The Faint on Adult Swim’s Stupid Morning Bullshit.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I haven’t neglected you, I’ve just been busy. And it’s tough to adjust to this season that precedes months of ice and cold, months that I despise. I belong in southern California or Key West or the Texas Gulf, not here in the winter-time.

Anyway…

Firstly, David “Doc” Matysiak wrote to tell say that The Faint appeared on Adult Swim’s streaming morning show Stupid Morning Bullshit on Wednesday. Todd, Clark and the guys played improv-style while the hosts rambled on about things like Runzas and ComicCon, plus there were segments like “Paint with the Faint” and “Blazing Saddle Creek.” It’s basically a video podcast featuring a floating shot of The Faint performing throughout.

Matysiak, who we all remember from Coyote Bones and CoCo Art, works on the show as a hands-on producer. Check it out online here.

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Conor Oberst on the New York Times’ Facebook Live session.

Yesterday Conor Oberst did a Facebook live session for the great, gray, digital New York Times. The 17-minute video includes a few songs and a Q&A with questions via Facebook.

Among the questions, where’s one of your favorite places to perform? Conor: “There’s this place called O’Leaver’s that is one of my favorite places to play. It’s a dive bar but it has a special place in my heart…” Awww….

Watch it here.

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Brooklyn by way of Omaha band Navy Gangs has a new EP coming out and it’s sublime, one of the best spins so far this year. Flood online is hosting the first video from the EP and a tour diary (which I can’t find). Check it out. How come none of you told me about these guys before?

http://floodmagazine.com/40466/premiere-fight-your-post-debate-malaise-with-navy-gangss-mondays-video/

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This month’s Over the Edge column in The Reader is about the challenges I’ve faced learning how to swim — a topic that fits right in with this month’s cover story theme, politics (not). Anyway, a fun read you can check out online here or on newsstands now.

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Tonight at Milk Run it’s Minneapolis post-punk (emo) rockers Infinite Me with Timecat and Pando Potential Meter. $7, 9:30 p.m.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Twin Peaks performing at Lincoln Calling Oct. 7. Photo by Lauren Farris, courtesy of Hear Nebraska.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

How about the fantastic weather this past weekend? No doubt it helped get people out to this year’s Lincoln Calling. Andrew Norman, the Executive Director of Hear Nebraska (who ran LC this year), said the festival was a hit.

“The turnouts exceeded our expectations in most cases,” he said. “The venues were all wonderful to work with. The artists, without exception, put it all out there, and many definitely gained new fans in the process. The Nebraska bands represented super well, and handled this year’s various logistical changes graciously and professionally (which was greatly appreciated).”

One of the weekend’s big surprises was a reunion of golden age punk band Sideshow, facilitated in part by frontman Bernie McGinn being in town for an LC workshop.

Despite how well everything went down, there’s room for improvement, Norman said. “There are definitely things we’ll do differently next year, and we will be sending out a survey soon to get artist/venue/fan feedback on what worked and what didn’t. Our volunteers made the whole thing work very efficiently, in my opinion, and handled many curveballs in stride.”

For the record, Norman’s favorite performance of the festival: A Giant Dog. “I’ve been listening to their new record, Pile, for that last few months,” he said, “but I had no idea how fun of a spectacle their show would be.”

All told, Norman said more than 2,000 people attended this year’s festival. Impressive, especially for HN’s first year of management. How will they top it next year?

Check out more photos from the event at hearnebraska.org.

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It’s good to see Conor Oberst getting political again. He’s been somewhat quiet during this election cycle, especially considering that the election of a President Trump would set back immigration reform — a subject that’s always been near and dear to Oberst’s heart — more than anything he battled against with Desaparecidos a few years ago.

