by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The final count on my Omaha Entertainment and Arts (OEA) awards predictions: 5 for 15. Not bad. Actually, that’s appalling, but it accurately reflects my knowledge of the Benson music scene. Last night’s big winner was Galvanized Tron, who took home the Artist of the Year and Best Hip-Hop awards. I’ve never heard GT’s music before. In fact, I haven’t heard seven of the 14 winners’ music. Pleasant surprises were Conduits (best indie) and Icky Blossoms (best DJ/EDM), two bands whose music I have heard (and enjoyed) and who recently signed big fat record deals with a couple national indie labels we’re all familiar with. Least surprising: That Bright Eyes’ The People’s Key took home Album of the Year. To the best of my knowledge, Conor skipped the ceremony. Here’s the rest of last night’s OEA Award winners:

Best New Artist: Snake Island
Best Artist: Galvanized Tron
Best Cover Band: Yesterday & Today
Best Ethnic: The Bishops
Best Progressive/Experimental/Funk: Satchel Grande
Best Jazz: Jazzocracy
Best Blues: Kris Lager Band
Best Hip Hop:  Galvanized Tron
Best Soul/R&B Gospel: Lucas Kellison
Best Country/Americana: Matt Cox
Best DJ/EDM: Icky Blossoms
Best Indie: Conduits
Best Hard Rock: Broken Crown
Best Adult Alternative/Songwriter: AYGAMG
Best Album: Bright Eyes, The People’s Key

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In other awards show news, legendary Omaha producer Tom Ware of Warehouse Studios went home empty handed from last night’s Grammy’s, as his work with Lady Gaga was overlooked by an academy that was “gaga” for Adele. It was fun watching Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon awkwardly accept the award for best new artist. Said Vernon at the podium: “It’s also hard to accept because when I started to make songs, I did it for the inherent reward of making songs, so I’m a little bit uncomfortable up here.” So were we, Vernon.

A still from the Chipotle commercial.

The rest was business as usual. I watched every second of last night’s Grammy’s broadcast and the most impressive moment was an animated Chipotle commercial about organic farming featuring Willie Nelson singing a cover of “The Scientist” by Coldplay. I “rewound” and watched the commercial three times.  You can check it out here.

The broadcast had an amusing ending when KMTV cut off the evening’s big finale featuring Paul McCartney and a stage filled with famous guitarists (Bruce Springsteen and David Grohl among them) so we could get an accuweather update. Apparently no one at the station pays attention to their own programming. Yet another shining example of KMTV’s rock solid commitment to becoming the worst network-affiliated TV station in Omaha. Keep it up, guys, you’ve got KPTM and the run!

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If you weren’t up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning you missed NPR’s feature on Simon Joyner that aired as part of Weekend Edition. The piece featured Simon talking about his music and his life in Omaha, and included comments from Conor Oberst and myself. So if you’ve ever wondered what my voice sounds like, here’s your chance to find out as the audio story is now online. Nice work, Clay, though there’s the issue about the spelling of my last name…

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Denver’s Westword has a review of Sunday night’s Cursive show at the Larimer Lounge online here. From the review:

“‘I don’t know why we don’t come here more often,’ Kasher chuckled and complimented the crowd. The rock elder statesman looked genuinely bashful as he paid his audience the largest possible compliment. ‘You guys are awesome. You should go to Omaha and teach those guys how to rock!‘” 

Really, Mr. Kasher? REALLY?

By the way, you can now hear Cursive’s latest, I Am Gemini, streamed in its entirety right here at rollingstone.com.

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Tonight is officially metal night at The Waiting Room as ’80s thrash metal band Testament takes the stage with Omaha’s own metal masters, Bloodcow. $25, 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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A follow-up on the item posted a couple weeks ago about Simon Joyner’s Kickstarter campaign… It only took Simon a few days to reach his $6,000 goal to help fund the final recording, mixing and manufacturing expenses for his 13th full-length album. With 19 more days left in the campaign, Simon is now pushing $9,000 in pledges and there are still tons of cool awards left for those of you who haven’t pledged (and even for those of you who have). Check it out.

There’s been a lot written about Kickstarter, both positive and negative. When you see results like this, it’s hard to criticize it as a business model. That said, this is the third Kickstarter campaign that I’ve contributed to, and I have yet to see results from the first two. I pimped Digital Leather’s Kickstarter campaign on Lazy-i way back in April 2010, and put my money where my mouth was, pledging (along with 100 other people) to support the band’s campaign. If they met their goal (and they did) I was promised a free download of their next album along with a limited edition vinyl copy of the record. Two albums later and I’m still waiting to receive both. Then in August 2010 I pledged cash via Kickstarter to help finance a local production of a short film. To the best of my knowledge, shooting on that film wrapped over a year ago, and I haven’t seen a frame of it, nor have I received the promised copy of the film’s “soundtrack.”

