by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The 402 logo

Tonight’s show at The Waiting Room is being promoted as “402 Rock Academy Presents…” According to TWR website, the Rock Academy is part of the 402 Arts Collective, which includes the 402 Project — or maybe they’re all just different names for the same thing?

No. Here’s how I think it breaks down:

The 402 Rock Academy was launched to mentor musicians. “Through the Arts Education Connection we are partnering with public, private, and home schools across the Omaha area to supplement the consistently downsized art curriculum,” according to TWR website.

“The 402 Project” is actually the building located in Benson along Maple Street that used to be The Foundry.

“The 402 Project will provide space for musicians to perform and artists to display their work. The building includes lesson studios that are already being utilized by the 402 Rock Academy and for individual and group lessons. Upstairs you’ll find a phenomenal recording studio and on the main floor we will soon have an Aromas Coffeehouse and an all-ages space for the community to gather and artists to collaborate,” says the site.

The 402 Arts Collective, a 501(c)3 non-profit entity, apparently incorporates all these things, or as their website says, it’s a “vibrant network of artists who are committed to impacting the culture and serving the community.” A noble mission indeed.

So who is involved in the 402 Arts Collective? Well, Skypiper is the only one associated with this project that I’ve heard of. I’ve never seen/listened to the other talent on tonight’s bill — Northern Lights, Midnight Pacific, The Downcast Perfumes, & Jessica Vogt, but seeing as it’s being billed as the “End of Semester Show,” maybe they’re students involved in the Academy? No idea. I’m not familiar with anyone on the 402 Leadership Staff page.

I have, however, heard of Aromas Coffeehouse. They have a location on 10th and Jones. Don’t bother Google-ing their website because it’s broken; instead check out the Yelp entry.  Benson used to not have any decent coffee shops. Now they might have two, Omaha Bicycle Co. and (eventually) Aromas…

Tonight’s Waiting Room show is $5, starts early at 7 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Skypiper at The Waiting Room, May 25, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I might have put my finger on who Skypiper reminds me of. I had to dig around in my feeble brain through most of their set at Saturday night’s EP release show at The Waiting Room, but (I think) I finally figured it out: Frontman Graham Burkum’ s voice bears a striking resemblance to David Baerwald’s.

Who is David Baerwald? Well, once upon a time in 1986 there was pop band called David and David. They had an album called Boomtown that was a huge hit. I loved that record, which today is all but forgotten despite the plethora of pop anthems it provided. David and David was a songwriter’s band; I don’t know if they even performed live. Skypiper also borders on being a songwriter’s pop band, though its songs aren’t as lyrically sophisticated (or as darkly personal) as Baerwald’s. That lack of lyrical intimacy might be what separates Skypiper from folks like Dan Wilson or Jeremy Messersmith, who have a similar embraceable pop style.

Saturday night’s show felt like a homecoming event, with the band creating its own stenciled stage backdrop complete with hand-made decorations. I didn’t realize Skypiper was simply going to give away their new EP. Sure enough, the Burkum Bros. told the crowd to take as many copies as they wanted from the back merch table. How are you ever going to become rich rock stars that way?

Opening band Cowboy Indian Bear put on their usual tight set. Their music seems to be constantly evolving, stretching to keep up with indie le style actuel, and while there’s plenty of sonic resonance to their sound, I’m beginning to lose the songs amidst their colorful noise. I walked away remembering the cacaphony, but not knowing what they were trying to say. Simpler is (almost) always better, which means you don’t need three people on stage pounding on a drum.

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Satchel Grande at River’s Edge Park, May 27, 2013.

In other weekend coverage, look for a review of River’s Edge Park in my column in this week’s issue of The Reader. Needless to say, the park is going to be a gamechanger in terms of live outdoor facilities. I only caught Satchel Grande (the usual feel-good dance stuff) and Josh Hoyer’s new band, the Shadowboxers, which sounded like the reincarnation of James Brown. Get on the good foot, Josh.

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News from Lincoln: Ideal Cleaners broke up… last November. In an email that arrived in my old AOL account, Dan Jenkins announced that the Cleaners’ Nov. 24, 2012, show at The Waiting Room was the band’s finale. “We sure had a good time in that band and played together for 9 1/2 years or something like that,” he said.

On the plus side, Jenkins announced that his new band, Halfwit, will be debuting June 7 at The Sydney. Fellow band members include former members of Mother Pile, Life of a Scarecrow and Machete Archive.

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Two shows of note tonight:

Down at Slowdown, it’s the Bloc Party (yes, that Bloc Party) with Vancouver band Bear Mountain (Last Gang Records). $25, 9 p.m. Tickets are still available.

Meanwhile, over at The Waiting Room tonight, it’s John Klemmensen’s “Songwriter Death Battle,” an intriguing concept wherein 30+ local songwriters take a turn playing one song on stage using Mr. K’s acoustic guitar. Among the battlers: Dane Sybrant, Greg Loftis, Jon Jerry, Kendra Senrick, Sam Houser, Edward Spencer, Koby Good, Sarah Benck Tardy, Bret Vovk, Andrew Janousek, Scott Severin, Tara Vaughan, Jessica Errett, Jeremy Mercy, Nick Carl, Vern Fergesen, Reagan Roeder, Justin Neal, Justin Lamoureux, Stephanie Krysl, Doug Kabourek, Matt Cox, Rebecca Lowry, Matt McLarney, Eliza Doo, Brad Hoshaw, Matt Whipkey, Landon Hedges, Sara Bertuldo, Michael Wunder, and John Klemmensen. That’s a lot of entertainment for $5. Show starts at 9.