No doubt Oberst is aware of this. According to this review of last week’s concert at Dallas’ Granada Theater, Oberst made a “pointed” threat to the audience: “If any of you motherfuckers vote for this orange rat, I swear I will crawl into your house and slit your throat!” Not exactly subtle, but I’ll take it. BTW, if the Observer‘s comments are any indication, Oberst will be catching a lot of bouquets when his new album, Ruminations, comes out next week. Read the glowing review here.
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Quinton and Miss Pussycat kick off your week tonight at Reverb.  Quintron plays a Hammond B-3 and a cache of homemade electronic gear. Miss Pussycat plays maracas, and sings. And then there are the puppets.  Check out their performance at Sonic Protest Festival from this past spring, below. Omaha’s own Sucettes opens. $10, 9 p.m.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Oh Pep! plays Friday night at The Waiting Room.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Oh Pep! is the Aussie duo of Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs. They started as pop folkies but evolved into an indie band influenced by acts like Paul Kelly, Leonard Cohen, Glen Hansard, Elbow and Arcade Fire. Their latest, Stadium Cake (2016, Dualtone) is an acoustic-powered folk-rock album that recalls acts like early Jenny Lewis, upbeat Azure Ray or laid-back Angel Olsen — gorgeous melodies eclipsed by gorgeous-er harmonies.

We caught up with the band via the interwebs with our Ten Questions survey. Here’s what they said:

1. What is your favorite album?

Pep: Shrek, the soundtrack.

2. What is your least favorite song?

Liv: You haven’t heard it, but we wrote it the other day.

3. What do you enjoy most about being in a band?

Pep: Writing music, performing music, travelling.

4. What do you hate about being in a band?

Liv: Being intimately aware of which direction your band members are breathing in when travelling in the van.

5. What is your favorite substance (legal or illegal)?

Pep: Water.

6. In what city or town do you love to perform?

Pep: Melbourne, our home town. New York City, our second home. Omaha, our third home.

7. What city or town did you have your worst gig (and why)?

Pep: There have been a couple of pre-show pukes, but we can’t pin that on one particular place.

8. How do you pay your bills?

Pep: …with money.

9. What one profession other than music would you like to attempt; what one profession would you absolutely hate to do?

Liv: Well, I went to law school for a brief minute. In saying that, maybe I wouldn’t have liked being a lawyer so much, who knows…

10. What are the stories you’ve heard about Omaha, Nebraska?

Pep: I heard there’s a killer gig coming up there at The Waiting Room. Oh, and that Bright Eyes are from Omaha, Nebraska!

Oh Pep! opens for The Mountain Goats Friday, Sept. 30, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Tickets are $25; showtime is 9 p.m. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com

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NPR today started streaming the new solo album by Conor Oberst, Ruminations (Out Oct. 14 on Nonesuch Records). It’s been marketed as a spare, solitary record featuring Conor and his guitar or piano and a harmonica, and that’s pretty much what it is — a throw-back of sorts to the early days, though there’s nothing low-fi about the recording (but one old-school touch is back on a few of these tracks: Conor’s classic shaky bray).

It’s what we used to call a bedroom recording, the same way I guess that Springsteen’s Nebraska was a bedroom album. You get a vision of Conor sitting alone in one of the many rooms in his Fairacres estate with a glass of something sitting next to a burning cigarette and a tape recorder. Quite a contrast to the big-production recordings of the last few Oberst / Bright Eyes records. It crossed my mind what Mogis would have done with these songs if given free reign.

I’ve only listened through it once. It’s good. Check it out at NPR.org…

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Liverpool band The Wombats play at The Waiting Room tonight. Though defined as an indie band, their records have reportedly sold more than a million copies world-wide. Their latest album, Glitterbug, came out last year on 14th Floor Records / Bright Antennae. Label mates MONA from Nashville opens. $20, 9 p.m.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Eros and the Eschaton at Reverb Lounge, Sept. 16, 2016.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It must be a pleasure for local musicians and bands who have moved away to return to their homes on tour and see all their comrades again. No doubt that was the case Friday night at Reverb for Adam Hawkins when his band, Eros and the Eschaton, played a sort of homecoming show.

With old friends scattered in the audience, Hawkins and his crew rifled through a deep selection from the band’s new album, Weight of Matter (2016, Bar None), closing with my two favorites from the recording: The spacey, floating “Center of the World” (wherein I could have sworn Hawkins changed the lyric on the main line of the song) and the brazen, post-punk burner “Rxx” that highlights co-frontperson Kate Perdoni barking out the staccato lines in all her feral glory.

Here’s a band that changes your perception of them when they perform live. Like, for example, Hawkins sang a lot more of the leads than I thought he did on the album. You could argue he has a higher voice than Perdoni. I also was impressed at the amount of guitar work Perdoni performed, spending a lot of time kneeling down, bending her strings alongside a bank of foot pedals.

