Happy Anniversary 1% Productions; Live Review: Lung, Crybaby; Deer Tick tonight…

Category: Blog,Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — @ 12:48 pm October 25, 2017

Marc Leibowitz, left, and Jim Johnson outside Sokol Underground circa 2003.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

First, happy anniversary to 1% Productions. Yesterday the production company headed by Marc Leibowitz and Jim Johnson acknowledged its 20th anniversary on Facebook. The date came in under the radar and surprised some folks (I believe Guided By Voices was originally going to mark the occasion, but that show got cancelled).

Want to read about the origins of 1% Productions? Here’s a rather longish cover story about Marc & Jim and the company’s origins way back in July 2003. The photo on top of today’s post came from the article. They haven’t aged a day (heh-heh).

A lot has happened at 1% in 20 years, and some of it it was covered in a story about The Waiting Room’s 10-year anniversary that ran in The Reader this past summer. You can read that one here. As I said in that article’s lede:

Working under the moniker One Percent Productions, Marc Leibowitz and Jim Johnson have booked the best indie shows in Omaha for more than 20 years. Remember that amazing Arcade Fire show in November 2004? It was a One Percent Production. Or that time when Sufjan Stevens played at Sokol Underground with his cheerleader orchestra during his Illinois Tour in September 2005? A One Percent Production. How about when Interpol played at Sokol Underground during a blizzard in January 2005? Again, a One Percent Production.

Those and thousands more shows earned Johnson and Leibowitz the reputation as the best indie rock bookers in the area, playing a pivotal role in exposing an entire generation of future Omaha musicians to the music that would influence their careers.

Happy anniversary, dudes.

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Lung at O’Leaver’s Oct. 20, 2017.

Last Friday night I meandered to fabulous O’Leaver’s for a set by Lung, the cello-and-drum duo of Kate Wakefield and Daisy Caplan. I’m always amazed by how rock music sounds performed on electric cello — it has the same drama, the same intensity as electric guitar, and certainly that was the case when these two performed.

They reminded me of another cello-fueled show at O’Leaver’s about 14 years ago. The band was Matson Jones, a string combo with a couple cellos who played a similar style of indie rock, though Matson Jones’ vocals were raw and distorted, a sharp contrast to Wakefield’s bright alto that cut through the cello’s dense thrumming and Caplan’s bombast.

Crybaby at O’Leaver’s, Oct. 20, 2017.

Opening was a newcomer (to me, anyway) Crybaby, a.k.a. Amanda, the drummer from sludgecore band Bonghammer. She had a gorgeous voice singing on Liz Phair-style indie tunes played with an electric guitar connected to a repeater pedal. The compositions were simple, her lyrics were honest and matter-of-fact — sweet, broken-hearted confessions, lovely and downcast, and she knew it, jokingly apologizing throughout her short set for her sad songs.

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Tonight is that Deer Tick show I wrote about on Monday (read the 10 Qs with John McCauley). Opening at 8 p.m. is musician/comedian Chris Crofton. $23.

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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 © 2017 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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