Big Harp drops new cassette (yes, cassette); Darren Keen in Rolling Stone; Simon Joyner, Danny Pound tonight…

Category: Blog,Interviews — Tags: , , , , — @ 1:10 pm August 12, 2015
Big Harp have a new cassette out.

Big Harp have a new cassette out.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

During a recent interview with Ryan Fox and Stef Drootin-Senseney for this story on The Good Life, guitarist Fox talked about his tape-only label Majestic Litter.

“The nice thing about the label, the point of it is to make music immediate and direct,” Fox said. “There isn’t long lead times that you have with vinyl, or ad budgets or lawyers. You have the songs, you record them, you make tapes right away.”

Fox said he uses high-quality chrome cassettes, but why even bother with what is considered an outdated medium instead of just releasing digital files? “It’s something that exists in space,” Fox said. “It has artwork, and I feel like we all grew up collecting records and tapes and CDs. I’m not a format snob. They all have their merits. They’re functional but not just a ‘remember these’ sort of thing. I think they’re cool and sound good.”

Big Harp, Waveless (Majestic Litter, 2015)

Big Harp, Waveless (Majestic Litter, 2015)

Drootin-Senseney and her husband, Chris, who play in the band Big Harp, couldn’t agree more. So much, in fact, that their brand new album, Waveless, is being released on Fox’s Majestic Litter imprint.

“Chris and I write so fast,” Stef said, “by the time a release comes out we’ve already written another record. With labels, you have to wait such a long time. With this tape we just wanted to get the music out there.”

The 12-song cassette became available for pre-order from Fox’s label website yesterday. All those buying pre-orders immediately receive a download of the album. Pure Volume premiered the first track, “Golden Age,” yesterday as well (which you can listen to below). Listen and order your copy of Waveless for $7, plus postage. The release comes just in time for Big Harp’s next tour, supporting The Good Life throughout the next couple months.

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Former Nebraska resident now New Yorker Darren Keen has been burning up the media lately.

Fact Music News yesterday published an interview with the “Omaha-bred, New York-based producer” in support of Keen’s latest project, the LP He’s Not Real, out Aug. 28 on Orange Milk Records. Check out a track below.

In addition, Keen was interviewed for a Rolling Stone article about “footwork,” a style of music that Stone writer Andy Battaglia described as “marked by dizzying loops, staccato synth stabs, antic polyrhythms and blasts of repetition, repetition, repetition — seemed designed to go everywhere and nowhere at once.” See what Keen has to say about the genre in the story, online here.

Keen is conquering the Big Apple. “Brooklyn rules,” he said. “I’m always busy and I work full-time as a DJ in the East Village.”

He’ll be hitting the road touring with Giant Claw starting Sept. 8 in Cleveland, making his way back to Nebraska for gigs at the Bourbon Theater in Lincoln Sept. 10 and fabulous O’Leaver’s Sept. 13 (for a show that also features Channel Pressure — an electronic collaboration between Todd Fink of The Faint with Graham Patrick Ulicny of Reptar).

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A quick heads up that today the folks from the Maha Music Festival issued a “low ticket warning” for this year’s festival. If you want to go to the day-long fest this Saturday at Stinson Park, you better get your tickets soon.

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Pageturners’ summer concert series continues tonight with Simon Joyner and Danny Pound (ex-Vitreous Humor). The free show starts at 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 © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

 

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After Film Streams gig, Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova) and Co. head to the studio…

Category: Blog — Tags: , , , — @ 1:50 pm November 9, 2011

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The Adventures of Achmed

The following is a public service announcement, as earlier presentations in the Silents in Concert series have sold out, and I have a feeling this one will as well:

Tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Film Streams will be screening The Adventures of Prince Achmed. The 1926 German silent is regarded as the first animated feature-length film and is comprised of papercut silhouettes filmed in stop motion.

The film’s original score was composed by German composer Wolfgang Zeller in direct collaboration with the animation. However, for tomorrow night’s screening, a new original score will be performed live by Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova), Ben Brodin (Before the Toast and Tea, Mal Madrigal) and Ryan Fox (1989 Chicago Cubs, Our Fox, The Good Life).

“We’ll have three electric guitars and rotate on a couple keyboards and trigger a few programmed beats and other odds and ends,” said Fox, who along with Bellows, just arrived in Omaha this week. He and Bellows have worked together in the past as a duo called Breakfast, whose influences have included Brian Eno’s ambient work, Stars of the Lid, Yo La Tengo’s The Sounds of the Sounds of Science, Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground, Jackie-O Motherfucker and Cluster. Look for those influences during tomorrow night’s performance.

But that’s not the only thing the trio will be doing while Fox and Bellows are in town. “On Saturday, the three of us are going into the studio (ARC) to begin recording 15 or 16 or 17 or 25 tracks to make the first full-length album of Jake’s songs since Neva Dinova’s last album in 2008,” Fox said. If the new music is anything like the two new songs available from Bellows’ website, we’re all in for a treat.

As for tomorrow night’s screening, tickets can be purchased from the Film Streams website: $8 for Film Steams members, $10 for students, and $12 for the general public. Get them while you can.

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Tomorrow’s column: Speed! Nebraska at 15.

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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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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