By Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’ve been digging through old photos lately (and will be doing a lot more in the future), and pulled a couple in honor of Throwback Thursday.

The top image was taken at The Slowdown Nov. 4, 2007. Stars was the band performing on stage. Shortly after The Slowdown opened that year, they installed this crazy sculpture in the rafters of the main room made out of (what I thought was) large plastic paint buckets (see top of photo). I thought it was a super-cool addition to the club, and would have loved if they kept it up there, but after a few months, it disappeared. Hey Slowdown, bring it back (and bring back Stars, who this fall will be on a 20th Anniversary Tour in the U.S. for the album Set Yourself on Fire)!

Above, Little Brazil performs at the inaugural Maha Music Festival, held downtown on Lewis & Clark Landing way back on Aug. 29, 2009. This appears to be the Brashear LLP Stage – there also was a second, larger MAHA Stage headlined by Dashboard Confessional, who coincidentally, will be playing at Steelhouse Omaha Sept. 24. Maha stayed at L&C Landing one more year (2010, with Spoon and The Faint), before moving to Stinson Park in Aksarben Village in 2011 due to massive flooding along the Missouri River. Now we continue to wait with baited breath to see if Maha will return downtown in 2025 at the new Riverfront Park…

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Yesterday, there was a new post on The Jewell’s social media channels, heralding the return of what is now being called “The Jewell on Capitol.” The original Jewell shut down operations last September. Sure enough, if you go to jewellomaha.com you’ll see a “Coming Soon” message, along with “Reviving a beloved live music lounge – now hiring servers and bartenders to craft unforgettable experiences.”

More to come…

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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 © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

#TBT: Stars play The Slowdown Nov. 5, 2007.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I posted the above photo as a Throwback Thursday thing because I tripped into it while going through some old photos and was mesmerized by the sculpture that used to be wound among the rafters of The Slowdown. That sculpture was made out of buckets, if I remember correctly, and stayed up in the ceiling for a few months. They should have just kept it up there.

As for Stars, as I said in the review: “Nearly 400 diehard Stars fans got more than their money’s worth last night at Slowdown — a set that lasted nearly two hours. The whole time, you could tell that Torquil Campbell and the rest of the band were thrilled to be there. In fact, they told the crowd so, over and over throughout their set, saying such glowing things like Slowdown was a gem ‘built on music.’ All night, band members would make their way to the microphones and say how proud they were to be there. It was kind of sweet and charming.”

Whatever happened to Stars? They’re still going strong…

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Tonight The Brothers Lounge, Brooklyn NY duo Crushed Out rolls into town. “The husband-wife duo of Moselle Spiller and Frankie Sunswept (born and raised in Los Angeles) draw deep from their shared love of ‘atomic’ 50’s rock ‘n’ roll, slide guitar blues, and SoCal surf creating a sound that delivers on all those things rock ‘n’ roll promised us so long ago.” Hussies are the actual headliners. Idlefox opens. $5, 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 © 2017 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.