Everyone’s favorite indie music tastemakers, Pitchfork, published an article Monday where it interviewed operators of 36 independent music venues on surviving COVID-19. Among them was Jason Kulbel of Slowdown.
The article gives a (very) brief history of the bar, described as being best know for “Modernizing live music in Omaha.”
“Before the pandemic, Kulbel had hoped 2020 would be one of the most successful years in Slowdown’s history,” says writer Andy Cush. “Today, they’re operating with a reduced staff and plan to resume limited-capacity shows with local bands in April.”
Kulbel gives a rather bleak view of what lies ahead.
Said Kulbel in the article: “‘Reopening is going to be really hard, because everything that you had before is gone. The staff is gone, the shows are gone. We’re opening with all local stuff, which is fine, but it’s not going to bring people out, it’s not what people really want to see as a whole. So you’re going to be opening as a skeleton of yourself. It would almost be easier just to open a brand new place.’”
Speaking of COVID-19, my column in this month’s issue of The Reader is about my experience getting Moderna’s and how the anti-vaxxers are going to really screw things up for the rest of us. Mark my words, we’re going to be wearing masks for a long time because of the conspiracy theorists and their reticence for getting shots.
The Slowdown announced Tuesday that they’re reopening in April. The plan calls for shows only on the main stage to make more room for social distancing as the pandemic begins to wind down. It’ll be a fun opportunity for smaller bands who are used to playing the small room to try the big stage and its massive sound and lighting system.
Their first show is April 2 featuring Journey cover band Recaptured followed by Two Drag Club April 9.
Slowdown joins The Waiting Room and Reverb, who announced late last month that their stages are reopening.
When will the majority of our favorite local indie acts be returning to stage? That was the subject of my March column in The Reader, which is online right here. I contacted a dozen local musicians to find out when they’re coming back, and their responses underscore their caution as COVID-19 is still very much with us in this community.
The story is in the printed edition of the paper, which should be in the racks around town now or very shortly. Check it out. And heck, you can also read it below:
What Are They Waiting For?
As COVID-19 retreats, the stage has been set. It’s the artists who have cold feet.
Last month I told you where some of the more important local stages for indie music stand in regard to booking shows. A year after the pandemic began, places like The Slowdown, The Waiting Room and Reverb Lounge are reopening their stages. And while it’ll be some time before touring bands hit the road again, local acts are invited to plug in and rock on.
The only thing stopping that from happening are the bands themselves. I reached out to a dozen local musicians to find out when they’d play again on a local stage. Their answers reflected a serious respect for COVID-19.
Jon Taylor, lead guitarist for Lincoln-based seminal punk trio Domestica, is waiting for folks to get vaccinated. “Based on current vaccine shipping schedules, summer appears to be the earliest anyone should consider assembling large groups of humans for any reason,” Taylor said. He’s passed the pandemic time rocking out on his own glittering basement stage where, “I’m able to self-medicate with high volume until gigs happen.”
Domestica has been known to share a stage with Wagon Blasters, the tractor-punk powerhouse fronted by the inimitable Gary Dean Davis. Those with a sense of history will remember how these folks’ previous bands — Mercy Rule and Frontier Trust — were integral to Nebraska’s first wave of indie punk almost 30 years ago.
Davis has spent his downtime focusing on his record label — SPEED! Nebraska — which reissued Frontier Trust’s debut CD in June and released a new Mezcal Bros. album, Shakin’ Dog, in September.
“As Joe Strummer famously said, ‘The future is unwritten,’” Davis said. “Hopefully things can calm down over the summer, (and) we are able to return to playing shows. Maybe we’ll need to start off outside to keep everyone safe?”
Wagon Blasters bandmate, bassist Kate Williams, said while she would be comfortable on stage once vaccinations have reached the majority, “It will be strange to return to the small, intimate venues that I love, where the audience is right on top of the band.”
