O’Leaver’s is under new management, and they’re a bunch of martyrs.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Remember way back in October when I said two bits of red hot news fell into my lap? One bit was that Red Sky Festival was dead (ho-hum); the other I said you’d have to wait for. Well now the news can be told (though just about everyone who follows local music already knows it).

The guys in Cursive bought — and are now the proprietors of  — O’Leaver’s, Omaha’s garage rock ground zero and home to the functionally inebriated. Last Saturday night, the George Washington of O’Leaver’s — Chris Mello — handed over the keys to Tim Kasher, Matt Maginn and Ted Stevens, along with the fourth partner in the venture, Chris Machmuller, who I think is actually a permanent fixture of the club like the album-sleeve-covered walls and the smell.

The full story about the handover is in my column in this week’s issue of The Reader and includes an interview with Cursive bass player and paint fetcher Matt Maginn. Matt talks about why they bought the club and what they plan to do with it. It’s online here. Go read it now and we’ll discuss. Go on, we’re waiting….

Done? OK. The central news from a music perspective is that O’Leaver’s will continue to book bands at the same pace it did before — just enough to keep music fans coming but not too much as to alienate the smelly drunks who JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE.

A few musicians have snickered at the news, worried that the new management will ruin their playpen and will no longer allow their bands to play there. Poppycock. That’s the last thing they’d ever do, though Maginn said Stevens might try to help book a wider variety of bands, which has been sorely needed. For the past year there’s been a revolving door of about six bands that play O’Leaver’s regularly. At the very least, Maginn said they’d like to extend an invitation to bands they meet on the road to come and play at the club the next time their tour crosses the Nebraska landscape.

I doubt anything will change at O’Leaver’s except perhaps the smell. Here are a few other things that didn’t make it into the column: The new crew plans on putting a functional tiki bar in the back room where the Foosball table and punching bag machine (soon to leave) are now located. It’ll be a place where people can hang out if they want to escape the music. I’ve seen the new bar — its uber cool.

I also forgot to mention that the volleyball facilities were part of the deal. It’s a well-kept secret that all three Cursive guys are former collegiate sand volleyball stars with the tan lines to prove it. I suspect we’ll be seeing all three in Speedos and sunblock come next summer.

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Fantastic show tonight at Slowdown Jr. — Domino Records artist Night Moves headlines a show with Lincoln band The Renfields and Omaha surf rock kids Adult Films. $7, 9 p.m.

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Tomorrow: The Reader AND The Lazy-i Top 20 (and Next 10) of 2012. Don’t miss it.

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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

Released Feb. 21 on Saddle Creek Records, Cursive’s I Am Gemini is more than your typical concept album, it’s a full-blown 2-act play – or more specifically – a 2-act opera, whose plot would have been right at home performed either in ancient Greece or as an episode of The Twilight Zone.

The “official interpretation” via the record label: “I Am Gemini is the surreal and powerful musical tale of Cassius and Pollock, twin brothers separated at birth. One good and one evil, their unexpected reunion in a house that is not a home ignites a classic struggle for the soul, played out with a cast of supporting characters that includes a chorus of angels and devils, and twin sisters conjoined at the head.”

The album comes with a Playbill-style lyrics booklet that reads like a script complete with stage direction. But even if they follow the album’s lyrics word-for-word, fans will come up with their own interpretation of the album’s meaning. For example, this intrepid reporter was reminded of the schizophrenic 2010 Darren Aronofsky film “Black Swan.”

“Black Swan is a good example of how stories of duality are told,” said Cursive frontman and songwriter Tim Kasher over a PBR at the Old Dundee Bar & Grill a couple weeks before the band headed out on tour. “I hadn’t thought of ‘Fight Club’ as an example until an interviewer brought it up, but that’s essentially it. Those are stories about one person split into two.”

Cursive, I Am Gemini (2012, Saddle Creek)

At first, I Am Gemini feels like a departure from Kasher’s usual navel-gazing lyrical content. The band’s landmark album Domestica, for example, allegedly focused on Kasher’s painful divorce; 2003’s The Ugly Organ was an exploration in creative self-loathing, while Kasher gave us his views on organized religion on 2006’s Happy Hollow. By contrast, I Am Gemini, with its good-and-evil twins and sisters with conjoined heads, seems like complete fiction… or is it?

“It’s important to note that it is really personal and based on a self-referential story,” Kasher said, “In the past, the lyrics were so literal or so thinly veiled to the obvious. This time it was a lot of fun to expand into something more fictionalized.”