I also learned (I think) how bands create that underwater, shimmy guitar sound so prominent on My Bloody Valentine albums. Hawkins grasped his whammy bar the entire time he stroked that guitar, which I assume constantly loosens and tightens the strings, causing that uneasy, drunken shimmy effect. Or maybe not. I’ll let the guitarists chime in to clarify. A final surprise was how little Hawkins and Perdoni harmonized — a lot of the harmonies were provided by the keyboard player.

Now a full band (including a dynamic drummer) Eros and the Eschaton have evolved beyond the duo-centric performance I saw a few years back. The band wraps up this tour tomorrow night in Chicago before heading out East again in a few weeks, closing out the tour with a gig at Cake Shop in Manhattan. Here’s hoping a solid album and all this touring helps them break through the waves.

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Culture site vulture.com this morning posted a lengthy feature on Conor Oberst that also appeared in the September issue of New York magazine. In it, Oberst recaps the last year or so of his life in Omaha, as well as the years leading up to it, including his health scare and rape allegation bullshit that turned his world upside down. You get a snapshot of what it’s like in La Casa Oberst as well as a sense that Omaha represented a necessary healing environment amidst a time of chaos. It’s an interesting read.

The article precedes the Oct. 14 release of his next solo album, Ruminations, which comes out on Nonesuch, as well as the release of the massive Bright Eyes box set, which was slated for release by Saddle Creek Records last Friday but has apparently been pushed back (due to manufacturing delays) until Oct. 21.

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There’s a couple hot shows happening tonight…

At fabulous O’Leaver’s it’s the return of Baltimore duo Dog Party (Asian Man, Burger Records).  Joining them are fellow Baltimore-ites Wing Dam, Every Goddess Wanted and Muscle Cousins (the Matz brood of Andy, Mari and Collin). $7, 8 p.m.

Also tonight, classic Bay Area punk band Swingin’ Utters (Fat Wreck Chords) plays at Lookout Lounge with Lincoln’s The Killigans and our very own Hand Painted Police Car. $12, 8 p.m.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

M34n Str33t at Maha 2014. The band plays at Bancroft Street Market tonight.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The announcement that got pulled back last week is back on again:

Conor Oberst announced that he’s scheduled “an intimate solo show” Nov. 3 at the The 40th Street Theater, 4006 1/2 Hamilton St. Originally a Vaudeville theatre, it recently was restored to its former glory by former Bensonite John Hargiss. WOWT did a story on the restoration last month, which you can read here.

Tickets for this special show go on sale at Pageturners Lounge, and at Ground Floor Guitars and Almost Music in the Blackstone District.  Tickets are $35 cash only, and there is a strict limit of two tickets per person. Theater capacity is 200. The show will be seated, first come first served, with doors opening at 7 p.m. Opening the show is Hartford/Focht (Matt Focht and wife Crystal Hartford).

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Couple shows tonight.

At fabulous O’Leaver’s Dressy Bessy headlines. The Denver indie band, which released music on Kindercore back in the ’90s and early ’00s, is associated with the Elephant Six Collective and The Apples in Stereo, among others. Their new album, Kingsized, is out on Yep Rock. Opening is our very own Little Brazil and Arc Flash. 9 p.m., $8.

Also tonight, M34N STR33T is performing as part of a “walking interactive performance art event on South 10th Street.” They’re literally giving away beer (Brickway) and food at the gig (but you have to have a ticket), which is sponsored by Heartland 2050, and which you can learn more about here. Mean Street goes around 8 p.m., rain or shine (It’ll probably be moved inside). Go to the event page and follow the rules regarding free tickets.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Deerhoof returns to The Waiting Room Aug. 4.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

San Francisco experimental rock band Deerhoof are known as much for their live shows as their quirky, jittery, inventive music. On stage the four-piece is an explosion of music that fuses rock, jazz, prog and noise into one throbbing, powerful sound. Frontwoman/basist Satomi Matsuzaki is a wound-up rock ‘n’ roll cheerleader, jumping and kicking and chirping in a language that sounds like a fusion of Japanese and English. It is, indeed, a sight to behold.

