See Through Dresses at The Waiting Room, July 19, 2014. The band just signed to Tiny Engines.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Indie label Tiny Engines announced today that it signed Omaha band See Through Dresses. The Carolinas-based label has been around since 2008 , according to their website. Their roster includes Beach Slang, which recently toured with Cursive, Adult Mom, Everyone Everywhere and a shitload of bands I’ve never heard of (but who are probably awesome).

Look for a new See Through Dresses EP this fall on Tiny Engines. The band just finished touring with Cursive and are headed out on a rather massive European tour starting right after they open for Matt Pond PA at Reverb this Thursday night. No doubt Sara Bertuldo, Matt Carroll and the rest of the band will be fluent in German when they return in June.

* * *

Speaking of touring, Desaparecidos just added a few more dates to their summer tour, according to Brooklyn Vegan. The band will play support shows with Gaslight Anthem and Brand New, and will be hosting their CD release shows for Payola (out June 23 on Epitaph Records) in NYC at Shea Stadium and Rough Trade.

Meanwhile, the various members of Desa are busy trying to ride the wave of publicity with their own projects.

Rig 1 a.k.a. Ian McElroy, just announced a handful of East Coast and Midwest tour dates in support of his last record, 2014’s North of Maple (Team Love Records).

One of Denver Dalley’s other projects, Broken Bats, yesterday premiered a track off their upcoming EP called “Leather” (listen to the track here). In addition to Denver, Broken Bats consists of  former Pink Spiders frontman Matt “Friction” Bell, Future Unlimited drummer Gabe Pigg, and Tony Smith from Bowling Green rockers Sleeper Agent. The full EP apparently drops digitally today. The band is playing at Mercury Lounge in NYC May 14 with Fidlar and Metz.

I mentioned Matt Baum’s latest project, Montee Men, recently released a new tune on Bandcamp. And, of course, Landon Hedges’ project Little Brazil is in the process of writing and recording a new album.

Then there’s Conor Oberst, who’s got solo dates throughout the month of June, including a sold out show at The Waiting Room June 18.

* * *

Tonight at Slowdown Jr. it’s the return of San Francisco band Vetiver (Sub Pop, Easy Sound). Opening is EDJ (Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats). $15, 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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Lots of release news today…

Simon Joyner, Grass, Branch & Bone (Woodsist, 2015)

“You Got Under My Skin,” the first track off Simon Joyner’s upcoming album, Grass, Branch & Bone, is being streamed via Stereogum today (right here). The album comes out on Woodsist Records on St. Patrick’s Day. Pre-order your copy here. You won’t regret it.

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Dereck Higgins, Myths…Realities (DHV, 2015)

Dereck Higgins’ follow-up to last year’s Murphy LP is titled Myths…Realities and is being co-produced with KiNETiK Records (Greece). The collection is archival material, most of it never released. Preorder your copy of this limited-run release here.

* * *

See Through Dresses, self-titled (This Charming Man, 2015)

Preorders are being taken here for the European release of See Through Dresses’ self-titled LP on German label This Charming Man Records. The record drops in late March.

* * *

In non-local music news, The Mountain Goats today announced they’ve got a new album coming out April 7 on Merge called Beat the Champ, which is about professional wrestling. “I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I’m grown,” said head goat John Darnielle. Check out the first track from the album, below.

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Rock NYC has written a love letter to Matt Whipkey in the form of a glowing review of his upcoming album, Underwater, calling Matt “Omaha’s best export since Conor Oberst.” Read the review here and check out Matt’s latest video, below.

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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.

Minnesota’s Kitten Forever plays at O’Leaver’s tonight…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Nebraska’s hardest working musician / DJ, Darren Keen,  was honored with a remix of his track “Higher” by Teklife’s DJ Earl. The details are at Fact Magazine.

Who exactly is DJ Earl?

“The music I am making now is heavily influenced by a Chicago style of dance music called Footwork,” Darren said. “The biggest, most famous crew is called Teklife. The two biggest DJ / producers they have are DJ Rashad and DJ Earl. DJ Rashad died this year. So DJ Earl is literally the biggest name in the genre of music I’m doing now. He’s gonna be hella famous in a year.”

Darren described “Footwork” as fast, triplet-based dance music. “Vice (the news website) described my sound as ‘B-boy footwork being played out of a 3rd world boom box.’ Sounds accurate.”

