Tim Kasher, Adult Film (Saddle Creek, 2013)

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

And here’s Pt. 2 of the Tim Kasher interview. Pt. 1 was posted yesterday. Both parts are in this week’s issue of The Reader. Pick up a copy at your local news rack or bar or coffee shop or convenient store today.

Over the Edge: Leftover Kasher

Like the headline says, here’s some leftover wisdom from Tim Kasher that didn’t make it into the feature story.  I thought it would be a shame to leave it on the cutting room floor.

For example, nowhere in the feature story did I explain the title of Kasher’s new album, Adult Film, and the origin of its hideous cover art. Hopefully Eric in production has a copy of the artwork to include with this column so you can see just how repulsive it truly is. So gruesome is the cover that I almost dropped the CD’s jewel case when I took it out of the promo mailer’s envelope.

The artwork is actually quite simple — it’s a nude head-and-shoulder photo of Kasher covered in some sort of greasy, slimy substance, as if a giant woman-thing gave birth to him full-grown only moments prior to the shoot. Mixed in with the shiny, viscous substance are bits of what look like shit or placenta or snot balls. Even Kasher’s well-combed hair lays flat like it hadn’t been washed in a couple weeks. The photo is just straight fucking gross; so ugly you can practically smell it.

The art is made all the more disturbing by the placement of the words ADULT FILM in yellow all-caps on top of a black bar that blocks out Kasher’s eyes, as if to hide his identity even though his name appears right above his head.

Creepy. Needless to say, there had to be some sort of meaning behind it.

“There’s not a ton to it, and I feel like I suffer when I explain it,” Kasher said sheepishly. “I just quite simply saw the two words ‘adult film’ in my head and I separated them from what they’ve come to mean in our society. I tend to play around with words, and it occurred to me how odd those words were together. They’ve come to mean ‘pornography’ and nothing else. but if they had never been used for pornography they would conjure this gross thought; this film that people collect that gets wrinkled and corse as it goes old and untouched.

“I think (in that context) it’s fitting for the album’s subject matter. That meaning casts a wide net. It’s a catch-all for mortality and getting older, but also about career and dating and aging and whatever pursuit you happen to be in.”

He said said he’s “a little uneasy with the porno aspect” of the title. As for the guck, “It’s Vaseline and dirt; potting soil and some mulch and some green dye to give it a bit of a sheen.”

Aren’t you glad I asked?

At one point during our interview I also asked Kasher about his vocals on the album’s roaring, rolling opener “American Lit,” and told him it reminded me of something from Slowdown Virginia, one of Kasher’s first bands from way back in ’93 that some say was a starting point for what would become the Saddle Creek scene.

“That’s a relief to me,” Kasher said. “I sing lower almost always now. I’ve been having vocal issues over the last four years. I write in low registers just in case. I just can’t stay on top of it. I don’t know when it’s going to go out next, with bronchitis or something.”

That was a surprise. So was Kasher’s comments about Help Wanted Nights. I mentioned that Adult Film was my favorite Kasher album since that classic 2007 album by his other band, The Good Life. It turns out that Help Wanted Nights also was notable to Kasher, but for a different reason.

“It was the first time that I got bad reviews,” he said. “It knocked me down for like two days, and then for the next few records I watched (the reviews) a little bit more than before. It became a sick curiosity, and I got a little obsessed.”

Kasher said he eventually got past his preoccupation with critics. “I’m not going to do that anymore,” he said. “It’s not that I’m against critics, it’s that they’re not the ones who I should be writing for.”

Help Wanted Nights was actually a sort of soundtrack to an unproduced script of the same name. Written a few years prior to the album’s release, it was the first script Kasher tried to get produced, catching the interest of a handful of Los Angeles money people. Still, six years later, the script remains unshot.

“I set it aside just before I began working on (The Game of) Monogamy (Kasher’s 2010 debut solo album). It had some renewed interest for a few months.”

Kasher hasn’t given up his silver-screen dreams. “I have another script being worked on to go into production,” he said. The new one is about couple swapping — ironic, considering the title of this new album.