While the band’s idiosyncratic art-tortured albums can be a challenge to navigate, their latest, The Magic (2016, Polyvinyl) comes as close as they’ve ever dared to something resembling traditional rock. Nestled among the Eno-esque rhythms are some of the best holy-shit power-chord riffs I’ve heard from a rock band since Superchunk. Over the course of 15 tracks, the band can go from high-energy Sonic Youth grind (“Dispossessor”) to throbbing, blue-light art lounge (a cover of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”). The Magic is a career high-water mark.

With the band returns to The Waiting Room Thursday, Aug. 4, I caught up with Satomi Matsuzaki with a Ten Questions survey. Here you go:

1. What is your favorite album?

Satomi Matsuzaki: The Magic by Deerhoof

2. What is your least favorite song?

“Hotel California” by Eagles

3. What do you enjoy most about being in a band?

Making music with Deerhoof.

4. What do you hate about being in a band?

Long flights when we go on tour.

5. What is your favorite substance (legal or illegal)?’

Barley tea and dried squid.

6. In what city or town do you love top perform?

Everywhere we go.

7. What city or town did you have your worst gig (and why)?

If there was any, I already erased that memory from my brain. I wanna stay positive and keep going forward. I learn from mistakes and just move on.

8. How do you pay your bills?

Usually bank wire through my phone bill payment app.

9. What one profession other than music would you like to attempt; what one profession would you absolutely hate to do?

My profession is music and I prefer not to do other work. I won’t hate any job though if I decide to do whatever to live.

10. What are the stories you’ve heard about Omaha, Nebraska?

I have been there before. It’s located in the middle of USA and The Waiting Room is a great venue! They have a laundromat in backstage and that helps me a lot on tour!

Deerhoof plays with Blank Spell and Thick Paint Thursday, Aug. 4, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Showtime is 9 p.m., tickets are $15. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com.

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How did you spend last winter? If you’re like me, you wasted those cold January days watching TV and wishing for spring to return.

Conor Oberst, Ruminations (2016, Nonesuch)

Conor Oberst spent his winter writing a new album called Ruminations, which drops Oct. 14 on Nonesuch Records.

Said Oberst about his winter in Omaha last year: “I wasn’t expecting to write a record. I honestly wasn’t expecting to do much of anything. Winter in Omaha can have a paralyzing effect on a person but in this case it worked in my favor. I was just staying up late every night playing piano and watching the snow pile up outside the window. Next thing I knew I had burned through all the firewood in the garage and had more than enough songs for a record. I recorded them quick to get them down but then it just felt right to leave them alone.”

Over the span of 48 hours, Oberst recorded Runinations at ARC Studios with engineer Ben Brodin. According to Oberst’s publicist, the tracks don’t have the multi-layered instrumentation of the most recent Bright Eyes and solo albums: This is Oberst alone with his guitar, piano and harmonica; a sort of throw-back to his earliest recordings, but with modern lyrics.

Pre-orders are under way at the Nonesuch website. The tour kicks off in Grand Island Aug. 18. and some locals are opening some dates, such as MiWi La Lupa, Anna McClellan, and on Nov. 23 Simon Joyner will open when Oberst plays solo at Carnagie Hall in NYC. That should be a show for the ages.

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Sam Evian, Premium (2016, Saddle Creek)

Saddle Creek Records also announced today that the debut release by newest roster addition Sam Evian, entitled Premium, will drop Sept 30. Sam Evian is Brooklyn’s Sam Owens of band Celestial Shore. You read about his signing in Lazy-i here.

According to the publicist, the album’s nine songs “reflect the casual, relaxed atmosphere Sam created for himself at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studio.” Among the players on Premium are Austin Vaughn on drums (Here We Go Magic, Luke Temple), Brian Betancourt on bass (Hospitality, Here We Go Magic, Luke Temple), Michael Coleman on keys (Figure 8’s studio manager), Dan Iead on pedal steel (Cass McCombs), vocalists Cassandra Jenkins and Hannah Cohen, Shahzad Ismaily, Eddie Barbash (the saxophonist on the Colbert show) and Steve Marion (aka Delicate Steve).

Pre-orders are, of course, under way at Saddle Creek’s online store.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Dolores Diaz & The Standby Club at The Waiting Room, May 21, 2016.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

You wouldn’t have thought Saturday night’s show at The Waiting Room was only the second live gig for Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club. But then again, we’re talking about a band filled with music veterans doing what they do best.