Hear for yourself by checking out the track, here. BTW, Vice debuted a Darren Keen song just a few weeks ago, right here.

* * *

Catching up on some news from yesterday….

Desaparecidos let the cat out of the bag via social media when they posted a photo of an upcoming Epitaph comp cassette that features the band along with a handful of label mates. As stated, it was apparently made for last weekend’s FYF Fest.  The track, “Anonymous,” was released as a single by Desa last year.

Conor gave a non-denial affirmation when asked about the band’s relationship with Epitaph in our recent interview, published in June in The Reader:

The Reader: What’s happening with Desaparecidos? I heard a new LP has been recorded and is coming out on Epitaph. With the demands of supporting your new solo album and tour, is that project now on hold?

Conor Oberst: We’ve been working towards a new full length. We hope to put it out next year at some point. It has been a blast playing with them again. I have to promote my new record and that takes time, but we are going to continue working on the Desa stuff as well.

Read the rest of the interview here.

* * *

Tomorrow’s Future Islands show at The Waiting Room is now sold out. See you there.

* * *

Tonight’s Hear Nebraska Live at Turner Park concert featuring Snake Island and Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship has been cancelled… again. Tonight’s show was a reschedule from a date a few weeks ago that also got rained out. HN’s Andy Norman is seeing if he can get yet another date for this bill.

* * *

See Through Dresses announced via Facebook they’ve been signed by the Germans at This Charming Man Records. “We’re looking forward to working with them and they are releasing our full-length in Europe. Expect us over the pond next year!”

Just for fun, I plugged the TCM’s announcement into Google Translate, which switched it up from German to English, in the usual clumsy fashion:

I am very pleased, See Through Dresses from Omaha, Nebraska to be able to welcome in the ranks of TCM. Hannes, his character drummer of Lost Girls and touring riders of Tim Kasher, contacted me a few months ago and sent me euphoric the current LP of four. Kaspers Tim raved well during his last tour in Germany neatly from the See Through Dresses -plate (as for me later turned out, the guitarist and singer of See Through Dresses to Kasher’s “adult movie” album has appeared and participated in the complete tour ) and Hannes thought it was a nice idea if this quite excellent album would also appear in Europe. After the first run I was already hooked, excited after repeated listening.

I felt immediately added to the year 1995 – a Best Of the nineties Indies Sebadoh about Sonic Youth (eg “Pink Noise”) and My Bloody Valentine … The sound is of course no new nuclear physics, ignites at me but mega hard – super hooks, sugar-sweet melodies, sadness and pathos something … these are the ingredients for the perfect Emo WetDreaM. And alongside the influences of the old world but you will also find traces of current bands, for example, Shout Out Louds – the singing of “Get Sick Again”, Pains At Being Pure At Heart – “Glass” and the male / female vocals in General.

The self-titled and self-recorded debut album was released in an edition of 550 LPs out in the States and in the spring of 2015 with This Charming Man re-released. The band is touring Europe to match the album release in spring / summer 2015 For booking requests but please contact Hannes or write me a mail fix.

* * *

Speaking of See Through Dresses, they headline a show tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Minneapolis band Kitten Forever and Lincoln punk masters Once A Pawn. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also tonight, Part V in John Klemmensen’s ongoing Songwriter Death Battle series takes place at The Waiting Room. John hands his acoustic guitar off to a string of local singer/songwriters for one tune apiece. The action begins at 9. $7.

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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.

Little Brazil at The Waiting Room, July 19, 2014.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

What a birthday bash for Sara Bertuldo. Something like 150 people (guess-timate) were there to celebrate Sara’s successful journey around the sun and to hear one of the strongest local line-ups in a long time.

See Through Dresses at The Waiting Room, July 19, 2014.

Sara kicked it off with her band, See Through Dresses. All this talk about a shoegaze revival with bands like Slowdive once again touring. Forget all that and check out this band, which combines the best droning shoe-gaze elements with the tunefulness of Dinosaur Jr. and Pixies. Bertuldo has grown not only in age but in voice, sharing the vocal chores with Matt Carroll, who’s no push-over himself. Post mammoth June tour, they were razor sharp.

As reported, Little Brazil swapped out half its personnel, and the difference was indeed noticeable. Matt Bowen brings a throatier style to the kit, somehow managing to work his way through Oliver Morgan’s intricate lines while adding his own unique voice to the proceedings. Mike Friedman’s lead guitar lines were altogether different not only from what Greg Edds used to contribute to the band, but from what Friedman does as a member of The Lupines. His Lupes’ style is sheer shredding, whereas his ornate touch on LB tunes recalls Layla-era Clapton (Yeah, I said it, I compared him to God). You had to pay attention, though, as Friedman is more musician than showman — playing (at times) with his back toward the audience.