But can a concept album this tightly drawn, where each song is dependent on the other to tell a cohesive story, be successful in this singles-driven iTunes era? Can songs on I Am Gemini stand on their own, out of context, without the rest of the album, and is Kasher confident that listeners will take the time necessary to sit down and absorb the album in its entirety?

“I’m not confident of that at all,” he said. “A lot of this is my personal interest in tackling a full story in an album, and I’m still scared having done it, but I’m glad I pushed myself a little further. A really small percentage of people will really appreciate it, and I really appreciate those people. I’m glad they’re there to take it on. But I think (the songs) can still be presented separately.”

Kasher said he considered each song as a self-contained short story, but added, “It’s been troubling releasing (songs) out of context of the album for premieres. I feel like they’re part of a whole, which goes counter to what I’m saying about them being able to survive on their own.”

There are indeed tracks that can stand in isolation. The album’s first leaked track, “The Sun and Moon,” taken completely out of context can be read as a love song of sorts. “A Birthday Bash” has one of the better guitar riffs Cursive’s ever put on tape. Still others act more like bridges between ideas, such as “The Cat and Mouse.”

So far, critics have been split on whether or not the concept worked. Indie taste arbiter Pitchfork called it “the weakest Cursive album by a disheartening margin” and summed it up as “Kasher talking to himself,” while AV Club called it “forceful; a demanding rock-driven opus” and Paste said, “Musically, the band is at their most adventurous, albeit not their most accessible.”

All agree that I Am Gemini is the hardest Cursive album since Domestica. It is brutal, but even more than that, it’s proggy — proggy enough to make the members of King Crimson and Roger Waters blush. At the very least, it’s an about-face from the apparent convergence music-wise of Cursive and Kasher’s other band, the more singer-songwriter based The Good Life. Kasher agreed.

“The last couple records, we were trying to marry those different styles and make a more diverse record,” he said. “This time around at the very onset of this album I thought ‘I’m going to do a Cursive album.’ It was right for this time in my life and for the other guys in the band. We decided if we’re going to do it, let’s do it full on. Let’s write something that fits into the rock category, something to listen to on a Friday night.”

Those “other guys” are Cursive’s core members, bassist Matt Maginn and guitarist/vocalist Ted Stevens, along with drummer Cully Symington and keyboardist Patrick Newbery, who played horns on the last two albums, but switched when Kasher once again moved away from less traditional instrumentation as he did when the band stopped using cello after The Ugly Organ.

“When we moved away from cello, it was a taste decision,” Kasher said. “At an early point, I thought cello would be a really good thing to have. By the end of it all, it was so overdone and we needed to move onto something else. Along those lines, we’ve done horns for the last couple records, and it felt like we’d done enough of it. It’s nice to not have to be bound by these additional instruments.”

Something tells me fans won’t be missing them when the band hits the road.

And despite the theatrical nature of I Am Gemini, Kasher said he has no intention of recreating the opera on stage by performing it sequentially. “We respect the ticket holder,” he said. “We’re still playing under the name Cursive, and that implies our full catalog. We’re happy to play the proper hits and some fun, deeper cuts, what we garner as the taste of the avid Cursive listener.

“We’ll be playing ‘The Martyr’ on this tour every single night, just like we have for the past 12 years,” he added. “It’s a moment in the set where we’re feeding off the energy of the people that are excited to hear it.”

Cursive plays with Ume and Virgin Islands Saturday, March 3, at Slowdown, 729 No. 14th St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $13 advance, $15 day of show. For more information, call 402.345.7569 or visit theshowdown.com.

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Laura Burhenn of The Mynabirds is part of a panel that will be discussing “women in performance” this evening at House of Loom. Also on the panel are Susann Suprenant of ætherplough, Felicia Webster (aka WithLove) and actor Kirstin Kluver. The band Howard will be performing after the panel. The free event starts at 5 at House of Loom, 1012 Howard St.  For more info, go to houseofloom.com.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Cursive, I Am Gemini (2012, Saddle Creek Records)

Since it’ll be discussed tonight at the event at the Shop at Saddle Creek, I figured I might as well share my initial thoughts/questions about Cursive’s new release, I Am Gemini, which comes out in two weeks, but will be available for purchase at tonight’s event.

Here they are: Can a concept album this tightly drawn, where each song is dependent on the other to tell a cohesive story, be successful in this singles-driven iTunes era we live in? Can the songs on I Am Gemini stand on their own, out of context, without the rest of the album? And how will a random, isolated track sound sandwiched between Lana Del Rey and Andrew Jackson Jihad during shuffle mode?