The band, which includes Conor Oberst and his wife, Corina Figueroa, surrounded by some of the best musicians in town (read about the band’s origins here), fancies itself as a country & western act but really falls into the Americana / country rock category. I was reminded of Robbie Robertson and The Band throughout Saturday night’s set, how each member sang lead on a handful of C&W classics not so much in an effort to replicate the original’s sound, but to adapt its style to a modern construction.

That said, you could point to a handful of players that added a level of authenticity to the proceedings. First on the list was pedal steel player Mike Mogis, because let’s face it, pedal steel makes everything sound country, and as a world-class producer, Mogis knows his way around any genre. Dan McCarthy’s keyboards also brought a classic western feel to the arrangements, and then, surprisingly, Matt Maginn’s bass work included all the note bends heard on the honky-tonk circuit.

Maybe most authentic of all was Figueroa, who sang leads on about half the songs. Figueroa’s rough-edged voice is pure Tammy Wynette. What she lacks in range she makes up for in heart, throwing herself into every note, leaving little doubt that she loves this music. Joining Figueroa was a new face to the Standby Club — First Aid Kit’s Klara Söderberg, going by the stage name of Greta Soundmountain, whose spot-on pitch brought everything into focus.

The band split their performance into two sets with a brief intermission. The first set featured a lot of the same songs played this past January at O’Leaver’s (which you can hear online here). The highlight was a new song featuring Phil Schaffart, who was absent during their debut performance. Schaffart, a giant of a man with a high voice reminiscent of Neil Young’s, covered John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.” Gorgeous stuff.

Another new song from the first set was “Stay a Little Longer” by Bob Willis and His Texas Playboys. If you’re wondering how I know this with zero background in country music, the secret involved tapping song lyrics into Google.

The band took five and then came back with a rocking version of Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses” featuring Miwi La Lupa on lead vocals. Figueroa and Greta sang a duet of Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World,” which was followed by Oberst belting out the Felice Brothers’ “Rockefeller Drug Law Blues.”

As he did in January, Oberst performed Randy Newman’s “Jolly Coppers on Parade.” He was in good voice, looking a bit isolated and laid back playing guitar at stage-right in crumpled jacket and jet-black fright-wig hairdo. He led the band on the night’s final song, a round robin version of the Dylan song he sang in January, but sharing verses with his cohorts.

Saturday night’s show was well attended. No idea of the final number, but it was crowded throughout the bar, and the event had a rock concert feel to it despite the C&W content. Was it “real country”? It was certainly more real than the mainstream “bro-country” that dots the charts these days, though the overall tone felt more like something Levon Helm would admire.

I have no doubt if the entire band had the capacity to tour, Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club could do well on the road, but Oberst said there were no plans for anything like that. This one’s just for fun, something to share with his friends and his fans before he hits the road again for a handful of solo dates this summer, topped by three days at the Austin City Limits Festival in October. After that, who knows.

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Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s Brooklyn punk rockers So So Glos headline. Opening is Canadian band The Dirty Nil and our very own Montee Men. $5, 9:30 p.m. This one should be fun.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club, from left, are Ben Brodin, Miwi La Lupa, Dan McCarthy, Roger Lewis, Corina Figueroa, Mike Mogis, Matt Maginn and Conor Oberst. Not pictured is Phil Schaffart.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com
What do you do for fun when musically you can do anything you want? You put together a country cover band.

That’s what Conor Oberst did with his wife, Corina Figueroa, and their two roommates, Roger Lewis and Miwi La Lupa.

The project began last November strictly as a lark. Among the belongings La Lupa brought with him when he moved to Omaha from Brooklyn was a copy of Them Old Country Songs, a 1972 “various artists” classic that includes songs by the likes of Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton.

“We love this record,” Oberst said last week over drinks at his Dundee bar, Pageturners Lounge, while fellow Standby Club member Dan McCarthy pounded out ragtime tunes on the bar’s upright piano. “I’ve not been a person to cover a lot of songs. It was nice to learn new ones. I’ve never played songs with this many key changes before.”

Oberst said Figueroa has a great voice and loves to sing, so it made sense to give the band a try. “She’s sang with me a few times before,” he said. “She was super excited at practice, but for that first show, she was extremely nervous. We all were.”