It all came together on the third song of LB’s set, a new tune unlike anything I’ve heard them try before, a hook-laden rocker that separates itself from LB’s standard indie fare thanks to a unique vocal melody and amazing harmony guitars between Landon Hedges and Friedman that recalled the best of Thin Lizzy. This one has “hit” written all over it (too bad there ain’t no such thing as a hit these days). Hedges, btw, was in top vocal form, and bassist Danny Maxwell’s bass continued to be the bedrock it’s all built upon. Where can these guys take this next?

Ladyfinger rounding out the July 19 show at The Waiting Room.

Finally, Ladyfinger framed the evening with its usual bombast. It was a greatest hits set, with no new material (that I recognized, anyway). Here’s yet another band of local legends that has me scratching my head, wondering where they’re headed next.

* * *

Nightbird at The Sydney, July 18, 2014.

Friday night I slipped into The Sydney to catch Nightbird’s debut performance, and it was pretty much as I expected — a set of sludgy, mid-tempo long-form rock songs inspired by your favorite stoner bands. Gerald Lee Meyerpeter howled over his guitar’s feedback as drummer Scott Zimmerman and bassist Jeff Harder provided the foundation. We used to call this “drug music” when I was a kid, and though I don’t do drugs, I can imagine (or maybe I can’t) what it would be like to trip out to this stuff in a smoke-filled bedroom surrounded by black-light posters and halter-tops. Nightbird is all about style rather than songs — if you’re into their kind of dirty sludge, a heavy heaven awaits. PS: Rumor has it they may be adding another guitar, someone from Omaha rock’s not-so-distant past…

* * *

Big show tonight at fabulous O’Leavers — the return of Planes Mistaken for Stars. These guys have been coming through since the late ’90s playing an angular style of post-hardcore punk. Not to be missed. Opening is New Lungs (Little Brazil’s Danny Maxwell in the lead position) and Chicago post-hardcore band All Eyes West. $5, 9 p.m.

* * *

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.

See Through Dresses at The Waiting Room, Nov. 30, 2013. The band kicks off its summer tour tonight at O’Leaver’s.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Billboard is reporting that first week sales of Conor Oberst’s Upside Down Mountain came in at roughly 11,000 units, enough to put him on top of the Folk charts.

“Conor Oberst starts at No. 6 on Top Rock Albums and scores his first No. 1 on Folk Albums with “Upside Down Mountain” (11,000),” says the Billboard article. “It’s Oberst’s first title credited to his name alone (as opposed to his moniker Bright Eyes, or Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band) since his eponymous album in 2008, which debuted and peaked at No. 3 on Top Rock Albums. “Mountain” is Oberst’s first major-label set, released on Nonesuch/Warner Bros. He crowned Top Rock Albums in 2007 with Bright Eyes’ “Cassadaga,” which also earned him his highest rank on the Billboard 200 (No. 4).“

According to SoundScan data, the Upside Down Mountain came in at No. 19 in overall sales with 10,674 units sold last week. FYI, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories was No. 1 selling 382,665 units. Mike Fratt, general manager at Homer’s Records, said Oberst would have finished higher on the sales charts had his vinyl been available — apparently it wasn’t and isn’t.

“There was a production issue, so vinyl is still not at retail,” Fratt said. “Just checked WEA b2b and (the record is) still not in stock. So, that hurt sales. Maybe as much as 4,000 to 5,000 units.” That would have been enough to push the record to No. 15.

Fratt’s estimate of vinyl sales seemed way high to me — 5,000 units would have represented about a third of the record’s total sales had it been available. But Fratt says his estimate is right on.

“Vinyl for an artist like Conor could be as high as 40 percent of first week sales,” he said.  “There have been a a handful of indie releases in the last year where the vinyl share has exceeded the CD or digital component. These have been releases that have sold less than 10k total for the first week. Vinyl now represents approx 30 percent of an indie store’s sales now.”

Fratt added that in Omaha alone, Upside Down Mountain sold 140 units, according to Soundscan.

* * *

Onto the weekend. Two good local shows tonight.