Williams hasn’t seen Davis or her other bandmates in person in a year. “Many of us are high-risk (or high-risk-adjacent) and aren’t comfortable practicing in an enclosed basement yet with each other, let alone playing in a room full of friends that we also haven’t seen in the last year,” she said. “It will happen though — I miss all of it so much!”
Caution also was the theme for legendary bassist/musician Dereck Higgins. “I’ll be 66 in July, and that is why I am being cautious and in no hurry to get out in the public gigging,” he said, pointing to fall for a possible return. In the meantime, he’s been recording new music and working on an art project with local choreographer Lauren Simpson.
Craig Fort of punk band Leafblower created an entirely new, outlaw-country-infused musical persona called Lightning Stills during the pandemic. “Obviously COVID is keeping us from booking anything, as well as neither project has been in the same room together in a year,” Fort said. “We all take this very seriously. Not being able to play shows is what’s keeping me from releasing anything physical. Without shows, I don’t have a booth to peddle my goods.”
Indie rockers See Through Dresses frontwoman Sara Bertuldo said her band is still together, “but we’re just focusing on different things at the moment. Some of us are back in school, focusing on work, and/or learning some new skills.” And she added, “We’ve also been working on our third album!”
One of my favorite songs released during the pandemic is “Snake in my Basement,” an infectious (in a good way) garage rocker by Those Far Out Arrows. Guitarist/vocalist Ben Keelan-White thinks his band will be back on stage possibly in early- to mid-summer.
“Outdoor shows seem more likely, but maybe some indoor venues might be willing to make some moves,” he said. “I feel like there is an optimism with more vaccine administration on the horizon. Nobody wants to be a part of a spreader event, but I think the type of individuals who want shows back would be absolutely willing to take the utmost precaution needed to go forward.”
“We’re all dying for shows, but nobody should die for shows,” said Aaron Gumm, half of the red hot electronic rock duo Glow in the Dark. “My parents in Iowa get their second shot next week, and my sister in Austin got her first today. Things are moving in the right direction.”
Some aren’t waiting to return to the stage. Josh Hoyer, one of the area’s best blues and soul voices, played a Sunday residency Feb. 21 at The Jewell in downtown Omaha.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but it came down to me needing to get back to work and the venues needing to start getting people in or shutting down for good.” Hoyer said. “At this point, I am trusting people to do what is best for their health and the health of the community. So far, everything has been good, but the moment I feel that there is too much risk in any given venue, I will have to reassess my involvement with them. I think if people are intelligent about it, we can slowly get back to live entertainment.”
Darren Keen, the mastermind behind The Show Is the Rainbow and now a new electronic act, Problems, has a gig booked on St. Patrick’s Day at Boombox Social Club in Lincoln.
“As long as people are masked up and distanced, I’m OK with it at this point,” Keen said. “I’m still hesitant to book my own shows because I can’t honestly say, ‘You gotta come to this gig’ right now. I respect that people want to stay home and safe, and so if I can’t promote things 100% I’m not comfortable booking them.”
I saved the final word for Landon Hedges of one of my all-time favorite indie rock bands, Little Brazil. Hedges doesn’t know when he’ll be back on stage.
“It’s a matter of responsibility and feeling comfortable in the sort of environment that I’m used to playing a show or going to a show,” he said. “I want to do both. But this virus isn’t about me or what I want to do. I just want to try to do the right thing. It fucking sucks. You can quote me on that one.”
Over The Edge is a monthly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, music, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.First published in The Reader, March 2021.
Dereck Higgins performs a live streamed concert tonight at Low End.
Who doesn’t like an awards show, especially one focused on music?
No, I’m not talking about The Grammy’s, I’m talkin’ ’bout the Libera Awards, brought to you by the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the trade group for the indie music industry.
For the first time, the awards show is going to be streamed live for free, tonight starting at 5:30 p.m.