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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.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Skypiper, Troubledoer EP (self-release, 2013)

I don’t know where Skypiper fits into the mosaic of music styles that make up the Omaha / Lincoln / Nebraska music scene. They’re not part of Saddle Creek, aren’t involved in the city’s burgeoning dirty garage rock world, don’t fit into the folk/Americana scene and certainly aren’t dance / EDM. To my knowledge, they’re also not aligned with the city’s Christian rock scene.

And so, I’m left scratching my head as to where they fit in. Do we have to put labels for everything? No, we don’t, but it makes it easier for lazy music journalists to describe music.

I don’t know how to describe the new Skypiper EP Troubledoer other than to say it’s as good an indie-pop recording as I’ve heard this year, just straight-up hook-filled songwriting and tight musicianship. Quite a surprise considering their forgettable 2011 full-length debut.

The highlight of this new 4-song collection is track 3, “Free Spirit Woman,” a cute little rock shuffle with a plethora of clever lines that paint the portrait of a local scenester who (thinks) she’s cooler than you and may well be — a woman so free that she doesn’t have time to deal with her own problems. I think I’ve met this person before (Haven’t we all?).

Frontman Graham Burkum has a crisp, unadorned rock voice thankfully lacking any affected accoutrements. This is free-and-easy stuff without a hint of angst and/or cynicism, which will instantly relegate it outside of the sardonic audience that follows today’s indie or punk or anything else with an edge. There’s nothing dangerous about Skypiper. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing interesting about their music. It’s pure feel-good pop that begs you to sing along.  Add a super-crisp recording and you’ve got a promising new player in an already crowded scene, one that stands outside of the usual categories.

Skypiper celebrates the release of Troubledoer Saturday night at The Waiting Room with Twinsmith and Lawrence band Cowboy Indian Bear.

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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.

Skypiper at The Waiting Room, Sept. 9, 2011.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

When I first started writing about music years and years ago, one of the first things I needed to get over was being intimidated by the artists I was interviewing. Case in point: I remember visiting the mid-town home of Sydney Buchanan, where I was slated to interview a very young version of Mousetrap (featuring Sydney’s son, Patrick) for a feature in The Note, a Lawrence Kansas-based music publication that’s long since defunct. I was quite a few years older than those teen-aged Mousetrap kids, but I was still nervous as hell — nervous about asking a stupid question, nervous about just looking stupid in general.

It didn’t take long to get over that sense of insecurity, to the point where I eventually became comfortable interviewing anyone, from a nationally renowned rock band, to a politician or the head of a global corporation. We’re all just people, right?

I had to go through a similar thing when it came to going to rock shows by myself, a situation I’ve written about at length before (right here, actually). I figured as I got older, that stigma that comes with flying solo at shows would ease somewhat, but it really hasn’t. Case in point this past Friday night.

My first stop for the evening was The Waiting Room for the Skypiper CD release show. I got there in time to catch the last song by opener Tarlton, and quickly regretted not getting there sooner. They were followed by Anniversaire, a somber chamber-pop band purposely drenched in melancholy despite a very excited drummer dressed in gym shorts, knee-highs and headband who looked like he’d be more comfortable backing a party band at a kegger. Then came Skypiper. I’ve been listening to the band’s new record off and on for the past couple days, reminded of acts like Jeremy Messersmith and Decemberists. They brought a similar exuberance to their live show, performed in front of a large audience, none of whom I recognized — this wasn’t your typical Waiting Room crowd, and I’m sure there’s a reason for that.

I hung out for about five Skypiper songs before heading to my car and downtown to House of Loom for the Depressed Buttons inaugural show. It was around midnight when I rolled past the building, located just south of Western Heritage Museum on 10th Street. I could hear the chaos boiling out of Loom from my car, where I noticed dozens of people crushed outside the door, not waiting to get in, just enjoying the cool pre-fall night.

And as I looked for a parking spot along the overpass I said to myself, “Who are you kidding? You’re not going in there. Not by yourself.”  So yeah, I chickened out. It’s one thing to go to TWR or Slowdown by yourself and get lost in the crowd with the rest of the people staring at the stage. It’s entirely another thing to show up at a dance club alone and try to inconspicuously mix in with hundreds of people shaking their asses on the dance floor, especially if your ass is older than theirs, and ain’t shaking. As much as I wanted to see and hear what Todd and Jacob were up to, I couldn’t get over that feeling that I would be very much out of place. It’s not a “you thing,” Loom, it’s a “me thing.” And I have to get over it.

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One place where you’ll never feel intimidated is O’Leaver’s, mainly because no matter when you arrive, everyone there is already loaded. Tonight should be no exception when Peace of Shit takes the stage along with Dikes of Holland and The Prairies. $5, 9:30 p.m. By all means, go.

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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.