At fabulous O’Leaver’s, See Through Dresses kicks off its 2014 Summer Tour in support of the self-titled debut LP released last fall. Opening is personal faves Gordon along with Worn Out, which I think is the band formerly known as Adtrita fronted by the man known as Steve Micek formerly of the band The Stay Awake (I’m making a massive assumption about Worn Out based solely on the fact that the link on the show’s Facebook invite for Worn Out goes to the Adtrita bandcamp page)(And you know what happens when you assume?) $5, 9:30 p.m.

Also tonight, Simon Joyner opens for Portland’s Marisa Anderson (Mississippi Records). Also on the bill is Mike Schlesinger. $8, 9 p.m.

Unless I’m misreading the data, that’s it for this weekend. Let me know if I’m missing something. And a Denny Lewis used to say, ‘Good living to ya.’

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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.

See Through Dresses at The Waiting Room, Nov. 30, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I guess I should have bought a copy of See Through Dresses’ debut album at last Saturday night’s CD release show because I can’t find it online anywhere. Their Bandcamp page doesn’t offer downloads or even album streaming (except for two songs). And they don’t have a “proper website” (fewer and fewer bands do these days). Savvy marketing? Maybe (though I’m probably just missing the link).

Without a copy of the record to relive the memory of Saturday night’s show at The Waiting Room, I’ll just have to listen to Dinosaur Jr. and the most recent Thurston Moore solo album. Or maybe pull out dusty records by The Church or Dream Academy — all bands that STD’s sound resembles.

The band isn’t exactly bashful about their influences. Co-frontperson Sara Bertuldo introduced one song by saying (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Here’s one that will remind you of the mid-2000s,” and two more by saying “These ones sound like the ’80s, a time when I just barely existed and Nate didn’t exist at all.” Or something like that.

No doubt rock music by its very nature constantly eats itself. For about a year every new local band sounded like the second coming of The Cure or Pavement. Recently Sonic Youth has (again) become a favorite for emulation. The difference is that STD doesn’t sound like any one band, but rather like a band influenced by an era, which makes their music both unique and familiar. Their heroes are easy to spot, though See Through Dresses’ sound is purely their own.

And it rocks. Most of the vocals are handled by Matt Carroll, who has a soothing croon that lies somewhere between Thurston and J. Mascis. It’s countered by Bertuldo’s twee, childlike voice that’s straight out of K Records territory. It’s easy to bury Sara in the mix, but the sound Saturday night was pristine enough so that the (estimated) crowd of around 120 could catch every note. Nate Van Fleet’s throaty drumming was another highlight, as was Robert Little’s bass work (a little bird tells me Little is leaving the band).

Now if I could only get a copy of their CD…

* * *

Speaking of Bertuldo, that’s her on bass in this just-released Love Drunk video for Tim Kasher song “A Raincloud Is a Raincloud,” shot (ironically?) at Countryside Community Church.

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The early head’s up for this week’s shows:

John Klemmensen and friends Wednesday at The Waiting Room.

Cursive Thursday at The Waiting Room.

OEAA Showcase Friday in Benson.

So-So Sailors and Brad Hoshaw Friday at O’Leaver’s.

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

In this week’s column, an explanation born out of a discussion about cassettes and that weird noise heard at the end of each side. You can read it in this week’s issue of The Reader, or online right here…or (because it’s music-related) below:

by Tim McMahan

We were sitting around a table at The Barley Street Tavern waiting for the band to get its shit together when the discussion turned to the weird bleep-bloop sounds recorded at the end of pre-recorded cassette tapes.

“I think those are some sort of signal to tell you it’s time to turn the tape over,” said the guy sitting with us, a music legend (of sorts). But I knew he couldn’t be right. The noise that tells you it’s time to turn the tape over is the low whine of the motor followed by a loud “Thuck!” of the tape deck clicking off. And besides, just about every tape deck made after 1980 was auto-reverse. Were tape makers trying to tell us that the motors were about to go in reverse and play Side B? Come on…

It just dawned on me that you younger folks are scratching your heads wondering what the hell I’m talking about. What sound on the end of the cassette tape? And what’s a cassette tape?

The sound is a series of electronic tones from low to high each lasting a split second, strung together like a ladder of noise, like a sonic rainbow. The tape manufacturers didn’t start putting it on tapes until later in the life cycle of cassette tape technology, and only for a brief sliver of that technology’s history.