It’s sort of like the Grammy’s for indie rock. For example, the bands nominated for Album of the Year: FKA Twigs, Angel Olsen, Brittany Howard, Orville Peck and Big Thief. Big Thief, formerly on our very own Saddle Creek Records (now on 4AD), also is nominated for Best Alternative Rock album, and will be performing live at the ceremony.
Once again this year, Saddle Creek Records has been nominated for the Label of the Year (Medium) award, alongside 4AD, ATO, Sacred Bones and Drag City. Will the Creek take home the coveted Libera? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Register for free here.
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Also tonight, Omaha legend Dereck Higgins is performing a virtual concert streamed live from The Bemis Center’s Low End performance space.
“For his performance, he will play a variety of his electronic compositions with live accompaniment as well as improvise several ambient pieces created on the spot,” Bemis writes. The stream begins via Facebook and Twitch (twitch.com/bemiscenter) starting at 8 p.m.
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Finally, this month’s Over the Edge column in The Reader is all about the fashion of face masks, and includes an interview with Fashion Institute Midwest’s Denise Ervin. Who would have thought Billie Eilish and Gucci could be so precog as to know face masks would become fashion staples months before the pandemic? Read the column here.
There hasn’t been a heckuva lot to write about music wise over the past few weeks. At some point we’re going to start to get an idea how the clubs are going to react to COVID in regards to reopening their stages, but who knows when that’s going to happen.
You saw what Slowdown is doing in the interim, and while it’ll be a fun distraction amidst this void in live entertainment, it is by no means a true replacement. BTW, someone asked where the money’s going for those Slowdown shows, and the answer is the bands and crew, according to Slowdown’s Jason Kulbel.
In the meantime, if you haven’t gone to NIVA website and sent a letter to your reps in Washington telling them to get off their asses and help save live music, you should. The link is right here. It’ll take you 30 seconds.
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Speaking of live streams, there is one tonight being brought to you by the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, specifically the folks who opened Low End late last year. Tonight they’re hosting a live stream featuring the noise/art/rock act FXTHR^ a.k.a. Dustin Bushon. Joining him is visual artist Alex Myers.
Last but not least, due to a back-office/clerical/editorial error, my Over the Edge column wasn’t published in the May issue of The Reader, which was devoted to writers’ COVID-related experiences. The column is online, however. Read about how I’m adapting to COVID-19 and learn about a 1971 film starring Charlton Heston. Check it out. I should be back in the printed pages of The Reader next month, barring any more snafus…
Well, it’s not like I haven’t been doing anything.
Look for my annual Music Year in Review article and 2020 Predictions article in the coming days online here and in The Reader, where it’ll also be published in the January issue. It’s a ton of writing (about 3,500 words, if they don’t cut it).
This being an historic day, I thought I’d share with you my Over the Edge column in the current issue of The Reader, wherein I reflect on how I was lambasted by my co-workers during the last impeachment, and how folks a few floors above me came to the rescue. That one’s online right here.
And speaking of impeachment-related news, Matt Whipkey today released a new Unexplained Death song via Bandcamp called “Lindsey,” and you can guess what it’s about. When is Unexplained Death going to perform at one of these Iowa political rallies that are all the rage these days? I could definitely see these guys open for Bernie…
Saddle Creek Records’ act Tomberlin teamed up with DIIV for a cover of Low song “Words” off the 1994 Low album I Could Live in Hope. The fact that these two artists covered Low gives me hope that one of my all-time favorite bands’ music will live on for another generation.
I’m catching up on a couple columns that appeared in The Reader over the past couple months but only just went online. First is this month’s column. I’ve written variations on this theme a number of times over the past 15 years, this idea that digital music has forever changed the way we listen to music. But this time I include critics.
When I was much younger I used to love to peruse the album reviews in Rolling Stone, SPIN, Option, Magnet and a slew of other printed publications. The only one of the above that still exists in printed form is Rolling Stone, and their reviews are little more than capsule summaries with a star rating. As I say in the column, while I rely on Pitchfork and Stereogum as well as the never-aging grand bard of critics Robert Christgau (you can now subscribe to his writings online here), I’m just as apt to catch recommendations in Facebook and Twitter as anywhere else. In fact, you may recognize a couple people I namecheck in the column as folks whose opinion I value (It wasn’t until after I filed the article that I realized, hey, 99 percent of my column’s readers have no idea who I’m talking about).
