by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The review of Friday night’s Lincoln Invasion fest will be online in tomorrow’s column (w/pics), so check back. My only other “music experience” last weekend involved a West Omaha bar where a cover band rumbled though a selection of ’80s hair metal songs while grossly overweight people sat on broken picnic tables outside in a grassy knoll surrounded by chain-link fence smoking cigarettes and watching as cops arrested a young perp on a DUI bust. Slumming? Maybe…

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A couple follow-ups on last week’s blogs: I’m told the Concert for Equality Deluxe tickets, which went on sale Saturday morning, sold out in less than an hour (despite problems with the One Percent Productions website). Deluxe ticket holders get access to The Waiting Room for an after-concert concert that will include the Lullaby for the Working Class reunion and some other surprises which I’ve been told would be “well worth my $50 per ticket.” We shall see. BTW, some jackhole is selling a pair of deluxe tix on ebay here for a buy-now price of $299 a pair (another individual ticket has been bid up to $81 with 7 days left on the auction). The $20 general admission tickets, which get you into the outdoor concert, are still available, but I’m told that they’re going fast.

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When I ran into Justin Beiber at Westroads the weekend before last (blogged here), I had no idea that I was witnessing the genesis to an urban music masterpiece. Bieber has since immortalized his trip to the mall in a toss-off hip-hop recording called “Omaha Mall,” which has been a trending topic on Twitter for the past couple of days. You can hear this thought-provoking musical journey, with such “fresh” lines as “I’ve been to LA, New York I’ve done it all / But none of it compares to the Omaha mall”  here on YouTube. Thanks to reader @collinmatz for the head’s up.

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Saddle Creek Records announced last Friday that it’s releasing the debut solo album by Two Gallants’ Adam Haworth Stephens, We Live on Cliffs, Sept. 28. Produced by Grammy Award Winning producer Joe Chiccarelli (Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Shins), the album features guest musicians including Patrick Hallahan and Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails), Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace), Cody Votolato (Blood Brothers / Jaguar Love), Mike Daly (ex-Whiskeytown), Petra Haden (Decemberists), Andy Cabic (Vetiver) and current band members Jen Grady, Matt Montgomery and Omar Cuellar. Stephens is playing at The Bourbon in Lincoln Aug. 11 with Blitzen Trapper.

Meanwhile, the other half of Two Gallants, Tyson Vogel, has his solo project, called Devotionals, coming out today on Alive! Records. Vogel puts away his drum set, picks up a guitar and plays with violinist Anton Patzner, who’s worked with Bright Eyes.

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Landon Hedges of Little Brazil confirmed that the Desaparecidos reunion July 31 at the Concert for Equality will be an old-school full band event featuring all five original Desa members: Hedges, Conor Oberst, Denver Dalley, Ian McElroy and Matt Baum. For fans and followers of the Omaha indie music scene, this will be an historic event, especially when you factor in the Lullaby for the Working Class reunion.

I can think of two other bands that also are ripe for reunions — Commander Venus and Slowdown Virginia. Why not? They’re all going to be there…

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Column 278 is a rehash of recent blog fodder, including the Concert for Equality announcement (that news broke right at deadline), and the It’s True break-up announcement (with one added comment: I don’t think you’ve heard the last of It’s True’s songs. Hawkins isn’t going to stop playing music; but he may stop playing it with other people, and what started out as a solo project could end up that way).

And one other thing: I was at Westroads Saturday afternoon picking up a new pair of flip-flops when I had a brush with this generation’s Donnie Osmond. As Teresa and I were leaving the DSW we heard high-pitched screams — a cross between fear, pain and orgasm — coming from the second floor of the mall. The cause of the turmoil was gliding down the escalator right in front of us, surrounded by an entourage of bodyguards and white-shirt security — teen heartthrob Justin Bieber and his bangs, looking like any other 16-year-old spending an afternoon at the mall.

Bieber looked bored and disinterested as flocks of teen-aged girls clustered just out of arms’ reach snapping photos with their cell phones. Yes, there were tears.

As the screams faded down the hallway I imagined a distraught Conor Oberst walking through the crowd, hands covering his ears, headed in the other direction, lost in thought trying to solve the problems of Arizona, Fremont and the state of civil rights in these United States, the whole time being completely ignored. Ah, Conor… it could have been you.

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Tonight at Slowdown Jr., it’s Maps & Atlases with Drink Up Buttercup and The Globes. M&A’s latest, Perch Patchwork (Barsuk), is uptempo indie-pop with an acoustic flair, though it in no way resembles modern folk. Nothing twangy about these guys. Seattle’s The Globes plays trippy math rock that can slide into psychedelic. Mesmerizing. $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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.