The tones recently made a cameo appearance in modern times. Arcade Fire includes them as an ironic statement about technology on their new album Refecktor at the end of track 7, “Joan Of Arc,” which also happens to be the end of the first CD in the double-disc package (but you wouldn’t know that if you were listening on Spotify).

I always thought the bleep-bloop sound was an audio check, kind of like a TV test pattern for your hi-fi system or car stereo, but what standard was it supposed to be checking against? Or maybe it was an early version of an audio product logo, like the rousing orchestral tone you hear when you fire up your Apple computer, a congratulations heard every time you turn on your MacBook that you wisely chose an Apple product over a Windows PC.

Still, our friend insisted it was intended to tell you to turn your cassette over, like those old children’s books that came with a 45 rpm record that had a recorded tone to tell you when to turn the page.

When I got home later that night I turned to Google for answers and typed in the phrase “weird audio tones at the end of cassettes.” The first thing returned in the search engine was a link to the Wikipedia entry for “XDR (audio).”

According to the anonymous author who wrote the entry, “XDR (eXtended Dynamic Range, also known as SDR (Super Dynamic Range)) is a quality control and duplication process for the mass production of pre-recorded audio cassettes.” XDR boasted a higher dynamic range, “up to 13 decibels greater.”

It didn’t matter that the typical factory-fresh DELCO cassette deck that came pre-mounted in your brand new 1978 Ford Fiesta couldn’t reproduce that range with its 4-inch paper-cone dash-mount speakers, or that even if they could you wouldn’t be able to hear it over the traffic noise or the annoying person sitting next to you.

The Wiki entry went on about tape duplication processes and how EMI / Capitol Records and PolyGram were among the labels that fell for the XDR hustle. It wasn’t until later in the entry that it got to the part about the bleep-bloop noises.

The XDR process included “recording a short test tone burst at the beginning and end of the program material on the cassette, to detect for any loss of audio frequencies in the audio spectrum. The tone burst consists of 11 tones about 0.127 seconds in length (with 0.02 seconds of silence in between each tone), from 32 to 18,000 Hz.”

The entry doesn’t include any dates. The first time (I think) I heard them was on my brother’s Duran Duran Rio cassette, which came out in 1982, or maybe it was his Red Rider Neruda cassette, released in 1983. It couldn’t have been much later than that because I remember buying my first compact disc, The Fixx’s Shuttered Room, at Kmart in 1982. Before long, CDs would be the only format that I or anyone else would buy, and cassettes, along with vinyl, would become relics of the past like the 8 Track tape.

So there it is.

If you go to YouTube and search for “Cassette Tones,” you’ll find a 13-second video that reproduces the bu-bu-bu-bu-bleep! noise in all its hissing glory. For those of us who lived through that era it’s like an audio lighthouse from a kinder, gentler time, before computers and the internet and iPods and smart phones, when “high fidelity” meant gigantic, ugly home stereo systems, ridiculous car stereos with 6 x 9 speakers and twinkling-light equalizers, and cassettes that ended with a rainbow of sound.

Over The Edge is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, the media and the arts. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.

First published in The Reader Nov. 27, 2013. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

* * *

Happy frickin’ Thanksgiving. Here’s a run-down of the weekend’s hottest shows.

Tonight at The Waiting rom it’s the return of Poliça. The band just came through this past April. Read the review of that show here. The conclusion: “The set held a gorgeous, sexy vibe, like a deep-night strut laced with shot-gun echo, with Leaneagh leading the way through the pitch-black tunnel, holding your hand.” Whew, sexy indeed. Not so sexy is opening act Minneapolis noise band Marijuana Deathsquads — laptops, drums and yelping vocals. $14, 9 p.m. Check out some live MDS below:

Meanwhile across town at fabulous O’Leaver’s it’s the mighty Dumb Beach with Mr. & Mrs. Sprinkles (featuring Jim Schroeder of UUVVWWZ). This one’s free and starts at 9:30.

For reasons I can’t fathom, there are no shows on Thursday night…

And then Friday, or should I say BLACK FRIDAY. And the mandatory Black Friday show is, of course, at O’Leaver’s featuring Talking Mountain, M33n Str34t and Video Ranger. Expect the unexpected. $5, 9:30 p.m.

The Waiting Room also has veritable house band Satchel Grande Friday night.