Yeah, I guess you could say that I got screwed, but to be honest, I never expected to get anything from those two pledges other than a chance to help the artists involved. I gave because I supported the cause, and if in the end they were able to pass along the promised rewards for my generosity, that was cool. If not, well, I was only out a few bucks. That said, I know I don’t speak for the majority of people who make pledges on Kickstarter. They expect to get their booty if the campaign reaches its goal. What could be a cool thing could easily turn into a dead albatross hung around the artists’ neck along with a lot of bad PR. If my track record with Kickstarter reflects a national trend, I can’t see its popularity lasting very long.

But if my experiences have been the exception to the rule, Kickstarter could become the ultimate method for artists to allow their fans to “pre-order” their next record, effectively generating money needed to cover production before the record ever hits the store shelves.

Who knows, maybe Digital Leather and that film producer will fulfill their Kickstarter commitments… eventually. I know Simon will.

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Saddle Creek band Big Harp joined the legions of acts that have recorded a Daytrotter session. Theirs went online today, right here. The duo of Chris Senseney and Stef Drootin-Senseney sing three songs from their White Hat debut, plus “Other Side of the Blinds.” It’s been awhile since I stopped in at Daytrotter. I hadn’t realized that they’d begun a “membership” model, and I can’t say I blame them. Doing what they do isn’t cheap. Becoming a Daytrotter member is a mere $2 a month, and well worth it. But you can check out Big Harp’s session for free with a trial membership.

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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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Dave Sink in better days...

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This week’s issue of The Reader features a cover story that compiles remembrances of Dave Sink from the musicians and friends who knew him best. And while portions of the article have appeared on other websites over the past day or so, none collect more comments from the people who made a mark during the era in which Sink was most influential. The contributors: Brian Byrd, Simon Joyner, Craig Crawford, Pat Buchanan, Bernie McGinn, Conor Oberst, Robb Nansel, Gary Dean Davis, Tim Moss, Matt Whipkey, Jake Bellows, Patrick Kinney, Adam J. Fogarty, Gus Rodino and Brad Smith. You can read the article online right here, or find a printed copy around town.

The issue also includes my remembrance of Dave, which I’ve posted below:

Remembering Dave

It began in November 1992. I was a few years out of college at UNO, already working full time at Union Pacific, but still writing about underground music, something that I’d begun doing as the editor of the college paper and as a freelance writer for The Metropolitan and The Note, a Lawrence, Kansas, regional music paper that had expanded its coverage to Omaha and Lincoln.

One of my first assignments for The Note was writing a piece on Dave Sink, his record store in the basement of The Antiquarium, and his record label, One-Hour Records. By the time of our interview, One-Hour already had released singles by Culture Fire (Release), Frontier Trust (Highway Miles) and Mousetrap (“Supercool” b/w “Fubar”), as well as Simon Joyner’s landmark full-length cassette, Umbilical Chords. One-Hour was a big deal both to the editors down in Lawrence and to me.

The audience for indie and punk music in Omaha was microscopic. At this point in its history, Omaha’s live music scene was dominated by top-40 cover bands that played a circuit of local meat-market bars along 72nd St. College music was heard mostly in college towns — something that Omaha certainly wasn’t. But Dave didn’t care. He had no aspirations of getting rich off One-Hour.

From that article:

“It’s fun empowering people,” said the 43-year-old entrepreneur who used to prefer classic rock to punk. “These are good people with good ideas and lots of energy. I knew these guys as really cool people long before I knew them as musicians.”

The advantage to being on One-Hour? “Possibly nothing,” Sink said. “We’re in an infant stage. But this is how Sub Pop got started and a lot of other quality punk labels. Any band we press is going to get 200 promotional copies of their single shipped to radio stations and ‘zines across the U.S. and Europe. The bottom line is we’re a medium for a band to reach a broader audience.”

Sink said Omaha had never had as many good original bands as it does now, whether the city knows it or not. “Unfortunately, most of the time they’re playing shows for each other. Omaha has a very talented music scene that is woefully underappreciated.”

Funny how, despite the success of Saddle Creek Records, little has changed.

After that story ran, I continued to drop into Dave’s store. He would pick out an armful of albums and singles for me to buy, and that’s how I discovered a lot of the bands that I would end up writing about in The Note (and later, in The Reader). He was always willing to give me the inside scoop on something that was going on musicwise. And much to my surprise, he read a lot of my stories, and was always willing to tell me when he thought I got it right, or got it wrong. A former editor at the old Benson Sun Newspaper, Dave’s perspective on my writing went beyond his music knowledge. As a result, he was always in the back of my mind whenever I wrote anything about music (and still is). I guess I didn’t want to disappoint Dave. Actually, no one did.

Toward the latter days of his involvement in the record store, Dave became more and more disillusioned with modern music. I’d go down there ask him what was good and he’d start off by saying, “Nothing, it’s all shit,” but eventually would find a few things for me to buy. He was more into jazz by then, and (of course) baseball, which we’d talk about at great length, along with his perspective on art and literature and film.

Funny thing, it didn’t matter that Dave was 20 or 30 years older than the kids buying the records. They all respected and sought out his opinion, and Dave was always happy to give it. My favorite Dave line when he didn’t like something: “It’s not my cup of tea.” It was that simple.