And does anyone even care about lyrics anymore?

Tim Kasher must think they do. The album comes with a “playbook” — basically a script of a play whose dialogue and direction are the lyrics of the album, so you can follow along as you sit down and listen to the album, presumably in its entirety, just like we used to back in the days before iPods.

By now you’ve already heard the album’s “plot:” identical twins — one good, one evil — separated at birth reunite at a house that they’ve inherited.  Along the way there’s angels and devils, Siamese twin sisters joined at the head, alternate-mirror realities and other assorted oddities. In the end (Spoiler Alert) the house blows up along with the main character(s). Many nods to Greek tragedies abound (thank god Tim wasn’t reading Beowulf). Some of you youngsters may want to keep your Google prompt on screen when you come across references to Sisyphus, Dionysus, Cassius, dead albatrosses and other literary tidbits.

I think there’s a Black Swan sort of dual-personality-destroying-your-evil-other thing going on. Only Kasher knows for sure, and I’m sure he’s going to get sick of having to explain it interview after interview after interview as the band tours the globe this year and next. Look, I minored in English (okay, it was at UNO) and I’m still not sure what all of it means. And in the end, does it matter? Will your typical teenager or 20-something give a shit or will they merely be entranced by the album’s meaty riffage? What you’ve heard is true about this being the hardest Cursive album since Domestica. It is brutal, but even more than that, it’s proggy — proggy enough to make the members of King Crimson and Roger Waters blush. At the very least, it’s an about-face from the apparent convergence of Cursive and The Good Life music-wise. There aren’t a lot of sing-along pop songs in this collection.

But there are indeed songs that can stand in isolation from the rest of the record (though lyrically, they don’t make a lot of sense). “The Sun and Moon,” taken completely out of context, can be read as a love song of sorts. “A Birthday Bash”  has one of the better guitar riffs Cursive’s ever put down on tape. That said, there are a few songs that seem to act as bridges between ideas, such as “The Cat and Mouse,” which aren’t so successful by themselves.

I’m going out on a limb here guessing that the band intends to play this album in sequence on tour, just like it was recorded. Maybe they’ll also pass out playbills at every gig. Maybe there will be costumes and a live angel/devil choir.

Anyway, I’m still figuring it out. A full review will come later (probably). In summation, it’s a modern-day indie rock opera more so than a rock musical. It’s also a message to the record-buying public that albums — rather than singles — still make sense and can still provide a holistic, theatrical experience if you’re willing to invest the time and keep your twitchy fingers off the shuffle button for just 43 minutes.

Hear it and decide for yourself tonight at 7 at the Saddle Creek Shop.

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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 couple interesting new Conor Oberst interviews have surfaced in the past couple days. Both restate what Oberst has been saying for months — Bright Eyes will not be deep-sixed, sun-setted, placed in mothballs and/or permanently unplugged after support tours for The People’s Key conclude.

In a brief Q&A at Canada’s MetroNews site, Oberst again tried to clarify an earlier statement regarding Bright Eyes reported demise: “No, not definitively. We don’t really have any plans for the future at this point, but as far as that whole thing, that was something where someone took a quote that I said [out of context] and that was something that other people decided. We never made an official announcement. Even if it were our last record, we wouldn’t say it was our last record. As the rumour mill works, that’s kind of the way it goes. You can definitely quote me, this is not the last Bright Eyes for sure.”

Oberst reiterated the statement again in this story at hitfix.com. In addition to the breakup denial, the story states that Oberst has no definite plans for any project, including Monsters of Folk or a solo effort. The article also says that Oberst is now living in New York City, though let’s be honest, these days he’s living on the road.

And then there’s this from the article:

Oberst has “gotten out of the music business” in regards to his former label ventures, with Saddle Creek and Team Love. Were he to release an album next year, he’s not even positive what label it’d be on. “Will there even be records in a couple years?” he asked. When it comes to digital channels and pay models like newly launched Spotify, “It’s still sort of the Wild West.”

Though Saddle Creek doesn’t sign multi-release agreements with its artists, I’ve always assumed that any future Bright Eyes LPs would be released on the label, and I still do…

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Speaking of Saddle Creek artists, Tim Kasher has a new video, produced by the crazy kids at Love Drunk, for “Opening Night,” a track off his just-released EP Bigamy, More Songs from the Monogamy Sessions. Try as I might, I can’t get the video to imbed into my WordPress files, so here’s a link. Check it out. It was shot at Saddle Creek’s Ink Tank screen printing plant.

