by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Orenda Fink yesterday released a new video for the song “Ace of Cups” from upcoming album Blue Dream, which comes out on Saddle Creek Records Aug. 19. The video (below) was directed by Nik Fackler (the director of feature films Lovely Still and Sick Birds Die Easy as well as a member of Icky Blossoms and InDreama) and Aaron Gum (also in InDreama). It’s a head trip. Look for cameos by The Faint’s Todd Fink and InDreama’s Dereck Higgins.

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Some Big Star news…. A band is being pulled together to play Big Star’s Third in concert that includes original member Jody Stephens on drums. Joining him are Mike Mills, Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), Chris Stamey (The dB’s) and “guest musicians from each city.” The band will be backed by a chamber orchestra and sets also will include songs from #1 Record. Cities are Carrboro, NC; Washington, DC; Seattle and LA. More info at ardentmusic.com. Ardent recently announced that #1 Record and Radio City are being remastered and rereleased by Stax, with a drop date of Sept. 2. I do love Big Star…

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When in ROAM: Audio Postcards from the Four Corners of the Globe

David Matysiak (Coyote Bones) posted the next installment of his ROAM audio series. This time it’s audio postcards from around the globe. Contributors include Sarah Bohling (Icky Blossoms), Sam Martin (Capgun Coup), Mike Albanese (Maserati), Graham Patrick Ulicny (Reptar), among others.

Check it out via SoundCloud here.

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In this week’s column, random notes on Mula (delicious), zucchini (big), Maha (soon), Guardians (awesome) and cyclists (chubby) . You can read it in this week’s issue of The Reader or online right here.

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Speaking of Maha, the Maha Team announced yesterday that the festival is getting a Ferris wheel for the Aug. 16 concert at Stinson Park. “We are also introducing a game truck to the entertainment lineup in the early part of the day,” Maha said in a press release. “This truck will be stocked with a variety of XBOX, Nintendo Wii, and PlayStation 3 games.”

Ironically, I jokingly called their $50 ticket an “all-day ride pass” in my column this week not knowing about the impending Ferris wheel addition, which is bound to cause some confusion with someone.

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Couple shows to consider tonight:

At The Waiting Room indie/country blues band Bazile Mills headlines with Burkum Boys (the bros from Skypiper). $7, 9 p.m.

At The Barley Street, it’s The Talbott Brothers Band w/ Maxwell Hughes (former Lumineers guitarist, yes those Lumineers) and John Larsen. 9 p.m. $5.

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Conor Oberst in DIY Magazine.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

One assumes a primary advantage to being on a major label is broader media exposure. How much of the recent Conor Oberst media explosion is due to Nonesuch putting out his next record?

Case in point, in addition to announcing expanded tour dates Monday, Nonesuch also announced that Oberst will be performing on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon May 19 as well as CBS This Morning Saturday May 24. Conor’s done the late night circuit before, but I can’t ever remember him doing a morning show. Can an up-close-and- personal one-on-one interview on Ellen be far behind?

This morning DIY Magazine posted a lengthy cover story on Conor at its website (here). Nothing earth shaking reported. Conor talks about how he purposely made the lyrics to songs on the last Bright Eyes album, The People’s Key, obtuse.

“I kind of intentionally wanted the words on that to be very dense and almost cryptic – my hope was that if you started to listen to it enough it would start to reveal itself – but I think some people just didn’t want to listen to it that much so they never got to that part,” he laughs.

He also talks about his disillusionment with politics: “…they used to say it’s the difference between Pepsi and Coke, whereas I feel like it’s the difference between Coke and Diet Coke really – it’s like so little difference [between the Democrats and Republicans].”

DIY saved the best quote for the closer: “I’m not naive enough to say ‘music can change the world’ because I don’t believe that,” he asserts, “but [music] can get behind enemy lines… it is something you take into your house with you, into your bedroom, into your most private moments, into your ears – and so if that music is communicating something… maybe its just a political message or maybe its like ‘try to be empathetic to your fellow human’ or like ‘dream big, think about the ways the world could be better’ – then that affects that person.”

Expect more online revelations from Conor as the new record, Upside Down Mountain, comes out a week from Tuesday, May 19.

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As of this writing, tickets were still available for the July 30 Matthew Sweet show at O’Leaver’s. Price w/fees is $16.52 (That’s right, I already bought mine). Buy yours here. Nice thing about this: A portion of the service fee goes back to the community. It makes you feel all warm inside…

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The latest ROAM.

David Matysiak’s ROAM project continues with the latest installment posted online: ROAM Vs. Wild: A Safari through Uncharted Earscapes. One of the featured artists is Bob Nanna of Braid. Check it out here (It’s free).

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Faint’s Doom Abuse is out now…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

It’s drop day for The Faint’s new album, Doom Abuse, out now on SQE. To celebrate, Homer’s is hosting an in-store meet-and-greet with The Faint this evening at 6 p.m. According to the press release “The band will hang out, Homer’s will spin the new CD, and there will be free soda, beer and pizza.” Free beer? Seriously. Of course the CD will be for sale as well as the limited deluxe special edition vinyl. Get it.

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I knew it was too good to be true. Moments after posting a link to yesterday’s blog entry someone posted a comment saying that Fischer no longer is on the bill for the Punk Rock Reunion show May 17. I’ve sent an email to 1% to confirm this but haven’t heard back. Fischer is still listed on the event 1% page, however… I’ll let you know one way or the other when I know…

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ROAM In the Family

The latest installment of David Matysiak’s ROAM project went online yesterday. This time ROAMers “explore the theme of family by creating a new audio collage using archived materials or new recordings to engage the concept in all of its literal and figurative manifestations.” Contributors include Stef Drootin (Big Harp), Dereck Higgins (InDreama), Devin Brown, Julie Hines and more. Download it for free right here.

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The folks at the Maha Music Festival yesterday tweeted that they’ll be announcing this year’s concert line-up April 17. I foresee surprises in store. Maha Fest is slated for Aug. 16 at Stinson Park…

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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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Roam – I Just Had the Weirdest Dream, March 2014

Remember David Matysiak? He’s the guy behind music project Coyote Bones and CoCo Art. David used to live here in Omaha. You might have seen him carrying sound recording equipment in Nik Fackler’s new film Sick Birds Die Easy. One of his many projects these days is ROAM, a monthly podcast he curates engineered by Mason Brown with ideas by Devin Brown and design by Jordan Noel.

This month’s ROAM (the 7th installment) includes contributions by Matysiak, Mason and seven others including Orenda Fink of Azure Ray. The theme, well, let David tell you: “For this 7th installment of the ROAM podcast series we challenged our incredible collection of contributors to compose a piece of sound art that is the encapsulation of a dream, a vision, a nightmare that is so compelling and concretely manifested as to render obsolete this cliche about the pointlessness of narrating our dreams.”

It’s pretty friggin’ trippy. Check it out here or below (but put your headphones on first). All past ROAM transmissions are online here, including last month’s, which featured a contribution by Tim Kasher. Check ’em out.

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Interesting show tonight at Slowdown Jr. Dead Meadow headlines a bill that includes Snake Island, Dim Light and Swamp Walk. Dead Meadow released three records on Matador before moving on to Xemu Records. This should be a good one. $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 © 2014 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.