Kasher said the movie business is “a hard game with a lot of money involved I keep writing and handing stuff out, and here and there get reactions. I’ll cautiously kind of let it play itself out and see what happens.”

One last thing I forgot to mention in the feature: Adult Film doesn’t come out until next Tuesday, Oct. 8, on Saddle Creek Records (of course). You should pick up a copy when you go to see Kasher and his band celebrate its release at The Waiting Room Saturday night. Whatever you do, don’t judge the record by its cover.

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, Oct. 2, 2103. Copyright © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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One of the biggest shows of the month takes place tonight at Slowdown Jr.

Some of you may not be old enough to remember Quasi and the Portland band’s seminal 1998 album Featuring “Birds,” but it was one of the defining albums of the late ’90s and the high water mark this band. Frontman Sam Coomes had just left two pretty successful bands — Donner Party and Heatmiser, a band that also featured Elliot Smith — to form this band with Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss. Featuring “Birds” came out of nowhere and was a critical smash thanks to ultra cool songs like “I Never Want to See You Again,” “The Poisoned Well,” and of course “California.” Heck, every track is good.

Six more albums followed, including their just released Mole City, which came out Tuesday on Kill Rock Stars. Tonight’s show kicks off their tour in support of that album.

Joining Quasi is Jeffrey Lewis, who’s album End Result (2007, Rough Trade), is one of my faves. Lewis has recorded with Kimya Dawson and most recently with Peter Stampfel. Our very own See Through Dresses opens. You get all three for a mere $15. Starts at 9. GO!!

Also tonight, Louisville, KY singer/songwriter Cheyenne Mize (Yep Rock Records) plays at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Eli Mardock and Blue Bird. $5, 9:30 p.m.

And The Waiting Room is hosting another Songwriter Death Battle featuring 40 or so local singer/songwriters passing around John Klemmenson’s beat-up acoustic guitar for one song apiece. Hear Nebraska has the line-up info right here. $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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Kasher and band at O’Leaver’s, March 21, 2013.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

That dim line that divides Tim Kasher’s music projects got a little dimmer last night when the ol’ boy played at O’Leaver’s in front of a packed house with yet another new backing band.

This time Kasher, who spent the night behind electric guitar and microphone (vs. last night’s sold-out acoustic gig at O’Leaver’s) was backed by Sara Bertuldo (Millions of Boys) on bass and backing vocals, drummer Dillon Ryan (who played with Cursive on their last tour) and keyboardist Patrick Newbery (Cursive). Or maybe I should say “multi-keyboardist” as Newbery was surrounded by a tiger cage of no less than four keyboards (Bertuldo provided a fifth keyboard for good measure). More than anyone, Newbery has become Kasher’s creative right-hand man and ever-present collaborator, not only on this music, but in Cursive, and why not? He adds a colorful layer to everything Kasher does, whether on keyboards or trumpet. The two looked like they shared a psychic bond when they played as a duo during last night’s set.

Playing in front of a lot of familiar faces Kasher took the opportunity to roll out a number of new songs, a few he said had only previously been played for an audience of house pets. New songs ranged from garage-flavored psych-pop to New Wave-y rock (powered by Newbery’s wonky, wonderful synths) to the usual slow sad stuff (“This next one’s new, and it’s a bummer.”) to a triumphant, set-ending anthem. The new stuff was fun and hooky, among the more poppy stuff I’ve heard him play (and most varied), right up there with the most-tuneful of Good Life material, and a sharp contrast to his debut solo stuff (which for me, was colored in shades of anxious blue, underscoring its theme). Despite that, there was no stretching toward an obvious pop moment, like on Help Wanted Nights. Some of that material resembled an artist searching for an infectious hook (“Heartbroke” comes to mind).

So here’s the thing: Kasher’s Monogamy material was as intimate and personal as you’d expect from a solo outing. The new solo material feels less so. Maybe I’d have a different opinion had I been there Wednesday night when he was solo acoustic. With the band, it sounded like a different incarnation of The Good Life. In fact, they even played a few Good Life songs to make matters more muddled. When Kasher played a Cursive song — a trippy, dissonant solo version of “Sierra” — there was no confusing it with the original. Kasher helped draw a distinction between bands when he called Good Life drummer Roger Lewis to the “stage” to play three or four Good Life songs with him. No doubt his new material would fit more comfortably within The Good Life canon than as Cursive songs, which are more abrasive, sardonic (and apocalyptic) in tone than anything else Kasher does.