As the years went on, Dave quit showing up at the store, and then eventually it changed hands and moved out of the basement. Meanwhile, Saddle Creek Records bloomed, Omaha became nationally recognized as the new indie music “ground zero,” and I slowly lost touch with Dave.

And then along came Facebook. And there was Dave again. Over the last couple years we reconnected online, but mostly about baseball. Dave, a long-time Royals rooter, hated the fact that I’m a Yankees fan, a team he said was ruining baseball. I would argue that, in a market like Omaha, being a Yankees fan was downright punk – people hated you for it, that it was a lonely existence not unlike being a punk fan in the ‘90s. He never bought that argument.

I tried and I tried to get Dave to do that all-encompassing interview about the glory days of One-Hour and The Antiquarium. I told him how much he influenced everything that Omaha’s music scene had become, that I wanted to tell his story and put him on the cover of The Reader. Of course he would have none of it. He would kindly turn down the requests, saying he didn’t do anything, that he was only a record store owner and that the focus should be on the bands, not him.

Despite that, I think he knew how important he was to everything that’s happened here. He certainly was important to me.

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If I had to venture a guess, I’d bet that Dave wasn’t a Lemonheads fan.

Not coincidentally, neither am I. But that shouldn’t stop you from going to see The Lemonheads tonight at The Waiting Room, where the band will be performing It’s a Shame About Ray in its entirety. I’m told that Evan Dando was a bit fussy the last time he came to Omaha. What will he do this time? Opening is Meredith Sheldon. $15, 9 p.m.

Also tonight, power pop in the form of Lonely Estates and the Beat Seekers at The Sydney. 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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Yesterday’s announcement that Saddle Creek Records will be releasing the debut by Icky Blossoms came as a very pleasant surprise. IB was among the triad of bands who emerged last year that everyone thought Creek would — or should — give close consideration. The other two were So-So Sailors and Conduits. S-S S is still without a deal (I’m not sure they even want one as much as a tour agent). Conduits, of course, ended up on Team Love. After the Conduits announcement last week I asked TL exec Matt Maginn if his label was considering releasing records from both Tilly and the Wall and Icky Blossoms. He said “yes” to Tilly (though there’s no release date yet), and that IB would be “releasing with someone else I believe.” Coy, Mr. Maginn, very coy.

Anyway, when Creek passed on those two acts whose lineage traces back to other Saddle Creek bands (So-So to Ladyfinger, Conduits to Good Life), I figured they’d also give the cold shoulder to IB. Thankfully, I was wrong (again).

The other big news was that TV on the Radio’s David Sitek will be recording Icky Blossom’s debut, presumably in LA according to their Facebook page (apparently they’ve already headed West). That’s a sizable coup, and a change of pace from the usual ARC Studio approach (though few of Creek’s recent signings record at ARC). What will Sitek bring to IB’s already-trippy sound? We’ll find out eventually, but probably not until late 2012 (I’m guessing). We’ll all be able to track their progress at the new Icky Blossoms website, conveniently located at ickyblossoms.com (What, that url wasn’t already taken?).

Now who else in Omaha still needs a record deal?

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Speaking of new records, Simon Joyner launched a Kickstarter campaign today to generate money for an upcoming double album. “I’m nearing completion but I’m looking for backers to help fund the final recording, mixing and manufacturing expenses for my 13th proper full-length album. The new album is being recorded all-analog in my south Omaha warehouse ad hoc studio on a borrowed 16 track, 1” reel to reel machine and will be mixed at ARC Studio soon,” Joyner said on his Kickstarter page.

His plan is to self-release the vinyl album, making it available directly from him via mail order as well as distribute it through traditional channels via Ba-Da-Bing Records. Team Love, who put out Joyner’s last album, Out Into the Snow, will also help out.

Joyner’s pledge target is $6,000, and donors will receive a number of incentives based on level of support, ranging from a good-hearted thank you to a personal performance. Check it out today, campaign ends Feb. 19.

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Speaking of limited-time offers, today is the last day to enter the drawing to win a copy of the Lazy-i Best of 2011 comp CD. You know the routine. Just email me (at tim@lazy-i.com) your mailing address, and your name will be dropped into the hat. Tracks include songs by tUnE-yArDs, St. Vincent, Icky Blossoms, Decemberists, Gus & Call, It’s True, Eleanor Friedberger, Peace of Shit, Digital Leather and a bunch more (check out the track list at the bottom of this blog entry). I’ll announce the winner(s) right tomorrow!

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Last but not least, Bloodshot Recording artist Lydia Loveless is playing tonight at The Waiting Room with Gerald Lee Jr. (You know him from the Filter Kings). Among Loveless’ accolades: #4 on SPIN’s Top 20 Country/Americana Albums of the Year, included in Paste Magazine’s Best of What’s Next 2011 feature, an 8 / 10 album rating in SPIN Magazine, features with AOL/Spinner, Daytrotter, and The Chicago Tribune. Show starts 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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.