Anyway, read the column in the current issue of The Reader, on newsstands now, or online right here.
The October column also is online, which asks the question: “Does the art change once you discover that the artist is an asshole?” Woody Allen, Ryan Adams and Aziz Ansari are subjects of discussion, among others. I have always separated art from the artist. Social media is now making that more difficult, as we all know. And in the end, it might be yet another reason why it’s time to unplug your Facebook account. You can read that column online right here.
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If you’re involved in music at all in Omaha you already follow Ian Aeillo in Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t, you need to. Ian, who is a veteran musician and something of a scene legend, is the sound engineer at The Sydney and also works with bands on occasion.
One of them is Louisiana band Ghost Foot, who will be playing at fabulous O’Leavers this Friday night. Ian shared a new track by Ghost Foot called “Leaving Omaha,” which is destined to join the ranks of other Omaha-themed songs by the likes of Counting Crows, Moby Grape and Desaparecidos.
This one’s less a celebration of our city and more of a sordid snapshot taken by someone who lived to tell about it, with the lyrics:
Leaving Omaha
I’m leaving Omaha
With just my clothes
And all the powder
I put up my nose
I lost my girlfriend
I lost my wife
I lost my billfold
In that great good life
I’m leaving Omaha
Dead sick in my shoes
With a big head
All filled up with blues
I lost a song there
I lost a dream
I gained a nightmare
A few friends and a scene
But the sun
The sun is still shining
And the rain
The rain will still come
Let the bombs
All fall on the big world
As ashes
We all will become
Here’s the track, below. See them sing it live Friday night at O’Leaver’s.
Then there’s Ian’s project Flight School. After photos of Trump’s childlike handwritten notes exploded on the internet like a sad American meme yesterday morning, Flight School took those notes and created “I Want Nothing,” a track that accurately captures this moment in our country’s unfortunate history. As Mr. Trump would say, enjoy:
Tonight Hi-Fi House hosts Tears of Silver, an indie super group that includes members of Posies and Mercury Rev. I’m told by HFH owner Kate Dussault that seating is limited, so if you want to go, you need to RSVP at this site ASAP.
Speaking of Hi-Fi House, Dussault granted me an interview late last month for The Reader to explain what HFH is trying to do, how it works and where it’s headed. You can read it in the October issue of The Reader, online at The Reader website, right here, or… you can read it below.
There was tons of additional info that didn’t make it into the story, which I’ll share with you over the next couple days. Until then…
One of the Hi-Fi House sound systems.
Over the Edge: Tuning into Hi-Fi House The hush-hush private music club finally goes public.
On the surface, it seems difficult to explain the concept behind Hi-Fi House, a private club that charges members anywhere from $75 to $1,000 a year for the privilege of playing its record collection on its stereo systems.
You might naturally say to yourself, “I could buy a whole bunch of records for $1,000 that I could play whenever I want to in the privacy of my own home,” but you’d be missing the point.
The club, located at 3724 Farnam St. in the Blackstone District, has been operating privately for more than a year. I first stepped foot in Hi-Fi House last year during a Record Store Day event where the public was allowed a sneak peek. The facility is first class all the way — a huge open, carpeted space with comfortable furniture arranged in circles throughout, centered around stereo equipment set-ups, including one I was told cost $80,000.
Behind the big room is a couple smaller rooms. Inside the first is Hi-Fi House’s massive album collection — more than 10,000 vinyl records. A glance at the titles indicates the music touches all genres, with issue dates ranging from the 1940s to present. Some of albums look unplayed and are still sealed. On display are a number of interesting music-related items, like a Patti Smith edition of a Pono Music Player — something I’d never seen in real life.
