one of me and Todd Fink’s favorite bands, Digital Leather, opening. It’s free, but you have to RSVP at the Sailor Jerry website, here. 21+ only.

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Bleeding Rainbow at Slowdown Jr. March 1, 2012.

Big show tonight at The Waiting Room: A Place to Bury Strangers headlines with Bleeding Rainbow and Snake Island. If the fact that APTBS’s new album, Worship, is a ball buster isn’t enough to get you to the show, here’s what their publicist is saying about the tour: “They bring smoke, lasers, blackness, and ear-splitting volume to their live performances. But this isn’t merely showmanship, these guys make  killer music. Lead singer, guitarist, Oliver Ackermann owns a company called Death by Audio which makes custom effects pedals with names like ‘The Sound Saw’ and ‘Total Sonic Annihilation.’ They’ve sold custom pedals to U2’s The Edge, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco and Lightning Bolt, to  name a few.”

Sounds like I better bring my ear plugs.

As for Bleeding Rainbow, their set opening for Crocodiles at Slowdown Jr. last March was one of my favorites so far this year. From the review: “…Bleeding Rainbow was absolutely amazing — one of the best bands I’ve seen in a long time. The set-up was simple — two guitars, drums and bass, with Sarah Everton and one of the guitarists sharing vocals and creating flat-toned harmonies on songs that are jet-fueled by guitar riffs and loud as fuck.” Check out the Chris Aponick interview with the band. $10, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, Killer Blow (the duo of Genie Molkentine on drums and vocals and Todd VonStup on electric guitar) plays at Middle House (ex-Gunboat, ex-Hotel Frank, across the street from The Brothers Lounge) with Belleville, IL band Trauma Harness. No idea of cost or time. The house show revolution continues…

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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.

Bleeding Rainbow at Slowdown Jr., March 1, 2012.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A brief conversation from Thursday night’s Bleeding Rainbow/Crocodiles show at Slowdown Jr…

Shortly after Crocodiles finished their set I made my way back to the merch table, not to buy their stuff, but to buy some music from the opener, Bleeding Rainbow. Blond, perky frontwoman/bassist Sarah Everton was more than happy to oblige.

Me: “Which of these is your most recent album?”

Sarah: “Well, none of these are really very recent.”

Me: “Well, which one has the last four or five songs you guys just played?”

Sarah: “Well, none of them. That was all new material. We don’t really sound like that on these records.”

Me: “OK then, when are you putting out a new record?”

Sarah: “We don’t know. We don’t have a record label.”

Me (What I wanted to say): Well then why are you on bloody tour with Crocodiles?

Sarah ended up pointing me to a 7-inch called “Color the Sky” that came out last April, which she said was the most current recording available and the closest to sounding like the band currently sounds, and which I quickly snatched up. Strangely, it’s a one-sided 45 — the flip side is literally groove less (how much more could it have cost to press a B-side?).

Turns out Bleeding Rainbow used to be called Reading Rainbow, and among the wares that Sarah had on her table were a couple 12-inch albums, including one that was released on the amazing HoZac label, who they apparently are no longer aligned with (though they’re playing a HoZac showcase at SXSW in March).

I bring you this long diatribe (and two days after the fact) because Bleeding Rainbow was absolutely amazing — one of the best bands I’ve seen in a long time. The set-up is simple — two guitars, drums and bass, with Sarah and one of the guitarists sharing vocals and creating flat-toned harmonies on songs that are jet-fueled by guitar riffs and loud as fuck. Their songs were fast and hard and often ended with those two guitars fighting each other in a symphony of blinding power. There was nothing terribly innovative about what they were doing. In fact, their sound heralds back to ’90s’ post punk. They (strangely) get compared to Dum Dum Girls and Wavves, who they don’t resemble (though their music is much better). They’ve also been throttled with a “low-fi” label, though there’s nothing low-fi about the sound.

I wasn’t alone in my adoration. One rather well-known local musician gushed even more than I just did, completely blown away. And yet, as good as their music was, we’re not going to hear it played on our stereos anytime soon if what Everton said is the case — no label, no plans to record. Maybe that’s where this tour comes in. Maybe some label flunky will come to one of their shows on this tour and will hear what I heard and offer to help them get their music recorded. Or, the way things are going with labels these days, maybe not…

Crocodiles were good, too, in a sort of The Cure-meet-Brian Jonestown Massacre sort of way. Not bad, but not memorable, and they paled in comparison to the opener. As that local musician/fellow gusher said after Bleeding Rainbow ended their set, “How would you like to follow THAT.” No kidding.

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If you’re reading this Saturday night, you’re either off to Cursive at Slowdown or off to The Brothers for White Mystery. White Mystery is a punkified, garage version of the classic guitar-and-drums two-piece a la The White Stripes. Opening is The Lupines and Snake Island.  The show is $5, and starts at 9 or shortly thereafter. White Mystery is headed to Lincoln tomorrow night for a show at The Zoo.

As for Cursive, if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet you’re out of luck as the show is SOLD OUT. Opening is Omaha expatriate now Seattle-ite Mike Jaworski’s new band Virgin Islands and Cursive tour mates Ume. 9 p.m., see you there.

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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.