Saturday night’s highlight is the See Through Dresses CD release show at The Waiting Room. Opening is The ACBs and Places We Slept. $7, 9 p.m. Check out the band’s hot new Love Drunk video for “You Get Sick Again,” taped at Almost Music / Solid Jackson Books in Benson:

Also Saturday night, Eli Mardock and Low Long Signal open for Guilty Is the Bear at Slowdown Jr. $7, 9 p.m.

While back at O’Leaver’s it’s Dim Light Saturday night with experimental KC act Be/Non. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Gobble gobble…

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

And the crowd looked on, at Jake’s Block Party, Sept. 6, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Jake’s Block Party in Benson has become an annual (or semi-annual?) must-attend event for anyone interested in local indie music. As in years past, the stage was set up right outside of Jake’s on Military Ave., leaving room for food vendors (Lot 2/Baxter’s, a food truck, fine brews by Jake’s).

This time  the party was teamed up with Benson First Friday, which may explain the rather light crowd for opening band Twinsmith. Though the audience was thin, interest was intense for a marquee act that has all the earmarks of a local breakthrough. Again, I was reminded of Vampire Weekend. Make your own comparisons. One of the most pop-friendly indie bands to emerge from the Omaha scene in recent memory.

Oquoa at Jake’s Block Party, Sept. 6, 2013.

Moreso than when I saw them a couple weeks ago at their O’Leaver’s debut (or maybe it was the outdoor stage) Oquoa sounded like Conduits with a male lead singer, which of course makes sense considering core members of Oquoa were in Conduits. Thick, dense waves of sound rolled through the old brick buildings, but instead of Jenna Morrison’s tonal coo cutting through the feedback we got Max Almquist’s brassy rock voice. I still don’t know what he’s singing about, but that will come when we get a lyric sheet (or a clean recording). If you were a Conduits fan, you need to check these guys out.

See Through Dresses at Jake’s Block Party, Sept. 6, 2013.

See Through Dresses had a sound that bounced between Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth. Needless to say Sara Burtuldo’s interplay with with frontman Matt Carroll (Nate Van Fleet and Robert Little round out the four-piece) gives the band a Thurston Moore / Kim Gordon flair. When they throw in a New Order cover, well, things get out of hand (in a good way). As a whole, less punk and more post-punk than Sara’s other project.

Speaking of Sonic Youth, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship followed STD and played their usual cranked up post-punk set, louder than ever. By then, the block was packed. Alas, I didn’t stick around for headliner Universe Contest.

* * *

Early in the evening, word leaked that Conor Oberst was going to mark the anniversary of Pageturners with a performance on the bar’s ad hoc stage. What to do, what to do? In the end, I sat tight at Jake’s figuring that I wouldn’t get there in time to get in and/or if I did the place would be crushed. Unlike Conor’s Krug Park “secret show” a year ago when video and reports leaked everywhere afterward, the only thing I’ve seen to prove that this actually happened was a dark, blurry photo posted on the Pageturners Facebook page.

* * *

Two shows going on tonight. Top o’ bill is Jim James (of My Morning Jacket and Monsters of Folk) at Slowdown. Is Conor still in town? If he is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he joined his old pal on stage for a couple songs. Opening is the amazing Basia Bulat, whose new album, Tall, Tall Shadows, comes out on Secret City Records Oct. 1. As of noon, tickets were still available for $27. Show starts at 9.

Also tonight, spacey rockers Youth Lagoon a.k.a. Boise Idaho’s Trevor Powers, plays at The Waiting Room. His new album Wondrous Bughouse was released on Fat Possum this past March and is, indeed, a head trip in a Floydian sort of way. Opening is Austin low-fi trio Pure X. $14, 9 p.m.

* * *

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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Conduits circa last January…

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Conduits are headed across the ocean for their first European tour.

The tour starts on Halloween in Linz, Austria, at Posthof (a gig which apparently features a “Belle & Sebastian DJ set”). From there it’s three weeks of dates in Austria, Switzerland, and France, closing out with a night in Utrecht, The Netherlands on Nov. 22.

But before they climb aboard a silver dart to far off lands, Conduits have a date with you tonight at Slowdown Jr. Opening the show is red hot Lincoln band Universe Contest and See Through Dresses. Who the hell is See Through Dresses? Well, according to their Facebook page, the band consists of Sara Bertuldo (Millions of Boys, Conduits), Matt Carroll, Nate Van Fleet and Robert Little. They list Kate Bush as the band’s influence. Who doesn’t like Kate Bush?

Get there early. 9 p.m., $8.

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