The rest of band is made up of people Oberst said are part of his extended household: Phil Schaffart, Oberst’s partner on the road and in running Pageturners; Mike Mogis and Ben Brodin, whose studio, ARC, is practically an extension of Oberst’s home, and Cursive’s Matt Maginn, who at one time also lived with Oberst.

“No one in the band is a country player in any way, shape or form,” Oberst said. “Even Mike (Mogis) doesn’t consider himself a country player. He doesn’t know all the Nashville things. The guy who’s most dialed in is Ben. He can play anything.”

The band’s first gig, at O’leaver’s Jan. 3 of this year, included covers of songs by the aforementioned country legends along with Charlie Pride, Sammi Smith, Bob Dylan and Randy Newman and more. The evening’s music was recorded and is online at liveatoleavers.com. Expect to hear a lot of those numbers when the band plays at The Waiting Room Saturday, May 21, along with a few new covers, possibly including “Honey Won’t You Open the Door” by Ricky Skaggs and “Good Girl Gone Bad” by Tammy Wynette.

Oberst said unlike playing in one of his other bands, this band has access to an unlimited musical catalog. “I never realized all the virtues of being in a cover band,” he said. “We’re never going to run out of good songs.”

It’s unlikely this band will ever enter a recording studio. “It sounds like a joke, but I feel like we’re a good band for parties and weddings and funerals and all that kind of stuff,” Oberst said. “It would seem weird to record covers, and I don’t know if we’d ever have originals, definitely not for this show.”

La Lupa, who sat next to Oberst during the interview, said the band may be “just for fun,” but that it takes the music seriously. “Someone wrote a review after our first show and said it sounds like we didn’t practice or something, and we were all kind of bummed,” La Lupa said. “We practice more for this band than any other band we play with. We’ll be practicing a lot over the next week.”

The band’s name, The Standby Club, grew out of a phrase used by a friend of Oberst’s who does film editing of live sporting events. “He always says ‘standby,’ and began using the phrase in everyday life,” Oberst said. “The Standby Club — I thought it would sound dope.”

As for Figueroa’s musical nom de plume, Oberst said she was afraid about going on stage. “I suggested putting on a persona, like a Superman cape,” he said. “Dolores Diaz is a Spanglish version of Doris Day and has an old Hollywood sound to it.”

“And it works out because the name ‘Dolores’ signifies heartbreak,” La Lupa said, adding that the name means “sorrow” in English, a fact that surprised Oberst, who quickly added, “We’re going to have some nice T-shirts made.”

Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club plays with Carl Miller & The Thrillers Saturday, May 21, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Tickets are $10; showtime is 9 p.m. For more information, go to onepercentproductions.com.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Because I don’t have a photo of Conor Oberst and Corina singing at O’Leaver’s, here’s a photo of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Live @ O’Leaver’s session released to the world yesterday happened on Jan. 3, 2016, a Sunday night followed by a workday Monday which kept me from seeing it live. No matter. I have these recordings to mark the date of my absence due to responsibilities (T’was a time, my friends, t’was a time…).

Dolores Diaz & The Standby Club featured Matt Maginn (Cursive), Dan McCarthy (McCarthy Trenching), Ben Brodin, Phil Schaffart (Con Dios), Miwi La Lupa, Roger Lewis (The Good Life), Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) and Conor Oberst. Fronting the band was Conor’s wife, Corina.

The fact that Corina was the front-woman was hush-hush at the time. Not sure why. Who knows the motives behind celebrities and their fragile psyches? Keep in mind, Oberst had been married for years before he acknowledged it in the press, a secret to all but his friends and family. One could argue that’s how it should be. Anyway, for some, this show was a sort of coming out party for Corina.

For most, this was a return for Conor, who disappeared from the music world last fall at the beginning of a Desaparecidos tour, stating illness and exhaustion. The details on that also are shrouded in mystery, along with the current status of Desaparecidos, though at least a few of the members have moved onto other projects. Denver Dalley will be touring with Har Mar Superstar again; Landon Hedges is said to be completing a new Little Brazil album.

And Oberst, who turns 36 next Monday, continues to lie low, though he was spotted in the crowd at a recent Creighton basketball game (via Facebook). Only he knows what he’s working on next. For now, we have these recordings.

Oberst sings lead on two tracks. The first is a cover of a Randy Newman song called “Jolly Coppers on Parade,” from the 1977 album Little Criminals. The other is a cover of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” I have to believe there are rights issues with these and the other songs (which are all covers). All the more reason to listen to them right now.