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From the Lazy-i Vault, Aug. 24, 2000: The Music Box had a surprise in store last week. Walking up the venue’s ramp to the front door, you knew something was definitely up. Where was the huddled mass of smokers who usually crowded the deck, sharing ashtrays along with their addiction? Once inside, an old familiar odor answered the question. 

I asked a bartender when they had lifted the prohibition on smoking, a feature that the owners staunchly stood behind when the venue opened a year ago.

“Last Wednesday,” he hollered over the racket.

“Why’d they change their policy?” I yelled.

“To make money.”

Well, it wasn’t all about the Benjamins, Manager J. Rankin said. “This is what the people wanted,” he said. “In all honesty, I would like to see the nonsmoking thing still work, but it’s tough to pull off in the Midwest.”

The idea must have been in the works for a few weeks, judging by the cool little black-and-silver matchboxes embossed with The Music Box logo scattered around the tables. Smoking is limited to the upper-tier bar, as no-smoking signs are everywhere in the lower section. Despite the fact that nary a puff can be smelt in the lower bar, Rankin said further precautions are being taken to keep the smoke out of your eyes. “We’re in the process of adding an additional 15 tons of ventilation,” he said. “The units have 12-inch-thick charcoal filters that take everything out of the air.”

Chances are the fancy air conditioners won’t be up and running for this Saturday’s American Diabetes Association benefit featuring eight bands, including Spiral Locomotive, Project Wet, 8th Wave, The Fonzarellies, Jimmy Skaffa and Chesire Grin. A $10 donation gets you in to the festival-like party that runs from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.

 Other upcoming acts of note include legendary harmonica player and bluesman Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers, along with the Shufflecats and Lincoln’s Baby Jason and the Spankers Aug. 30; and the reigning father of British Blues John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Sept. 18.

Rankin insists the bar isn’t turning into a blues club. “We’re adding about one blues event a month, which is about the maximum for us on a regular basis,” he said, pointing to an upcoming show featuring former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde Oct. 7.

But what about the local acts? “There’s a multitude of great bands out there we haven’t had in yet, but there’s only so many days in a week,” he said.

Business is good at the Music Box, Rankin said, but there’s still a lot of work to do. “Once summer is over, all the alternative things going on will disappear. We’ll come to our own this fall and winter because of lack of options in town.”

Back to the Present: After lifting its smoking ban, the Music Box stayed open only three more years, closing its doors in October 2003 after an “impasse” with the landlord (or so they said at the time). With what many believed was among the area’s best sound and lighting systems at the time, the club booked a number of interesting national and local bands, including Pinetop Seven, Richard Thompson and locals like Oil and The Good Life. They catered toward more of a mainstream clientele, only occasionally booking indie bands. Strangely, its biggest criticism came from those who thought the club was too sterile, too clean, “too nice.” A few years after it closed, the building that housed The Music Box — and Sharky’s and Firmatures before that — was demolished to make way for a new 24-Hour Fitness.

As for their original non-smoking policy, The Music Box proved to be way ahead of its time, being the only music club that banned the habit back then. Four years after it closed, The Slowdown would adopt the same policy when it opened in June 2007. A year later, a local ordinance banned smoking  altogether in Omaha bars, in June 2008.

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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.

Column 336: All Systems Go for MAHA

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

When the first band takes the stage at this year’s MAHA Music Festival (at exactly 12:30 p.m. this Saturday), event organizers can take pride in knowing they’ve pulled together a program that not only tops last year’s event, but also establishes itself as the area’s premiere indie music festival.

Lord knows, it wasn’t easy. Along the way, their difficult path was filled with unexpected turns, frustrating indecisiveness, and last-minute demands. And though everything is in place just days before show time, as is the case with any outdoor festival its success is far from guaranteed — even the best-made plans mean nothing in the face of monsoon rains.

But why even consider such a bleak possibility?

Regardless of the weather, they’ve got a lot to be proud of. Saturday’s MAHA concert will mark the third-to-last appearance ever of Guided By Voices , as well as a reunion of the original Cursive lineup (with powerhouse Clint Schnase on drums) and a rare Midwestern festival appearance by J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. It’s going to be a veritable smorgasbord of classic indie rock.

On the downside: You won’t see a single female musician on stage the entire afternoon. Not one. It’s a fact that MAHA organizer Tre Brashear said couldn’t be avoided, despite all of their efforts.

“Realistically, I think it shows how in demand female performers are,” he said of the scheduling challenge. “We made several offers (to female-fronted bands) because we think it’s important, but just couldn’t get it done. Looking back, the time we ‘lost’ waiting for commitments that didn’t happen impacted our ability to secure female artists, because those female artists were committing to other shows during that time.”