Also like past Good Life sets, Kasher was in a chatty mood last night, filling the set with lots o’ funny moments (He barely talked between songs during the last Cursive tour). He said he’s off to the studio next week to record the new material, conceivably in Chicago this time, where he now lives, though we all know he’ll always call Omaha home.

Opening the show were some of his new Chicago pals, the band Brighton MA, which has a distinctively indie rock sound that recalls acts like Wheat, The Walkmen, Spoon, and at times, The Good Life. If you’re into any of that — or just good guitar-fueled indie rock — check out their new album Oh Lost on Fast Plastic Records.

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OK, so what do we have going on tonight and the rest of this weekend? It’s going to be busy. Let’s hope the weather doesn’t muck it up.

Hot show for tonight is the Benefit for the Community Bike Shop at Slowdown Jr. Your $7 cover will go toward building a permenant outdoor repair stand outside the shop, which is located at 525 North 33rd Street. The bands performing: Simon Joyner and the Ghosts, M33n Str33t, No I’m the Pilot and UUVVWWZ. Is there a Joyner song you’ve always wanted to hear performed live? Tonight’s your chance, as Joyner will take requests ahead of time from anyone who contributes $20 or more through the shop’s Paypal link on their website. Details here. Show starts at 9.

Also tonight, Lincoln band Plains is headlining a show at fabulous O’Leaver’s with Small Houses and Howard. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Tomorrow night’s centerpiece show is at the Sweatshop Gallery, which is quickly earning a rep as a new destination for rock shows. The line-up: Filter Kings, Solid Goldberg and Pleasure Adapter. It’s also the closing reception for artist Joe Damon. $5, 21+ (not sure why since it’s a gallery but probably because they’ll be serving booze). More info here.

Also Saturday night, ’80s indie band Soul Asylum plays at The Waiting Room with local heroes Landing on the Moon. $20/$25 DOS, 9 p.m.

Sunday night, dance band STRFKR (you remember their cover of Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”) play at The Waiting Room with Blackbird Blackbird. $13/$15 DOS 9 p.m.

And finally, also Sunday night, Delicate Steve returns to Slowdown Jr. with Twinsmith and The Dad. $10/$12 DOS. 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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Good Life at The Slowdown, May 1, 2011.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I have to mention this…

I didn’t hear the news until after I got to Slowdown last night, and not on the radio, as I was tuned into the new tUnE-yArDs CD (which, ironically, is titled whokill). While waiting in line to buy my ticket, the leader of one of the city’s better rock bands (who wasn’t on the evening’s bill) came up to me rather gleefully saying, “Did you hear? They got Osama bin Laden.” I glanced over at three guys standing on the sidewalk smoking who were overhearing all of this, grinned and said, “OK, I’m with you. And?” expecting a punch line. “No really, the president is going on later tonight with an official announcement.” I just kept smiling. The musician shook his head and said, “Look at your iPhone. It’s true.”

I knew I wasn’t being punk’d. A few hours earlier, someone had posted on Facebook (specifically @jeremy.lipschultz) that an out-of-the-ordinary late-night announcement was coming from the White House at 9:30 CT, but it hadn’t happened by the time I’d left home. When I walked into the cavernous darkness of The Slowdown, I noticed more people than usual (which means everyone) with faces aglow from gawking at their smart phones. They stared intently, saying nary a word. And the only acknowledgment from the stage came from Tim Kasher, who said something like “Some of you might think it’s a big deal. You all know what I’m talking about since we all have computers in our pockets.” A handful clapped. Not a lot. During the break between sets outside on the patio, someone who has spent half her life under the shadow of Osama said. “I guess it is a big deal, right?” I told her the best thing about it was that it might help decide the 2012 election. We both nodded and changed the subject. The night was supposed to be about music, not the capture of the modern-day real-world equivalent of the head of HYDRA or SPECTRE. I’m happy they got the guy, and I’ll leave the rest of the commentary to the political blogs…

Conduits at The Slowdown, May 1, 2011.