Not to be overshadowed by the Diaz release is another set recorded the same night from Johnathan Rice. Good stuff.

And to add local flavor to yesterday’s releases were four songs from High Up, recorded on New Year’s Eve that showcase the amazingly talented Christine Fink at her usual ferociousness, especially on opening track “Two Weeks.”

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As of this posting (at noon), tickets were still available to tonight’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor show at The Slowdown. As with all Godspeed shows, this should be a mammoth production. I think the last time they played in Omaha was at The Music Box, a show that I’m told was so loud it killed fish swimming in the nearby Big Papio Creek.

Opening is Xylouris White, described as “Master of Cretan lute, George Xylouris, and Jim White a most innovative and charismatic drummer.” Ruffled attire optional.

This one starts at 8 p.m. and is $25, while tickets last.

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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 © 2016 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Simon Joyner and The Ghosts at Slowdown Jr., April 4, 2015. The band plays tonight at Almost Music in Benson.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Time for another very special Saturday edition of Lazy-i. Hope you had an eventful New Year’s Eve/Day.

Only Love Can Bring You Peace, Simon Joyner (Magic Helicopter, 2015)

Omaha’s unofficial poet laureate Simon Joyner celebrates the release of his book, Only Love Can Bring You Peace – Selected Lyrics (1990-2014) — published by Magic Helicopter Press, tonight (Saturday) at Almost Music in Benson. It’s the first selection of Simon’s lyrics (assembled and edited by Simon and his wife, Sara) to appear in book form, showcasing the images and characters of more than 15 albums, EPs, and rare releases, according to the website, where you can purchase your copy for $16 + s/h. But why spend more when you can buy your copy at the cover price tonight at Almost Music, and if you’re really nice, Simon might even sign it for you.

Joining Joyner and the Ghosts are L. Eugene Methe  and The David Nance Band. Your $6 cover charge can be applied to the cost of the book. In addition, Solid Jackson Books is offering 25% off any and all additional books when you buy a copy of Simon’s book. Music starts at 8 p.m.

Also tonight, Lincoln band No Tide headlines a show down at Slowdown Jr. Opening is one of Omaha’s big surprises for 2015, Uh Oh. The band’s 5-song EP, In the Glow, was a pleasant surprise — a mix of indie, pop-punk and sing-along anthems that’s sort of a throwback to a kinder/gentler time in Omaha’s alt rock past. Slacker-rockers Mint Wad Willy kicks things off at 9. $8.

Also tonight (Saturday) local punk rock legends The Shidiots play at O’Leaver’s with The Hemorrhoids and Megaton. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Then Sunday night is the big Dolores Diaz & the Standby Club show at fabulous O’Leaver’s.  The country cover band’s all-star line-up includes Matt Maginn (Cursive), Dan McCarthy (McCarthy Trenching), Ben Brodin, Phil Schaffart (Con Dios), Miwi La Lupa, Roger Lewis (The Good Life), Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) and Conor Oberst. Of course the real mystery is: Who is Dolores Diaz? You’ll just have to find out Sunday night. Indie superstar Johnathan Rice opens along with Anthony D’Amato (New West Records), who has worked with Bon Iver and Megafauna, among others.

One assumes this will be a madhouse, but you never can tell. If you’re interested, I suggest you get there well before the 9 p.m. start time. Price of admission is the usual $5.

And thus ends the holidays, but not quite yet…

Lazy-i Best of 2015!

First, you must enter to win a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2015 comp CD. The collection includes my favorite indie tunes I’ve come across throughout last year as part of my tireless work as a music critic for Lazy-i. Among those represented: Algiers, Sam Martin, Sufjan Stevens, Clarence Tilton, Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Freedy Johnston, The Mynabirds, and even the aforementioned Simon Joyner, plus lots more. The full track listing is here. Entering to win a copy couldn’t be easier, either: 1. Send an email with your mailing address to tim.mcmahan@gmail.com, or 2) Write a comment on one of my Lazy-i related posts in Facebook, or 3) Retweet a Lazy-i tweet. You also can enter by sending me a direct message in Facebook or Twitter. Hurry, contest deadline is midnight Jan. 4!

Have a great rest of the weekend…and 2016…and rest of your life!

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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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.