On the afternoon of that sneak peek, local bands performed in the space, including an early incarnation of the progressive jazz combo Chemicals. A small crowd watched the performance while enjoying beer and wine served at a bar near the club’s front door.
For reasons I never understood, Hi-Fi House was hush-hush back then. At the time, owner/operator Kate Dussault wouldn’t give me an interview on the record, though the club had been operating for months, including offering special music programming for children.
Well, the cloak of secrecy finally was lifted from Hi-Fi House last month when the organization launched a website — www.hifi.house — and began actively soliciting memberships. Dussault, now on the record, explained why the club operated in secrecy for so long.
“One reason was that we really wanted to experiment with all the programming,” she said, seated at one of the club’s large tables alongside Hi-Fi House General Manager (a title made up on the spot) Jon Ochsner while that $80,000 stereo system quietly played some funky jazz sides.
“The other reason was to really let the music community have the space pretty much to themselves for a period of time. We were able to have a lot of conversations with local artists and people who work in the industry to find out how we could best live in this community and serve it.”
In a nutshell, Dussault said, Hi-Fi House was built “so musicians could have their own private club. We’re offering a place where they can communicate with each other.”
She said musicians often don’t have time to chat when they’re at venues performing, “but when they come over here, they can really sit down, share music and listen to music together, and a lot of them really love that experience.”
Think of it like The Omaha Press Club, but instead of focusing on journalism and public relations, Hi-Fi House focuses on music. Fees start at $75 a year for a “lab membership” that allows access to Hi-Fi House during daytime hours. In the evenings, Hi-Fi House turns into a private club whose membership fees (which cover one person and a significant other) range from $300 a year for musicians to $600 a year for members of “the industry” — a broad category that includes any career that touches music, from journalists to studio employees to club owners to people involved with music-related nonprofits.
Finally, there’s the general public membership at a cost of $1,000 per year. Dussault doesn’t sound like she expects to sell many of those, but with the venue’s capacity rated at only 125, she doesn’t want to oversell memberships, anyway. She said she’s already sold a few hundred memberships, with all the money received channeled back into covering facility costs, which include constantly buying new records for the club’s ever-growing collection.
In addition to access to that collection, members are invited to attend special night-time programming that includes exclusive album listening parties, chats with artists and industry professionals, and intimate performances, such as a private concert last year by The Replacements’ Tommy Stinson.
With its heavy music education focus, you’d assume Hi-Fi House would consider becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity, but Dussault wants to steer clear from that for now. “The truth is most nonprofits have to scrap and re-raise their operating money every year,” she said. “It’s difficult, and they are at the whims of, in some cases, the same very few people who are supporting everything else. It doesn’t give you a chance to break out and invite new people to the party.”
So sure is she of the Hi-Fi House concept, she’s already planning to expand to other cities. After spending the next three months working alongside Ochsner, Dussault will move to New York City where she’ll spend three months with lawyers and other associates to review expansion plans.
“We’ll be solidifying New York, and then I’ll be traveling to Boston and other nearby cities,” she said, adding that there’s already “movement” for clubs in Denver, Des Moines and Chicago. “We’re talking to people in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle, as well as five different Los Angeles locations.”
Surely Dussault must be a wealthy woman to make all of this happen. She just laughs at the suggestion.
“This is a labor of love,” she said. “I work two full-time jobs while I do this. I have a medical house-call company in New York that I spend a good six hours on a day on and I do some work for a music supervision firm in New York. If I weren’t doing those things, we wouldn’t be alive.
“Everything doesn’t have to be a nonprofit,” she added. “Some people have to take their own money and get out there and gamble it on making changes. I’m willing to live or die based on what I can deliver these people, and whether they’re happy with the experience.”
The doors open at Hi-Fi House at 7 p.m. for tonight’s Tears of Silver show. Showtime is 7:45 p.m. Admission is free with RSVP. And if you haven’t already, check out the Ten Questions Q&A with Tears of Silver’s Ken Stringfellow and Grasshopper right here.