In fact, Brashear said dealing with indecisive bands was the hardest part of piecing together this year’s program. “We received several tentative commitments that ended up backing out,” he said.

In the end, he was more than satisfied with the final lineup, so much so that this year MAHA marketed beyond the city limits. “We have advertised more nationally,” Brashear said. “Also, our street team work has been much more regional, with people at the 80/35 Festival, Pitchfork, Lollapalooza and Kanrocksas.”

But despite the extra marketing, ticket sales are “pretty comparable” to last year at this time, he said. “Although this is also when we see a surge, after people have seen the weather forecast and know that they have no other conflicts that weekend.”

Brashear said ticket sales comprise roughly half of MAHA’s revenue, with sponsors filling in the other half. “We don’t have a set number of tickets that we have to (sell) to keep doing MAHA, but sales do matter in terms of showing that this whole effort is ‘worth it,'” he said.

Keep in mind that MAHA is the product of a nonprofit organization — it isn’t designed to make money. The goal always has been to fill a void in the local music calendar for an indie rock festival. However, organizers don’t want to lose money, either.

“Since we started doing this, much has changed,” Brashear said. “There’s Kansrocksas, Red Sky, indie shows at Stir, increased success by 1% (Productions). Heck, even Hullabaloo (held last week at River West Park) is meeting a need for ‘camping and music,’ Given all that, ticket sales matter because they show that people like our event and think it is different than what is out there. Positive comments in social media are nice, but people ‘vote’ with their money.”

They also vote with sponsorships. MAHA continues to attract support from some of the area’s largest companies, including TD Ameritrade (main stage sponsor), Kum & Go (local stage sponsor) and Weitz Funds. This year Whole Foods joined the project as a sponsor, vendor, even filling the bands’ riders.

That extra help will come in handy, as the seemingly unending Missouri River floods forced the event from its former home at Lewis & Clark Landing to Stinson Park at Aksarben Village. Despite the benefit of Stinson’s fixed stage, the move from the Landing will mean higher costs for things like fencing, generators and overnight labor (everything has to be cleared out by Sunday morning, in time for the weekly Farmer’s Market).

Helping them figure out how to pull it off was last month’s Playing With Fire concert that featured Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings — an event that also had been moved from Lewis & Clark Landing to Stinson Park. By watching PWF, Brashear and his team not only saw how their event could look and sound, they saw ways to improve on PWF’s event design.

“We learned that you need to work to integrate the east side of the area so it doesn’t get ‘forgotten’ with all the activity on the north and west ends,” Brashear said. “We also learned that the park is so big that you need to have a satellite beer/drink stand.”

As a result, MAHA is moving the entrance and the drink ticket windows to the northeast corner of the park, on Mercy Street, forcing patrons to walk past the vendors, which this year includes Mangia Italiana, Parthenon and eCreamery. Featured nonprofit organizations, such as Omaha Girls Rock, Joslyn Art Museum and Omaha Public Library, will see their tents located on the park’s east end to improve foot traffic in that area.

“As for the satellite drink stand, we’ll have one located along the south side, in addition to the primary tent on Mercy Street,” Brashear said. Refreshments will include Lucky Bucket Lager and IPA, PBR, Coors Light, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, three kinds of premade mixed drinks, and for you teetotalers, Pepsi products, Red Bull, iced tea and bottled water.

Sounds like they got it all covered. Even Accuweather is predicting 82 and sunny. Will it be a record year for MAHA? Buy a ticket and find out.

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That ol boy Tim Kasher is awful busy these days. He and his cohorts in Cursive are working on a new record and will be playing the MAHA Music Festival Saturday night. At the same time, he’s promoting a new EP, Bigamy: More Songs From The Monogamy Sessions, with a free in-store performance at the brand-spanking new Saddle Creek Shop (located in the Slowdown compound) this evening at 7 p.m. (where you’ll be able to pick up your copy of the EP five days before anyone else).

Omaha World-Herald‘s Kevin Coffey has a super-keen Q&A with TK about his ongoing projects as well as a new Good Life album, right here.

And if that weren’t enough, Kasher also is going to be a guest on Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know, which tapes live this Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon, at the Holland Performing Arts Center. You can listen to the program live on KIOS 91.5 FM, Omaha’s NPR affiliate. If you’ve never listened to the show, it’s mostly Feldman chatting with the audience, a couple call-in current events quizzes, witty banter with his traveling band and, for the road version of the show, interviews with local celebs — in this case Kasher. I don’t know if TK will be performing as part of this gig, but based on how Feldman has presented past guests, it’s unlikely. Tickets are available to the taping for $25 to $25 at ticketomaha.com.