Back to the subject at hand… A few hundred showed up at last night’s Omaha Girls Rock! benefit at Slowdown — a nice crowd. I got there in time to catch Conduits, who has become a finely honed drone machine effortlessly firing on all six fuzzy cylinders. When they’re dead-on, like last night, their music is like that moment in a great wide-screen movie when the flyover-plane — barely strafing the desert — comes to the edge of the cliff and the shot opens to a miles-wide canyon below. Huge, majestic, breath-taking. Conduits were made to perform on a large scale, on large stages like Slowdown and The Waiting Room (and MAHA’s main stage?). I don’t know if I’d get that same feeling if they were playing at, say, O’Leaver’s or Barley Street, but I’d like to find out.

Seeing The Good Life again was like running into old friends at the bar that you haven’t seen in way too long, catching up on gossip, reliving old war stories, remembering everything you liked about them and wondering why you haven’t spent time with them lately. During a free-spirited set that lasted over an hour and included special guests Chris Machmuller on alto saxophone (on two songs) and Craig Korth adding harmonies to a cover (“Oh Yoko”), the band seemed to barely scratch the surface of their fantastic catalog. A grinning Kasher told the crowd how much fun they were having on stage and thanked them for sharing it with them, especially since they “only play about once a year” anymore, which is an absolute shame.

By all indications, the fund raiser was a big success. Now it’s time for the folks at Omaha Girls Rock! to roll up their sleeves and get to work. You can find out more about the organization right here.

A side note: The long-awaited four-song split with Conduits, Icky Blossoms, InDreama and Touch People has finally arrived and was on sale at the merch table last night, which means if you preordered a copy, it should be on its way.

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Tomorrow: A live review of Saturday’s Digital Leather show, some Red Sky comments and info about a show at The Barley Street that you crazy shoegazers won’t want to miss…

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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.

Tim Kasher dines with a "special friend."

Tim Kasher: Games People Play

Going solo, Kasher rolls the dice… on love.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Will we ever know the real story behind the songs that make up Tim Kasher’s debut solo album, The Game of Monogamy?

Probably not. “Some friends and family — people who really know me well — try to guess which songs are accounts of my life, and they’re always wrong,” Kasher said while on the road in Dallas. “To me, that’s great. That means I’m getting better as a writer.”

I, too, tried to pry the real meaning behind bitter-worded songs like “Cold Love” (The sheltered life of a couple / Is like living in a bubble), “No Fireworks,” (I thought love was supposed to spill from our hearts / I can’t feel it, no fireworks, no twinkling stars), and “There Must Be Something I’ve Lost,” (When I was young I believed in love / But hey, I also believed in God), which aren’t so much about monogamy as much as the agony of living in monogamy.

“That’s why calling it The Game of Monogamy is so crucial,” Kasher said. “I don’t feel the record is about monogamy. I still yearn for that concept, which is why I call it a game. I also think we could sit here with a panel and they’d all agree that it is a game. It’s not easy, and isn’t it also a pain in the ass?”

But where, exactly, did Kasher’s cynical view of long-term companionship come from? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in the fall of 2009 the singer/songwriter frontman of successful indie bands Cursive and The Good Life seemed to be a happy fiancé, only to become unattached again just a few months later. Kasher, who once admitted that seminal Cursive album Domestica was about his failed marriage, won’t talk about that recent engagement, nor say if it supplied meaning for this record.

“To me, the album is like (The Good Life’s 2004 release) Album of the Year, where I was chronicling the bulk of my experiences over a year,” Kasher said. “I kind of did the same thing with this record. There are specific references to my own life; I can’t deny that, but there’s so much other stuff, too. The story as a whole is a fictional account. That’s what you do as a writer — you base it on your own experiences, and then fictionalize it.”