Also tonight, singer/songwriter Todd Grant will be playing tonight at Barley Street Tavern with Michael Treinhail. Showtime is 10:30 p.m.
Tomorrow night (April 13) Umm plays at Reverb lounge. Umm is the duo of Stefanie Drootin and Chris Senseney, who also are the core duo behind Big Harp. So Umm is Big Harp, right?
No, says Drootin.
“This is the first time we’ve made a record that’s truly just the two of us,” she said in an email back-and-forth earlier this week. “We’ve always had drummers and this time I played drums along with old drum machines and loops. Also, Chris and I were listening to The Everly Brother a lot and were inspired to make a record where we sing harmony vocals basically all the time, which is a change from Big Harp.
“Really we’ve been moving away from the rootsier vibe since the first record and it felt like time to formalize the break. This probably could, and maybe should, have happened on our last album.”
OK, so the duo-only project is called Umm while Big Harp is the name of the trio (or larger)?
“Not exactly. Umm doesn’t have to be a duo,” Stef said. “Partly we just wanted to start a new project and not have to worry about playing old songs or upsetting people by NOT playing old songs. To us, the music sounds different, but I guess people will have to formulate their own opinions on that.”
Ah, OK. Sort of like Cursive vs. Good Life — two projects fronted by Tim Kasher (one of which (The Good Life) Drootin also plays in)?
“Not exactly ’cause those are two bands that are 75% different members. Both of these are Chris and I. :)”
So… Umm is just a way to avoid playing older material?
“No, not really. That’s one part of it, but it’s really just a different project,” Drootin said. “We co-sing constantly. We play with drum loops. The songs are looser and longer. It’s different music. But yes, it’s still Chris and I.”
And that’s where I left it — no more clear about the name change than I was before, other than Chris and Stef see Umm as a completely different project than Big Harp, and don’t want to play Big Harp songs Thursday night. They are, in essence, turning band branding on its ear. Imagine every time a band puts out a new record it renames itself.
If so, not a bad strategy, especially when you consider the number of bands that launch with big success only to fall flat on their second release, the fans of the debut apparently uninterested in hearing what comes next. In the old days (*he says from his rocking chair*) a band put out multiple albums trying to build up an audience and catalog of music. Sure, it was a drag when the crowd zoned out during the “new stuff,” but that’s a pain point every band went through.
Now, simply rename your band and start over with every album. How many iterations of Ty Segall are out there. Fuzz? Muggers? Ty Segall Band? Conor Oberst has Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, Monsters of Folk, Mystic Valley Band and his solo output, though he played a “Poison Oak” (a Bright Eyes song) at his last solo show. Does it really matter what he calls himself since he writes all the songs?
Anyway… Joining Umm tomorrow night is Oquoa and BareBear. $7, 9 p.m. Hey, we all have Good Friday off the next day anyway, right?
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Speaking of upcoming shows (I’m getting a head start to the weekend) Leafblower has a cassette release show Saturday night at The Brothers Lounge with David Nance and one other band. They dropped the first song off the album Monday,
“We recorded with Mike Friedman, and Mike Saklar mastered it,” saidl Leafblower’s Danny Maxwell. “The inserts were designed and screen printed by Ben Allen, and we hand-scored them and numbered them. The tapes are green and hand stamped by none other than Mr. Craig Fort.” How can you go wrong? Check out the new track, titled “RX,” below.
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Random non-music item: I write about my 1966 VW Beetle, my 2017 VW Beetle and how it might be the last car I ever own (because of the advent of self-driving vehicles and Uber) in this month’s Over the Edge column in The Reader. Check it out right here.
So why aren’t The Thermals more popular? They’ve been putting out solid, albeit by-the-numbers indie rock albums for 13 years on established labels Sub Pop, Kill Rock Stars and now our very own Saddle Creek, touring incessantly the entire time. Their meat-and potatoes anthems sport a sly, cynical message and are catchy and fun.