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The next annual (what is this, seventh annual?) Lincoln Calling Festival initial lineup was announced last night. The event, which is held in bars throughout downtown Lincoln, will be held Oct. 11-15.

Festival organizer (and unofficial mayor of Lincoln) Jeremy Buckley said he had to throttle back this year’s lineup after losing Scion as a sponsor (due to the tsunami in Japan). The full lineup is available on the event’s Facebook page, right here, but highlights include Icky Blossoms, Conduits, Little Brazil, Talking Mountain and Ideal Cleaners. More info to come.

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Much to do tonight.

At O’Leaver’s, The Lepers headline a show with Snake Island and a band called Digger (one assumes, named after a certain foot fungus mascot). $5, 9:30 p.m.

Down at Slowdown in the big room it’s industrial pioneers KMFDM along with Army of the Universe, 16 Volt and Human Factors Lab. $25 and an early 8 p.m. start. Bring your earplugs.

And finally, Bluebird is playing on the newly christened Mojo Smokehouse stage (actually, I don’t even know if they have a stage or not, they do have pretty good sliders) located in Aksarben Village (right next to the movie theater). With Chicago’s Machinegun Mojo; 10 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Omaha punk rock band Digital Leather has been in the news recently. Frontman Shawn Foree just did an interview with Hear Nebraska (here) where he talks about his new yet-to-be-released EP Infinite Sun and his almost spiritual relationship with the late, great Jay Reatard.

But just as newsworthy was Foree’s interview with Mala Vida, Buena Musica, a Puerto Rican blog, published in Spanish, requiring the use of the good ol’ Babel Fish translator. In the interview with the headline “I Was Forced to Smoke Crack at Knife Point,” Foree talks about the history of Digital Leather, the new EP and then just drops out of the blue that he signed a deal with Absolutely Kosher Records, home of such acts as Goblin Cock, The Wrens, Pinback, The Mountain Goats and Xiu Xiu. Impressive.

Foree goes on to say that his split with Fat Possum Records, his label for one record, had to do with the label’s focus on “commercial sounding music.” He also discusses some of his past tour exploits involving street cocaine deals gone wrong and the aforementioned smoking-crack-at-knife-point incident that took place in Portland “which was awesome.” All of this, of course, depends on the accuracy of the Babel Fish translation…

We’re lucky to have Digital Leather in Omaha. If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you seek out copies of Blow Machine, Sorcerer and his most recent full-length, Warm Brother. You will not be disappointed. BTW, Digital Leather was another band that I suggested to the MAHA organizers for their music festival (for the past two years). I think they were spooked by the, uh, graphic nature of some of Foree’s songs. My response to that: If what you’re listening to isn’t risky, than it’s not rock music. Find out how risky DL really is by checking out their set Thursday night at The Slowdown, where they’re playing a MAHA showcase curated by the more daring lads in So-So Sailors.

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Cursive’s press agent issued a release today stating what most people around here already knew — Cursive is working on a new album over at ARC Studios. Joining the core band of Tim Kasher, Ted Stevens and Matt Maginn are Patrick Newberry, who recently became a permanent member of Conduits, tour drummer Cully Symington, with producer Matt Bayles behind the soundboard. Bayles recorded the last Ladyfinger full-length, and he’s also worked with Mastodon and Isis.

After Cursive performs as this year’s MAHA Music Festival Aug. 13 at Stinson Park with original drummer Clint Schnase (read an interview where Schnase talks about the reunion, here), Kasher will hit the road on a solo tour in support of his new EP, Bigamy: More Songs From The Monogamy Sessions, which will be available on CD and vinyl only at the upcoming shows and in the Saddle Creek webstore. The digital download will be available Aug. 16.

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Apologies for the weirdness on the timing of these posts lately. I’m on the road right now. Which is why I’ll be missing tonight’s big show at Slowdown: Blitzen Trapper with AgesandAges. $13, 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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Kasher

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This week’s column in The Reader is a rehash of the Team Love blog entry (here) and the Clint Schnase/Cursive blog entry (here). Figured it deserved an analog life on the printed page.

Newswise, let’s see…

Our old friend Tim Kasher is going back on the road solo in late summer in support of a new EP with the pithy title Bigamy: More Songs from the Monogamy Sessions. The three-and-a-half week tour will launch on Aug. 18 at Schubas in Chicago, IL, and will wrap up Sept. 10 at The Waiting Room. You’ll only be able to pick up a copy of the 7-song EP if you see him play, or if you visit the Saddle Creek online store. Among the tracks is a cover of Azure Ray’s “Trees Keep Growing.” Check out timkasher.com for the complete tour schedule.