Tim Kasher, The Game of Monogamy (Saddle Creek Records)

Kasher said he started writing the songs for The Game of Monogamy two years ago when Saddle Creek Records label-mates Azure Ray invited him to play solo at some of their reunion dates, back when he still lived in Santa Monica, California. “I thought it was a good opportunity to start writing my own record, which I always planned on doing,” he said. “I did do that once, back in 1999, but that became a band (The Good Life). This is me starting over.”

In late 2009, Kasher moved from Santa Monica to Whitefish, Montana, after his pal, Stefan Marolachakis of the band The End of the World, told him what a great time he had recording up there. Kasher compared the area of northwestern Montana to the bucolic land seen in the 1992 Robert Redford-directed film A River Runs Through It. “I wrote about half the record in those four months in Whitefish,” he said. “I was really lucky.”

Maybe splitting the songwriting between Santa Monica and Montana explains why the music on The Game of Monogamy comes in two distinct flavors. Acoustic heartbreakers like “Strays” and “The Prodigal Husband” and epic closer “Monogamy” are balanced out by some of the best pop songs Kasher has ever written, including the brass and electronic-handclap driven “I’m Afraid I’m Gonna Die Here,” and simple, swinging “Cold Love,” both of which would be radio hits in any other universe.

Kasher can’t help but be proud of those perfect pop gems. “I wouldn’t say ‘proud,’ I’d say I was pleased, for lack of a better word, with writing ‘Cold Love,'” he said. “It seems like a ridiculous concept that as a musician and songwriter you spend so much time trying to make things so complicated, and spend so much of your life trying to find ways to simplify things. I get more comfort from trying to hit those pop peaks. I love pop music, and those songs are just me being more willing to see them through.”

Backed by a solid band that includes Patrick Newbury on keyboards and trumpet, Dylan Ryan on drums and Lewis Patzner on cello and brass, Kasher had no expectations for this, his first solo tour. “No one knew what to expect, so we all prepared for the worst,” he said. “We never had any false assumptions that people were going to show up because they knew my name.”

But, thankfully, they have. “After 10 years of fairly consistent touring, here I am touring more than I’ve ever toured,” Kasher said. “I thought I’d slow down at some point, but touring is such a huge part of staying afloat.”

So are his other projects. Kasher said he’s working on new Cursive material as well as another solo record. He’s even written a couple more screenplays despite being unable to get his first screenplay, Help Wanted Nights, produced. “The long and short of it is that it didn’t work out, but I’m still feverishly trying to crack into the (film) industry,” he said.

With all that under his belt, the only thing he’s missing is writing the Great American Novel. Kasher just laughed. “If everything went incredibly well, that would be the third chapter of my life.”

Tim Kasher plays with Darren Hanlon & Conduits Friday, Nov. 19, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $10. For more information, call 402.884.5353 or visit waitingroomlounge.com.

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It’s a psychobilly explosion tonight at The Slowdown with Detroit’s Koffin Kats (Stomp!) with The Empires, Rumble Seat Riot, and Omaha’s very own The Filter Kings. $10, 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 © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Orange County Register has a nice review of The Good Life’s June 8 show at The Glass House, where the critic admonished his readers for not showing up at the gig. From the review: “The band was having a blast, with all members smiling ear-to-ear while covering Fleetwood Mac’s  ‘The Chain’ to close. Stephanie Drootin, very much in the family way, didn’t let her baby bump get in the way of some fast bass work and nimble keyboardistry.” Read the whole thing here.

That baby on board is obviously going to impact the band, as this piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today seems to indicate. Hyping tonight’s Good Life gig at Bottom of the Hill, the story warns: “Catch the longtime cowpoke in the Saddle Creek stable while you can: The combo claims these are the last Good Life shows for a good while.”

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Speaking of shows tonight…

There’s a benefit concert for the organization Women for Women International tonight at Slowdown Jr. featuring Skypiper, Capgun Coup and Conchance. $7, 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, over at O’Leaver’s, Landing on the Moon is headlining a show with Cloven Path and brand new band Students of Crime (whose first show in April was reviewed here). The students are led by legendary local punk rocker Robert Thornton (The Wagon Blasters, Now Archimedes!, Past Punchy and the Present, Culture Fire, Clayface Regular). $5, 9: 30 p.m.