And yet here they were Friday night playing to a less-than-capacity crowd in Slowdown Jr. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand the music business. How do bands get to that next level? At they very least they play like these guys. Performing as a four-piece, The Thermals ran through their set list very matter-of-factly, rolling out one song after the next, giving frontman Hutch Harris just enough time to make the crowd laugh with his snappy between-song patter. Clever, funny, his comments are the embodiment of Portlandia (actually funnier).
The band rolled out a number of songs off their latest album, We Disappear (2016, Saddle Creek) that fit right in with everything else. If there’s a nit to pick it’s that their music lacks variety in pace, tone, dynamics, but maybe that’s just the nature of this style of indie rock. Or maybe that’s what’s holding them back.
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The new issue of The Reader is out, which includes this month’s installment of Over the Edge. The topic: Where are you moving to once Trump wins the election? Find it on newsstands around town or read it online right here. Also in this issue, my recent blog entry concerning this year’s Maha Music Festival (which you can read right here).
Well I’m back from south Florida — Captiva Island, Florida, to be precise, an isolated land mass east of Fort Myers and just north of Sanibel Island. The kind of place where people ride around on bicycles and golf carts, and you’re lucky to find an open bar past 10 p.m. Music consists mostly of guitar-and-steel-drum trios playing covers of Jimmy Buffett and John Denver ballads. It was a long-weekend getaway and about as far away from a SXSW-style spring vacation as you could get. Like Nixon after a long week at San Clemente, I return tanned, rested and ready to go…
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Nebraska Exposed at SXSW 2016
Speaking of SXSW, the folks that bring you Lincoln Calling and Lincoln Exposed have organized a Nebraska showcase at this year’s Austin festival. Consisting almost entirely of Lincoln bands, they’re calling it Nebraska Exposed.
The showcase is Wednesday, March 16, at Cheers Shot Bar, which those familiar with the layout will remember is located a block and a half west of Red River Road on 6th Street — a red-hot location. Hats off to Jeremy Buckley and his pals for pulling this off with the help of a sponsorship by Nebraska Tourism.
The day party begins at noon with Oketo, followed by BOTH, Bonehart Flannigan, AZP, Universe Contest, Freakabout, Laughing Falcon and closes at 7 p.m. with Josh Hoyer and Soul Colossal.
I’d love to see someone organize a showcase like this that featured Omaha acts. In the past, Saddle Creek Records have sponsored showcases that included one or two Omaha bands, but not this year.
My dream Nebraska SXSW showcase would feature one of Saddle Creek’s crown jewel acts along with Miniature Horse, See Through Dresses, Little Brazil, Digital Leather, Bloodcow, Brad Hoshaw/7 Deadlies, Lupines, Simon Joyner and Whipkey (for starters). Get to work on this for next year, Hear Nebraska.
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From the pages of this month’s Encounter Magazine.
If you’ve ever wondered what I look like, you can find out in this month’s issue of Encounter Magazine. Writer James Walmsley wrote the feature, that talks about my history writing about the Nebraska indie music scene along with some opinions about the current state of the indie ’round these parts. The portrait is by the amazing Bill Sitzmann, who has quite a history of his own shooting Nebraska bands. Look for your copy ’round town and in the Old Market. It’s not online yet. When it does go online, I’ll include a link.
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This being Super Tuesday, I figured it was as good a time as any to post my Over the Edge column from this month’s issue of The Reader focused (again) on Trump. The paper probably won’t hit the news stands until later this week, or maybe later. By then, the election on the Republican side (and likely the Dems, too) will be all but over. Trump is riding an unstoppable wave. Rumors of a secret New York Times recording of Trump speaking off the record support one of the points made in my column. In the end, it won’t matter, because his followers aren’t electing a politician, they’re electing a right-wing dream merchant, and nothing less than being convicted of murder is going to stop his ascension to the top of the GOP ladder, where Hillary awaits to knock him off… probably. Read the column here.
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