What else…

Lots of early buzz for the debut album by Big Harp, titled White Hat, slated for release Sept. 13 by Saddle Creek Records. Big Harp is the husband-and-wife duo of Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney. The album was recorded by Rilo Kiley bassist Pierre de Reeder at LA’s Nightingale Studios. I’ve been listening to it all morning. It reminds me of the kinder/gentler/less weird (i.e. best) tunes off the Baby Walrus CD (Mr. Senseney’s old band), with Chris singing the vocals in his trademark brassy bassy voice absconded from Tom Waits and Matt Ward.

You can have a taste by checking out the video for the single “White Hat,” below. Growly.

So what’s going on tonight?

I’ve been hearing about the Studio Gallery as a performance space for a few months now. I’ve been hearing that it’s located in the basement of the building at 4965 Dodge Street. Right? I’m not quite sure. Tonight might be the right night to find out, as Saudi Arabia (ex-Dinks, ex-Shanks) play there with Baby Tears and Street Eaters. $5, 9 p.m. Gnarly.

Or… find your cowboy hat and head down to O’Leaver’s tonight for Filter Kings with Four on the Floor and The Evening Rig. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Or… head over to The Barley Street Tavern for Landing on the Moon with Rock Paper Dynamite and Madison, Wisconsin band Daniel and the Lion. $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 © 2011 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Re: Yesterday’s Special Comment: I humbly and proudly stand corrected.

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Tim Kasher has the honor of being the subject for the debut of Pop Matters new video interview series. “Backstage at Chicago’s historic Vic Theatre, Kasher was candid and open with us, discussing why he chose not to write two more Ugly Organ‘s, how he deals with the frustration of those who feel somewhat betrayed by his songs not being autobiographical, and—after coming clean with some of his regrets—how getting to open for The Cure was one of the highlights of his life.” It’s a nice five minutes. Check it out.

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Bright Eyes’ new free mp3 from the upcoming The People’s Key, “Halle Selassie,” is a real grinder. It chugs along on top of a 6/8 electric guitar riff that provides a strangely formal structure for Conor’s heavily delayed vocals. If someone asks me what is one of the threads that runs through classic Saddle Creek artists’ music, I tell them it’s a penchant for waltz-time arrangements, and in that context, this is sort of a throwback. You can get a download key for the song delivered to your email box through the widget below.

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Meanwhile, Azure Ray is giving away an 3mp of its new single, “Silverlake,” recorded with their friends in Sparklehorse. It’s a non-album track from the Drawing Down the Moon sessions, and as such, isn’t much of a departure from the usual AR fair, which means pretty harmonies and melodies and everything else you expect from Maria and Orenda. The two-song single includes ”Silverlake” and ”Silverlake (demo),” and is available via iTunes and the Saddle Creek Online Store. Download widget below:

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Finally, there’s this story from USA Today, which could have a major impact on the Omaha’s Red Sky Music Festival.

Buffett’s in stable condition, btw…

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Tomorrow, the story behind what makes hearnebraska.org tick.

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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.

Cursive at the Waiting Room, 1/18/11

By Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The chatter in the crowd: How old were you when this album came out? Me, I don’t remember. What I do remember is interviewing the band a decade ago in the back room of the USA Baby store just east of 72nd on Dodge St. where Tim Kasher’s mom worked. Kasher had just moved back to Omaha. Ted Stevens had just joined the band. They were a tight, fun, happy bunch singing bitter, angry songs about Kasher’s broken heart. Cursive’s Domestica was the ultimate break-up album, whose cover art featured a young couple in strange, awkward embrace — a couple played by a cute young girl who would become the keyboardist/vocalist of Fortnight (and who looks as cute as ever) and a young guy who would become a Grammy Award winning CD sleeve designer. Domestica would eventually become recognized as Cursive’s epic masterpiece, and songs like “The Martyr” and “The Casualty” would become a permanent part of their set list for the next 10 years.

It didn’t matter if Kasher messed up the opening line of “The Casualty” or if he even remembered the words, because the SRO crowd at The Waiting Room last night spent the evening singing along like an indie rock Greek chorus — a happy soccer mob chanting anthems that have become part of their lives. The set honestly didn’t sound much different than when they first played the album top-to-bottom at Sokol Underground a decade ago. Kasher’s voice certainly hasn’t changed… much. The guitar interplay between Kasher and Stevens — the most distinctive element of the album — was as playfully distorted as ever.  As much as the songs themselves, it was that guitar style that I remember most about that album.

So yes, they played all the songs in order with no pauses or stage banter in between, and that’s just the way the crowd wanted to hear it. It’s a slim set — just a little over a half-hour — and that brevity has helped it age well. But while I have to admit that Casualty/Martyr are one of the best one-two punches in indie rock history, Domestica is not my favorite Cursive album, not anymore. That honor goes to 2003’s The Ugly Organ (which hopefully we’ll hear in its entirety in 2013). Regardless, Domestica is the band’s most important album. It’s the one that pushed them to the next level of national attention, at a time when everyone around the country was just beginning to whisper about what was happening in Omaha.

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The folks at the MAHA Music Festival announced this year’s dates/location — August 13 at Lewis and Clark Landing. The festival remains a one-day event, which makes it more of an all-day concert rather than a festival. Regardless, their growth won’t be contingent on the success or failure of the Red Sky Music Festival, but rather their willingness to take risks and go out on a limb with a line-up that will attract the gaze of the world outside of our city limits. Will they be successful? Come back tomorrow for the final part of this year’s 2011 music predictions and find out…

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And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Here are the winners of the Lazy-i Best of 2010 CD sampler:

Elizabeth A. Toepel, Morse Bluff, NE
Adrian Mejorado, Edinburg, TX
Cami Rawlings, Omaha, NE

Congratulations! And thanks to everyone who entered the drawing. See you next year!

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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.

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Slowdown Virginia at Slowdown, Dec. 23, 2010.

by TIm McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Time has been kind to these bands. There’s little question that, other than the fact that Slowdown Virginia frontman Tim Kasher can’t hit those insane, adolescent high notes any longer (no one over the age of 17 except a girl could) that the band (despite only having a few days together to practice this material) is obviously better than it was 15 years ago when they last played. And they should be. Kasher, bassist Matt Maginn and guitarist Stephen Pedersen went onto become Cursive (Pedersen’s Cursive career was short-lived, and he went on to form Criteria). The wild card was Casey Caniglia, who went onto become a restauranteer (at the Venice Inn steak house). But you couldn’t tell Casey hadn’t played drums on stage since the ’90s. Behind a kit that Neil Peart would be proud of, Caniglia literally and figuratively didn’t miss a beat. Neither did the rest of the band… except for those vocal nuances I mentioned earlier. I was talking with another musician before the gig and he also wondered if Kasher would be able to screech the dog-whistle notes in “Whipping Stick.” When the time came, Kasher came surprisingly close, dropping his voice down a few dBs to help the cause. It didn’t matter. It still sounded good. And no one in the sold-out crowd was keeping score anyway.

Polecat at Slowdown, Dec. 23, 2010.

The evening began with a reunion of Polecat — the trio of Ted Stevens, Boz Hicks and Oli Blaha. This time it was Blaha who was the odd man out (Stevens is in Cursive, and among Hicks’ bands are (were) Domestica and Her Flyaway Manner), and like Caniglia, he handled his instrument (bass) like a seasoned pro. If there was a gripe, it’s that there was too much bass in a mix that was overly muddy. Again, it didn’t matter, as the folks on hand were there to hear the old songs come to life once again, and they did. Of all the Saddle Creek legends, Stevens has the most forlorn voice of the bunch — there’s something lost and lonely about his vocals even when he’s rocking out. It’s that quality that would go on to make Lullaby for the Working Class so hauntingly good.  Adding to the thunderous ennui was a moody video projected behind the band that showed texturized, colorized moving images of people, buildings, things.

The mix was much cleaner for Slowdown Virginia, who came on a little after 11 and played for an hour. This material has aged well indeed, and during our interview, there was a recounting of interest by a certain local record label to remaster and rerelease the material. I also was told that it will never happen, though Maginn did uncover many of the original recordings during a recent dig through the band’s storage area. Those recordings could be made available again, but not necessarily to the general public. And it’s a shame, because there’s a lot of people who would love to hear all that old stuff and dream about what could have been.

The night closed with a two-song encore — a campy, kooky cover of “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” and the song that most of the crowd had been waiting all night to hear — the opening track on Dead Space, “Supernova 75.” Everyone  knew it was coming, and erupted from the opening bass line. It was the kind of moment that makes reunion shows so necessary, so important, and so good.

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I won’t be checking in for a couple days, so here’s hoping you have a safe and happy holiday.

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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.